He was a gangly puppy, maybe eight weeks old. Brindle in color, mostly boxer, but it was easy to see there were several other breeds in the mix.
He spotted the woman looking at him through the bars and turned on the puppy charm, wagging his docked tail and moving to the front of the cage. The woman stuck her hand into the cage and the dog licked it, hoping that was the ticket to getting a forever home. The look on the woman’s face told the dog he was on the right track. He wagged his tail more and licked harder.
The woman’s eyes were opened wide, tears forming at the inner corners. She turned to the man kneeling behind her.
“Yeah, this guy,” she said.
“And you’re going to be the one to feed it, walk it and take care of it?” he said, his voice so thick with disbelief that the puppy could almost tell.
“Well, yeah, he’s going to be my little buddy, follow me around, protect me and all that,” she said.
He rolled his eyes, not trying to hide the action. She had made those kinds of promises before, and almost every time she had, taking the responsibility for whatever she wanted eventually fell to him: a garden, cooking meals, corresponding with a sixth-grader from Nigeria, a lot of things. He really didn’t want to take care of a dog, too, but what could he say? You do what you do for the ones you love.
“Okay, we’ll take Big Eyes staring at her there in the cage,” Bryce England told the man at the animal shelter. “Wrap him up and put a bow on him.”
“You can’t take him home today. He needs to get neutered first,” the shelter worker said. “We can have that done tomorrow, and if all goes well, you can take him home the day after that.”
“Hank,” Vera England said to the man, who gave her a puzzled look. “We’ll take Hank home the day after that.”
“Right,” he smiled, trying to sneak a peek down her blouse as he straightened up from his kneeled spot behind the husband.
Bryce caught the attempted downblouse and smirked to himself. It was hardly the first time some hornball had tried to look down the blouse of his big-boobed wife. She probably didn’t even notice anymore it was so commonplace. Sort of like an occupational hazard.
The animal grew from a gangly puppy to a somewhat large dog. Vera took charge of the animal for the first three weeks before gradually shifting her responsibilities to Bryce. As he slowly assumed the dog’s care, the animal slowly shifted his allegiance to Bryce. He still liked Vera, but dogs were even simpler than men: their first allegiance is to the person who feeds them and cares for them.
“See, you should be the one to take care of him. He likes you best,” she said one day when he reminded her of her promise to care for the dog.
“He likes me best because I am the one who takes care of him,” Bryce snarked. “Dogs are simple that way. You women, on the other hand…”
Vera knew where this was going. She fluttered her eyelashes at her husband of 10 years and stuck out her sizable chest in her tight pink top. Bryce practically drooled on the spot. Men are so easy, she thought to herself.
Vera knew she was the complicated one in the relationship. She knew it wasn’t going to get any less complicated in the near future, and she knew her husband didn’t deserve any of the coming pain.
Vera and Bryce had recently celebrated their 10th anniversary. Bryce thought he had a perfect wife and a perfect marriage. Sure, the couple argued occasionally, but it was never about anything that mattered. He was a Cubs fan and Vera loved the White Sox. That was about the biggest thing to argue about, he thought. He thought wrong.
Vera was an assistant vice president for a global insurance company. She had worked at Worldex Re for nine years, the last six with Anand Patel as her immediate boss. The two worked well together professionally and had become good friends as well. Vera and Bryce had even spent time together with Anand and his wife outside of an office setting. Bryce liked the man.
For three years, Vera and Anand were nothing more than co-workers and friends. She thought her boss was personable, charming and handsome. He was 45 years old and fit, with salt and pepper black and gray hair and large brown eyes. His Indian heritage had given him a light brown complexion, and his schooling in Great Britain had given him a quintessential upper crust British accent. His baritone voice had given him an almost attorney-type of honey-tongued speech.
Vera had never given a thought to cheating on Bryce. She thought her husband was every bit as handsome as her boss, having light brown hair and big expressive blue eyes. He spent several nights at the gym and looked it. He perfectly fit the profile of a certified public accountant, being quiet and thoughtful. He wasn’t very good in social circles, but Vera knew his love for her had no bounds. He was also quite skilled in bed, both with his dick and his mouth, Vera knew.
