A thank you again to blackrandl1958 for her editing, help and thoughts.
I sure hoped I was getting a bonus for tonight, but somehow I really doubted it.
I was wearing my dark blue tuxedo for the first time in three years. I looked damn good, if I say so myself, but I really hated to get dressed up to this level. It was Friday night, after all, and I should have been in my favorite La-Z-Boy, sipping a quality single malt. Instead, I was sitting at a table of co-workers and their spouses for a fund-raising dinner/dance for Blessings in a Backpack.
It’s one of the biggest social outings of the year in our small Midwest city, and virtually everybody who was anybody in this area was in attendance. My boss bought a table for the event, and both my wife and I were expected to be there.
In fact, I specifically told my wife to buy a new, sexy dress for the evening… and she didn’t disappoint. If anything, she might have gone a little overboard on the sexy part.
“Oh, shit, babe. I said sexy, not one step short of escort,” I remarked when she came downstairs after dressing for the night.
At 35, my wife was in the prime of her beauty, I thought. Her thick red hair was done up high on her head, and she had dangling gold earrings on to highlight her long neck. The low, scoop-neck design of the silky, maroon dress showed an acre of her voluptuous chest, and the hemline that ended mid-thigh showed off to great advantage all the time she spent at the gym on leg days.
I had expected her to get a gown, but this dress was certainly a statement piece: that statement was “hey, look at me!” I was certainly looking, and I knew every other man would also enjoy the view.
I never minded other men looking at my wife, as long as she remembered that I didn’t share my toys. I told her that often enough, too. I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.
While I would have preferred to have been home in my recliner, Hester was right where she wanted to be, hobnobbing with the cream of our city’s society. As a middle school teacher, she didn’t get much chance to step out very often, but she was one of those natural social butterfly people. She was well-read and witty, and drew people to her like ants to a picnic.
We had done some mingling and had hit the dance floor a couple of times before I went to the bar and Hester went back to the table. As I got within a few feet of our seats, I saw that Hess was talking animatedly to a man sitting in my seat. It was United States Sen. Tomas Norberto, who looked like a Hispanic Tom Selleck back in the day when Selleck was doing Magnum P.I. He was incredibly handsome, single and went about 6-4, 220. More because of his looks than his brains, he was being considered by some for the next presidential race.
I stood a few feet away for a couple of seconds waiting for my wife at least to acknowledge my presence, but that didn’t happen. In fact, I had never seen my wife look like an infatuated teenager before, practically making “moon eyes” at the senator as they talked.
Since neither one of them was going to acknowledge me, I did it myself.
“Excuse me, Senator, but that’s my seat,” I said as I got to my spot with two drinks in my hands.
He completely ignored me some more and continued his conversation with my wife, whose face was glowing. I waited in silence for about five more seconds before I stopped being Mr. Polite. I ran my hand with a wine glass between their two faces, breaking their spell, and put her glass on the table in front of her. I stayed right there almost in between them holding my drink before the esteemed senator got the hint.
“I-I need to go now. I should find my spot at the head table… but I’ll be back later to continue this conversation,” he said to my wife, effectively ignoring me the whole time.
“Stupid fucker,” I grumbled to Hess as I sat back down after he left.
“I find him… fascinating,” she responded. “You, on the other hand, were just downright rude… to a US senator, for God sakes.”
“You seem to have forgotten that you’re my wife, not his, and he was sitting in my spot, and he wasn’t moving. That’s incredibly rude and presumptuous, even if he thinks he’s going to be the next president.”
She did that superior eye roll thing that certain women do quite well. I hated it, and told my wife that repeatedly throughout our nine years of marriage. I glared back at her, not wanting to get into it in front of this crowd. She harrumphed, but held her tongue as well.
Dinner took about 90 minutes, then the band started back up and people returned to the dance floor. I knew Hess loved to dance, so I stood up and offered her my hand. She looked at my hand, looked me in the eyes and shook her head vehemently. I stomped back to the bar and got another drink, standing there and making small talk with others hanging around.
I lost track of Hess when she got up to mingle, I assumed, but it was easy to keep track of Sen. Schmuck. With his security guys always in proximity, the senator mingled and glad-handed for the next half-hour before walking out to an outdoor veranda.
I wasn’t born yesterday, so when Hess didn’t show back up at the table after about another 10 minutes, I decided to check out the veranda. The two of them appeared to be in deep discussion with an older couple, with the senator’s arm comfortably around my wife’s waist. I walked up to the pair and started to remove the senator’s arm before somebody grabbed me and twisted my arm up between my shoulder blades, causing me to yelp in pain and causing heads to turn in our general direction.
“Nobody fucks with a United States senator, buddy,” growled a voice behind me as he started to push me toward the exit.
“That’s my wife he’s got his hands on,” I rasped while I was being given the bum’s rush.
He shoved me back inside the main ballroom before he let me go. I told him to get my wife and bring her to me unless he wanted me to start getting loud.
“Goddamnit!” he muttered under his breath as he headed toward the senator.
Two minutes later, a red-faced Hess came back through the door. She gave me a palms-up shrug, as if she didn’t have a clue as to what was happening. I grabbed a hand and practically dragged her out of the ballroom.
The ride home started out dead silent, but I knew that wouldn’t last long. For some reason, Hess was thinking that the best defense was a good offense.
“You bastard! You embarrassed me terribly tonight in front of a United States senator!” she screamed at me.
Until that moment, I thought Hester and I had a pretty good marriage. Yeah, we had our moments like any other couple, but I would have bet my two kids’ lives on the fact that we were going to go the distance. Now, not so much.
“You do realize that you are my wife!” I shot back at her. “Nobody, and I don’t care if he’s the Goddamn president of the fucking United States, puts his arm around you like he owns you. You know that’s over the line, yet you didn’t do a thing to get out of that embrace. You were like a love-struck teenager with your high school crush.”
She blushed and stammered, but ultimately put her head down and didn’t respond. I knew I had hit the nail directly on the head. She was definitely infatuated with the man.
If I thought Hess was going to apologize at some point, she let me know I had another think coming. Not only didn’t she apologize, but she barely spoke to me for the next several days. Even the kids, despite their being only 7 and 5, could feel something was wrong, and tried to stay out of the room if we were both around. Dinner time was the only time there was any real conversation in the house as we both seemed to be trying to keep communication going through the children.
On Wednesday night, however, after the kids went to bed, Hess said we needed to talk: not can we talk, not we should talk, just we need to talk. Nothing good ever comes from those four words.
Not to be disappointed, nothing good did come from those four words. My loving wife informed me that she and the esteemed senator were going on a date on Friday night.
“It’s not a date, really, I’m going to accompany him to another of these fund-raising dinners,” Hess said when I questioned her about the impropriety of a married woman going on a date with a man not her husband.
“The sure sounds like a date to me,” I explained. “If you are accompanying him, to me that means you are his date… and since you are a married woman…”
“You’re a small man with a sick mind!” she wailed back at me. “I would never cheat on you!”
“What do you call a married woman going on a date with a man not her husband? Even if you don’t have sex, going on a date with another man is cheating,” I claimed. “Would you let me accompany your hot friend Angie out to dinner and dancing?”
