I had just gotten off work and it had been a bad day so I stopped at Duke’s for a wind-down drink. I was halfway through my vodka tonic when she came in. She being my wife’s best friend Addison.

I was in a back corner and it was a bit dark and I hoped the Addie wouldn’t see me sitting there. No such luck. She scanned the room like she was looking for someone in particular, spotted me and headed my way as I thought “Fuck! Just what I need right now.”

She walked up to me and asked if I would mind if she joined me and the honest answer would have been yes, but I just shrugged, pointed at the seat opposite. As soon as Addie was seated Marsha arrived and asked Addie what she would like and then went to the bar to get it. As soon as Marsha was gone Addie said:

“It isn’t an accident that I’m here. I intended to be waiting for you at your car when you got off work, but I got held up in traffic. I got there just in time to see you get in your car and leave so I followed you here.”

“Why would you be wanting to meet me after work?”

“I needed to talk to you about a situation we are in.”

“A situation? You and me?”

“Yes and I am going to be blunt about it. Your ever loving wife is cheating on you.”

“I know. I’ve known for about six months now. What I’m not understanding is why the bitch’s best friend feels like she has to rat her best friend out.”

“The asshole she is cheating on you with is my husband.”

“I guess she is a bigger slut than I thought. It wasn’t Harvey that she was fucking when I first found out that she was stabbing me in the back.”

“You don’t know the half of it sweetie. She has been fucking around on you since the day you started going steady back in high school.”

“That far back? I thought it was just recently; maybe the last year or so. I thought we were friends Addie. If you have known for that long why haven’t you ever clued me in?”

“I do consider you a friend Jerry, but you have to remember that I didn’t meet you until the eleventh grade. Cyndi has been my best friend since the first grade. I have never approved of what she was doing to you and I’ve tried countless times to get her to stop before she ended up getting caught. I’ve tried to convince her that she could end up losing you, but she always shrugged it off saying that you would never leave her no matter what. That you loved her so much that you would forgive her anything just to keep her.”

“She got it half right.”

“Half right? What does that mean?”

“I’ll keep her, but there won’t be any forgiveness.”

“Why would you keep her?”

“I talked to a divorce attorney and found out what would happen if I went the divorce route. This is a no-fault divorce state. Everything we have gets split fifty/fifty. She would get custody of the kids and child support. She would get to keep the house until Allen reaches eighteen and I would still have to make the house payments, insurance, utilities and upkeep. I would end up paying alimony since I make more than she does. By the time I got done paying all that I would have barely enough left to buy a tent and live out in the woods somewhere. I’d have to learn to live on ramen noodles and water.

“The only bright spots would be that alimony would stop if Cyn ever remarried and when Allen reached eighteen I could sell the house. Even then I would have to give her half.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yep. Keep going business as usual until Allen turns eighteen and then I’ll dump the bitch. As long as the cunt doesn’t know that I know I’ll still have a sex life, home cooked meals, my laundry done, a clean house to come home to and unlimited time with my kids. All three are mine by the way. I had DNA tests done without Cyn knowing.”

“She always swore she was so careful that you would never find out. How did she slip up?”

“She gave me a social disease. I didn’t know that is what it was until I went to the clinic, but as soon as they told me what it was I knew Cyn was cheating on me. She is the only girl I’ve touched since we started going steady. Once I knew she was cheating on me I hired a private investigator to look into things and he found out she was fucking her boss. I don’t know if she got it from him or not. From what you just told me she could have gotten it from anyone. As far as I know she still has it and is passing it on. That means that she could have given it to Harv and he may have passed it on to you. You probably should get checked.”

“I thought doctors were required to get a list of whoever you had sex with so they could be called in and checked?”

“I got tested at a clinic. No way was I going to go to the family doctor. When I got tested I told them the only sex I’d had in the last two years was with a paid escort when I went to a convention in Miami. Besides. If I gave them Cyndi’s name they would call her in and cure her. That would keep her from giving it to whoever she cheated on me with and I didn’t want that. It would be just what they deserved for going behind my back and fucking my wife.”