Vera and Anand occasionally went out to lunch and talked business. That eventually morphed into talk about their personal lives. It wasn’t for several years that the pair actually went out to lunch strictly for personal reasons. That quickly became the norm.
Anand knew women found him desirable, but he was not a serial skirt-chaser. He had only strayed twice before in his marriage. Neither he nor Vera had any plans for this friendship to go farther… until it did. About six months after the personal lunches started, the pair wound up in bed in a hotel over a long lunch hour.
Vera was surprised she wasn’t consumed by guilt after the first liaison with Anand. The two made love twice that first time, and both enjoyed it tremendously. They didn’t do anything she hadn’t done before with Bryce, but the fact that this was the first time in a dozen years it was sex with someone other than her husband made it very exciting. Anand smiled to himself at how wet the woman was. Her body was both lush and fit, and her large breasts were most certainly a thing of beauty.
The pair waited a week before having their second tryst. Both thought it was every bit as good as the first; in fact, a bit better as they were learning each other’s bodies and what each liked.
The sex became a weekly thing, often changing days of the week so Bryce wouldn’t be able to track it. Vera used her superior managing skills to keep everything straight. While she was always concerned about her husband finding out, after a few weeks she was somewhat amused that she was able to hide the affair from him so easily. She felt superior, and if the truth be known, smarter than her clueless husband.
Vera didn’t delude herself that she wasn’t engaged in an affair. However, she felt it didn’t take one iota of love from her husband; in fact, she felt energized in both her marriage and her life. She had the love of her husband as well as the… relationship with her lover. Although she didn’t love Anand the same way she loved Bryce, she knew her feelings toward him were way more than simple lust.
Vera made sure to stay engaged with Bryce and give him absolutely every ounce of loving and lust he seemed to want or need. If anything, she felt she and her husband were perhaps as close as they had ever been, and she would surely know if he had any clue as to what was happening.
At the same time, she still felt some pressure to keep her two lives separate. Because she was working around her spouse, Vera and her lover didn’t have a lot of time to do much more than have amazing sex when they were together. They knew they shared other interests and wanted to explore them further, but… She knew Anand wanted more of her time, but she knew that couldn’t happen unless her husband had to take a trip out of town, and those were rare.
It was a wonderful problem, she decided, to have two attractive men loving her.
Bryce was less sanguine about Vera’s problem when he found out about it several months later. One evening when he was alone because Vera was supposed to be working late, he grabbed his wife’s iPad from the table next to his La-Z-Boy rather than get up to grab his own laptop from the home office. When he logged into Amazon Prime to order several books, two addresses came up in the deliver to field. The first was the England’s home address, but the second was for Anand Patel, Vera’s boss, and it wasn’t at his normal home address.
Bryce’s eyes widened considerably as he looked at the second address. His immediate reaction was to feel sick to his stomach, but that feeling quickly morphed into one of rage. He screamed to the four walls surrounding him. He then went to his liquor cabinet, poured himself a double of his single malt scotch and started making plans.
The biggest problem for Bryce was that up until a few minutes ago, he would have told anyone and everyone that he loved his wife beyond reason, and that feeling didn’t just disappear into thin air, despite what appeared to be her betrayal. If further investigation revealed she was indeed cheating, he would have to come to grips with his reaction and whether they could move forward as a married couple.
Vera got home about an hour later, humming as she walked in the door. For the first time that Bryce could remember, he didn’t jump up from where he was sitting and go to her for a greeting kiss. That didn’t escape Vera either.
“Hey, hon, everything okay?” she asked as she walked over to Bryce in his La-Z-Boy as he sat reading the sports section of the newspaper.
“Not even close,” Bryce mumbled, turning his head so Vera’s kiss intended for his lips landed on his cheek.
Vera took a step back and watched her husband carefully. For the first time, she wondered if he somehow found out about her affair. Bryce caught the look from the corner of his eye, and realized he needed to play things cooler until he could formulate a plan. It was not his nature to go off half-cocked.
Suddenly feeling a little unsure of herself, Vera decided discretion was the better part of valor, and did not push the conversation further. She made a mental note to pay more attention to her husband’s moods. Maybe she had been taking him for granted a bit.
The next day at work, Bryce called a good friend who was an attorney. After Bryce explained his problem, the friend called his best investigator and got him involved. Two weeks later, Bryce had confirmation of his wife’s betrayal, including photos and video.
