“John?”

“Yes dear?”

“I don’t want you to take this wrong, but I have a problem and I want to take care of it.”

We were at the dinner table and I knew – just knew – that what was coming was going to kill my appetite.

“We’ve been married twenty-three years and now that the kids are grown and gone I want to do something I’ve wanted to do for years but never have. You know I was a virgin when we married. Well there is this man at work who has been hitting on me and I’ve decided that I want to see what another man is like. I made a date with him for tomorrow night.”

“I notice you are not discussing this with me. You are just telling me that you are going to do it regardless of what it will do to us.”

“It won’t do anything to us. I love you and you know it and we will grow old together. This is just something I need. A onetime thing to satisfy my curiosity.”

“It won’t.”

“Won’t what?”

“Satisfy your curiosity. You will find out that he is different from me and that will make you wonder if someone else may be even more different than the two you’ve already had. And since you would have already done it once regardless of my feelings you will do it again. And again and again until you finally accept that all men are different. You might even find someone much better than me and not come home.”

“Don’t be silly John. I love you and I know I do.”

“I do? I don’t think so. If you loved me you wouldn’t kill our marriage.”

“There you go again. Being silly. It won’t hurt us at all.”

It already has I thought, in ways she had no idea of. She didn’t know that she had already killed our marriage. It didn’t matter if she fucked some other guy or not. I got up from the table and left the room.

I went out into the garage and started loading the camping gear into my truck. Apparently Alice had forgotten we were supposed to go camping this weekend. The plan had been to leave Friday when we got home from work. Now I’d just leave from work.

When we went to bed she wanted to play and I said no.

“I don’t want you to be giving your date sloppy seconds.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll have showered and cleaned up by then.”

She reached for my cock and I pushed her hand away.

“I said no Alice. Whenever you say no because of a headache or some other reason I accept and you need to do the same.”

I rolled over and put my back to her.

“Fine! Be that way.”

I woke up an hour before the alarm was set to go off and I quietly got out of bed, gathered up the clothes I would need for work and then went downstairs and dressed. I heard Alice get up just as I went out the door. I was halfway to work when my phone rang. I looked and saw it was Alice. I turned the phone off

When I got to work I went in and talked to my boss. I told him I didn’t have anything pressing at the moment and then I would like to use some of the time off I had coming. He asked how much time and I told him a week and he approved it.

When I left work I headed for Lake Martin. When Alice and I went camping it was always to Camp Dearborn and if she decided to come look for me that is where she would go. I spent three days doing some fishing, swimming and hiking the nature trails and then I packed up and moved to a different campground for another three days.

The one thing I did at both sites was lay on the ground looking up at the stars and think about what to do. I considered divorce. I thought about just taking off and moving to someplace else and not letting Alice know where. In the end I decided to do the easiest while at the same time the most difficult thing.

Go home and do nothing. Have nothing to do with Alice. Move into one of the two spare bedrooms and just coexist. If it didn’t work I could always do one of the other things I’d thought about. Maybe it was fuzzy thinking on my part, but why should I have to give up the hot tub, my basement workshop, the home gym in the third bay of our three car garage and the other comforts of home because my wife wanted to be a slut for some guy she worked with. And who knows, I could get lucky and my new attitude toward Alice could cause her to move out.

On my way back home I turned my phone on for the first time in seven days and found it loaded with messages and voice mails from Alice. I cleared them all without reading or listening to them. When I got home Alice wasn’t there. I knew she would be at work and I didn’t expect to see her for at least another two hours. I unloaded the camping gear, put my dirty clothes in the washer, took a shower and then moved all my things into the bedroom that used to be my son Brady’s. I fixed myself a bite to eat and was cleaning my dirty dishes when Alice got home. I had to smile when she set the stage for how things were going to go from then on.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Away from your cheating ass.”

“Damn it John I’ve been worried sick not knowing where you were or if you were all right. Why didn’t you take my calls? Why couldn’t you have at least let me know you were okay?”

“I didn’t take your calls because I didn’t want to talk to your cheating ass and whether or not you know if I’m okay or not is no longer a concern of mine. As far as I’m concerned you are dead to me. We will share the house, but all we will do is coexist. I’ll do my best to stay out of your way and I would appreciate it if you would stay out of mine. I’ll discuss house issues with you and things concerning the kids. Other than that I want nothing to do with you.”

I walked away from her and went down to my basement work shop and started working on an oak entertainment center that I’d been working on for about a month. I wasn’t surprised when Alice came down about an hour later and sat down on the basement steps and watched me work. She sat there for about five minutes before she said:

“I didn’t do it.”

I ignored her and maybe two minutes later she said “Honest. I didn’t do it. Given the way you left I didn’t dare.”

I kept working and ignored her. Another two minutes and then “Damn it John talk to me.”

“I thought I was clear when I said I’d only discuss house issues or things pertaining to the kids and otherwise I wanted nothing to do with you.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I did not do it!”

“I don’t believe you. Not after the calm cool way you informed me of what you were going to do and your absolute certainty that it wouldn’t hurt us.”

“But I didn’t do it. Honest to God John, I did not do it! I’ll take a lie detector test if you want.”

“You just don’t get it Alice. It doesn’t matter if you fucked him or not. What put an end to us was your letting me know after twenty-three years of being together just what you really thought of me.”

“Thought of you? I don’t understand what you are getting at.”

“Sure you do. The only way you could have so calmly told me that you were going to fuck another man is if you thought you were married to a man with no backbone. A pussy whipped wimp of a guy who would just sit there, listen and then say “Yes dear. Whatever you would like dear. Well I’m sorry that you misread me all these years, but THAT AIN”T ME!”

