Chapter 2

Peter was home by 3:15AM, alone in an empty house.

Stripping his clothes off he took a quick shower, climbed into some old boxers to lounge in, then went downstairs and pulled a beer out of the refrigerator. Sitting down with his first drink since dinner he reviewed the evening. What a disaster!

After ignoring him all day, Susan called him upstairs then hustled him into a suit to go out to the dinner he had promised her the day before. She also cancelled the dinner reservations at their favorite upscale restaurant, and made reservations at the most haute mode place in the city. While he was getting dressed she made a point to show him she was dressing to titillate her date, for when and if he got her in the sack.

Then she hadn't said a word to him 'til they were in the restaurant. On finishing the meal, his wife insisted on going to the dance club connected with the restaurant. The gift he had spent a small fortune on, one he had been anticipating her reaction for three weeks, one she had been mooning over for a couple months, had bombed, generating a bored ho-hum.

While Susan went to the Ladies to "freshen up" the cashier made a string of asinine and ridiculous screw-ups, which kept him from meeting her in the cabaret for at least twenty minutes. After the rest of the evening he was wondering about the cashier's performance.

Once at the entrance to the dance he had waited for her in the foyer, as they had agreed. After a quarter hour a waiter was sent to direct him to the table Susan and a strange man were sharing.

From that point she made a point of embarrassing and humiliating him in front of the man she had clearly picked up; or had she? He ended buying drinks for the two of them for four hours, while his wife spent almost the entire four hours on the dance floor with the bozo. Half the time she was on the floor he had wondered if she was dancing with him or making out.

And then, when he knew he had to push and shove, she made it clear she was not coming home with him.

By the time he had carefully gone over the sequence his beer was drunk. Pete got up and locked the house for the night, chaining the door and finally climbing into bed after 4:30 PM. As he turned out the light he seriously wondered if he had a marriage.

Pete got out of bed at 8:00 having slept less than an hour and not was unlikely to get more under his belt. After making coffee and downing a couple cups to get him awake he settled down, alone with the Sunday paper.

It was after 1:00 PM when someone tried to open the front door, then rang the doorbell.

Susan had finally made it home.

He let her in, perturbed that she hadn't even been aware of the chain on the door. Somehow she had lost her keys. She looked like the poster girl for hangovers. Truth of the matter, she was still under the influence. Pete was used to seeing her without makeup, but this was the first time he wished she would go put some on.

"Boy, that was some night!" she slurred, holding a hand to her head. Pete nodded wordlessly.

"You should have stayed around and gone home with us, Pete," Susan said. "You would have loved it."

"How do you figure that, Susan? From where I sat last night, you had no plans for me to be included in anything that happened."

"Hey, Pete. That's just not true! That was my night to show you how it felt to be cheated on. But ol' Dev explained it to me. I understand why you didn't want to come with us and get embarrassed. Dev told me you were probably really turned on. Sorry I'm so late getting home to help you with it."

Pete looked at her like she had gone crazy. "What exactly did Pete explain to you, Susan?"

"Well, you know how. In all the cheat'n wife stories on the Internet, the husbands get turned on watching their wives get screwed. Then they get embarrassed. You didn't want to get embarrassed, that's all."

"What stories on the Internet?"

"Well, he took me home and showed me all these sexy stories on his computer. So now I understand how you probably wanted me to screw somebody else, and that was probably why you did what you did."

Pete looked at her like she was crazy. "When have I ever suggested I wanted you to fuck around on me?" he asked.

"Aw, that's a nasty word. It's really just cheatin'!" Susan answered. She took the aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and tapped out four.

Pete looked at her with pity. "Sounds to me like the marriage is over, Susan."

"What do you mean! Dev explained it all to me! 'Bout what husbands really want. He said he could tell that was you 'cause you stuck around so long after we hooked up."

"Susan, I stayed around because I expected you to come to your senses. You told me you wanted to save our marriage. Instead, you spent a drunken night telling some raunchy yo-yo who was trying to get laid all our troubles. You have yet to hear my side of what happened, but it's pretty obvious you spent the night fucking this sidewalk psychiatrist shit-for-brains."

While Susan was choking down the aspirin Peter wandered downstairs. Susan followed him after stripping off her badly soiled clothes and slipping on her terrycloth robe.

Seeing her come into the room, Peter asked her to sit down, which she was more than grateful to do.

"Susan, I'm going to take tomorrow off. I'd appreciate you staying home, also. We should have talked Friday night, certainly no later than Saturday afternoon. Since you refused to talk to me even at dinner last night before you went off on what I'm beginning to suspect it was a prearranged date, now is certainly not the time to talk. I want to sit down and talk tomorrow before I file for divorce. Please stay around tomorrow, Susan."

"What!"

"You're drunk on your ass, Susan. There's no sense talking to you now, you wouldn't understand a word I was saying." With that, Pete stormed out of the house to sit on a lounger on the back patio.

"What? Wha'da you mean divorce?" she called after him. She tried to stand up, but was so dizzy she just sat back down.

A half hour later Susan followed him outside, showered and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her eyes were bloodshot, her complexion still a sickly yellow. When she sat next to him he caught a whiff of the vomit she had left in some toilet. She started to sit down, then got up, staggering back into the house, returning a moment later wearing sunglasses.

Leaning her head back, she put both hands to her forehead to cup her head like she was afraid it was coming apart.

"Margaritas getting you down, Susan?" Pete asked in a very quiet voice. "You must have chugged down nearly twenty. Tends to give one a real reminder the next morning, doesn't it?"

Susan gave no hint that she had heard him, just held her head, groaned and tried not to move her body.

After a few minutes, Pete got up and moved back inside. The sight of his wife after she had humiliated him the night before, then seeming to want his sympathy for the way she felt after her behavior was more than he could stand.

He went upstairs to straighten out the bed. There he discovered Susan had stripped off her clothes where she stood, then left them where they fell. After making the bed he picked up her clothes. What he found made him sit back down on the edge of the bed. He had picked up her dress, but found nothing else on the floor but her shoes. He checked the dirty clothes hamper, but found it empty; no pantyhose, the bra and panty set was missing. The one she had been saving for a 'special occasion, ' the set he had never seen her wearing. So much for his wife planning on seducing him with the new lingerie he had gifted to her.

When he had himself back together he searched the top of her dresser. He found the necklace and one of the earrings he had given her at dinner for their anniversary. The second earring was missing.

Pete spent the rest of the day doing chores, finally taking the car and going out for a hamburger for his evening meal. It surprised him, but a McDonald's burger wasn't as bad as he remembered. He toddled around town for a couple hours afterwards, driving aimlessly, before heading home.

It was late when he pulled into the driveway, and the living room lights were on, but his wife had gone to bed. She was dead to the world, and he made no effort to wake her. He checked the bedside table, turning off the alarm. He hoped his wife would stay and talk to him in the morning, if she didn't that would be a message in itself. He was very depressed as he climbed into bed beside her.

Pete was up, whipped up a waffle batter, and had the odor of fresh coffee wafting through the house before sitting down to read the morning paper. He was just finishing the crossword puzzle when Susan came into the kitchen. She looked more rested but worried. When she looked at him he could tell she was trying to work up a good mad at him. At that point a "good mad" was the last thing they needed if there was any chance at all of working anything out.