She twisted her mouth, grimaced and gave me her squinty-eye look. I knew the mention of her hottest friend would get her attention. She had a definite problem when it came to Angie, who, to quote the Rolling Stones, “could make a dead man come.”
“That’s entirely different and you know it. That would be a date. This is accompanying a United States senator,” she said.
Oh, right. Of course. HUGE difference.
“Look, Hess, you can’t date another man, no matter how you phrase it. We’re married. We made vows. Remember that ‘forsaking all others’ shit?” I said.
“You don’t own me, Reggie, even if we are married,” she harrumphed. “If I really want to do something, I can and will. I’m not your chattel.”
Chattel. That’s what you get when you marry a crossword junkie.
“You are most certainly not my chattel. But you are the mother of my children, and I would really hate for you to break up our family,” I said.
Her eyes got as big as saucers. Apparently I had gotten her attention.
“You wouldn’t be that stupid,” she sneered. “This is just a…”
“No, babe, this is a watershed moment in our marriage.”
She grimaced again, but didn’t answer. I never saw this coming.
My eyeballs about fell out of my head when Hester came downstairs after dressing for her date Friday evening. She was wearing a low-cut, strapless white lace gown that was molded to her lux body and exposed the top half of her large chest. I had never seen the gown before, and assumed it was something she bought just for this occasion.
“Motherfucker,” I whispered in awe.
She took my epithet for the compliment it was and did a slow spin. Just then our children ran into the room, saw Hess and just stopped dead in their tracks.
“Wow, Mom, you are beautiful!” exclaimed our seven-year-old, Elise. “Why are you all dressed up like a princess?”
Hess looked from our daughter to me, I guess expecting me to cover for her. Wasn’t happening. I just stared at my wife.
“I-I-I can’t tell her…” Hester said.
“You can’t because you know this is wrong,” I snarled. “Explain to your daughter how you’re leaving the three of us… your family… to go on a date with a US senator.”
“Mommy has to go out for a while to a fancy party,” Hess began. “You be a good girl for Daddy and I’ll see you guys tomorrow when you wake up.”
“How come Daddy’s not going with you?” five-year-old Nate piped up.
Hess hesitated while she tried to conjure up a good lie. I didn’t need any time to come up with the truth.
“Because Mommy doesn’t love me enough,” I answered.
Both kids looked at Hess with shocked, hurt expressions. She looked back at me with the same expression.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Just then the doorbell rang. The four of us froze in place before it rang again.
“Moment of truth, babe. Him… or us,” I said.
She answered the door on the third ring. I spotted one of the senator’s security crew at the door and I saw the black limousine in the driveway.
“Remember, behave yourselves for Daddy. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
With that, she was gone. I guess it was him.
I was in shock for about a minute, then realized I still had kids that needed attention. I would have loved to drown my sorrows in my liquor cabinet, but that wasn’t going to happen.
What was going to happen was a couple of Facetime calls, one each to my parents and hers. After all, the kids loved Facetiming with their grandparents.
I started with Hester’s parents. We had always had a great relationship, and I knew Hess’s little adventure wouldn’t go over well with them. We were laughing and joking with them for about a minute when Hess’s mom realized her daughter wasn’t on the call.
“Where’s my daughter, Reggie? Did you stuff her in a suitcase somewhere?” my mother-in-law joked.
“Umm… no, Mom. Hess went on a date with Sen. Tomas Norberto. She’ll be back tomorrow, I’m guessing,” I said quietly.
“What?” my mother-in-law wailed. “A date? Are you sure, Reg?”
“She called it ‘accompanying the handsome senator to a fund-raiser.’ I call that a date… maybe more,” I spit out.
“And she won’t be back until tomorrow?” my incredulous father-in-law shouted. “And you just let her go?”
“I tried to reason with her, Dad, but she told me I didn’t own her,” I answered. “I told her she was abandoning her family if she did this, but she seemed to think this was a forgivable offense…”
The kids then hijacked the conversation for the next five minutes, for which I was thankful. Then my mother-in-law told the kids to go to their rooms for a few minutes, and she returned the conversation back to my wife.
“Don’t do anything reckless or stupid,” she advised. “Talk to her, Reg. Don’t just throw her away. Think of the kids…”
“Like she did as she walked out the door, Mom?”
My mother-in-law could only lightly cough on the line.
My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t near as charitable when I called my parents and told them what happened.
“I know the name of a good lawyer, hon,” she offered immediately. “She was Aunt Elaine’s attorney in her divorce from Uncle Will. She ate Will’s attorney’s lunch.”
Yeah, that was good to know.
I ordered in pizza after the calls. The kids and I watched a Disney movie that they picked out. I didn’t have any clue as to what it was.
I didn’t even try to catch any sleep after I put the children to bed later on. I tried not to think too much about my wife most likely fucking Sen. Dickhead as I watched the same ESPN stories all night long until the kids woke up. Then I fixed us a big breakfast of pancakes and bacon. Everybody knows pancakes and bacon make everything right with the world, even when Mommy isn’t at home when the kids wake up.
“She’ll be home in a little while,” I lied when they asked when their mother was coming home.
I suppose when you’ve already spent the entire night out fucking a man not your husband, there’s no reason to cut the date short. The black limousine didn’t pull into our driveway until almost 1 in the afternoon. Both kids were out in the yard playing, and several neighbors were also out in their yards when the car pulled into the driveway. Under normal circumstances, the kids would have run up to their mother and jumped in her arms after a day away, but this time they both stood frozen to the spots on which they were standing. Hess looked disappointed she didn’t get a big welcome-home greeting before making her way to the house.
Obviously, she was wearing the same dress she left home in the previous night, but this time the dress looked rumpled and limp. Her hair was just loose around her shoulders and she had on only the barest makeup. She looked exactly like what she was… a used slut.
I moved away from the window and sat in a chair in our living room before she reached the front door. I didn’t get up to greet her when she walked in, looking very tired.
“Hey,” she said. “Looks like you and the kids survived the night without me.”
“Looks like you barely survived,” I said pointedly.
She blushed as she shuffled toward the stairs.
“Don’t start with me, Reg. Let me get a nap and another shower,” she rasped.
I held up my hands in mock surrender. Fuck it. It was obvious to me, at least, that we were done. I just had to figure out how I could make things as easy as possible for my kids.
I really didn’t want to be a weekend dad. The question in my mind was could I keep it together and stay in the house until the kids graduated from high school.
Hester finally came downstairs at about 7 PM. I had already fed the rest of us. I told her there were leftovers in the refrigerator. She smiled wanly.
The children sensed there was something wrong as they kept their distance from Hess.
“That’s great, Reggie. Did you spend the last day telling them how evil their mother is?” she asked quietly when we were alone.
“Although that would have been easy, I didn’t say anything to them, Hess. Kids are way more perceptive than most people give them credit for. They watched you leave us last night, and they saw your grand return this afternoon, as did many of the neighbors. Smooth move, by the way,” I said.
“I trust last night and this morning were worth alienating your kids… and destroying our family.”
There was a quick flash of guilt in her eyes that rapidly morphed into a visage of defiance.
“I didn’t destroy our family,” she accused. “That will be up to you. If you can be a real man and get over your petty ego issues, we can mend and keep the family intact. If you want to be a vindictive little bitch, then I guess we can go our separate ways and you can be Mr. Part Time.”
