Chapter 12

It was well after midnight when Barb came in. I heard her open the door and went out to see what shape she was in. She was creeping up the stairs, trying not to make a lot of noise. Then she saw me and she stopped dead. She was a mess. Her hair was tangled, her make-up was smeared, her blouse was buttoned wrong, the stockings she wore this morning were just gone. I can only imagine what shape they’d been in. The worst though was the fresh cum on her face. I didn’t say a word. It was a lot of cum.

I took out my phone and took a picture of her shocked face. “Your dinner’s in the fridge,” I told her and walked back to my office without a backwards glance.

“John,” she said urgently. “I can explain!”

“I’m sure you can,” I told her. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Barb. You’re a grown woman. You only have to answer to yourself.”

She followed me to my office door, pleading. “Please! It’s not what you think!”

“I think the last thing you said to me was that you were all mine tonight,” I said calmly. “I think you’ve been off work for seven hours now and you showed up wearing his cum all over your face and God alone knows where else he put it. That IS all HIS cum, right? You’re not branching out into more adventurous activities, are you?”

“Of COURSE it’s all his!” she said indignantly. “I’m not ... I wouldn’t ... How could you ASK that?!!?”

“Go look at yourself in the mirror and tell me if that looks like one load of cum or more than one,” I suggested. She looked at me like I was crazy for a moment and then she disappeared, going to wash her face, undoubtedly.

I heard the shower start and nodded to myself, thinking that there was a multitude of sin that had been hidden by her clothes. I’d find out later.

When she returned, she was freshly scrubbed and wrapped in her robe. I was sitting there, looking at SUVs online to see if there was one that I liked. She came into the room and wrapped her arms around me from behind, leaning over my shoulder to see what I was looking at.

“Have you made a decision?” she asked, trying desperately to ignore the confrontation we’d had when she got home.

I didn’t bother to answer her, just tensed all the muscles in my neck and shoulders. She felt the change. It must have been like hugging a statue.

“You’re angry,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, John. It WAS just him though. He ... produces more than average. I meant to call you, but time just got away from us. I promise, it won’t happen again. John?”

She was pushing buttons and hoping I’d respond. Instead, I pretended that she wasn’t there and went back to looking for an SUV that had the features I wanted and a decent rating on performance.

She tried to kiss my neck, knowing that was one of my turn-ons, but I filled my head with the sight of her spattered in cum and I told myself that she probably hadn’t washed it all off. That did the trick. Far from the erection she expected to find when she slid her hand down to my crotch, she found me so limp, I might as well be dead.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, but if you thought I’d be turned on by an offer of sloppy seconds, then you really don’t know me. Your dinner is in the fridge. I suggest you enjoy it.”

That got her attention. “God! I’m trying to make up with you, John!”

“You came home to me with his cum all over you,” I told her, turning my chair so we were face to face. “You promised that you’d respect me and you left me wondering if you were with him or had been in an accident or something. You didn’t call me, you left me with the expectation that tonight was for us, so I cooked, because you said you wanted us to have dinner together. I waited up, worried that the police were going to tell me you were in the hospital or worse and then you waltz in looking like you’d been the guest of honor at a porn set. The sad fact is that I was starting to believe that you wanted to make things better between us.”

“I DO want that, John!” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you and I’m sorry I was a mess when I came in. We don’t exactly have a steady place to go to be alone anymore. I didn’t have a chance to clean up.”

I shrugged. “So what happened to you being all mine tonight?” I asked expectantly. “You make me a promise to be here and break it when he crooks a finger?”

“I didn’t exactly promise,” she mumbled. She hadn’t, but she knew it was a pathetic argument. She’d said she’d be home.

“Fair enough,” I shrugged indifferently. “I’ll know better next time.”

That eased some of the tension from her eyes. The mention that there’d be a next time meant that I wasn’t ending things. That was what she was thinking anyway. I meant it as a certainty that she’d let me down any time I depended on her.

“I’m really sorry, John. Just tell me what I can do to make it up to you,” she said contritely.

“Break up with him,” I said.

