Some say that Curiosity killed the cat or in this case could it kill a marriage?

As they sat eating dinner, she noticed that he was staring thoughtfully at her. She waited since she thought he was just gathering his thoughts before speaking. But he didn't speak. He just stared at her for a few more moments then resumed eating; chatting casually as though the moment never occurred. Dawn was puzzled just a bit because she had been so sure that Mike had something on his mind that he wanted to talk about. She knew him well. She should since they had recently celebrated their 30^th wedding anniversary.

"Mike, was there something on your mind that you wanted to speak with me about?"

"No ... well ... yes ... maybe ... I don't know, honey, there is something but I'm afraid to try to talk to you about it. I'm pretty sure that you won't like it and that you may get really angry with me." Mike paused and then looked down, not meeting her eyes and beginning to appear more agitated as each moment passed.

"Would you like a drink, maybe that will help you settle down and help you get whatever it is out and we can talk about it, what ever it is." Mike nodded his head "Yes, I think a drink is just the ticket here." "Would you like me to fix you one also?" "No" Dawn said, "I think I'll just have coffee, thanks." They quickly cleared the table and with the economy of years of living together, did the dishes and then taking their drinks went into the living room. Dawn sat on the couch at one end, expecting Mike to sit beside her as he had always done through out their marriage. She was surprised when he took a seat in the chair across from her. That is when she finally realized that he had something important that he was trying to talk her about.

"Mike, please try to relax. You can tell me what is bothering you. I promise to try not to get upset or angry. I want to help you with this if I can." Taking a deep breath, he began to speak. "Dawn, you know that I love you with all my heart and soul and that you are the one woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with but lately I've become very curious about something." She raised an eyebrow and looked at him inquisitively, nodding at him to continue. "I hate to bring up old painful memories and I know that these particular memories seem to be as painful to you as they are to me." Mike paused again for a moment and then said, "It has to do with your affair." Dawn sat up much straighter and glared at Mike. "I really don't want to talk about THAT. It was twenty years ago and I can't believe that you are bringing that up again now after all these years. You're right. It is painful for me and I DON'T want to talk about it." She then stood, her face flushed angrily "I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Then without a good night, a kiss or hug, she quickly left the room and went to the master bedroom, changed into her nightgown and went to bed.

Mike sat in the living room, quietly finishing his drink. He stood and instead of following his wife to bed, fixed another drink and returned to his chair. For over an hour he sat there lost in his thoughts. "We've been married a long time. Longer than most of all our friends and yet even after all this time, some things are just hard to get out there so they can be discussed. This is important to me and I would really like to talk to Dawn about it. I guess I'll just have to wait for a better opportunity." He sat there then reminiscing about how they met and fell madly in love.

Theirs was a quick, hot romance following by marriage less than a year after they met. Dawn was his soul mate and he loved her deeply. She was an intelligent, quick-witted conversationalist. She was funny and loving. She expressed her love for him easily and for all to see. Dawn was also a very attractive woman. She did not have the figure or features of today's models but there was an aura of sensuousness and simmering sexuality about her than enhanced her features and her figure. When she walked into a room of people, the men followed her with heat and lust in their eyes and the women cast furtive jealous looks in her direction. The thing that amazed Mike was that Dawn seemed totally unaware of this affect she cast over any gathering. "Damn, even at 50, she is still one gorgeous creature and I'm glad that she is my wife. Hell to look at her you would never guess that she has given birth to three wonderful children."

Mike and Dawn and just recently entered the "Empty-Nest" part of their lives. Their daughter Rene, and son, Jake were both married and were raising families of their own. They had lost their oldest son, James, several years ago due to illness and even today felt that pain sometimes very keenly. The loss of a child almost always did one of two things to a marriage. It either destroyed it with grief and depression or it brought the couple even closer together and allowed them to share through the strength of their relationship to pass through all the stages of grief. Fortunately for them, they were in the latter and much smaller category.

Many marriage counselors agreed so many times two events in a marriage were responsible for the end of a couple's ability to stay together. The first and most common was adultery and the second was the loss of a child. In both cases there was a death involved. The first was the death of the trust and love of the injured spouse and the pain, they all agreed, was almost equal to the pain experienced from the death of a child. Mike and Dawn are a very rare couple. They had survived both an adulteress affair and the death of their son, James. It had never been easy. It had at times seemed to be more than any human could be asked to suffer and survive.