I didn’t see this conversation going in this direction. I expected guilt and remorse, not defiance and anger.
“One in the afternoon, you stupid bitch!” I lashed back. “Didn’t get enough fucking in the night before that you had to stay another half-day? Just a date, huh?”
She stammered but didn’t speak. She dropped her eyes to the floor.
“We can get past this, Reg, and get back to being us. I know I hurt you. I’m sorry for that, but this was something I had to do… for me. And I don’t regret it. It was a wonderful night and morning. He’s a really great guy and a gentleman, too.”
“God, I hope that wasn’t an apology, because if it was, you really suck at it,” I declared.
“I’m only going to apologize for hurting you, not for anything else. It was a wonderful experience,” Hess said with real conviction in her voice.
I would have glared Hess to death if my eyes were lasers.
“It was hardly a wonderful experience for me,” I said, trying to match her conviction level.
“You broke your vows to me… and ultimately to our family, and you did it fairly easily,” I said.
Hess appeared shocked when I went into our guest bedroom at bedtime.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “We can’t get past this if you’re not willing to try.”
“No, I tried to get you not to cheat on me before it happened. Now it’s too late,” I explained.
She looked at me as if I were a petulant child.
“We can’t turn the clock back, Reggie. We have to move forward,” she asserted.
“You’re right, babe, we can’t turn the clock back. But we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this is you had just done the right thing and not gone to Sen. Dickhead,” I said. “This is on you. You made the decision. Remember, you told me I didn’t own you. You made your very own big-girl decision. It’s not my fault it was the wrong decision for our family.”
“But, but, but…” she muttered as I gently pushed her out of the room and locked the door behind her.
I slept like a rock. I’m pretty sure being awake for 48 hours straight and the stress of the situation fueled my sleep.
It was sort of a family tradition that I made a fancy breakfast on Sunday mornings. On this particular Sunday, I did Belgian waffles with my fancy-ass waffle-maker. The kids and I were in the middle of eating when Hester finally came out of the master bedroom, looking like she slept in a blender, if she had slept at all.
“Wow, Mom, Dad made us a big breakfast both days this weekend,” crowed Elise. “Maybe you should go out more often on Friday nights.”
Hess looked at the three of us, broke into tears and ran back into the bedroom. The children looked shocked.
“Did I say something wrong?” Elise asked in the sincere innocence of a seven-year-old.
“No, baby. I think Mommy was just sad that she missed the waffles,” I said gently.
Later in the day, I was sitting in my La-Z-Boy watching my Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals when I heard the bedroom door fly open with such force that the door knob crashed into the wall behind it. Not five seconds later an agitated Hester was standing in front of me wailing unintelligible words and gesticulating wildly.
“Grr… brbrbr! How could you? Sus… sus… ents… slut!” or something like that came out of her mouth along with several strings of spittle. It was disgusting.
“Slow down, babe! I can’t understand a word you’re saying, and you’re drooling and spitting all over yourself,” I said.
“Aarrgghh!” she screamed as tears joined the mix of stuff on her face and blouse. “How could you tell my parents about my date? They now think I’m the biggest slut this side of the Kardashians!”
“What’s a Kardashian, Mommy?” Elise asked as she and Nate came running into the room when they heard the commotion.
I raised my eyebrows at my wife and stared into her wild eyes. She made a very concerted effort to get a grip on herself before telling the kids to go play in their bedrooms.
She stood in front of my recliner while the children left.
“Start talking, mister!” she hissed when she heard their bedroom doors close.
“I didn’t see any need to hide something like that from your parents since you were just accompanying a United States senator to a fund-raiser, as you so eloquently put it,” I said. “It’s not my fault if their assessment of the situation happens to be the same as mine.
“By the way, my parents pretty much had the same thoughts, and you might want to duck the next time my mom gets close to you.”
“No. No. No. It was just a…” Hess started but quickly stopped.
“Wonderful experience?” I quickly finished for her.
If looks could kill, I would have been nothing but a grease spot in my chair. I didn’t really care at that point. I looked at her and motioned for her to move over a few inches so I could see the TV.
“Grrr,” she growled before storming out of the room.
I continued to sleep in the guest room for the next two weeks. When the children made note of it, I told them that I had a cold and didn’t want their mother to catch it. I was pretty sure Elise knew I was lying, but she was smart enough to keep her thoughts to herself. Goddamn smart seven-year-old.
I didn’t say anything, but just showed up in our marital bed one night. I crawled in about an hour after Hess had gone upstairs, and spooned up against her like I always did when facing that direction. She kind of moaned in her sleep when I first moved up against her, then settled back into me another inch or so.
When the alarm went off the next morning, she was spooned up against me.
“Mmm… this feels nice,” she purred. “It’s about time you came to your senses.”
She reached around for my dick. I stopped her by gently placing my hand on her forearm and moving her arm back. I turned around so we were face to face in the bed. Some things are best done when you can look a person directly in the eyes.
“You’ll need to get tested and show me results before I’ll sleep with you again, Hess,” I said gently. “You might be willing to trust Sen. Dickhead, but I’m not.”
Her eyes teared up. She looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it. Instead, she just nodded. That told me she and the senator didn’t use condoms. This just keeps getting better.
My game plan was to stick around until the children graduated from high school. That meant another 14 years until Nate left for college. I could do that because I loved them. I wasn’t going to go without sex for 14 years, however, especially when I had a beautiful woman living under the same roof as me. I knew that didn’t say a lot for me, but at this point I really didn’t care. The love I had for this woman took a huge hit two weeks ago, and continued to ebb with every moment of every day.
I watched as she got out of bed with the saddest look on her face. Until recently, that look would practically have destroyed me, and I would have done almost anything to make whatever made her sad disappear. Now, the pain in my heart wouldn’t let me reach out for her.
Who had this woman become? The woman I married nine years ago and been together with for the past 11 years knew without a doubt that I would never agree to a date with another man, not even considering her having sex with someone else.
Hester and I met our senior year in college. We were dating exclusively three months later, and were married two years later. She was an actuary at a national insurance company, one of those faceless people who sits in a cubicle and figures insurance rates. I always thought of her as analytical and honest, if lacking a bit in spontaneity and humor. Those two qualities were my part of the equation, along with my being a bit disorganized and fun-loving. I thought we fit together well, each complementing the other, and would someday celebrate 50 years of marriage. I didn’t foresee Sen. Tomas Norberto walking into our lives.
About 10 days after I returned to our bed, Hester handed me an envelope when I walked in the door after work. It was her clean bill of health.
“I hope you’re happy, asshole,” she whispered harshly to me. “You have no idea how embarrassing that was. I may never be able to look Dr. Sanjay in the eyes again.”
“Not on me, babe,” I said blankly. “Keep your legs closed with people who aren’t your husband and you don’t have to be embarrassed.”
She growled breathily but didn’t have a comeback. She started to move on, but I wasn’t quite finished.
“How many times has Sen. Dickhead been in contact with you since the date?” I asked.
“We haven’t been in touch…” she started to say before I stuck my hand out and she stopped talking.
