Chapter 2

To my surprise, it took almost an hour for my darling wife to make it the few blocks from where she’d been fucking the Hennings to the home she and I had shared for the last eighteen months—since we’d bought it, in fact. I remembered how hard we’d struggled to find enough money for the down payment—the mortgage payments weren’t easy either—but Faye had wanted it as a symbol we were rising in our city’s society. She’d been so happy when we moved in. At the time, I was glad we’d done it.

Then she’d “needed” the new car to carry potential buyers around—$60,000 worth of new car, to be exact. Thinking back, Faye got the house she wanted, and I made do with a glitchy desktop computer until my company provided me with a laptop. Faye got a classy new automobile, I got a flying toy someone else didn’t want any more. Now, Faye got to explore her sexuality and I got to sit at home and wonder what the hell had happened to my world.

I filled the time waiting for her looking over the porno flick I’d made of the three of them. I even had time to put together a video of the highlights. I thought a “highlight reel” might be put to good use someday.

Faye came in the door screaming mad. Locks of her hair were still soaked and hanging down her over face. She had on the pant suit she’d worn to work this morning, but it had wet spots in a variety of places. It looked like she’d broken a heel somewhere along the line, because she had one shoe on and was carrying the other with the heel jutting crookedly off to the side.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” she screeched at the top of her lungs. Her face was a mottled shade of angry red and her features were set in a mask of over-the-top rage. Her eyes were shooting bolts of lightning at me.

Apparently, she’d figured out what the wrecked drone on the Hennings’ patio meant, then. Because of the length of time since I’d sent the craft into its crash dive, I’d actually begun to wonder.

I snorted. She was using an interesting tactic—one I used often during hostile interviews with problematic managers and executives in one of my boss’ corporations. Apparently, Faye had taken notice of the old saying that the best defense was a good offense. I let a half-smile twist my lips for a second. It seemed to enrage her even more.

“GOD DAMN IT! YOU COULD A’ KILLED SOMEBODY WITH THAT ... THING!” she screamed.

I just watched her. I couldn’t find the woman I’d married in the shrieking harridan in front of me.

Normally Faye was a very attractive woman who stood five feet, four inches in her stockinged feet, with shoulder-length brunette hair framing a heart shaped face. A cute little snub nose over pink, kissable lips and sturdy chin was the first things that attracted me all those years ago. She had 34-B breasts—B-plus, I always told her—an excellent figure and nice legs. The shrew standing there screaming at me with hatred in her face was a sodden, stumpy caricature of a women.

“WHAT THE HELL’S WRONG WITH YOU, YOU JERK!” she brayed.

I don’t know what I’d expected—maybe some kind of apology, perhaps a little remorse? Apparently not. On the other hand, I could go on offense too.

“YOU GODDAMN SLUT WHORE!” I roared. I’m just under six-feet tall and I’m blessed with a fairly deep voice with lots of lung power to go along with it. Without a doubt, she heard me loud and clear. It GOT her attention.

“GO UPSTAIRS AND WASH THE STENCH OF THOSE TWO SHITHEADS OFF YOU RIGHT NOW!” I continued, before she could respond. “ ... AND FOR GOD’S SAKE USE LOTS OF SOAP AND GET THAT BITCH’S CUNT JUICE OFF YOUR DAMNED FACE!”

She didn’t have anything on her face that I could see, but what I said shut her up in a hurry. A tiny vestige of a guilty conscience, possibly? Was there a chance she might truly feel a little shame?

She had the good grace to simply turn away and hobble upstairs on her one remaining high heel. I didn’t know why she hadn’t taken both shoes off before now.

“And Faye... ?” I called to her, moderating my volume and tone, “when you come back down, you better keep a civil tongue in your head, understand? You’ve disrespected our marriage enough for one day and I ... will ... not ... tolerate any more screaming out of you, UNDERSTAND?” She didn’t answer—she didn’t nod or anything—but she went up without any protest. A moment later, I heard the shower start up in our bedroom.

Faye came back down after only fifteen minutes or so, quicker than I’d thought she would, but maybe she was eager to get this over with. Perhaps she was eager to plead her case. I doubted there would be much of an apology at this point, though. If she had that in mind, she’d have taken much longer in the shower. I know her. My Faye hates to admit she was wrong about anything. It would have taken double that length of time to talk herself into an admission of guilt.

She was dressed in one of my old long-sleeve sweat shirts, a pair of blue jeans and some sneakers. My wife was clearly trying for the sex-less look to diminish the image in my mind of what she’d been doing naked not too long ago.

“Sit down, why don’t you?” I asked her politely from the living room. I gestured toward the couch across the wide coffee table. I was sitting in my La-Z-Boy with my feet on the floor instead of having the footrest up.

She slipped off her sneakers in front of the couch, sat, and tucked her bare feet under her. She opened her mouth, but I cut her off.

“I’d like to understand a couple of things, if you don’t mind,” I told her. “ ... I guess number one would be WHY THE GODDAMN HELL DID YOU SUDDENLY DECIDE TO BE THE NEIGHBORHOOD WHORE?”

Faye recoiled backward into the cushion.