“John, we talked about this,” she said, scolding me gently.

“No, you dictated terms and told me I could accept them or there’s the door,” I told her. “I accepted them because you swore that you and he both respected me and appreciated that I wasn’t pushing to find out who he was or ruin things for you. He sent you home with his cum on your face, he’s come to our house and he’s going to be back. He doesn’t respect you or me, so he has no reason to stay away. He knows that if I hit him, he can press charges, but you won’t even tell me who he is, so who knows if I’m even hitting the right person?”

She was shaking her head in protest of what I was saying. “I DO respect you!” she swore. “I really do. I can’t just break up with him though. I love you both. You can’t ask me to give him up. I’ll do what I can to make this up to you, John! Just tell me what you need.”

“No, Barb,” I said. “You’ve got apologies stacked out from here to the end of next year. I STILL haven’t seen your completed plan for how you intend to make me feel better from months of you spending every waking moment in his arms. You think buying an SUV is gonna make that hurt go away? You coming home tonight was the beginning of making me feel like you cared. You blew it. So now you need to find another way. You can’t bring yourself to be here to do it. Your commitments to him come first and cum often by the look of things. You can’t just buy your way out of this. It’s nice that you want to buy me nice things, but it feels more like you’re doing it out of pity than because you want me to have nice things.”

“So that’s it then?” she asked, stunned. “It’s him or you?”

“If I gave you that ultimatum, I know you’d choose him,” I said. “I wish you’d just shot me in the head when this all started. You’d be happier with him here, I’d go to my grave blissfully unaware of how awful my life would have been and he’d be able to play with you to his heart’s content without having to go to the inconvenience that you’ve been forced to resort to.”

She slapped me then. “I told you, don’t EVER think like that!” she snapped, her eyes starting to tear up. “I don’t want you to die. I want you to be happy.”

“You’ve pretty much killed my hope of being happy again,” I told her. “Just go, Barb. I’m so sick of this shit that I just want you to do whatever. I’ll start moving my shit out of the house tomorrow and you can have him full-time. We can stay married on paper, if that’s what you want, but I’m sick of being hurt.”

She looked as if I’d told her I was dying. “No, John!” she whispered. “Please stay! I don’t want you to go.”

“What DO you want?” I demanded.

“I want ... I want this to work,” she said. “I want you to be happy, me to be happy and both of us to feel free.”

“And are you happy?” I asked.

“I would be if you’d just relax and find someone of your own,” she said sharply.

“So I’m the problem,” I said, coming to the conclusion for her. “What do you mean by relax? Does that mean that I should stop giving a shit that your boyfriend is writing ‘I was here’ on everything I own with his cum? Does it mean that I should stop giving a shit that you spend more time with him than you do with me? Does it mean I should stop demanding that you respect my boundaries? Does it mean that I should just stop paying attention to what you’re doing at all?”

“John, I just want you to find a girl that makes you happy.”

“So I’m supposed to believe that me getting a girlfriend means that he’ll magically stop being a douche-bag? All that’s going to do is distract me from the shitty things you’re doing to me and our marriage,” I told her.

“Then what’s your solution then?!” She snapped at me, crossing her arms under her breasts and glaring at me.

“You mean what would make me happy?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She started tapping her foot impatiently.

“Respect,” I told her. “Do I expect you to leave him? No, he owns you. He knows it, you know it and I know it. Tonight’s stunt is probably a message to me that I might have gotten a blowjob out of you this one time, but that you’re his territory and that he rules the roost. Maybe that’s not what you think it was all about, but that’s the message I got and there’s nothing you can say or do to convince me otherwise. If it helps, think of it like this: if I borrow your Lexus, you expect me to treat it right. You love your car and you don’t want to see it damaged or abused. Imagine how pissed you’d be if I borrowed your Lexus and then brought it back, covered in filth, seven hours late, ran it out of gas and stripped the gears. You were my Lexus, Barb, and I loved you a Hell of a lot more than any car. I don’t even know who’s using you and they’re getting more mileage in the past six months than I’ve gotten in the last six years. You say it’s off the table for me to expect you to stop seeing him, he’s not about to play by the rules that you set down, so I think my happiness is going to have to wait.”