She knew what I wanted. She grimaced before reaching into her pocket and handing me her phone. I quickly located what I assumed was his number, and found several texts and two phone calls associated with it. It didn’t appear that they had gotten together again, although not for lack of trying on his part. While it didn’t appear from the texts that Hess was encouraging him, it also didn’t appear that she was discouraging him either.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. “We’re on thin ice here, Hess. If I find out that you two meet again, our kids are practically going to be orphans, because I’m going to be in jail after I kill the two of you. Understand?”
I handed her phone back. She took it glumly and crammed it back into her pocket before heading off to the kitchen.
I knew nothing was going to happen that night, but the next night in bed Hess was all over me. I had barely stripped off my briefs before Hess had my dick stuffed in her mouth. Hey, I’m human, and the warm, wet feeling of her mouth had me rock hard in seconds. She licked me like an ice cream cone before starting to bob her head back and forth. I exploded in her mouth in minutes, my hands twisted in her red locks, and she smiled as she looked me directly in the eyes and swallowed my whole load.
Since it had been awhile since we last had sex, my big brain was taking a back seat to my little brain. After she finished sucking me, I went down on her like a starving man who hadn’t eaten in weeks. A half-dozen orgasms later, I crawled up her body and sank my revived hard-on all the way into her hot, wet pussy in one stroke. I pumped her as hard and fast as I ever had, hearing her scream through two hard orgasms. It was definitely not lovemaking, just good old hard fucking.
“Oh, Reg… God, I needed that. You were fantastic!”
I smiled but didn’t say anything in response. I was very aware that Hess was trying to get back in my good graces by fucking me to death. She was very good at it. Now Sen. Dickhead was on the small list of those who knew that.
Considering Hess’s grand arrival home several weeks ago, I had to wonder what the neighborhood gossip was. Nobody had directly approached me, but I could see the pitying looks from some of the other guys, and the barely hidden smirks from some of the women. I didn’t have to wonder too long, though, because Elise came up to me one night when I was sitting out on the back porch reflecting and Hess was watching TV in the family room.
“Dad, what’s a slut club, and how did Mommy get to be a member?” she asked quietly.
Shit! My ego taking a beating wasn’t near as bad to me as blowback reaching my children. I know I had to close my wide-open mouth before I answered.
“Where did you hear that talk, sweetie?” I asked, trying to sound non-committal so I wouldn’t scare her off.
“The girls said that their moms have been talking and laughing about Mommy being a member of a slut club, and it doesn’t seem like it’s a good thing. Is everybody in the family a member of this club, Dad?”
I’d like to think I’m a pretty good poker player. I had to use every ounce of my ability to keep my poker face blank as I faced my daughter.
“Mommy made a mistake recently, El. It’s a mommy-daddy mistake, nothing for you to worry about. The other mommies shouldn’t have been talking about it, and shouldn’t be talking about that club. I want you to walk away when the other girls start talking about that club. It’s our problem, baby, not yours. I’m sorry the other girls were mean to you.”
I crushed her gently with a hug. I hoped she couldn’t see the tears in my eyes. This would be a memory I would have until my last day on earth.
Slowly, very slowly, life seemed to normalize in our house, at least according to me. It was a new normal, however, because whether Hess accepted it or not, we were never going to be as we were before her date. I could never completely trust her again, and I could never forgive nor forget the incredible disrespect she showed me… and our family. Love… well to quote the Tina Turner song, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Six months later, Hester finally figured it out, or at least finally had the guts to say something. We had just finished a wild session of fucking and sucking, initiated by her as always since the date, and as usual, I had rolled onto my side away from her to go to sleep. I heard the sniffling before she spoke.
“Reg… Reggie, can we talk?” she asked timidly.
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“Can you turn around?” she asked with more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.
I sighed, trying to sound as annoyed as her. I then turned to face her, looking directly into her eyes. She held my gaze.
“Do you realize we haven’t made love since…”
“Say it, Hess. Say it,” I demanded. “You had the guts to do it. Have the guts to own it.”
“We haven’t made love since… my date. I’ve noticed. You bang the shit out of me, roll away and go to sleep. You make sure I get mine, but it’s just physical. Hell, you haven’t snuggled me since then. I miss that… intimacy.”
“You can’t even say the words, babe,” I snarked. “Your date… hah! You fucked the guy. Admit it. I’m not an idiot. You go out on a date with another man and don’t return until the middle of the next day. Do you think I’m a fucking gargoyle?”
“You make it sound… cheap and tawdry,” she wailed at me. “Yeah, we fucked Saturday night, and it was great, but we made love on Sunday morning, and… he was tender and gentle, a lot like you, in fact. It was an experience I will never forget…”
“And that’s why we no longer make love, Hess!” I cried. “Don’t you see it? You gave something to him you promised was only mine. And you enjoyed the whole experience. It was unforgettable, you just said.”
“Oh, come on, Reg. It was just one night… two days… out of all the thousands of days we will be married. That’s nothing, mathematically. We can get past this, Reg, if you really want to try,” she said.
“Thanks for the math lesson, Hess, but I’ve never looked at our marriage like a pop quiz on percentages. Would you be so flip if I had slept with Mary Jo Young?”
Mary Jo Young was a big-boobed blonde divorcee who lived down the block. Virtually every other woman on our street watched her like a hawk when she had any kind of conversation with their husbands.
“Wait. You want to have sex with Mary Jo? No, that’s not happening. You can’t do that,” she wailed.
“Are you listening to yourself, Hess? I didn’t say I wanted to have sex with Mary Jo. You did. I asked you if you would be so forgiving if I had had sex with her,” I said.
She looked confused until her brain caught up with her ears. Then she looked pissed.
“I can see your answer. You don’t have to verbalize,” I said smugly.
She stopped looking directly at me.
“Do you know that the other little girls in the neighborhood were picking on Elise a few months ago because their mothers called you a slut? Yeah. That was a fun discussion… not,” I said.
Her face had morphed from anger to shock as I said the last bit.
“Elise never came to me… ohh,” she exclaimed as she thought it through. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not sorry enough, babe. You described the date as unforgettable. At least you were accurate there. It was unforgettable… to me as well as you. I will never be able to forget your betrayal. Never,” I said.
With that, I turned my back to her and went to sleep. I have no idea if she got any.
I’ve got to give Hester credit. She really put in an effort to be a perfect mom the next few months. I was usually the caretaker parent when it came to the kids’ activities, but suddenly Hess was doing her share of chauffeuring kids to sports and music and being the supportive fan parent. I had to wonder if she had now realized that the best way to keep our family together was to focus on us, instead of focusing on her selfish desires. What a concept.
The kids seemed to really like the extra attention they were receiving, but once again my daughter showed me how exceptional she was in her power of observation. She was wise beyond her now eight years of life.
“Mom’s really trying hard, Daddy,” she said to me one day. “I hope she’s apologized good for whatever she did wrong.”
I tried to give her a sincere smile knowing how observant she was.
To the outside world, there was nothing wrong in the Wilkerson household. I worked very hard to keep up appearances. For her part, I think Hester would have walked through fire to not only keep up appearances but also get back in my best graces. We were two people living in the same house with benefits, although I know she desperately wanted a return to complete normalcy. For some reason, she was sure that I would give in to her.
There were still vestiges of my love for her in there somewhere. I just couldn’t turn off nine years of her being the most important thing in my life.