“And you are still making love to Cyndi?”

I laughed at that. “I don’t make love to the bitch; I just fuck her. When I got home from the clinic I told her the doctors said I had a rare skin affliction caused by my prostate and the doctor said it would be best if I always used a condom when I had sex. The stupid cunt bought it. She doesn’t like condoms so our sex life dropped from six or seven times a week to two or three. I think she would stop having sex with me altogether if she thought she could get away with it, but she is smart enough to know if she did it would make me start wondering if she wasn’t getting it someplace else.”

“Allen is only eight. Can you do it for ten more years?”

“I don’t honestly know, but I have to try. My only other option is divorce and we all know how father’s get fucked around when it comes to the custody of the kids. Maybe when James and Carol leave the nest I can pull the plug. Allen will be sixteen then and I could probably handle the divorce provisions for the two years until he turned eighteen.

“And there is always the chance that Allen would chose to go with me if Cyn and I split. If the child is sixteen this state allows the child to choose which parent he wants to live with. For now I’ll just have to tough it out and hope Cyndi gets run over by a bus and I can collect on her life insurance. What are you going to do as far as Harv goes?”

“Don’t know. I haven’t confronted him yet. I thought I would do you the courtesy of filling you in before hitting him with what I know. I figure once I light into him it will all come out in the open because after Harv I will be getting into it with my ex-best friend and when that happens it will be out in the open and you would find out. I just wanted you to be prepared for it.”

“Thank you for the thought. But you have sparked my curiosity and I would like to know a little more about what you know about Cyndi’s activities. I’d like to try and figure out how she could be fucking around on me since we started going steady without me ever having a clue. Christ Addie; that is over sixteen years. I just can’t believe she could get away with it for that long without me ever having a clue.”

“What can I say sweetie; you loved the slut so much you were blind to her faults. You either overlooked or ignored the clues because you loved her so much it never entered your head that she wasn’t the perfect wife and mother you thought she was. Of course I don’t have any room to talk. I felt the same about Harvey until I found out he was fucking Cyndi.”

“How did you catch them?”

“Harv called and said he had to work late and not to hold dinner. I decided to go shopping since he wouldn’t be coming home so I headed for the mall. I have to drive right by your place to get to the mall and I saw Harv’s car in your driveway. I naturally got curious and I pulled over and parked. I’m not some dumb bimbo and I pretty much had figured out what was going on. I knew Cyndi was a slut and Harv had to work late, but his car is parked at your house? Two and two has always added up to four for me.

“You know how Cyndi and I are. We don’t call ahead and we don’t ring doorbells. We just walk in and holler out “Where are you” and wait for the “I’m in the kitchen” or “I’m in the basement.” Having a damned good idea of what I was going to find when I walked in I kept quiet. They were making so much noise they wouldn’t have heard me anyway. The noise was coming from the bedroom so I walked up to it, looked in the open door, verified what I thought was going on and then I left.

“I admit that I was pretty damned close to running in there and attacking both of them, but again, I’m not some dumb bimbo and I knew I couldn’t hurt either of them as bad as Harv could hurt me when he fought back. I figured I could hurt him more by fucking over him in a divorce and I could hurt Cyndi more by letting you know what a slut she was.”

“That was probably the night I was out of town attending that seminar in Dallas.”

“To fuck over him in the divorce I hired a private detective to find me something I could use. He found out that the two of them were getting together in a motel on their lunch hours.”

“You need to hurry home?”

“Not really. Why?”

Care to have dinner with me. You can fill me in on all that I never knew about my devoted and loving wife.”

“I can do that. I’ll just call Harv and tell him I’m working late. If he can do it I should be able to do it too.”

For a second I wondered if she meant that if he could fuck around she could too, but I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind. Addie was a very sexy looking lady, but I was nowhere near being ready for something like that.