“I beg your pardon!” I added hastily. “I kinda let things get away from me for a second, there; I’ll try to keep my voice down.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“If you would be so kind,” I said in an overly-polite tone, “would you mind telling me why you decided to kill our marriage by fucking someone—two someones—and, oh by the way, how long has it been going on, if you don’t mind letting me in on the secret?”

“Matt, baby... , “ Faye said in measured tones, “I am so sorry you had to see that at the Hennings...”

I picked up on that. People parsed words in my profession all the time.

“You’re sorry I SAW it,” I shot back, “but you’re not sorry you DID it, is that what you’re saying?” I interrupted.

Faye’s lips tightened. “Honey... , “ she said, refusing to acknowledge my question. She doggedly returned to her earlier line. “This doesn’t have to go down this way. We can get past this, and actually we can make things better. I should have talked to you before, I know that now—”

She leaned forward on the couch. “Listen, Matt, it’s not like I was a virgin when we got married and neither were you; we both know that! I haven’t done anything with Taylor and Brianna I hadn’t done already, mostly with you, okay?” She paused, watching me closely for my reaction. “Look, honey, all we need to do is make some adjustments, and everything will be all right...”

She was watching me closely. I tightened my jaws and didn’t say a word. Truthfully, I wondered where the hell she was going with this. There was still no sign of an apology; only that she was sorry I’d caught her. I gestured for her to continue.

“ ... And I’m NOT a slut or a whore,” she added, apparently nettled at what I’d said earlier. “Don’t you dare call me that!?”

I didn’t comment.

“We were ... it was just sex and—” she told me.

“Awwww ... CRAP!” I interjected explosively, slapping my right hand down on my knee. I shook my head disappointedly. “I read up on shit like what’s happened here. Did you know there are lots of websites where betrayed spouses congregate to make up support groups?” I asked her, pretty much rhetorically.

“Apparently, ‘it was just sex’ is the number two most often used excuse made by a cheating slut,” I continued. “I was shootin’ for number one, darn it. The most often used bullshit is... , “ (I did some air quotes with my fingers) “... ‘it’s not what it looks like, honey’ ... or some variation of that. Dammit, Faye, couldn’t you be a little more creative?”

Faye’s features tightened. “It WAS just sex, baby,” she retorted vigorously. “That’s all it was—just three people having fun in the afternoon—that’s all!”

“Fun!” I shot back at her. “I must have misunderstood. Darn, I thought it was something else. Well, heck!” I retorted. “I should a’ known better, huh?”

I’m pretty sure the grin on my face was more a grimace than an expression of enthusiasm. I leaned forward in my seat in mock enthusiasm. “Hey ... you know what?” I asked in a conspiratorial tone. “I like fun! How come I wasn’t out there, naked and fucking someone, huh? Can you tell me why I wasn’t included in this ... uh ... fun?”

Faye looked down, showing a little bit of remorse for the first time. There wasn’t much, and it was fleeting, but maybe there was a little hope.

“We were going to bring you in... , “ she muttered.

“Oh? ‘Bring me in’ ... hmmmmm. ‘Bring me in’,” I repeated. “Just what does that mean, Faye?” I asked mockingly. “Does that mean you three super-cool kids were going to let lil’ ol’ me join your secret club, someday when I earned the right to fuck with the big boys and girls?? Is THAT what you had in mind ... honey?” I asked derisively.

She didn’t answer immediately, so I jumped right back in.

“Bull ... SHIT” I snapped. “You never intended me to find out. This ‘bring me in’ is some crappy line you three came up with on the fly after you found out you were busted!”

Faye hid behind her eyelids for a moment. “Okay,” she murmured, opening her eyes again, but refusing to look me in the eye, “you’re right. We just didn’t think. We should have set things up so you were included right from the start—”

“NO!” I shot back at her before she could finish. She wasn’t getting it. “What you SHOULD have done is ASK me whether I thought we ... US ... Mr. And Mrs. Singletary ... as a married couple ... as a husband and wife who took vows NOT to be intimate with other people, ought to even CONSIDER relaxing that commitment and go fucking around, isn’t that what you should have done, Faye?” I asked.

“Damn you!” she threw back at me, her face contorting with a new anger and flushing crimson. “OKAY! Yeah, I should have done that. I screwed up; I’m sorry!”

“Yes, you did screw up!” I concurred. “You took it upon yourself to betray the marriage and make a mockery of our wedding vows. Would you mind explaining how come I don’t get a vote in things like that?”

Damn it ... you took it upon yourself to decide for both of us? What the hell, Faye?”

“Baby, it’s not too late!” Faye replied earnestly, ignoring everything I’d just asked. “Yeah, I get it; I should have come to you first, and then everything would have been right out in the open, but we can’t change that now, right? We don’t have any way of getting back to then and making it all come out the way it should.”

I shrugged noncommittally. “Just for the sake of discussion,” I said, “how was it that you did not even THINK about talking to me, way back when, huh? What made you think it was okay to make a decision that would eventually have to affect both of us, and our marriage, can you answer me that?”

She waved her hands helplessly. She apparently didn’t have an explanation; she hadn’t thought she needed one? Very curious.