She also made it harder for herself by keeping in contact with Sen. Dickhead. Since I had taken her phone and looked at her phone calls and text messages soon after her date, she made it a point to keep those cleared, but she didn’t have a clue as to how easy it was to clone somebody’s phone to have access to all their messages. It seems he kept in touch on a regular basis, while she at least seemed to be trying to keep him at arm’s length, at least so far.
“Can we do another date sometime in the near future? I’ll be in town,” he texted not quite a month ago.
“Husband still being a dick about the last time. I don’t dare take the chance,” she texted him back.
Needless to say, I was unimpressed.
A month later, we celebrated our 10th anniversary with a family outing to Chuck E. Cheese. The kids had a great time; Hester not so much. She waited until the kids were playing some games before she expressed her disappointment with me.
“We’ve always celebrated our anniversaries just the two of us with a special night. You’ve changed the rules… because you’re still being a vindictive bastard. When did you become such a small, petty man?” she commented.
“Once again, the answer to that question is the same as many of the other questions… the day of your date. You did this… to me… to us… and to you,” I said.
“Can’t you just get over this?” she pleaded.
“How often do you two correspond?” I asked pointedly.
She had the temerity to smirk. She then reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone and handed it to me. I tossed it high in the air and caught it when it came down.
“I know you’re a slut, but I also know you’re not stupid. I’d bet money that there’s not a trace of a correspondence between you two on that phone; since I took it the first time. But there are transcripts of texts and phone calls that were on that phone. I know you didn’t initiate, but I’ve never heard you flat out tell the guy, ‘no.’ Why is that?”
She blushed and looked away.
“Yeah, I knew it was a rhetorical question,” I mumbled.
My job and my kids were what kept me sane during the time period, although several of my co-workers noted that I looked like I needed a good night’s sleep… or six. I was pretty sure I was working on an ulcer, I was drinking more and yes, I was sleeping less. There were some nights I laid in bed for hours, staring at my wife and wondering what had happened. She kept insisting she loved me. She kept telling me that what she did was outside of us. She “deserved” her night out with Sen. Dickhead, and she wasn’t sorry for her experience, although she was sorry that she hurt me.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Surprisingly, one of the most helpful people for me during this time was my mother-in-law. She repeatedly apologized to me for Hester’s behavior.
“We’re sorry, Reggie. Her father and I didn’t raise her to be a selfish… bitch. But I have to tell you, I really hope you can find some way to get past this. I know you’re doing it for the kids,” she said one time when she called to check on me.
I walked into the kitchen and reached for another cooler of beer to take outside. We were hosting one of the summer get-togethers that we had once a month on our block.
We had two grills going outside and there were hot and cold running food, fruits, desserts and all kinds of alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments. The day was perfect: sunny, 80 degrees and almost windless. The get-together had been going on for a couple of hours, and would probably go on another five or six. These were always great fun events for both the children and the adults.
I heard feminine voices coming from our home office. The office was off-limits to non-family, so I was about to shepherd whomever into the family room or living room. While most of the activities were outdoors, occasionally somebody would come into the house to soak up some air conditioning or talk quietly. Not a problem, except in that room.
“Yeah, sometimes when Reggie’s really putting it to me I think of him. He’s big, strong and takes what he wants. Sometimes I just can’t help drifting back to that night. That’s a great memory I’ll always have.”
I was about to walk into the room when Hester made her statement to whomever she was with. I stopped dead in my tracks; actually my knees wobbled and I almost fell down. Fuck! How many people know that I’m a cuck?
I heard giggling. Sounded like there were three of them in the room. I didn’t hear whatever else was said because I was too busy trying not to throw up right there. I was proud of myself for making it into the bathroom before losing my lunch, my breakfast, dinner the night before…
When I finally cleaned up, I brought the cooler of beer outside and cracked two open, bringing them to the two guys manning the grills at the moment.
“Hey, Reg, you okay? You look like you’ve swallowed some non-alcoholic beer,” John Laskey said.
“Just got something on my mind, John. Everything’s good,” I responded before wandering off.
I was quiet for the rest of the get-together. When Hess and her two companions showed back up, I sensed that I was being watched, and smirked at. Maybe I was getting paranoid, but after a while it seemed to me that virtually all of the women at the barbecue were smirking at me.
I waited until the end of the night after the kids were in bed and we were done cleaning up to express my disappointment with my wife. She was sitting in one of the chaise lounges sucking on a wine cooler, looking quite pleased with herself. I sat down on the chaise next to hers.
“Was there anybody at our house today who doesn’t know that you’re a cheating slut?” I asked sincerely.
She gave me a shocked look, trying to act innocent. I glared back at her.
“I might have told a few of the girls in the past few months. After all, it was an amazing experience for me,” she giggled. “He’s a handsome senator. It was a great experience for me. I just wanted to… brag, I guess.”
“So first you cheat on me, then you humiliate me to your friends. Which means the husband of every woman you told also knows you’re a slut and I’m a cuck…”
“I am not a slut, and you’re not going to keep calling me that!” she yelled. “I had one… adventure. It’s not like I fucked some random guy in a sleazy motel!”
Her eyes were practically glowing as she rose from her chaise.
“Look, this has been going on long enough, and I’m sick and tired of it,” she continued, her voice rising in volume. “You’ve been pulling this shit on me for over a year now. Poor you. You wife spent a night with another man… a handsome, strong man. Get over yourself.
“You’re not going to hold me hostage any more. If you can’t figure out how to move on from that, that’s your problem. Just fucking file for divorce. I’m tired of living like you’re Mr. Perfect… and I’m waiting for absolution. File already, you Goddamn pussy, or accept what happened and we can move on already.”
I’ll admit I didn’t see that coming. I sat in shock for what felt like hours, but was probably only seconds. When I came back to reality, she had walked off and I was alone.
By nature I am a quiet person, reflective, and probably slow to react. I don’t tend to panic, and I rarely go off half-cocked. Some people, my wife among them, apparently see my reticence as weakness. I was going to miss seeing my children every day.
While I was hoping to keep my family together, I didn’t live in a cave, so I had an attorney who had all the information ready to go to battle for me. First thing Monday morning, I dropped the dime. Hester was served at her work before the day was over. No surprise, she wasn’t a happy camper.
My phone started blowing up about five minutes after she was served, I assumed. I didn’t answer any of her calls. I knew the whirlwind was coming when I got home.
“You stupid motherfucker!” Hester screamed at me when I walked in the house from the garage. “You little male ego gets bruised, and you embarrass me in front of my co-workers.”
“Like you embarrassed me in front of our friends and neighbors the other day?” I responded. “You begged me to file. I did.”
She sneered at me but didn’t verbalize. I put my stuff down and went to find my kids for a quick discussion, explaining that I still loved them and always would, although I wouldn’t be living in the same house after tomorrow. Elise understood, since several of her friends at school had divorced parents, but Nate was cloudy on the concept. I had my work cut out for me with him, although I was pretty sure my daughter would help on that front.
We lived in a no-fault state, so the divorce should have been easy. She was going to get primary custody of the kids, she would get the house, child support and some alimony. But no-o-o-o-o. For some fucking reason known only to her, she fought it… hard. Her lawyer tried almost everything to delay things, get me to meet for conferences and she even wanted marital counseling.
