Chapter 1

It's cold in Minnesota during the winter especially when you're used to the mild weather of Virginia. But it's even colder when you're sleepless and alone.

I'm just feeling sorry for myself. God knows I've got it better than most and it's ridiculous for me to feel like this. Still, I do, and even though I'm keeping it together, without the kids and my sister, I would have been ready to be locked up in a nice, white, padded cell.

My life is full of hows. How is it a basically intelligent person can act so stupid? How did I miss so many clues? How could I go around acting like life was a fairy tale?

It started with the girl or at least it seemed to start that way.

Karen was pretty, but there are lots of pretty women around. It was because she was young, fun, and -- most importantly at that time -- she was into me. That might not seem like a lot to qualify her as someone to screw your life up over, but it had been a long time since I'd gotten that kind of attention.

I was a chubby hubby, not a bad looking thirty-nine-year-old but a tired one. Formerly handsome, now pudgy, though still sporting a full head of dark curly hair. Deep, dark, brown eyes and easy laugh or not, women didn't flirt with a man wearing a gold band and surrounded -- at least most of the time -- by a pack of loud and anxious children; I've gotten a few nods from housewives and pats on the head by nearsighted grandmothers, but in each case the attention was sympathy not desire.

It wasn't a midlife crisis, just a hoping for a scrap of something different in my life -- a change from the usual schedule of carpools and teacher conferences and bagged lunches. Was it too much to ask for just one hour of flirting with a hot blonde in a slinky, red, half dress/half negligee wraparound who smelled like some exotic jasmine essence? The smell was distilled from sex and fantasy, not the reliable Chanel #5 from that liter jug-like vase on my wife's vanity.

Of course I was tipsy and Karen acted buzzed. The bar was a trendy restaurant/bar, but because of construction that had closed down the parking garage and the street outside it was almost abandoned. Aside from the staff, three couples, a scaly looking guy in a booth and another guy who was talking to himself at the bar it was just Karen and I.

The temptation was there, but I loved my wife. So normally it wouldn't have mattered except for the alcohol. To be honest tipsy had come and gone a couple shots ago. The whole point was not to think. But my life was still looking awfully pathetic and contemptible when the blonde bought me a drink.

Cheating wasn't anything I wanted to do, but flirting wasn't a crime. Honestly, my goal was to come as close to cheating as possible without doing anything to screw up my life. This was the tequila at work though. That and two weeks of sexual deprivation. But kids or not, Chanel #5 or not, lackluster, irregular sex or not, it was losing my job that made Karen attractive.

When you're fucked up this bad you had three choices, sit there and whine to the bartender, kill your boss or get laid.

My boss was a nice guy though and he had been fired just as thoroughly as I had. Also there didn't seem to be much point in talking and sex was not going to happen at home. So the rule had led me to Karen, this twenty-three-year-old, hazel-eyed temptress with fine long blonde hair that hung down past her shoulders, the kind you could twist your hands into during a slow teasing blowjob.

My wife had short brunette hair and it was fine. Still in my fantasies this was the kind of girl I wanted. Maybe it was a fetish, but ever since I was thirteen, blondes had dominated my fantasies. Just being close to Karen brought all those fantasies bubbling to the surface.

My downfall had been letting Karen convince me to feel how her new conditioner made her hair so soft. Once my hands were on her I didn't want to let go. Twenty years disappeared in the kiss that followed. Lost in memories of hot, meaningless high school sex, I raped Karen's mouth even as she stroked my bulge and pulled me in closer.

"Damn, that was a kiss," I said panting heavily.

Karen smiled, took a shot and leaned in to share. I waved her off still sucking wind from the kiss still tasting the tequila and the cinnamon from the breath strip she took before the last shot.

"Let's not screw this up with a lot of talk." She rubbed her fingers over my belt clasp. "So are you going to come back to my apartment and fuck me or am I going to have to rape you here?"

Her hand wormed under my waistband, fondling and fingering her way through a progression of chords that left me weak. Feeling my prick surging, she leaned in until her lips were over mine, sucking my hot breath deep inside her.