“So what now, amigo?” his friend asked.
For the first time since his parents had died five years ago in a car wreck, Bryce wept openly.
Vera tried to be subtle, but she watched her husband carefully for the next few days after his non-greeting that one night. She knew Bryce didn’t have a devious bone in his body, and she felt she would know quickly if he suspected she was having an affair.
Vera even called it an affair in her own mind. She knew it wasn’t right, but at the same time, she couldn’t convince herself it was wrong, especially since she wasn’t neglecting Bryce in any way.
After several days of watching her husband, the only difference Vera could see was in the bedroom. Bryce normally initiated sex as often as she, but over the next week he made no attempt at intimacy. When she did after a couple of days, he seemed reluctant, but then was as physical as he’d ever been before, fucking her into the mattress that night, and pounding her hard every time she initiated since then.
Bryce’s newfound physicality in the bedroom was his only way of venting his growing hatred for his wife’s philandering. He had stopped seeking sex from Vera, but when she initiated, he made sure he was going to get his… very forcefully in fact. He was surprised that she didn’t pick up on his anger. Not only that, she seemed to enjoy this “new” Bryce.
“Come on, big boy, fuck me! Fuck me harder! Uunngghh!” Vera wailed as Bryce pounded her doggy one night. She shrieked out a second orgasm a minute later, then fell forward on the bed and went limp. Worrying about anything was the last thing on Vera’s mind at that moment.
Bryce turned his wife over at that point and lifted her legs, placing her ankles over his shoulders as he drove hard into her wide-open pussy. She grunted loudly with each thrust, then started babbling unintelligibly as another climax ripped through her body, taking Bryce along with it. He roared his release, pumping several ropes of sperm deep into his wife’s body.
Vera drifted off into an exhausted sleep after Bryce rolled off. Her last semi-cogent thought was that she was the luckiest woman in the world, having two studs.
Bryce had instructed his attorney to draw up divorce papers for adultery, even though it wouldn’t make a financial difference in the no-fault state. The split with his wife would be fairly even as they made similar money and didn’t yet have children. They would have to sell the house and split any profits there.
“I know this sounds crazy, but just hold the papers until I tell you,” Bryce explained. “I’m going to let this play out a while longer, and maybe she will come to her senses. I love the stupid bitch, and maybe with some counseling…”
“Are you going to confront her at least?” John Jefferson asked. “That would probably end this thing quicker.”
“Probably not. You know how headstrong Vera can be. If I have to step in, she’s just going to dig her heels in deeper. This has to come from her, and then maybe we’ll have a chance.”
“You’re the boss. You say when. Those papers will keep as long as Twinkies.”
A year later, Bryce was completely amazed that his supposedly smart wife never seemed to notice the rift that had opened up between the two of them. Gone were the little touches and looks between them. The intimacy had waned to just once per week, and when they were intimate, it was all about fucking; although Vera might not have been aware, Bryce noted the two hadn’t made love since he found out about the cheating.
He was also amazed that Vera had been able to keep up the pretense of being a faithful wife. She seemed to have been able to keep her career going strong, keep the affair going strong and keep up with all of her hobbies and social engagements. Keeping all those balls in the air was quite impressive, he had to admit whenever he thought about it.
As Bryce seemed reluctant to pull the trigger on his divorce, things might have gone on much longer, but fate intervened in the form of a job promotion for Anand. He was promoted to a director level post in the company’s London office, and was scheduled to leave in one month’s time. Vera was devastated at this development, although she was pleased for her lover professionally.
“Maybe this is the gods’ way of telling us it’s time to end our relationship,” Anand said. “We’ve been doing this for three years now and haven’t gotten caught. I’d say we’ve been very good at hiding it, and maybe a little lucky.”
Both Vera and Anand shed tears several times over the next two weeks. Bryce noted to himself that Vera seemed distracted at times. He wondered if the problem was at work or with her relationship with Anand.
“Something going on, babe?” he inquired.
Vera looked like she wanted to say something, but held off and left the room. Bryce guessed internally that there was trouble in paradise between the lovers. He smiled.