Over dinner Addie filled me in on all that she knew of that Cyndi had done. Back in our younger years when we started going steady (we were eighteen at the time) and exchanged our virginities I just knew that I had found my soulmate and I was certain that she felt the same way. One of the things I did in my teens was work on my Uncle Wendell’s farm on summer vacations. According to Addie while I was ploughing the fields at Uncle Wendell’s farm Cyndi was getting ploughed at home by guys who I’d thought were my friends. And who, according to Addie, were still fucking my wife every chance they got. I was surprised to learn that Cyn liked threesomes and gangbangs and had at least one every time I went out of town on business.

“Her first one, as far as I know was at her bachelorette party. We went to a bar that had male strippers. She did five of them after the placed closed. I don’t think she meant to do it. She picked one out to have a last fling with and was doing him in a back room when another stripper walked into the room. When the first guy finished and pulled out the second one stepped into his place and Cyndi didn’t say no so he started to ride. The first guy seeing that Cyndi didn’t complain spread the word and the other strippers came into the room. I don’t even think she was aware that the first guy had gone and been replaced by the second. She was pretty wasted from all the booze she’d had and was still coming down from the orgasm the first guy gave her when the second one started on her. After that it took on a life of its own as the five did her.”

“And you just stood there and watched?”

“Of course not. I was doing one of the other dancers while Cyn was doing her first one, but when mine was done I said no to all the others. And no I don’t feel bad about it. I didn’t have a ring on my left ring finger, I wasn’t going steady with anyone and I hadn’t even met Harvey yet.

“The next day, after she sobered up, she told me that she would like to do it again when she was sober, but I didn’t think she would. I honestly thought that once she was married to you she would stop running around and be a good wife, but I was wrong. She screwed Tim Wilson three days after you got back from your honeymoon and talked him into letting her be the entertainment at his bachelor party. You weren’t able to attend because you had to go out of town on business. She did a strip tease dance and then took on all twelve of the guys who were there. I didn’t see it, but she told me all about it the next day. She had loved it and she told me she was going to try and find ways to do more of them.”

I sat there stunned at the enormity of it. Sixteen years and I had no fucking clue. I took a pen out of my pocket, grabbed a napkin of the table and then asked Addie for a list of who she knew for a fact was fucking my wife. I wrote them down as she named them and when I was done I had a ‘who’s who’ of the guys I had grown up with, gone to school with and who I had thought were my friends.

“Those are the only ones I know for sure” Addie said when she finished naming names.

“I need a big favor Addie.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to let Cyndi know I know all of this. Please don’t tell her that you told me when you call her out over Harvey. I’ve got some serious thinking to do about what you have just told me and I would prefer that Cyndi keeps on thinking that I am fat, dumb, happy and clueless.”

“You aren’t anywhere close to being fat sugar.”

“A figure of speech Addie, but you can’t argue the dumb and clueless part. I would like it if you would let me know how things go when you confront her.”

“It will be a day or so before I do it. I’m going to nail Harvey on it tonight and then give him enough time to let Cyn know they have been busted. I want her to know what is coming her way when I see her next.”

We left the restaurant and went our separate ways. As I drove home I wondered if I had it in me to be able to pretend all was right in my world or would I give away that all wasn’t right as far as I was concerned. I was sure I could have handled it when I only knew about her boss, but now knowing everything that Addie had told me I wasn’t so sure any more.

I lucked out and Cyn wasn’t home when I got there which gave me more time to get my emotions under control. I wondered which of my friends she was fucking before I remembered that it was the day that Cyn took Carol to her music lessons and James and Allen to their Tae Kwon Do lessons. Then I had a thought on that. Did she drop off the kids, go meet one of her lovers and then go back and pick the kids up? If so I wondered if I would be able to tell if I fucked her that night.

I thought back to the times I’d fucked her after finding out about her hotel visits with her boss and I couldn’t remember anything different in her, but then it hit me; how would I know since it looked as if I’d been following someone into her since we started going steady sixteen years ago.