“The fuck, Hess? You don’t love me near as much as you pretend you do, or you couldn’t have done what you did. Then you brag to your friends he was the best you’ve ever had. Why would I want to stay married to you for all the aggravation I get. I love my kids to death, but if I stay with you all they’re going to remember about me is that I was a bitter man,” I said at one meeting.
“But I do love you, Reg. You’re so hung up on one date. Yes, he was an amazing lover, but it was a one-time thing. Let it go.”
“I can’t, Hess,” I responded. “You cheated. You broke your vows, and you don’t see it as a big thing. I do, and I always will. You promised me…”
I wasn’t going to do it. Really, I wasn’t, but a person can only be pushed so far.
The best thing about a two-party political system is that there are two parties, however you want to label them. Sen. Dickhead belonged to one party, which meant the other party would be only too happy to receive information which didn’t reflect well on him.
I had set up this contingency over a year ago after Hess’s date. I had a well-connected attorney in our city contact the chairman of the political party not associated with the senator. Mr. Party Chairman was very excited about the possibility of having something to derail the senator’s next election, which would certainly end any chance he would ever have of getting to the White House. He wanted the information immediately, and even offered a healthy monetary reward, but he finally had to settle for the promise that he would get the evidence if, and only if, the person in possession of it wanted it made public.
My attorney called me every month to inform me that Mr. Party Chairman had called and begged some more.
This month, we were going to make the chairman’s day. The meeting, which was the first to include me, was set for my attorney’s office. After introductions were made all around, I reached into the briefcase by my side, pulled out a sealed plastic storage bag and tossed it on the conference table. The chairman’s eyes just about fell out of his head when he saw what was in the bag.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s the end of Sen. Dickhead’s career, yes,” I responded.
The chairman stared at the bag as if it was filled with gold bars. He never reached out to touch it; just kept staring with this look of… astonishment.
“How…” he whispered.
“Cocky bitch came home and went upstairs to shower,” I related. “She does the laundry, so I guess she felt pretty sure I would never go through the laundry basket. I waited until I heard the shower running, slipped into the bathroom and found the panties at the bottom of the basket. Anybody who watches TV nowadays is aware of DNA. I’m sure when you have these tested you will find two sets.
“By the way, here’s her toothbrush for DNA comparison. I’m assuming you’ll be able to get the senator’s sample to match… if you don’t already have it,” I said, giving the chairman a hard look.
He blushed and looked away. Thought so.
I knew he had already been apprised of the whole situation, so there was no need to rehash anything. Still, I could see the unasked question of why on his face.
“Because she’s just not smart enough not to fuck with me. She cheated, but she thinks she’s just so fucking wonderful that I’ll eventually give in and absolve her of that crime. Now she’s even started to rub it in my face. Fuck her, and the senator she rode in on!” I cried.
“Career over, Tomas Norberto. Fuck you, you piece of shit.”
*****
“Goddamn, you stupid slut! How the fuck could your wimp husband have gotten evidence of our weekend? I knew he knew… but evidence? How?” Norberto screamed at Hester through the phone a week after my meeting with Mr. Chairman.
“I-I-I don’t know. I have no idea what you are talking about,” she rasped.
I was surprised when the call showed up on the phone I was using to clone hers. I basically told her I had her phone bugged several months back, and the two hadn’t been using that method of communication, if they had been communicating at all.
“What the hell have you done, Reg?” she asked when I answered her call 90 minutes later.
I knew exactly what she was referring to, but I was in a playful mood. At least I thought I was playful.
“Huh?” I responded. “I just ordered a pepperoni pizza and garlic bread. Why the fuck would you care what I eat. Wait. How could you even know what I’m eating?”
She growled at me. From experience, I knew she really hated my stupid act. She was apparently good believing I was a wimpy puss, but she knew I wasn’t stupid. Well, I guess one out of two wasn’t bad.
“I don’t know how you did it, but it seems you’ve gotten some kind of revenge on Sen. Norberto. He threatened to slap me around for something you’ve done, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Thanks for that, too. My parents are pissed at me, your parents are pissed at me, Elise has been surly to me and you just can’t seem to get it out of your head that what Tomas and I did was separate from you and me.”
“Yeah. About that…” I said.
Two months after my meeting with Mr. Chairman, Sen. Norberto, practically a shoo-in to retain his spot, abruptly dropped out of the Senate race, eight months before the election, claiming severe mental fatigue.
With everything going on in my life, looking for female companionship was way down my list of things about which to worry. I actually hadn’t even looked at a woman in a sexual way in months when my daughter of all people asked me about it.
“When are you going to start dating other woman, Daddy?” Elise happily chirped the second weekend my kids spent with me. “Linda’s mom really wants to go out with you.”
I know my jaw was hanging open. I guess I was so caught up in the divorce I wasn’t really thinking too much about my future, beyond taking care of my kids every other weekend and two fucking weeks in the summer.
“Linda’s mom told you this? You would be okay with this, sweetie?” I asked, feeling somewhat shocked.
“Well, she didn’t tell me, Daddy, but she told Annie’s mom, and I overheard it,” Elise said. “I would be okay with that, Daddy. I don’t want you to be alone. But please, Dad, don’t go out with Marcy’s mom. None of us kids like her. Kids know things, Dad.”
Linda’s mom had been divorced from her lowlife, scumbag of a husband for about five years. She was an adorable blonde sprite of a woman with lots of curves, and the bubbly personality like the former cheerleader she was. I had no clue that she was interested in me. You know, when you’re married, you don’t go around assessing the prospects with other women… at least I didn’t. Was I stupid?
I didn’t realize Elise was carefully watching me.
“It’s okay, Dad. I’m almost nine. I know all about things like divorce. We’ll be okay, Nate and me. You take care of you.
Just like that, apparently, I was in the dating game.
Linda’s mom, Julie, was my first, and we had an enjoyable date. I felt I owed it to her to tell her I was just getting back into the dating scene, and I certainly wasn’t ready for anything with meaning. She smiled at me like I was a five-year-old and told me she understood, and that I didn’t need to explain myself to everyone I would date. She gave me a lot of really good information, like it was Divorced Parent 101.
She also told me not to be surprised if most of the divorced mothers of my kids’ friends came out of the woodwork looking for me. I had earned a reputation as a good guy, a good father, had a good job and… was not bad looking. She blushed as she said that last part.
I dated Julie and several of the other divorced moms from time to time. I rarely had time to think about Hester and our former marriage. When I did, I had to admit I was lonely, but not lonely enough to ever consider giving her a second chance. I wasn’t going to spend any time wondering if, or when, she would cheat on me again.
For her part, Hess wasn’t shy about reminding me her fling was just a “silly mistake” and that she would never again do anything like that.
“A silly mistake?” I sneered. “Poor judgment, a lack of respect, ultimately just selfish thinking. You chose sex with the senator over the love of your family.”
Her mouth opened and closed… twice. I know she wanted to respond, but there was nothing she could say that would make her case. I still expected her to keep trying, especially since the senator seemed not to be an option anymore.
“He told her to never contact him again,” my ex-mother-in-law told me one Saturday when the kids and I were over for dinner. “He seems to think you had something to do with him dropping out of the senatorial race, and seems to think she didn’t do enough to stop you.”
I raised my eyebrows and kept chewing my food. I didn’t comment.