"So, need more convincing?" Her smile lit her face with that horny, young, promiscuous look you see on the women in beer commercials. "Jeff, I don't want you to rush this, but I'm really, really horny."

"Me too." My body was so ready. Just a minute of hard jerking would get me off. "But..."

Karen kissed me again, her tongue flitting over my lips as she slowly jerked my cock.

Fuck was she hot, but this was as close to cheating as it got and it was time to stop. "It's not that I don't want to. It would be great. Really great, but I'm married... not just married, very married."

Her grip got tighter as she continued to jerk my cock with slow steady strokes. "That's probably why you're wearing a wedding ring... Jeff." She laughed. "Don't freak out. At the start I was just going to tease you, but I was hooked the minute I felt this cock." She gave me a long stroke up and then rotated her hand. "Actually I prefer married men."

It took an effort to pull back when she leaned in. Her hands drew me back in.

"Jeff, you want to do this and I want to do this. If you didn't you would have stopped me long before now. And," she whispered into my ear, "it feels like you're only kinda married now." Her fingers tickled my glans and then her hand slipped out of my pants.

"Jeff..." she purred, drawing the name out. Her tongue snaked into my ear, swirling wetly from the tip to the center and then chewing lightly on the lobe.

"Baby?" she whispered, startling me out of my rapture. I woke to the feeling of warmth and moisture against my hand. Looking down I saw that she had unzipped her jeans and pulled her thin pink panty to the side and stuck my fingers against her sex. My middle finger rubbed softly around her outer lips and pushed inside her. God, her pussy was so warm, so warm and wet and even at arm's length I could smell her musky arousal. She kissed my lips softly. "That's good, but I can think of two things that would feel better there."

Shaking my head wasn't easy, but pulling my hand away was torture. "It's not that I don't want to do this, but I really can't." I raised my right hand and stared at the gold band. "Sixteen years..." But as obvious as the ring was, so was the sheen of her juice on my fingertips. Without conscious thought, I raised my fingers to suck her cum off. In that second I would have been lost -- my hand two inches from my mouth, two inches from heaven and infidelity and maybe screwing up my kids life with a divorce.

"Come on... Jeffff," Karen said drawing out the name, managing to sound both seductive and nasty at the same time. "We both know we're going to fuck. It's just a question of how hard you're going to make me work for it and if you're going to feel guilty later. It's time to let go and get your reward. Don't feel guilty, you've made it tougher than I'm used to. But now it's time to reel you in."

It must have looked like I was about to run because that was how I felt. The flirting had been fun, but now, now it was... dangerous.

Something in my face faded her smile fade. Stripped of that predatory smile her features looked young and vulnerable. It happened so fast I almost missed it. Afterward, her face settled into a kind of smoldering sexy. "I've seen you in here for three weeks now... The other times I was working, so it wasn't like I could do anything about it." Karen smiled. "I waitress here. God, Jeff, you would think that the way some of your friends stared at me, you might remember me a little.

"It's funny when I heard you talking to your friends I swear they were calling you Peter.

"I came in early to talk about trading shifts tomorrow before going out tonight and who do I see? It's Jeff and this time I'm going to gobble Jeff all up. How does that sound? Do you like the idea of me gobbling you all up or would you prefer me to miss a bit and see it leaking down my chin or letting you shoot it all over my body?

"This is just a moment. It doesn't have to have anything to do with your life. It's just now and in this moment I know you want to take me back to my apartment, throw me onto my bed and fuck me so hard, taking me on my bed and the floor and pushed over the sink and in the shower, taking me and making your little sex toy your little cum toy and slut and sighing, screaming, ball of orgasms. And then after a couple hours it's over. Jeff fades out of existence and Pete goes back to his wife with his battery recharged."

Looking into her eyes -- and God, how could I help not looking into those hazel eyes -- I wanted that moment she talked about. I had never been this hot and horny. And it would be amazing. I was so hard up the first load would be a geyser that would shoot down her throat in the parking lot and after that the rest of my cum would surge inside her belly or on her face and chest and finally all over that long blonde hair. It could, but it wouldn't. As quickly as I almost lost myself in that dream, it was over. It should have been thoughts of Jessie that had brought me out of it, but actually it was thinking about my kids.