“Annnngggghhh!” I growled. I pulled in a big gulp of air and let it out.

“Well ... okay, let me ask that question from a little different angle. I’m really trying to figure out some things here. Would you tell me why was it that you didn’t even bother asking me if I wanted to join a little sex club?” I asked. “You said y’all were just –what’d you say?—just three people having fun out there, right?

“Hell ... like I said ... I like to have fun, prob’ly as much as the next guy,” I continued. “Why didn’t you even consider your ol’ husband might like to have fun, too? You might’ve talked me into it, assuming you could’ve explained just how it was a good thing to do to our marriage. Hell, Brianna is pretty hot; she’s almost like one of those trophy wives we hear about, huh? I bet I could’ve shoved my dick in her deep enough to make her go off like a roman candle, whatcha wanta bet?

“I’m just curious, dear wife, why didn’t you ... ah ... what would you call it? ... invite me into the group right at the start? Why wasn’t my opinion important enough to be asked for when y’all were settin’ things up, huh?” I paused. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Faye admitted, hanging her head. “I don’t remember—well ... maybe because I didn’t think you’d actually do it...” she added after a moment’s reflection.

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere!” I said. “You figured I wouldn’t want to do it? If that was the case, why didn’t it occur to you maybe it was WRONG to do it?”

She didn’t answer. Her expression showed her frustration. There were a lot of things Faye did not want to explore in this conversation: right and wrong were two of them.

So I preempted the conversation again, going back to something I’d said earlier.

“I’m just an ol’ ‘stick in the mud’ and y’all are the cool ones—the ones who know how to have ‘fun’—and besides, you’re the smart ones—you get to do all sorts of things us second-class, not-plugged-in folks, aren’t cool enough to do, right?”

“That wasn’t the way it was!” Faye protested. “We ... I ... just didn’t think you would...”

Again with that. I wondered how to get through to her.

“Okay ... so you didn’t think I would agree to get into this,” I said slowly. “You figured your husband, your partner in this marriage, would be opposed to having sex outside that marriage—the marriage contract, you might say—but you did it anyway. Don’t I have the right to the opinion that was a bad thing? Pray tell ... how did you decide ignoring how I would feel was a good thing to do?”

Faye could see where my questioning was going. She did NOT want to go there and shook her head irritably. She tried to regain some of the high ground by ignoring my questions and returning to her own agenda.

“Matt, baby, you know I wasn’t a virgin when we met; you even know who I was seeing back then, remember? And I know who you were with, too—it was Kaitlyn, remember?—the girl you were sleeping with when I first met you? See... ?” She watched me for a minute.

When I didn’t react, I guess she was encouraged and figured I’d accepted her point. I hadn’t, but I was beginning to see Faye was confusing things that happened before she and I pledged to a committed relationship, with things that should not happen afterward.

“Matt, I know you aren’t a ... you aren’t a prude or anything. You can’t be upset at...” She lowered her volume and dropped an octave. “ ... at what ... I was doing with Brianna, right? And...” She grew a tad more tentative. “And what Taylor was doing to ... doing with me ... it wasn’t anything you haven’t done a gazillion times, right? So—’’

I cut her off, chopping my right hand down in a tomahawk move.

“No, Faye ... it wasn’t the sex you were having—it’s that you were having sex, and you shouldn’t have been doing it, DAMMIT!”

She didn’t like that at all. She tried to recover.

“But ... wait, Matt ... you said ... you just said you wouldn’t mind doing Brianna! You said that!” Faye leaned forward for emphasis. “It isn’t too late to make things right, honey. I messed up big time—I just wasn’t thinking straight—by not including you right from the start—but we can put that behind us...”

She pulled her feet from under her and settled them on the floor. She scooted her ass forward to the edge of the couch cushion and leaned forward toward me to emphasize her words and impress me with her sincerity.

“Listen, Matt ... look ... here’s what we can do, baby...” Faye reached her hand out toward me as if to touch my arm or something, but it was too far for her to reach me across the big expanse of carpet. I’m sure my facial expression was a little foreboding too. What was in my mind at that instant, was that I’d rather cuddle with a big cockroach than allow Faye’s hand to touch me. At any rate, she didn’t get up to cross over to me.

“Taylor an’ Brianna an’ me were talking after... , “ Faye said, “ ... after that damned thing fell ... over at their house...” She was stumbling badly, obviously trying to avoid any trigger words that might set me off again.

“What we can do—Taylor suggested it, honey—what we can do is, you could have me and Brianna both—or just one of us alone—if you wanted it that way ... and for three months, Taylor couldn’t have anyone but his wife, to make up for the time you lost...” Her words trailed off. I wondered if she was belatedly realizing how ugly and sleazy that sounded.

“So ... I gather “three months” is how long y’all have been fucking, is that right?” I asked.

Faye nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Is that right? Three goddamn months?” I was getting a little more irritated. “ANSWER ME, DAMN IT!” I roared when she hesitated.

“Yes dammit, JUST three months, Matt!” She paused. “So ... what about it, honey? Can we put things right and move on? Want me to call Brianna right now, baby?” she asked, almost pleading.