Chapter 16: Confessions

“Daddy! Daddy!” squealed the twins as Frank Houseman came through the front door.

“Howdy, guys!” replied Frank. He set his tennis bag and racket down on the couch and lifted first one, then the other, son up above his head and set them back down.

One of the tow-headed boys looked up and said, “Frankie wanted to know if you brought any tennis balls home.” The boy then turned to his brother and grinned.

Frank knew the twins were up to something, probably trying to see if they could trick him with who was who. He glanced out to the kitchen and caught the eye of his wife Brenda, but she simply looked at him. Normally she would try to give him a non-verbal clue as to which boy was which. Not this evening. “Frankie did, huh? Not tonight, guys.”

The boys giggled and ran off, making their father wonder if he had gotten it wrong. He never knew how his wife kept them straight, and he knew they tried to trick her all the time, too. Shaking his head, he wandered into the kitchen. “Hi, hun.” He stopped in front of Brenda and leaned down to kiss her.

“Hello.” She accepted a quick peck on the lips, then turned away to finish cooking dinner.

“I see you got the Toyota back. Thanks! Everything go okay?” They had switched cars for the day. Frank had taken his wife’s minivan to the club while she took his Corolla, taking it to the local QuikLube for an oil change.

“Just fine.”

It was a strange evening for Frank. Brenda was surprisingly quiet and unresponsive all evening, barely talking through dinner and leaving him alone afterwards in the family room. When he asked if she was all right, she had simply replied, ‘Yes’, and moved off. Chalking it up to that time of the month, he ignored it, even though part of his brain said that it had just been that time last week.

It wasn’t until after eight, when Brenda had managed to put the twins in their bunk beds and come back down that Frank discovered what had his wife so preoccupied. She came in and sat down on an armchair across from him as he was watching television. “Frank, we need to talk.”

“Sure, babe, what about?” A baseball game was starting; the Marlins were playing the Mets and it looked to be an interesting game.

“Turn off the damn game!” she ordered, then stood and went to the TV. Before he could even protest, she had hit the switch and turned off the television.

“What is with you?” demanded her husband. He knew his wife wasn’t as big into sports as he was, but still!

She sat back down in her armchair, then rose up slightly. Reaching into a pocket of her jeans, she pulled something black and stringy out, then held it out in front of her. “Look familiar?” she asked acidly.

It took a second for Frank to recognize the object, then he gave a quiet groan and muttered, “Oh shit!” It was a pair of tiger-striped thong panties, and they weren’t Brenda’s.

“Yeah, oh shit! I was wondering why the guys at QuikLube were snickering and smirking when they finished cleaning your car, until I found these on the passenger seat. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!”

“Oh shit,” repeated Frank.

“That ain’t going to cut it, tennis boy. You want to explain these?” She angrily tossed the thong across the room to her husband, but the fabric fell to the floor halfway to him. Neither one moved to retrieve them. Frank silently brought his hands up and rubbed his face. Thinking he was avoiding the answer, Brenda demanded, “So, whose are they?”

Frank put his hands down and sat upright, to face her directly. Shaking his head in the negative, he said, “I’m not getting her involved between us. It was just sex...”

“You bastard!”

“I’m terribly sorry about this. She has nothing to do with us.”

“You bastard!” Brenda repeated. She got up and stormed out of the room. Frank could hear her footsteps going up the stairs to their bedroom. The bedroom door slammed, but that was it. He stood and crept to the stairs but didn’t hear her going through the closets or packing suitcases. Fortunately, he also didn’t hear their sons waking. He sat back down to consider what to do.

As soon as he had seen the thong, he knew what had happened. Late last week he had an early afternoon, when two cancellations left him without any tennis lessons and a free afternoon. He had decided to leave early and as he was going through the parking lot to his Corolla, he saw Lisette Jorgens standing next to her Mercedes. She had smiled and waved to him, and he had gone over. “Can I get a lift?” she had asked.

“Car problems?”

Lisette had nodded. “It won’t start. It turns over but won’t start. The dealer is coming to pick it up, but I was about to go inside and call a cab.” She tucked her cell phone back in her bag.