But they did it and although there were many scars, their love and affection for each other was as strong today as it had ever been in their thirty years of marriage. "Dawn is not just my wife; she is the mother of our children, my lover and my very best friend. I would rather be with her any time or day than hanging out with my buddies at the golf course or the bar." Mike smiled as he did every time he had that familiar thought. It so completely described his love for Dawn.

With a sigh, Mike finished the last of his drink and slowed trudged into the bedroom where his wife appeared to be sleeping. He quietly undressed down to his underwear, got into bed and eventually drifted off to sleep.

"God damn him!" Dawn thought. "Son of a Bitch and shit, I can't believe that after all these years he has brought up my affair with Sean." She was so pissed that she couldn't sleep and when Mike came into the bedroom, she had pretended to be asleep so she wouldn't have to look at him or talk. Dawn hated to talk about those times. Her guilt was sometimes overwhelming and she did her absolute best to keep any thoughts of the affair firmly out of her mind. Mike had really raked her over the coals about the whole thing. He had been in a rage for almost a year and just when she thought that she couldn't take him anymore and was seriously thinking of seeking a divorce, he had begun to change back into the man she had married and loved with all her heart.

The affair had lasted much longer than she had ever thought that it would. For almost two years, she and Sean had taken advantage of the many opportunities and Mike's trust to carry on behind his back. The first few times she had experienced guilt about cheating on her husband but as with most things, she had quickly felt less guilt and more excitement as the months and years passed. Eventually Sean had moved away and the affair had quietly died. Dawn had taken a long look at her marriage and decided to try to pull it back together again.

It was really difficult for her because so many times she caught herself thinking of Sean and what they had meant to each other. Yes it wasn't love she said but often with a small inner smile she would say yes it wasn't love but the sex had been fantastic. Dawn was also puzzled by the lack of affection from Mike. He just didn't make any attempt to hug or kiss her and sex was definitely lacking. When they made love, he just seemed to be fucking by the numbers. There was no real passion. One day she realized that the real problem was that she was trying to tear down a wall between her and Mike that she had spent two years building. No matter what signals she tried to send to him about her love and interest in sex, he just didn't see them because he was so used to being excluded from her affections.

Slowly, oh so slowly, their life together began to improve. Occasionally Mike would look at her and she would see that light of love and lust in his eyes. They started talking more and occasionally he would even hold her hand when they were walking side by side. Then the old shit hit the fan. About six months after he had left, Dawn learned that Sean was getting married. Suddenly her emotions seemed to be taking a roller coaster ride with the entire rapid ascent and descents and the loops of that carnival ride. She could not come to grips with the idea that her Sean had found someone that she couldn't steal him away from. She was so jealous of the woman she had never met that she began to lose control of her emotions.

Then she did something really stupid. After years of hiding her affair, she did the one thing guaranteed to bring it out into the open. She confessed. Not only did she confess but also she tried to convince her husband that it was a one-time occurrence and that it had just happened. She told him that both she and Sean had been so guilty and that is the real reason that he had moved away. Stupid, stupid, stupid! It never dawned on her that Mike would actually talk to Sean about it. He did talk to Sean and that dumb ass had confessed to everything. He told Mike when it had started and then he gave details about how they had snuck around behind his back. How he could have been so dumb, he even told Mike about the things that they had done in bed. Some of those things they had done she had denied to her husband then and still did even to this day. Maybe that was because she and Sean had been lovers and what you might do to please a lover in bed, you might not do for your husband. She did not want her husband to think less of her by doing something like that but on the other hand the more Sean wanted of her the more she loved the sex between them.

To this day she had not realized that Mike might want to enjoy that kind of sex with her. Of course Sean had been monumentally stupid but she had been dumber than even he because she had CONFESSED. Not only confessed but she had even lied in her confession. That had been a real tough pill for Mike to swallow. At first he had thought for a long time that she had fallen in love with Sean and actually intended to leave and take the children with her. That had really hurt him. Then when she told him that she hadn't been in love with Sean and that the reason for her unfaithfulness had been the dirty excitement of having sex with another man that had almost destroyed the last of his love for her. It turned out that Mike had been hurt much more deeply because her affair had been based almost solely on the sex. He felt then and still does today that he had somehow not measured up to what his wife had needed in their relationship. He had also been hurt and angry because Dawn had almost destroyed their marriage, not for love, but for her selfish need for something that she thought he could not give her.