Liza Patel was thrilled with both the promotion her husband received and the location to which he was assigned. She had grown up in London and had family there. She took charge of packing up her family’s possessions and having them, her two children and herself back in London a week before Anand was supposed to leave. That gave the lovers a week before Anand was scheduled to depart for London from New York.
It seemed a reasonable plan to Vera, but Anand wasn’t convinced. She would fly to New York on Friday to spend the entire weekend with Anand before he flew to London on Monday morning. The lovers could eat at nice restaurants, do a Broadway play and see some sights before saying good-bye for the final time. The only drawback to the plan was that Vera intended to tell her husband that she was going to spend the last weekend with Anand.
“Why tell him, Vera?” Anand questioned. “Just tell him it’s a business trip. He’d never know.”
“How many business trips have I taken in my years here? None. And I suddenly have to take one over a weekend? Bryce may be trusting, but that seems farfetched. If I lie and get caught, Bryce and I are done. But if I tell him the truth and appeal to his love for me, I really think we can get past this. It might hurt him for a bit, but he loves me totally, and he’s the most rational guy I know. It makes more sense to tell him,” she explained.
“If that’s what you think is right. You know him best,” Anand said.
Vera waited until the night before she was going to leave for New York to drop the bomb on her husband. After eating and clearing the table, Vera snuggled into Bryce on the sofa. As had been his habit for the last two-plus years, Bryce didn’t snuggle back, but he also didn’t move away. He seemed to be engrossed in the show he was watching. Vera waited for a few minutes, then cleared her throat.
“I need to take a trip this weekend, Bryce,” she began.
She sat quietly until her husband slowly acknowledged he heard what she said. He was staring at her silently. She laid out the weekend plan, beginning with Anand’s promotion, but never admitted to the ongoing affair.
“So he’s going to be leaving forever, and we won’t see each other again after this weekend. We have these feelings for each other, and we just have to finally connect. We’ve been stringing these feelings along for several years now, and we feel that this is a great way to end this,” Vera said.
“After that, he’ll be in London and I’ll be here, and I’ll spend the rest of our lives making this up to you. We won’t text. We won’t talk on the phone. Nothing. It will be over and done with.”
Bryce didn’t see this announcement coming. He barely held his tongue, especially at her blatant lie that the pair had never done anything sexual.
“I’ve been a good wife to you. You never knew anything about our relationship and I’ve never held anything back from you,” Vera said.
Bryce tried to protest, but nothing came out of his mouth. He dropped his head and willed himself to count to 10. He wondered just how much he should reveal.
“You can’t do this, Vera,” Bryce said. “I don’t care what your reasoning is. We made vows, and you don’t get to update the rules for a weekend of sex with another man.
“Does Liza know about this? If she does, I can’t imagine she’s any happier than I am about it. Does she even know?”
Vera flushed deeply.
“I-I don’t know if Anand has told Liza. She’s already back in London.”
“Look, Bryce. I’m not really asking your permission to do this. I’m going to do this regardless of what your answer is. We can talk more about this when I get back,” she said.
“I’m guessing that’s why you waited until the last minute to tell me. You weren’t seeking permission, just forgiveness.”
“Baby, you know you always give me my way when we argue. Sooner or later you’re going to realize this won’t hurt us and you will let me have it… or forgive me later,” she said.
“Not this time. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Bryce said. “You get on that plane, we are done.”
Bryce’s last sentence was like a spiked glove to Vera’s face. If she heard Bryce’s slip about this being the last straw, it didn’t register.
Bryce thought about going to sleep in the guest room, but then decided he wasn’t going to let his wife chase him out of his bed. He was asleep when Vera came up and climbed into bed.
Bryce got up about an hour earlier than usual. Before he left, he found Vera’s small suitcase ready to go on the guest room bed. It wasn’t there when he got home a little after 5 PM. He called his attorney and said just one word, “Go.”
The cab to the airport pulled up in front of the hotel at almost straight up 3 PM. Anand carried Vera’s bag to the car and put it in the back seat before the pair engaged in a very tearful final kiss… except the kiss was interrupted by a rude man tapping on Vera’s shoulder. The pair tried to ignore the pest, but the man was having none of that.
“Vera England. Are you Vera England?” he inquired.
The pair broke their embrace and both sighed in disgust.
“Yes!” Vera rasped.