Frank nodded. He’d always imagined Lisette as the type of person who would have the Mercedes dealership on her cell phone’s speed dial. She was a damn fine looking blonde, a trophy wife for a husband who did an awful lot of traveling and not enough staying at home. She was in her early thirties, trying hard to look like she was in her early twenties, slim and leggy, and possessed of the most amazing set of silicone tits Frank had ever seen. Her engagement ring wasn’t as large as some worn around the club, being only two carats in size; she made up for it with the diamond necklace, ankle, and tennis bracelets she always wore. Today she was wearing a little one-piece halter top tennis dress, with matching white footies and tennis shoes.

“I can give you a lift home.”

“I was hoping you would say that.” Lisette grabbed her tennis bag and followed Frank to his car. Frank opened her door and Lisette had smiled as she slid inside, showing an awful lot of very tanned and toned leg as she did so. When he climbed in on the driver’s side, he smiled as he noticed that she hadn’t rearranged her tennis skirt. In fact, her attempt to rearrange it as they pulled out of the parking lot had the contrary effect, that of pulling it further up her legs and showcasing the tiny little thong panty she was wearing.

When Frank glanced over and saw how Lisette was sitting, he had looked up at her face, to find her smiling at him. “Barney’s away for the day. He won’t be back until tomorrow, in fact.”

Frank remembered that Barney was Lisette’s husband, who was in his mid-fifties and looked to be in his mid-sixties, an obese and florid faced man who smoked and drank too much and generally looked like an advertisement for a heart attack. “Really?”

“That’s right. Maybe you could come inside for a drink or something?” Lisette batted her eyes and smiled, then reached down with both hands and lifted her bottom up, to peel the little thong down her silky-smooth legs and off her feet.

“Maybe I could at that!” agreed Frank.

Now, Frank understood perfectly what had happened. Rather than putting her panties in her bag, Lisette had managed to drop them on the floor of the Corolla, probably between the seat and the door, where nobody would have noticed them. At least, not until the car detailers put them on the car seat. They probably figured they were Brenda’s. No wonder she had been so embarrassed! Shit!

It was an hour later when Frank Houseman decided to head off to bed. Maybe Brenda would have fallen to sleep. He still had no idea what to say to her.

Frank crept up the stairs and down the hallway and slipped silently into the bedroom. The bedroom lights were out, so he tiptoed into the bathroom and closed the door silently behind him before turning on the light. He stayed as quiet as possible, even to the point of sitting down on the toilet before urinating, and then skipping the flushing, just lowering the lid. It didn’t work. When he returned to the bedroom Brenda was sitting up in bed, with her nightstand light on, looking at him. It was obvious she had been crying.

Frank turned and flushed the toilet, then returned to the bedroom, now wearing nothing more than his usual nighttime attire of clean boxers. Brenda watched him as he climbed into bed next to her. She was sitting there wearing a satin nightshirt, like normal, though she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, with the covers only covering her lap. Frank rolled over to face her. “I am so sorry.”

Brenda nodded. “What happened? Is this the first time? Have there been others?”

Frank took a deep breath. Best to be hung for a ram as for a sheep. “Yes. They’re just women, students who want something other than tennis lessons. They’re just lonely women who want a cock, any cock.”

“And you provided.”

Frank simply shrugged acknowledgement. What more could he say? “I’m sorry.” He wanted to touch her, to ease her hurt, but stopped halfway. Doing anything would only make things worse. He just sat there watching his wife cry. Finally, the suspense killing him, he said, “I know you’re angry at me. Is there anything I can do...”

Brenda turned to face him angrily. “Just shut up!”

Frank clamped his mouth shut.

Brenda looked away for a moment and then looked back again. She seemed a trace calmer. “Yes, I’m angry at you, but I’m also angry at myself. I’m sorry, too. I...” Brenda fell silent.

“Brenda, what?”

“I ... well, I...”

Frank looked at his pretty wife curiously. “Are you trying to tell me something?” Brenda nodded silently and looked away. In amazement, Frank reached a hand out to take hers and asked, “What? You too?”

Brenda simply nodded again.