But Sean did not break his engagement and married his fiancé. For a long time, she had thought that they weren't going to make it. It took a lot of patience on her part and Mike was eventually able to forgive her. She was sure that he had never forgotten and she had done nothing since then to make him change his mind. There had been those two brief affairs that Mike had in the first year after his discovery of her deceit. Both had been quick and meaningless to him and he referred to them as "payback" and "revenge". He had felt guilty about them and although he never told her, they had both been very unsatisfying in the sex department. It had been the basic "get on, get in, get off and get out" sex.

Dawn had been hurt but seemed to get past them fairly quickly. She had thought that he might think that this had made them even. Mike had let her know in no uncertain terms that his brief flings didn't make them even close to even. He had felt some guilt though and she was pretty sure that he had never strayed again. Not often, but sometimes she thought fondly of Sean and what they had shared. She had not loved him but there had been a strong affection and of course there had been the hot, exciting sex. Sean was a good lover and his cock was larger than Mike's. Maybe that and the excitement of cheating had been why the affair had lasted so long.

Dawn still could not understand how she had come to be so uncaring about how she had treated Mike. She had denied him love, affection and yes sex. So many times she had come up with excuse after excuse because she simply did not want to have sex with him. Sean was taking care of that for her and she had loved every minute of it. Looking back, she saw how cold and heartlessly she had treated Mike. She didn't believe that she had ever stopped loving him but in looking at her actions at that time it had sure looked like she had. She had told Mike time and again that she always loved him even then but secretly in her mind she wasn't that sure. She loved him now and that was what was important.

Her affair had started in such a simple manner. Melanie had been Sean's girlfriend at the time and as some women do tend to do, she bragged about their lovemaking. She would talk about how big Sean's cock was and how it filled her more than any other man had been able to do. She made many casual comments on how long and thick it was and how Sean could get hard again almost immediately. She crowed about his staying power and the number of orgasms that he gave her. Melanie was a slut and had slept with many men so Dawn was sure that she had sampled plenty of dicks and was an expert on cock size and style of lovers. Dawn had tried to brag about Mike's lovemaking but even though she knew that he was a competent lover, her claims about their sexual romps sounded forced and unenthusiastic even to her. Eventually Dawn became curious. "Just how would I feel with another man's cock in my pussy? Another man who is not my husband?"

In an amazingly short time she started having frequent fantasies about Sean's cock. She even had those fantasies while her husband was fucking her. She would close her eyes and pretend that instead of Mike it was Sean fucking her with his big, hard cock. That it was Sean filling her hot pussy with his spurt after spurt of cum. Sometimes Mike had trouble making her cum while he was fucking her but she certainly had no trouble Cumming while pretending that it was Sean fucking her. WOW, that had been some of the best sex she had ever experienced. It was but a few weeks later that Dawn had seduced Sean and taken him away from Melanie. Melanie had never even figured out what happened. All that she knew was that Sean had lost interest and broken up with her. She didn't even realize that Dawn was the "Other Woman".

So it had been curiosity that had started the affair but it was the sex that kept it going. Occasionally but not for long they would be friends instead of lovers. Then she would get the old itch again and before Sean knew it he was back in her bed. She was actually proud of herself that she could take Sean from any other woman. She felt that it proved her pretty and desirable and it made her gloriously happy that Sean wanted her so much. Dawn could not remember if during these breaks whether she had ever made love to Mike. It was not that he wasn't a good lover but rather that she had no interest in fucking two men. So she chose Sean and didn't really worry about Mike. In retrospect, she often was surprised that he didn't have an affair of his own or even a series of one-night stands. At least she didn't think that he did. Even back then the idea of Mike fucking another woman made her jealous and angry with him. Her double standard was simple. She could fuck another man but she would cut his dick and balls off if she caught him with another woman. At the time it made perfect sense to her but now she couldn't believe how stupid and selfish she had been.