“Mrs. England, you have been served,” the man said as he thrust a manila envelope into her hand.
The embrace was quickly forgotten. Tears sprang from Vera’s eyes. She handed the envelope to Anand, who ripped it open angrily.
“Son of a bitch!” Anand yelled. “I thought you said he was a reasonable man, or thoughtful or whatever. You said this wasn’t going to be a problem. He had to move awfully quick to get you served this fast.”
Vera was crying too hard to be thinking rationally. It was going to be a long flight home.
She wasn’t surprised Bryce didn’t meet her at the airport. She took an Uber home. Bryce was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. There was a second cup at Vera’s spot. She took the hint and sat down, tears already starting to fall.
“Please, Vera, quit the fucking waterworks. I’m the one who should be crying. I’m the one who’s been cheated on,” Bryce said.
Vera’s head shot up at Bryce’s statement. The tears stopped immediately, but her blood pressure was going through the roof.
“It wasn’t cheating. I told you what I was going to do,” she said.
“Did I actually agree to your plan? No, I didn’t. Therefore you cheated. You don’t get to set the rules… change the rules in this case,” Bryce said.
“It was one weekend out of our entire married lives,” she said. Two and a half days out of thousands so far, and many thousands more to come. Do you really want to get divorced over that?”
“Actually, I don’t. I think I might have been able to come to grips with this… if it had just been this,” Bryce said, staring directly into his wife’s eyes.
For the first time, Bryce saw his wife break. She was just starting to do the math in her head.
“How clueless do you think I am? This was hardly the first time for the two of you. This was your first weekend… but you two have been fucking for more than two years, as far as I can tell.
“I’ve got to give you credit, though. You’ve been living a double life for at least two years. Perfect wife and cheating whore. I held on, hoping you would come to your senses and give him up, but you crossed the line with your weekend out of time.”
Vera felt lightheaded, even though she was sitting down. She took a sip of her coffee to try to gather her wits.
“Why didn’t you say anything before this? Why didn’t you try to stop me?” she asked in little more than a whisper.
“It had already been going on for quite some time when I found out. I was hoping you would stop because it was wrong… and you love me. Silly me,” he said.
“But I do love you!” she claimed. “I don’t love you any less. But I love him, too. I have the capacity to love you both. You’re my husband, though. You’ve always been number one.”
“No. No. No. There’s no number one. That’s because there’s not supposed to be a number two… or three or four,” he said.
“It’s just you and Anand… well, now just you. He’s gone now, and it’s back to you and me,” Vera said.
“Well, now it’s just you. There’s no me in this equation any more, babe.”
“Aw, come on, Bryce. He’s gone. There’s no reason for a divorce,” Vera said.
“If he hadn’t left, would you have stopped fucking him?” Bryce said.
Vera dropped her eyes. She didn’t have to answer.
“Why did you think you could fuck around with him. How did this start?” he asked.
“You know Anand and like him…” she started before Bryce interrupted.
“Liked,” he said.
“Okay, I get it. But he’s a great guy, and next to you, I think he’s the sexiest man I know. And it just happened…”
“And happened and happened and happened,” Bryce snarked as his wife looked disgusted.
“We developed real feelings for each other. It wasn’t just cheap sex. You know I could never just have cheap sex with someone. I love both of you,” Vera said.
“Aarrgghh! That’s not how it works, babe. You don’t get to love two of us,” Bryce said.
“Did I ever take anything away from you? Did I ever turn you down for sex?” she asked.
“Yes, you gave something to him that you promised would only be mine. We made vows. It’s about much more than sex, babe. Trust. Respect.
“Now that Anand’s gone, I’d just be waiting for you to replace him with somebody else… because you obviously don’t respect me enough not to let something… happen,” Bryce said.
“I can’t see finding a third man in my life to love. Most people are lucky to find one great love, and I’ve found two. I’m already over my catch limit for my lifetime,” Vera said.
“You still don’t get it, do you? The one thing I’m not hearing from you is an apology,” he said.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I never meant to do that. But I couldn’t just tell you because…”
“Because you knew it was wrong!” he interrupted.
“You’re not sorry for the affair, are you?” Bryce continued.
“Honestly, I’m not, Bryce.” Vera said. “I love Anand. I loved our experience together. Like I said, having two men to love and who love me back. I wouldn’t trade that.”