Once out of my trance, there was something about this situation that felt shallow and cold. Maybe I wasn't perfectly happy with my wife, but at least I cared for her and she cared for me. For Karen this was just a fuck buddy relationship, just a convenient guy with a cock when she wanted it. The more that I looked at her now, the more fucked up it felt. There was arrogance in her eyes... no more than that, almost contempt for me. It could be as we were having sex she would be seeing an old boyfriend, but maybe it would be her father and that creepy thought made my dick wilt.

Horny or not, unless the kids were shot up with tranquilizer darts and wife's coffee got spiked it wasn't like I was going to get sex on a weeknight. Why couldn't I have just let myself get drunk? Drunk, the complications wouldn't have been there. I wouldn't be thinking about my children and wondering how sleeping with this girl was going to help me get a job tomorrow. After the sex all this would do is just give me something else to feel guilty about.

"Oh fuck it," I said, getting up from the bar and heading toward the door as Karen scrambled to get herself pulled together.

It had come together. I remembered Karen now. Maybe it was how she talked about how in this moment it wouldn't be me cheating, but this alias, she was as much Karen as I was Jeff. Her name was Terry... no Theresa. I remembered her waiting on me and some officemates a few weeks back. She had been sweet and cute in maybe a nineteen-year-old way. She had been lying to me just as much as I had been lying to her. Most likely she was just horny and trying to keep her slutty self a secret to herself, but for whatever reason she did it, it didn't smell right.

Though it made sense to leave, it isn't a good time to sit around and think when you're depressed. Being 2/3 drunk and driving was probably an even worse idea, but taking a taxi home was too humiliating. Drunk was bad enough, but my family finding out about it just didn't bear imagining.

By the time I took the exit off the highway, the booze was hitting me harder. I wanted to be home now, but I wanted to hide too. At just past 9:30 PM the neighborhood was dead. Jessie's mom, Barbara was watching the kids tonight and, knowing that white haired sanctimonious and disapproving ball of bobby pins that was my mother-in-law, I knew if I turned my phone back on there probably would be half a dozen voice mails, politely wondering why I had abandoned my kids tonight.

If Jessy hadn't had some sort of endowment function, Barb would have been relieved at 7:30 and even then I would have gotten a couple of accusing voice mails and a long talk about how a different man -- the good, decent, imaginary man her daughter should have married -- would have acted. Despite this it felt bad leaving my mother-in-law holding the bag, but it was better to come in a little later than coming in now and having my kids see me and start throwing pennies at their drunken lush of a father.

Jessie's meeting might even be done by now and then she would be home. And then Daddy could come home. Mr. Breadwinner, except that he had just been laid-off and except that Jessie earned more money than I had, and had much better benefits. Even though I worked a forty-five hour work week, it was nothing compared to Jessie's seventy-five to ninety hour weeks. So I was the one, along with the infrequent assist from Jessica's mother --when I couldn't find a half-dependable sixteen-year-old girl -- who took care of the kids.

I pulled the car to the curb a block and a half from home and stared down the street. If anything I started to feel worse seeing my wife's car in the driveway. Barb would be gone and Jess was waiting inside, waiting for me to come home. Except I didn't know how I could go in there until the kids went to bed.

Twice a pair of joggers ran by and I hunched down so they could see me. Luckily the car had slightly tinted windows. After a while I fell asleep. I woke to the sounds of tires squeaking from a car which was stopped just about fifteen in front of me. If the car hadn't been a Porsche I would probably have fallen back to sleep. But I had always loved Porsches and the one parked in front of me was a sleek red dream. It was the perfect pussy bait and, judging from the action in the front seat, it looked like it had done its job.

The couple in the car were clearly in lust; even though I could barely see them, I could tell they were fogging the windows. They kissed for a minute and then she started to make to get out of the car and then he would touch her shoulder or she would glance back and they would be kissing again. A few minutes later it was the honk of a passing car annoyed at their double parking that ended the goodbye.