The whole affair had always been about her and her wants and needs. It wasn't that she didn't care about Mike and the children, she simply didn't think about them when it came to satisfying herself with her big dick stud. Once she had heard a phrase that so completely described how she had been then. Simply put, whenever she had to choose, she most always chose lust over love, Sean over Mike. She also had not noticed how unhappy he had been back then. He had not realized that she was fucking Sean behind his back. He only had known that she didn't show any love or affection towards him. Many times he had felt excluded and shut out. He had several times referred to himself as a third wheel. The children and his job had occupied much of his time and helped him keep from going crazy. With all the doubt about his marriage, he had never thought that Dawn could have been such a callous person as she had been during that time. Yes, in this case curiosity had almost killed the cat.

Dawn eventually drifted off and spent the remainder of the night in a restless sleep. She woke feeling tired and out of sorts. Noticing that Mike was already up and gone, she lay there thinking and wondering just what it that Mike had been trying to tell her last night. She was curious and decided that she would try to let him tell her tonight after work.

They both worked for the XYZ Company but in separate departments. She was a department head in Finance and Mike was a consultant in human resources. They were both successful and highly regarded as valuable assets to the company. That evening, Dawn made one of Mike's favorite meals and went out of her way to let him know that she was not upset about the previous evening. "Honey, I'm really sorry about how I acted last night. I never even gave you a chance to say what was on your mind." Dawn gave Mike a hug and then planted a hot lingering kiss on his lips. After breaking the kiss, Mike said, "It's ok sweetie, it really wasn't important anyway and I can't really remember what it was I wanted to talk about." "Don't be silly, Mike, because I know you too well and I know when your trying to just gaff me off because you think I don't want to know what it was. We'll have a nice dinner and then we will both get a drink and try to get out what ever you want to discuss."

They sat down to dinner and enjoyed the pleasant talk and delicious meal. "Damn, Dawn, you are the best cook. That pot roast was so tender and tasty. What a great meal and I'm stuffed." Just looking at Mike's plate, Dawn could tell that he had really enjoyed his meal. The plate was almost clean enough to put away without washing. She was quite pleased with the way the meal had turned out. "Mike, go ahead into the living room. Make us a drink and I'll finish in the kitchen and be right in for our little talk." Dawn was actually somewhat excited and a little anxious to find out what the big discussion would be about so with her drink in hand, she sat on the couch and looked with raised eyebrow at Mike and nodded for him to begin.

"Dawn, just remember what I said last night that you are the only woman I love and I want to spend the rest of my days with you." She said, "Of course dear, I know that you really and truly do love me, so go on." "I've been thinking about this for a while, in fact, for about four weeks now. Do you remember that you had told me once long ago that the reason that you decided to have an affair with Sean was because that you were Curious?" "I think I can vaguely remember something like that, dear." "Actually, Dawn thought, I remember that it was specifically curiosity that did get me into this whole mess." Clearing his throat, Mike continued, "Well, I don't really know how to say this so I will just come out with it. I've become curious." "WHAT?" Dawn stuttered. "I don't understand what you mean by curious. Curious about what?"

"Just let me finish" Mike said, "please try really hard to keep from interrupting me since this is really difficult for me and I don't want to screw this up. It's really important to me so promise to hear me out." Dawn tried to remain calm, looked at him and said, "go head, Mike, I'll do my best to be quiet." "Well like I've been trying to tell you, Dawn, I've become curious about something and when I tell you what that something is, please try to listen and don't blow your top. There's a story to this and I want you to listen. You know about my night course I took a few months back. I have been trying to learn how to write stories. Well I want to tell you that it was a great course and my instructor was absolutely marvelous and I feel that I learned so much. Frances was just wonderful and about halfway through the course, she took me under her wing and has since been giving me private tutoring."

"Just what the fuck do you mean by private tutoring?" blurted Dawn angrily. Mike steadily looked at her "please sit down Dawn and please be quiet. I'm trying to tell this as carefully and I can and you need to just shut up and let me finish", said Mike sternly putting special emphasis on the words "shut up". The look on Dawn's face when he told her to shut up was almost priceless and it was all Mike could do to not laugh. That would have really pissed her off royally. Her mouth clamped shut and her eyes flashed angrily but she did not utter another word. "I'm so pissed at him now, he could tell me anything and I won't make a sound." Dawn thought.