Bryce shook his head in disbelief. He expected remorse and guilt. He got neither, much to his shock.
“What about Liza?” he asked. “She didn’t know about this affair, did she?”
“Didn’t? Oh, no!” Vera said. “Don’t. Please don’t tell me you told her. She didn’t know.
“Oh, my God, she’s going to hate me!”
“Yeah, about that,” Bryce said.
“Why did you tell her?” Vera asked. “She didn’t have to know.”
“She did have to know. We were her friend as well as his. You don’t keep secrets from friends.
“And why shouldn’t she know, if this was such a pure love, practically a love story for the ages.”
Vera balled her fists in frustration. She glared at her husband.
“You’re making this sound cheap and tawdry. It wasn’t like that,” she rasped.
“I’ll bet Liza disagrees with you, as you know I do,” he said.
“They’ve got the two kids, Bryce. You’re going to blow up their family,” she said.
“That’s only if Liza agrees with the way I view things. If she agrees with your view, I guess you’re in the clear. But if she agrees with my view, it still wouldn’t be me blowing up their family. I didn’t sleep with her husband,” Bryce said.
The phone call from Anand to Vera came the next day when Vera was at work. Liza apparently didn’t have enough time yet to have divorce papers drawn up, but when Anand showed up at what was supposed to be his new home in London, his wife wouldn’t even let him in the door.
“I can’t believe your husband did that to me!” he bellowed into the phone. “I thought we were friends.”
“Yeah, well I guess he thought his friend shouldn’t sleep with his wife for the past three years,” Vera said. “I’ve been trying to explain it to him, but he’s not buying it. He’s being a real hard-ass about this. He’s never before not given me my way on anything.”
“I guess this is a little bigger than the color of the living room walls,” a disconsolate Anand said.
It took a week before Vera’s parents called Bryce. He and his in-laws had always had a good relationship, which became stronger when his own parents died in a car accident.
“Have you considered counseling, son?” his father-in-law asked. “The two of you have 10 years in. Weren’t you considering starting a family soon?”
“Yeah, well I guess that’s never going to happen now,” Bryce said.
“Oh, no, son. Don’t let something small mushroom into something fatal,” his father-in-law said.
“Something small?” Bryce questioned.
He quickly figured out Vera hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with her parents. He knew the rest of the conversation wasn’t going to be easy.
“She said the two of you disagreed about something. She didn’t seem to indicate it was anything vital,” his father-in-law said.
“What we disagreed on was her ongoing affair with her former boss. Did you know they had been fu… sleeping together for more than two years?”
Ralph Carville gasped on the other end of the phone. It’s a shock when someone tells a father his little girl is a cheating slut. Bryce next heard him ask his wife if she knew about their daughter having an affair. He heard her stammer, but didn’t hear an answer.
“Damn, Faith! He’s family. How could you do that to him?” he heard Ralph ask his wife. “How long have you known? Shit, woman!”
An incredibly recalcitrant Ralph got back on the line.
“I’m sorry, Bryce. I didn’t know, but apparently my daughter and my wife have been keeping secrets from both of us. I know I didn’t raise her to be a whore.
“An affair for several years? And she thought you were going to go along with that? Damn, I raised an entitled slut. Again, I’m sorry, Bryce.”
“We all are, Dad. Good night.”
Bryce couldn’t believe Vera fought the divorce. It was all over when Vera’s attorney suggested marriage counseling and the judge giggled.
“Really, Mr. Liston. I am well aware that Mrs. England conducted a long-term sexual affair with her then-boss. I have to assume that Mr. England didn’t want that. Quite honestly, only a moron would accept that after what he’s endured.”
The divorce was final six months later. The only bone of contention in the split was the dog, Hank. Bryce assumed the dog would go with him, but Vera insisted the dog go with her because Bryce had given her the dog as a gift. Bryce had finally given in, but when he was moving out of the house, Hank jumped into the shotgun spot in Bryce’s car. Vera called the dog repeatedly before physically lifting the big dog out, only to watch as the dog jumped back in.
“Keep the fucking dog, you bastard!” Vera said.
Bryce noted to himself that this was the first f-bomb he had ever heard Vera utter.