Watching the woman get out of the Porsche and walk down the street was getting me turned on. Even a faithful could cheat in their fantasies and in my mind I was the guy sitting in the Porsche with the satisfied smirk.

The woman wiggled out of the car, putting her ass on display for the driver's benefit. Looking back in token annoyance, the woman motioned for him to get going, a little shooing gesture and playful scowl. And it fucking killed me.

The joke was that seconds before I had been depressed and guilty about almost breaking my marriage vows and the next my slut wife was putting on a performance, wiggling her ass out of her lover's car and making the gestures I knew from having been married to her for sixteen years.

It was all like the post-coital teasing she had done when we had been dating. Seventeen years ago her flirting shimmy of adjusting her dress and the hippy strut would have been for me. Tonight, though her ass doing a private performance for her lover, probably saying you'll just have to wait until my husband goes to sleep before you fuck me again.

My hands trembled. I wanted to explode, wanted to run her over or pull her out on the front lawn, scream WHORE so loud the neighborhood could hear, rip her clothes off so the children could see and tattoo SLUT on her forehead, on her breasts and just over her pussy so that anyone who ran into her would be able to see through the smokescreen.

How could she? She didn't even like sex. After Tommy had been born her diminishing sex drive had almost dried up completely. So much so that most of the nights she indulged me it took lots of lubricating jelly. Most times my hand would show more gratitude as a sexual partner than my wife would.

It wasn't the chubby hubby thing either. After Tommy, Jessica had kept the weight on and it was only about five years ago when she started losing weight and I started gaining it. Shit, how many times had I gone down to the kitchen to have one of the kids pudding packs because of the frustration of night after night of frustration sleeping next to a beautiful woman.

HOW COULD SHE? Right in front of me, I had watched sixteen years of marriage swirl down the drain without even realizing it until she had shooed off her lover. No not just the marriage, it was my life that was flushed. Fifteen hours ago if someone had shot the happily employed, family man pulling out of my driveway, I would have died a happy man. God give me a gun and a time machine and I would have killed that man.

Right now, Jessie was kissing our kids and acting like some perfect TV sitcom mom. Actually that was about right, a sitcom lasted a half hour and that was as long as Jessie could play house.

What was there for me now? What happened to the plan for my life that I had wrapped around me like a security blanket? It was stupid and childish, but for long minutes all I did was stare off in the distance wishing today could unhappen.

I flinched as someone began tapping on the passenger side window.

"What are you doing out here in the cold?" My mother-in-law asked as she opened the unlocked passenger door and poked her head inside.

Of course, it had to be my mother-in-law, my day couldn't be a total disaster unless she was here. "Nothing... I was just thinking about something."

"You've been out drinking, haven't you?" She took a deep breath preparing to give me a tongue lashing, only waiting for me to acknowledge her before starting in.

"Yeah Barb, I've been out drinking. Third day of a week long bender. I've got a crack pipe in the glove compartment, a couple guns under the seat and a dead hooker in the trunk. Plus a couple of empty spray paint cans from putting a fresh coat of paint over the satanic symbols I put on the church yesterday." My mother-in-law just glared, but it amazed me that she recognized that my words had been sarcastic. "Let's say that I have been drinking and then let's agree that I don't give a damn what your opinion about that is, okay?"

My mother-in-law rubbed the AA pin prominently displayed on her collar for a second before she got in the car and closed the door. "This is about your job, isn't it? You've been fired, haven't you?"

"No Barb this is not about my job." Fifteen minutes ago it would have been a lie, but it was true now. I laughed to myself remembering being stupid enough to confide in Barbara after coming back late from work six months ago when the rumor had started about our office being closed down. "If I need to get another job I will. Honestly, it's not the most important thing in my life."

"What you need to do is to finally have a plan for your life. You should look into a career change..." Her face scrunched up. Knowing my mother-in-law she thought I should look into being a rodeo clown.

"Barb, you need to be getting home now."