I got a beer out of the fridge and then sat down at the kitchen table. I took out the list of names that Adie had given me and then sat there drinking as I made plans on how to get even with the shitheads who were supposed to be my friends. Some of them would be easy and others not so, but I promised myself I would get even with all the bastards. I was still going over the list and making plans when Cyndi and the kids got home. I put the list in my pocket and prepared to give an Academy Award performance as a loving husband. I managed to get through the evening without giving Cyn any reason to be suspicious.

Addie called me at work the next afternoon. She had confronted Harv and things hadn’t gone well. They had ended up yelling at each other and it escalated until Harv had hit her. She called the cops and when they got there Harv told them that she had hit him and that all he had done was try to hold her off. The cops asked her if that was true and she pulled out a tape recorder she had hidden to tape the confrontation so she could play it for Cyndi when Addie confronted her. The cops listened to the tape, cuffed Harv and hauled him away.

“The asshole even said it was my fault. He told me that if I wasn’t such a dud in the bedroom he wouldn’t have had to go elsewhere to get satisfied. My plan has gone to shit. He was supposed to call Cyndi and let her know I was on to them so Cyn would dread having to look forward to seeing me, but Harv won’t be calling anyone for a while unless it is to try and find someone to bail him out of jail. It damned sure won’t be me.

“The situation does change things for me. I’ve already talked to an attorney and when Harvey does get out there will be a restraining order keeping him away from me and the house and he will be served with divorce paperwork as soon as possible. I called Cyn ten minutes ago and asked her to meet me for drinks after work. I’m going to confront her so you can pretty much look forward to seeing her on edge when you get home. I’m going to hint that I’m so pissed at her for stabbing me in the back that I might just tell you what a slut she is.”

“I’ll be surprise if she is even home when I get there. She will probably be so nervous she won’t want me to see it because she knows that I’ll ask her what is wrong. Don’t forget to give me a call and let me know how she reacts.”

“I plan on it. Talk to you later.”

The day got busy for me and I put Cyndi and our situation out of my mind as I hustled to get everything done. I ended up working past quitting time and I was just getting ready to leave the office when the phone rang. I sat back down and took the call and it was Addie and she had just left Cyndi.

“Got time or a drink?”

“Meet you at Duke’s in ten minutes.”

She got there five minutes after me and I already had her drink on the table. She sat down and I said “Okay; tell me all about it.”

“I’ll do better than that” and she took a tape recorder out of her purse. “I’ll let you listen to the whole thing.”

She set the recorder on the table pushed ‘play’ and then picked up her drink. I heard the waiter take her drink order, listened as some guy tried to pick her up and then heard my wife’s voice as she walked up to the table.

“Hey girlfriend. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just needed to talk to you about a problem I have.”

“Lay it on me Ad; you know I’m always here for you.”

“Harv is in jail. He hit me last night and I called the cops on him. I’m going to press charges against him for spousal abuse.”

“Harv hit you? Why in God’s name would he do a thing like that?”

“He got pissed at me when I went off on him for fucking you.”

“Whoa! Are you out of your cotton picking mind? Me and Harv? Wherever did you get that weird idea from?”

“Watching you fuck him on your bed when I stopped by to see you on the fourteenth. Then to get what I needed to divorce his sorry ass I put a private detective on him and he found out about the times you and my fuckface of a husband had long lunches at the Starlight Motel. The only reason I’m meeting you here is that I thought ending a twenty-eight year old friendship should be done in person.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“Of course I can you stupid cunt. You were supposed to be my best friend and you stab me in the back by fucking my man? Damned straight I mean it.”

“You don’t understand. I had to. I didn’t want to but I had to.”

“Don’t try to hand me that shit!”

“I’m not lying Ad. I had to. Harv came to me and told me he was tired of seeing me fuck everyone else and that it was his turn. I laughed at him and told him to eat shit and die. He told me that I would screw him or he would tell Jerry all about what I’ve been doing. I couldn’t let that happen. Jerry wouldn’t understand and I couldn’t take the chance. I’m pretty sure he loves me enough to forgive me, but I just couldn’t chance it. You know I love him to death Ad. I can’t lose him.”