Several of the guys from work wanted to try this fairly new high-end bar with a dance floor one Thursday evening a couple of months later. I used to stay away from those kind of outings like the plague when I was married, but as a single guy, I started going out on a regular basis. There were four of us, we got a table and ordered our drinks, all of us scanning the surrounding tables and dance floor to check the heat of the place.
I spotted the two women as soon as they walked in. The first looked to be mid-40s, but was dressed maybe mid-30s and was trying to act younger than that. Her silky blue blouse was unbuttoned halfway down her body, revealing a nice pair of milky-white boobs, and her mid-thigh length skirt showed she also had a nice pair of long, athletic legs. She had short dark brown hair and green eyes.
Her wingwoman appeared to be totally out of place in this bar. She looked to be a little older than her friend, maybe early 50s, but she was dressed like she had money: her sweater and skirt obviously came from a high-end place and she looked classy and beautiful. She had shoulder-length silver-blonde hair and dark eyes.
The women sat down at a table a ways from us, and were instantly besieged with guys asking them if they wanted company or to dance. I had to admit that I wouldn’t mind dancing with either of them. The dark-haired one in particular looked like she was up for some fun, maybe more.
The dark-haired one had no problem getting out on the dance floor with every man who asked, and wasn’t shy about shaking her assets. The light-haired woman only danced a few times, and seemed much more reserved when she did.
An hour later, I decided to ask the light-haired woman to dance, but just as I got to the table, the dark-haired one reached out, grabbed my hand and pulled me out to the dance floor. She was rubbing herself up against me, and between watching her boobs bounce and her rubbing on me, I totally forgot about her friend. We danced two fast songs together before the music shifted to a slow song and she wrapped her body against me. I was hard as a brick in my pants, and when she reached up and planted her lips against mine, I was lost. We walked out of the club together and drove to my apartment.
In between our first and second fucks of the night, she filled me in on her life. She and her friend were there to celebrate her divorce becoming official earlier in the day.
Rosie was a helluva fuck, and we dated for about a month before she told me she didn’t want to get tied down so quickly after her divorce. I totally got it, and we went our separate ways. I never did get around to asking her about the friend she was with that first night. I have a feeling I missed something with that woman.
A few weeks later I was sitting at the bar in another fairly high-end place, except this time I was alone. I had just stopped off for a couple of drinks at the end of a long week, just by myself, to chill. It wasn’t my weekend for the kids, so I was going to be alone.
She walked in alone, and I mean, heads turned. She had a lux body like Megan Thee Stallion, and had a high pile of loose brown curls on top of her head and falling down past her shoulders. She literally sauntered over on four-inch stilettos, which caused her braless breasts to sway wonderfully as she moved to the chair next to mine. Holy fuck. I was pretty sure I died and went to heaven.
My brain was working overtime trying to come up with a killer opening line when she looked me square in the face and asked me what I was drinking.
“Angel Envy rye,” I responded, smiling, my brain rapidly turning to mush when I heard her smoky alto tone.
“Ooh, nice. A man with taste,” she cooed.
She ordered what I was drinking, neat like I was drinking, and proceeded to spend most of the evening telling me all about the boutique marketing company she started several years ago. Wow. She was gorgeous and smart, and owned a successful business.
We left together a couple of hours later and went to her apartment, which really was gorgeous. She pointed out to me she preferred to have sex in her own bed, as most women did, and then proceeded to tell me all about that psychology.
When she got stripped down, I could see that she was no stranger to the gym. I seriously had my doubts that she was 45 as she claimed because her body was that tight. Yet, she was also limber like a Gumby, and by the time we finished two sessions, I had to admit I had several sore muscles. We fucked hard doggy the first time, then made passionate love both cowgirl and missionary the second time. She was an amazing kisser as well, and I felt a connection with her that had been missing since Hester’s date.
I got more honesty out of Mariel Washington in one night than I got from Hester after nine years of marriage. Mariel told me that she was basically married to her business and never wanted children, but had several men with which she had friends with benefits relationships. I really think I could have fallen in love with this woman, but since that option wasn’t on the table, I accepted her offer of being a friend with benefits.
We got together about once a month for the next year, until she surprised even herself by falling in love with a much younger man. Lucky bastard.
It wasn’t unusual for me to get an occasional phone call from my ex-mother-in-law. My in-laws and I had stayed close after the divorce. They understood why I had to divorce their daughter, and there was the matter of the grandchildren. Hell, I still called them Mom and Dad.
“Can I beg a favor, Reg?” she asked tentatively.
“Always, as long as it doesn’t involve your daughter,” I answered.
The favor involved being the escort for my mother-in-law’s personal administrator for their company’s upcoming Christmas party. Really?
“She’s a good kid, Reg. She got divorced a couple of years ago from an abusive philanderer, and I don’t think she’s gone out on a date since then. She’s wounded, Reg, and she needs a good man to show her that not all men are scummers. I know you are that good man,” my mother-in-law said.
How weird is it when your former mother-in-law tries to fix you up on a date?
“Just tell me one thing, Mom,” I asked. “Tell me she doesn’t have a great personality.”
Mom got the joke and chuckled.
“I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised, Reggie. You might even let us have the kids for an overnight or two,” she said.
Mom was right. I was pleasantly surprised. Cherilynn Sarito was 5-foot-nothing of adorable, wrapped in a physical package that featured nice-sized boobs and a bubble butt. She was outgoing without being bubbly and had a cute way of wrinkling her nose and scrunching her green eyes when she was happy.
Just as important, she really did have a good personality.
I made sure to stay by Cherilynn’s side the entire night and be completely attentive to her, just like I would have done with my former wife. Cheri seemed thrilled with the attention. She was an excellent conversationalist, although she had a tendency to defer to others. I suppose that was to be expected with her background.
We sat at a table with my in-laws. Mom was every bit as gracious as she ever was, but Dad started off the evening a little standoffish. I understood it, but he gradually warmed up as the evening went on.
I think I surprised Cheri with my ability to dance. Hester always liked dancing, and I learned so I could make her happy. Cheri had some ability, as well, on the fast dances, and on the slow ones she molded herself to me like we had been a couple for years. I definitely liked the feeling of her body hard up against mine.
I got a soft kiss on the lips and her phone number when I walked Cheri to the door at the end of the evening. I would definitely owe my in-laws extra time with the grandkids.
I waited three days before I called Cheri and asked for a date. She accepted for the next Friday night at one of the best Italian restaurants in the city, followed by an evening art show at a local gallery.
Cheri dressed sexier for the date than she did for the Christmas party, and I was measurably more impressed. We had another great time. We went out three more times before I figured it was time for me to meet her eight-year-old daughter, and her to meet my pair. We spent several hours playing miniature golf, then had a picnic at a local park. I thought it went well. The two girls, in particular, bonded extremely well, although my son wasn’t nearly as thrilled, as I expected. After all, he was at that age where all girls had “cooties.”
Cheri and I saw each other several times each week. When I had my two, we did family things that included all five of us. Things were good until just a few weeks into the new school year when I got a rare call from Hester.
“I don’t know what your scag girlfriend has been teaching my kids, but your son was in the principal’s office today for fighting and his face looks like he lost. He’s got three days detention, and all he’s telling me is that it started with this ‘Monique’ girl he keeps calling his sister,” she yelled at me through the phone.