“So you’d be happy if he was more respectful?” she asked, clarifying.

“At this point, Barb, just do what you want. I’ll stop assuming you’re going to be coming home in the evenings and I’ll stop planning dinner. You’re off the hook. He wants to fuck you in our bed? Great! He wants to stomp around here like he owns the place? Super. You want to go to swinger parties with him? Swell! I just don’t care anymore. If he’s here though, I’m not. I mean like ever. I’ll pack tonight and tomorrow and be out before you get home. I don’t want anything to do with him. You belong to him now. I might as well get real about what that means because you’re just gonna keep hurting me.”

I got up out of my chair and she put her hands on my shoulders. “John, wait! Please! This isn’t what I want!”

“Why not?” I asked her bluntly. “You don’t love me. You don’t like me. You don’t even KNOW me anymore. What do we have in common? You told me that you have SO much in common with Mr. Wonderful. I don’t know shit about real estate. I don’t know any of the same people except Cecilia. I don’t have any of your hobbies. You don’t have any interest in my life. You HATE my fighting career. You refuse to set foot in a gym with me. You made every effort to pull your life and mine apart and separate them.”

“I DO LOVE YOU! WHY CAN’T YOU BELIEVE THAT?!!?” she screamed, anguished now.

“Because you don’t act out of love,” I told her. “If I knew I was doing something that caused you intense pain, I’d stop. I’d beg your forgiveness and I’d promise to rededicate my life to you. I’d hold onto that promise and thank my lucky stars that you gave me a chance to show you how important you were to me. You made me that promise and the second night I was home, you turned off your phone so I couldn’t reach you and then you stood me up for our evening together and came home with proof positive that you were out fucking some other guy while I was sitting here, waiting for you. How much love can there be left when you do something like that?”

“I was stupid, okay! I admit it! I should have come home or I should have called and then made sure to clean up before I got home. I’m sorry!”

“Okay,” I said simply.

“Okay?” she repeated, confused.

“Yeah,” I said. “I believe you’re sorry and I actually accept your apology.”

“You do?” she asked warily. She knew there had to be more to it than this.

“Yeah. If nothing like this happens again, I’ll never bring it up again. I promise,” I told her lightly.

She looked relieved by that. “Thank you, John! You don’t know how much that means to me.”

I shrugged. “Whatever,” I said. I was done playing nice with her. She was probably going to try to get me to crawl into bed with her and cuddle. That was done.

I sat back down at my computer and returned to looking at trucks. I was going to need a new car anyway. It might as well be a nice ride.

“Are you coming to bed?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why not?” she pouted.

“Because I’m hurt and agitated and on-edge,” I told her. “I made up the guest room downstairs.”

“Just come to bed,” she urged me. “I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”

“How?”

“I know it’s been a while since we’ve made love,” she said sweetly. “There’s one thing that you’ve always wanted from me. I can’t think of a better way to apologize.”

She’d never let me put it in her ass before. I knew she did anal with him. I looked up at her and just caught the look of triumph on her face before she suppressed it. “So he got that too, huh?” I said sadly. I really did feel sad about it. I had thought she was saving that for a special occasion. I guess she meant a special person.

“NO!” she lied. “No one’s ever done that with me. I’m offering to let you for the first time.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore, Barb,” I told her tiredly. “You want me to go to bed with you, fine. I don’t want any bribes. I just want to go to sleep.” I turned off the computer and got up.

“It’s not a bribe, John,” she promised. “It’s ... respect. Don’t you want something he can’t have?”

“What I want, is to kill him with my bare hands,” I told her. “I can’t do that, so I’ll settle for keeping away from him and anything that’s his. I’m not in a game of one-up with him. I’d lose. No, I’ve already lost. He’s won absolutely every round.”

“Come on, John. You’ve always wanted my ass. Now you can have it,” she said enticingly. There was something to be said for hate-fucking her once before the end.