“That’s all horseshit to me Cyn. You should have come to me like any real best friend would have and together we could have handled the problem, but you couldn’t do that could you! Oh no, not you. You forget how well I know you Cyn. You listened to Harv and said to yourself “Oh goodie! A cock I’ve never had before and a good reason to use if my friend Addison ever finds out.”

“No Cyn; you knew it was wrong of you and you did it anyway. I’m so pissed at you right now that I’m seriously thinking of calling Jerry and telling him of everything you have done since you hooked up with him. The only reason I might not do it is because he is such a great guy I don’t want to be the one to inflict the pain on him that would come with knowing the woman he loved is nothing but a round heeled slut. Then again I might be doing him a favor and giving him what he needs to get shut of your cheating ass.

“So congratulations Cyn. You have not only played a part in ruining my marriage, but you have killed a friendship that I once thought meant something to you.”

There was the sound of Cyndi sobbing and then “Don’t go Ad; we nee...” And her voice fading as Addie walked away from her.

Adie shut the recorder off and said “You know what the worst part of this is? I know that she does love you to death and it will probably kill her to lose you. On the other hand seeing her in pain is something that would do my heart good. So what now?”

“Same plan as before. Keep up the pretense until the kids are gone and then dump her ass.”

“You don’t have to do that. There is another way.”

“What would that be?”

“You don’t have to live in a tent and live on ramen noodles. I have an empty spot at my place now and I’m a pretty decent cook. And just think of how much that would hurt the bitch. You living with me.”

“It is a very tempting idea, but it wouldn’t solve the major problem. I don’t want to be separated from my kids and given the way the courts favor women in divorces she would be certain to get custody and I do not want to be a part time dad so I have to hang in there with Cyndi.”

“Do you like sex with a rubber?”

“Not really, but it is a necessary evil where having sex with the bitch is concerned.”

“I don’t like sex with a rubber either and I don’t need one for birth control. Harv and I have never had kids because I can’t conceive. There is a problem with my tubes. The little swimmers can’t get to my eggs. What I am offering here is a friends with benefits relationship.”

“Again it is a tempting idea, but I can’t see it working. Cyn would undoubtedly find out and that would put my plans to hang in there until the kids are grown in jeopardy.”

“We could take pains to see that she would never find out.”

“Like the ones she took so I’d never find out? Something that you never think of or expect will always jump up and bite you on your ass. I can’t take the chance Addie. If it weren’t for the kids I’d take you up on your offer in a heartbeat, but I can’t do anything that might cost me my kids.”

“Keep in touch then. Who knows; she might just get run over by a bus and free you up.”

Before I left she handed me the tape from her recorder and told me that maybe I could find a use for it.

When I got home my ‘loving wife’ did seem to be a bit out of sorts. Actually a saying of my grandfather’s seemed to fit. “Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

I was in just the right mood to play mind-fuck games with Cyndi so I did. After my greeting hug and kiss I asked:

“Have you talked to Addie lately?”

I saw her face pale a touch as she said “No; why do you ask?”

“You know my friend Wally? The cop?”

“Yes. He’s been here a time or two for barbecues.”

“I ran into him today. He knows how tight you are with Addie so he asked if I knew that Harv was in jail. Said Harv was arrested for beating on Addie. I just wondered if you’d talked to her. I’m naturally curious about it. I always thought that their marriage was a strong as ours. The only reason I could think of for him to hit her would be if he caught her cheating on him and just the thought of that is ridiculous. Addie would no more cheat on him than you would cheat on me. If there is any one thing that I can be absolutely sure of is that you and Addie are the most faithful women in this town. So, what’s for dinner?”

Over dinner the kids told us about their day at school and what was going on in their social circles. After dinner the kids went to do their homework and I helped clear the table and put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. As I was finishing up I casually said:

“Why don’t you call Addie? I’m really curious about why Harvey is in jail.”

I left the kitchen and headed for the garage to work on the lawn mower. I would have bet good money that Cyndi would avoid me for the rest of the evening so I wouldn’t be asking her if she had called and talked to Addie.