"You have to have fallbacks," she said ignoring me. "It's not that your job isn't fine. But is it the kind of job security for a family man?"

Right, after all what society needs engineers?

She seemed to hear my thoughts, because her already curdled face curdled even more. "It's not that your kids need your salary with Jessica's job, but..."

"You're right, my family doesn't need me, do they?" I said trying to keep the anger out of my voice.

"Of course they need you. Not financially, but..." Her eyes looked lost for a second as the moment stretched out as my wonderful mother-in-law tried to think of some reason for my existence. Let's see, hmm, no use as a breadwinner, no use as a partner or sexual companion for the wife, not particularly attractive or funny and as a father? As a father she probably felt anything I contributed could be taken care of by a small group of El Salvadoran women who came in three times a week.

I shook my head. "Okay I've got the message. The universe has been speaking to me loud and clear tonight, but it's always nice to get the personal touch."

My mother-in-law sniffed in annoyance.

"Yes?"

"I'm just telling this for your own good..."

"Well thanks," I said trying to stare her out of the car.

"If there's something wrong you should tell Jessica about it..." As she said it though she had a grimace so sudden it looked like a seizure.

Seeing the discomfort on my mother-in-law's face gave me a tiny spark of joy. "Something the matter, Barb? Maybe there's something Jessie hasn't told me that we should talk about?" It felt good to see her at a loss for words for once. It felt even better to see her squirm.

"I saw that Jessie just got home." I just let my words sit there and watched my mother-in-law pale. "It's funny that the guy dropping her off did it a block and a half away from the house."

Barb shook her head. "A marriage isn't simple..."

"Thank you Barb, it's so great that YOU tell me what a marriage is. There's nothing like going to an expert when you're having a problem."

My mother-in-law's face quickly returned to the pinched disapproving cast that was its normally shape. "Neither of you talk to each other anymore. I know that it's difficult with the hours my daughter has to be in her lab..."

"But it's not just her job is it?" I asked, beginning to grow hot. "And you knew about it," I said it out of spite, but the fleeting sullen look of guilt on her face astounded me. Maybe I should have known it before, but in that moment it became crystal clear.

"You did. You knew it. You sanctimonious... you knew Jessica is screwing around and you're trying to lecture me about having a drink? Lecturing even when every second you don't tell me about Jessie you're lying to my face.

"Barb, you're so good at this advice have you thought about being a marriage counselor, because I'm so glad you're sitting here telling me what it takes too have a good marriage. I'm curious which part involves a wife screwing another man?"

She was floundering. "Maybe if you..."

"Maybe if I what, Barb? You've shoved yourself into the middle of our family. Please stick your nose into the marriage bed now. Why don't you just sit down and make some diagrams for me to follow."

"I'm not excusing my daughter's action, but..."

I was tired of listening to my mother-in-law. Tired of every annoying word I had put up with through sixteen years of marriage. "BUT? I don't give a damn about anything you have to tell me anymore. No, that's wrong. I want to hear one thing from your mouth. How long? How long have you been lying to me and how long has my wife been fucking around on me." The rest of my breath blew out of me like a train whistle. "Don't just gawp at me answer the fucking question, MOM. How long has she been breaking her marriage vows? Because while you might not like me, there's no vow for us to be nagged to death by our in-laws until death do us part, but I kind of think that screwing another man blow the 'love, honor, cherish and forsaking all others' part right out of the water."

Her face had gone pale. "This isn't what I wanted, to happen. Maybe you won't believe me, but this doesn't make me happy. "

"Bullshit. What a fucking load. Do you even believe what you say anymore?"

"You don't have to swear, Peter."

"Actually, BARB, yes I fucking do. Because at least when I say fucking, it's just a word. I don't feel the need to act it out with other people. But your daughter likes to be clear about things, so when she's demonstrating things I guess you see it really as an act of Christian charity?"

Barb grabbed onto the crucifix around her neck halfway through my rant. "Whether you've been the best husband or not..."

The laugh grated out of me. "Don't give me more crap. You've never liked me. The only thing you're sad about in this situation is that Jessie fucked this guy before the divorce."