“It was not that way. I know you aren’t that kind of man. I just thought that you knew how much I loved you and that I’d never leave you and that you loved me enough to let me have the experience and then come home to you.”

“Unfortunately Alice there isn’t any way you can prove that to me anymore than you can prove you didn’t fuck that man. The good news for you is that you are now free to go and satisfy your curiosity all you want. As far as I’m concerned you are now a free agent.”

She started crying and ran back up the stairs.

I spent another hour on the entertainment center and then went upstairs where I found Alice busy moving all my stuff back into the master bedroom. She looked at me and said:

“This is our bedroom and I won’t have you moving out of it because of me. I’ll be the one to move to the spare room.”

I don’t know what she hoped to accomplish by that, but then I really didn’t care. The king sized bed in the master bedroom was a lot more comfortable that the single beds in the kid’s old rooms.

And so began our coexistent relationship.

Over the next two months Alice worked on getting me to change my stance. She would walk around the house naked except for high heels which she knew was a turn on for me. I’d come into the living room and find her on the couch finger fucking herself and she would smile at me and tell me she could use a little help. If I was in the hot tub after working out in the gym she would join me. Naked of course.

I was tempted, but I never gave in. One night she said “I know you and your sexual appetites John and I know you must be hurting. Stop being stubborn and let me help you.”

I played poker every other Thursday with friends so I said “Who says I’m going without? Maybe I don’t play poker on Thursday nights any more. Maybe what I do is poke her.”

That sent her out of the room crying. Did I play around? No. I just got a lot done with my right hand. I guess some might consider me weird, but when I took my vows I meant them. Well mostly anyway. Forsaking all others was high on my list, but till death do us part not so much. In my mind it was until death or divorce do us part and I was beginning to think divorce was going to happen so I could get back to having a sex life.

And there was someone who wanted to give that sex life.

By the time we reached the third month mark of our coexistence both kids were aware of what was going on. When Mary Beth, my daughter, was growing up her best friend forever was Shelly and one day when she was around seventeen she laughingly told me that Shelly had a huge crush on me. Shelly at seventeen was hotter than most girls in their twenties and I had to admit if I was single at the time I would have been hot on her trail, but I wasn’t single and I was old enough to be her father. I jokingly told Mary Beth to tell Shelly if Alice ever left me she should look me up.

It was a Tuesday and I’d just had lunch with one of our suppliers. He’d just left to go to a meeting and I was sipping coffee and reviewing some changes we wanted to make in our contract when someone sat down across from me. I looked up and saw it was Shelly.

“How have you been Mr. B?”

“So so Shelly. You?”

“About the same. MB tells me you and the misses are on the outs. True?”

“Mary Beth talks too much.”

“Maybe so, but once upon a time MB told me that if you and your wife ever split I should look you up. Here I am.”

“You can’t be serious Shelly. I’m old enough to be your father. In fact I’m older than your father.”

“So what? It is said that some things get better in time. Take wine and whiskey for example.”

“Maybe, but Alice and I aren’t divorced.”

“No, but according to MB you have as good as gotten divorced.”

“Maybe, but we are still married.”

“I don’t care. Where are we going on our first date?”

As I looked at her my mind was processing all of the for and against thoughts I was having and I finally decided to give it a shot. Just because we went on a date didn’t mean we would end up in bed with each other. Except for my poker games I hadn’t been out for an evening since I set Alice aside.

“Your choice sweetie.”

“You mean it? You really mean it?”

“I do.”

“Dinner and dancing Friday?”

“That will work.”

She gave me her address and phone number and I headed back to work.

When I got home from work on Friday I showered and changed clothes. Alice was sitting on the couch in the living room when I came down the stairs.

“Going out?”

“Yep. Got a date.”

As I went out the door I heard her yell “Damn it John! You aren’t being fair.”

I shrugged and went to pick Shelly up. She was out on her own and had her own apartment so I was spared having to face her parents. She was stunning in a little black dress and high heels and I got an instant erection which I hoped she didn’t notice. We had dinner at The Texas Roadhouse and we talked. I learned she had majored in Computer Science and had a job working for a major investment firm. She had been engaged, but a week before the wedding she caught him cheating on her. After we finished eating I asked her where she would like to go for dancing.

“My apartment will work.”

“What?”

“You heard me right. The kitchen floor is linoleum and I have plenty of CDs we can dance to.”

“But...”

“No buts Mr. B. I know you are leery of dating a girl my age and this might be the only chance I’ll get and so I want to make the most of it.”

“I don’t think that is a good idea.”

“I think it is a great idea and you did ask me where I wanted to go.”

She was right. I was leery of dating someone her age and this was most likely the only time I would do it so I said okay.

Once in her apartment she said “MB told me that your drink of choice is a vodka tonic with a slice of lime and I do have the makings, but I also have beer if you would rather.”

“I’ll take the VT.”

She went over to her CD played, slipped in a Moody Blues CD and started it and then she made me my drink. I’d had an erection off and on since picking her up and watching her move around on her heels had me iron bar hard. She gave me my drink. I took a sip and then she held up her glass and said:

“A toast. Here’s to living out your fantasies” and then waited for me to click her glass with mine. I did and then Nights in White Satin began to play and she set her glass down and opened her arms. I set mine down and took her in my arms and we danced around in her kitchen. She moved in close, her leg touched my erection and she smiled and pressed into it.

“Damn it girl; do you know what you are doing to me?”

“I know what I hope I’m doing to you.”

In my head I suddenly did a 180. To hell with my vows. Alice took the same vows and then broke them. Didn’t that release me from mine? I know she claims she didn’t go through with it, but I didn’t believe her. The song ended and Shelly stepped away from me and pulled up her dress to show she wasn’t wearing any panties.