I would have lost the bet. As soon as I got back into the house she said she had tried calling Addie, but that she was either out somewhere or wasn’t taking calls.

“I’ll try again in the morning.”

I could have pushed it a bit just to try and make her sweat, but I thought better of it. If I pushed to hard things might take on a life of their own and it might put what Cyndi has been doing out in the open and I sure didn’t want that. Cyn had to believe that I was clueless for my plan to work.

There might still be a fly in the ointment. What would Harv do when he got out of jail? I didn’t think he would come to me and rat himself out, but you could never tell what a stupid man was likely to do and he had proven his stupidity, to me anyway, when he beat on his wife. To me that was something that no sane man would do.

Cyn had just finished telling me that she couldn’t reach Addie when the phone rang. I picked it up, said hello and heard a recorded message asking me to vote for Proposition 3 in the coming election. I knew I shouldn’t do it. I’d already decided not to push too hard, but I just could not resist the opportunity to tweak Cyn’s nose. My only excuse for what happened next is that I must have had a period of temporary insanity or had gone temporarily brain dead.

“Oh hi Addie. We were just talking about you. Cyn has been trying to get in touch with you.”

“We heard that Harv is in jail. Is it true?”

“Really?”

“Sure. How about the Village Inn on Wilcox?”

“Cyn is right here. Want to talk to her?”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

I hung up the phone. “Harv is in jail for beating on her. Who would have ever expected that?”

I started to leave the room and Cyndi asked “What was that about tomorrow at the Village Inn?”

“She asked me to meet her for lunch. Says she wants my advice on something.”

I walked out of the room and headed upstairs to shower before going to bed. I could feel Cyn’s eyes on my back and I wondered just what was running through her mind. On the way up the stairs I had the idea that it might be to my benefit to tape further conversations with Cyndi. I stopped at the spare bedroom that I had turned into a home office and den and got the mini-cassette recorder that I used for note taking. In the bedroom I put the recorder on top of the dresser, undressed and went into the shower.

When I came out of the shower I found Cyndi sitting on the edge of the bed wringing her hands and with tears on her cheeks. She looked up at me with a look on her face that I had never seen before and asked:

“Do you love me Jerry? I mean really, really love me?”

I turned to the dresser and got out a clean pair of pajamas and with my body blocking her view I turned on the tape recorder. I turned back to her.

“I would have thought that the last sixteen years would be the answer to that question. Have I ever in all that time given you any reason to doubt it?”

“No; not at all, but I’m really asking is if you love me enough to forgive me for doing really bad things behind your back?”

I didn’t want it. I wanted to avoid it at all cost, but it was my own stupidity that brought it about. I just had to get cute with that fucking phone call. I did it to myself so I took a deep breath and said:

“No Cyndi; I don’t love you enough to forgive you for what you’ve been doing.”

“You know?”

“Kind of hard not to when you get a dose of gonorrhea from the only women you’ve slept with in the last sixteen years.”

Her face paled and then she said “The rubbers?”

“Yep! Got myself cured and decided I didn’t want to catch it again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why? So you could get rid of it? If you got rid of it you couldn’t give it to the assholes you were fucking and I really wanted them to pay a price for fucking my loving wife behind my back. Why do you think Chuck Meyers and Bill Denton got divorced? You gave them the gift that keeps on giving and I guess their wives didn’t like it when the gift was passed on to them.”

I didn’t know if that was true or not, but their names were on Addie’s list and both of them had gotten divorced in the last four months.

“You know and you still make love to me?”

“I don’t make love to you Cyndi; I fuck you and there is a difference.”

“Why are you here? If you know why didn’t you do something when you found out?”

“I did do something. I hired a private investigator and he found out about the long lunches you and your boss take at local motels. I took that information to a divorce attorney and he explained to me just how fucked up my life would become if I pursued a divorce. What he told me convinced me that I’d be better off in the long run if I just toughed it out. So that is where I’m at. Business as usual in the Tompkin’s household.”