She stared up at me, but bit her lip forcing down her bile.

"Don't even try to say it isn't. Because yes, it fucking is, Barb."

She shook her head. "I talked to her until I was blue in the face, but Jessica made me give my word not to tell you." She looked down, her eyes studying her crucifix. "Maybe it would have been better to have broken the promise, but I tried to do everything I could..."

"Well I'm glad you can sleep at night."

"... I tried to do the right thing for my family, if..."

"If what MOM," I spat out. "If I had been a better husband or father? Because clearly your darling little girl has been the perfect wife. But if you did the right thing for your family, I'm glad your conscience is clean. Because no matter how much of an ass my wife is, she is family. All I did was provide a little DNA. If I even did that."

My mother-in-law looked up and shook her head in a tight gesture. "That's wrong and it's spiteful."

"Thanks for the morality lesson. Thank you so much." I was gathering steam again, but, as it built up, the pressure was getting dangerous. Even now, with both her and her daughter up to their necks in sin, Barb tried to make me the villain. I was getting angrier and angrier and as much as I hated my mother-in-law, words felt less and less adequate to express my rage. "Well I'm glad we had this chance to talk, but it's time for you to go now, Barb."

She shook her head. "It would have been better for the two of you to settle this on your own..."

"Well, we're going to do that MOM. Now MOM would you mind getting out of the car? There's a lot of things to take care of tonight and I don't have time to chat."

Reaching past her I opened her door and pushed it wide open.

"Don't do something in the heat of the moment that you'll regret later...

"Yeah, thanks for the advice. I wonder if you said the same thing to Jessie or was it just make sure to use a condom. But no you wouldn't say that because you're against birth control so you probably told her to be sure not to use a condom." I didn't even get any pleasure by the shocked look on her face. "Okay, I'm done talking, get the fuck out of my car."

My mother-in-law probably wouldn't have gotten out if I didn't crank the ignition and gun the motor. I began pulling out into the street even before she closed the door. Heading into my driveway I saw her walking back toward me probably headed to her car.

The rage left began to drift away almost as quickly as it happened. My anger was for my mother-in-law and somehow Jessica's betrayal seemed minor. Barb's betrayal was personal and spiteful, while Jessica's, well pretty much any emotion was wasted on her. My wife just didn't care anymore. At some point, love had turned into comfort and then comfort had turned into convenience. Now her lover had just become more convenient. Except that I didn't really believe that there was real passion in her trysts. It wasn't the sex, but the infidelity that brought excitement to her cold blooded heart.

Since Tommy had been born Jessica's work had slowly been taking over her life. Once we talked about our work and the kids' school there usually wasn't much we had time to say. Day to day, I spent more time with my mother-in-law. The only emotion I saw in her now was nervousness or an occasional pissy attitude when the order of her day was disrupted.

In the last few years Jessie had become another person. Between the increasingly rare attacks of motherhood or wifely affection, her life was divided between sleeping and spending time in the lab. Even during the times she played house, she had changed. The truth was in the last year there were maybe three times I had felt close to my wife. The rest of the time she was just a counterbalance that allowed for even wear on our mattress.

Inside the house it was like nothing had changed. My ten-year-old, Tommy, was doing his best to get an early start on Carpal Tunnel though he paused his game to show me that he had finished his homework. "I'm in the middle of the game."

"It's already past your bedtime. Is there a save function on the game?"

I could see my son hesitating, wanting to lie. "Yeah, but I'm almost done with this level." He saw my look and started to save the game.

Tommy looked up in one last puppy dog appeal.

"Okay, you've got ten minutes. Then I want you upstairs and in bed." It would have been nice to get a hug, but at least when I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, he didn't try to wriggle away.

My twelve-year-old, Traci, was watching television in the kitchen and during commercial breaks she went about putting the dishes in the dishwasher and cleaning the countertops. She was watching Sex In The City. It wasn't HBO though so the most explicit stuff had been cut out of it, thank God.

"Dad which one of the girls do you think I'm like the most?"