“First off, you of all people don’t get to call my girlfriend a scag, you slut. As for Nate, I’ll be over after dinner to take him out for some ice cream. How about not panicking until we find out what happened.”
I heard her huff before she disconnected.
I picked up Nate after dinner and we hit a small mom and pop ice cream shop. I gave him a good going-over visually when he got in my car. He had a cut lip and a scrape along the left side of his face.
“You should see the other guy, Dad,” he joked.
“How about the truth, Nathan Abraham?” I said.
He winced when I used both his first and middle names completely.
“Some boy was picking on Mo, Dad. I told him to stop picking on my sister. He swung first, then I clocked him real good. They told me I broke his nose. It made a big crack sound and blood went everywhere when I hit it.”
I could tell he was trying not to grin. The boy picking on Mo was two years older than Nate.
“When I talk to Mo, is she going to tell me the same story?” I asked.
“Absolutely, Dad. I wouldn’t have hit the guy, but he swung first. I was just defending Mo. You always tell me that I have to watch over Elise, so I figured the same applied to Mo. She’s awfully little, Dad,” Nate said.
“She is, Nate, and you did the right thing,” I said, trying, but not succeeding to keep the pride out of my voice.
Monique did take after her mother with her petite size. She was at least half a head shorter than almost everybody else in her grade. Also, I had always told Nate that it was his job to look after his sister. I guess he considered Monique family now. That was interesting. Sometimes the innocence of youth is smarter than the wisdom of age.
“I’m proud of you for standing up for Mo, but you can’t tell anyone at the school that I said so,” I said. “I will talk to the principal and see what I can do.
“You might want to explain about Mo to your mother. Apparently, you and Elise haven’t been keeping her too up to date about my life… for which I’m grateful, by the way. But it might be better if it comes from you and Elise,” I said.
My seven-year-old understood completely. Kids grow up so fast these days.
“By the way, Dad, when are you and Cheri going to get married. You know she’s great, don’t you?”
Like I said, they grow up fast. He was right, too. I needed to put a ring on that woman’s finger.
I did call the principal the next day. The school had a zero-tolerance policy on fighting, even if a student was defending himself or herself. However, it also a zero-tolerance policy against bullying, so the offender wound up getting a total of six days detention after witnesses were interviewed.
I didn’t agree with the policy, but I told Nate to take his detention like a man. I also told him that he was right, and I would ask Cheri to marry me as soon as I could, which meant as soon as I could buy the ring.
I guess the shit hit the fan when Hester found out that Cheri was Mom’s PA, and that Mom had set up the first date.
“What the fuck, Mom? You’re supposed to be on my side!” Hess had screamed at her after she found out, Mom told me later.
“There is no ‘your’ side,” Mom answered. “He’s never coming back to you. You screwed that up royally. So why waste a good man? Cherilynn’s a good woman and a great friend. She deserves a good man like Reggie.”
The scream that came from Hess was horrific, Mom said, as she related the story.
While both of my kids liked Cheri, my daughter in particular seemed to really like the way she cared for me. It was Cheri’s nature to try to please me in almost everything she did, making me feel like I truly was the king of my castle. Naturally, that spurred me on to treat her like my queen. Elise really seemed to get a charge out of Cheri and I almost trying to outdo each other in our love for the other.
“I’m not sure if you guys are adorable or sickening,” Elise told me one day. “But I really like being around to try to figure it out.”
Our three kids, my parents and my former in-laws were the only guests at our small wedding a couple of months later. The clerk of the court who performed the ceremony was more than a little surprised that my former mother-in-law stood up for Cheri as her maid of honor.
“It’s really a long story,” I chuckled when she inquired.
******
“Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition” is a line from the old British comedy troupe, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Well, to be truthful, nobody expects an inquisition from a federal marshal, either. I was completely taken by surprise when two such officers walked into my office on a Monday morning.
Apparently the feds weren’t too happy that a certain former senator got his ass kicked and his nuts crushed in the bathroom of some fancy-ass restaurant in Houston, TX. My name, and that of several other cuckolded husbands, were on the list of possible suspects. I explained to both that my alibi included being home with my wife and three kids several hundred miles away from the crime scene.
“But I can’t say I’m sorry to hear about the senator’s problems. Nobody, and I mean that sincerely, deserves it more,” I said to the very unhappy marshals.
“You do realize that the stupid prick fucked my then-wife almost four years ago. If I was going to do something, don’t you think I would have done it well before now?” I asked in my most sarcastic tone.
Getting the third degree from the feds was just the beginning, though. A week later, some reporter from the Associated Press was in my office, wanting me to rehash the whole date thing. Seems he had somehow gotten his hands on a “confidential” list of 26 women the senator apparently dallied with during his eight years in office.
By this point, several people knew about Hester’s date with the senator, although I certainly never advertised it. Hester probably told more people than I through the years, as she was certainly proud of her accomplishment. I had to wonder how proud she was, however, when the story about the senator’s attack broke, and she was named as one of his paramours.
“Why did you tell that guy?” she practically screamed at me when I answered the phone.
“I didn’t. He told me you were on the senator’s list. All I did was confirm the truth of your name on the list. I wasn’t going to lie to save your ass from embarrassment, slut.”
“I am not a slut!” she screamed at me before I disconnected the call.
I have to admit I chuckled.
I also have to admit I considered taking a long vacation out of town at the time the article hit the papers. She fucked up–literally–but I was going to pay an embarrassing price as well.
Cheri talked me down off that ledge, so to speak.
“Don’t try to fight with anybody. Go with the truth. She cheated. You divorced her. Walk away,” Cheri said.
Unfortunately, my kids were going to be the victim of verbal bullying for the rest of their school careers. We would be discussing the fact that their mother was a selfish cheater for years to come.
I also felt pretty bad for my former in-laws, who had by this point had become very close friends of ours. We brought the two of them over to stay with us at the house we had bought for a couple of weeks after the article hit the papers. They mostly stayed in the house and didn’t answer their phones.
“I love her, you know how it is when you’ve got kids, but I’m so embarrassed that my little girl thought it would be acceptable to play slut for a day,” Dad said. “Nobody wants his little girl to be that woman.”
The notoriety eventually died down and life, as it was, returned to normal. Gradually, my kids began to spend more time with Cheri, Mo and me at our house. It was nothing formal, but things just seemed to morph into our house becoming the place where the neighborhood kids gathered. Hess bitched at me at first, but I think Mom kind of greased the skids on that a bit. I also made sure that Elise and Nate kept the lines of communication with Hess wide open, so she couldn’t bitch that I was stealing her kids. Again, having Mom and Dad over a lot eased the way, I think.
The kids and I hardly talked about Hester when they were with me. She would always be their mother, but she was an ex in my life, and they also didn’t want to upset Cheri, whom they quickly took to calling Mom as Mo naturally did. I know Hess’s folks cringed a bit when they first started calling Cheri Mom, but since they were close to Cheri before we married, the cringing soon stopped.
With everything going on in my life and the lives of my family members, I didn’t pay any attention to what was happening in Hess’s life. I knew she dated intermittently from what the kids said, but I was surprised when Elise announced one afternoon that her mother was engaged. I was hit with a wave of sadness… for what could have been. Then I felt a comforting pair of arms encircle my chest… and my sadness quickly changed to elation… for what I now had.