"As I was saying," Mike continued, "Frances and I have been spending a great deal of time together and we have become close friends. Such close friends that we have become comfortable talking about anything with each other. No don't worry, I haven't told her about your affair. I don't think that she would be interested any way. However, we have talked just about everything else such as sports, life, sex and fidelity. We have shared many things with each other about our lives. I have found myself becoming quite fond of her."

With those words, Dawn felt suddenly faint and dizzy. It took almost a superhuman effort to keep from yelling and screaming at Mike but somehow she managed to just sit there and look blankly at him. Mike took that as a sign to continue. "I know what you are thinking and I swear that we have not been having an affair. We have hugged and kissed but she has not so much as let me touch her in any other way sexually. It is not as though I haven't thought about it but we both agreed that it would have been mean, ugly and horrible thing to do to you. Of course we have talked about someday making love, having sex and enjoying each other's body. Many times she has laughingly referred to these conversations as table sex since they usually have only occurred while sitting at a table. Last week, I told Frances that I had been feeling a great deal of guilt about her and what we have been doing behind your back. I just couldn't let it go on and even though nothing has really happened, it would just be a matter of time before I failed you and slept with Frances if she would have me.

So after a lot of talking we agreed that I should ask you." She just couldn't contain her self any longer. Mike watched as her face went from anger to confusion, back to anger. "How could you do this to me," she hissed. "After all the anger, grief and misery we have gone through over the years. I just can't believe or even begin to understand how you could treat me like this. This is just so over the top of anything that you could have possibly done to me. I just don't know what" Dawn began to sputter and even spit as she tried unsuccessfully to get out the words that could describe the feeling of betrayal and abandonment ripping a gigantic bleeding hole in her heart, in her soul. Damn you!" During her tirade at Mike, Dawn had risen and paced furiously back and forth across the living room. Suddenly stopping in the middle of the room, she took several deep shuddering breaths and tried to get herself under some type of control. Then she turned to him, braced her legs and crossed her arms over her breasts, and said through clenched teeth "Mike, I don't know yet what I'm going to do about this. It has been a huge shock to me and I'm so hurt and angry right now that I just can't think straight.

Well you and your slut, Frances, want to ask me something so let's get this over with and go ahead and ask your question." "Well I knew this was going to be hard," thought Mike, "but this is more difficult that I had realized it would be." "Honey" "DON'T call me honey," Dawn interrupted fiercely, "Don't call me sweetie or darling or anything else right now. I don't feel like your honey right now." "With a shocked look on his face, Mike said, "Well this is obviously too much for you to handle. I had hoped that with over thirty years of marriage, we could sit down and talk with each other openly about anything." Starting to get angry, Mike continued, "Obviously I was wrong and although I had not intended to hurt you this much I have made a serious error in believing that we could talk about this. Frances and I had felt that by bringing our attraction for each other out into the open that we could prevent what you and I had so painfully experienced so many years ago. I can't put you through what you did to me. I just couldn't do that to you because I love and respect you so much. I was going to ask you to consider letting me have an affair with Frances. I can tell by the look on your face that at this point my question is not a surprise.

Yes I'm very curious about what it would be like to have sex with her. You had your long-term affair with Sean and I don't see any reason why I can't have one also. Probably the reason I haven't done anything until now is because I had never found anyone who had made me curious before now. I don't love Frances because I love only you. We would have been discreet and would have been as careful as you had been with Sean. I had really wanted this but only if you would have been able to understand why. I had really thought that you would have understood especially with your experience with Sean. I guess I was wrong. I will call Frances and let her know what your answer was and that I will never see her again." Mike was quite surprised that Dawn had let him get through his statement. She was just standing there glaring at him and so obviously beyond any words at this moment. Knowing her, he was sure that state would not last.

Dawn watched as her husband, the man she loved and adored, turned and walked into the kitchen. She heard him talking briefly on the phone to someone. Then he came out of the kitchen and walked past her to the bedroom. He didn't say anything as he passed and she said nothing to him. Dawn collapsed back onto the couch. At first she was so stunned that coherent thought was beyond her. After some minutes, she began to calm down and was able to try to understand what had just happened. "Where in the fuck did that come from? How could he even begin to think that I would share him with that slut? If he so much as puts one little finger on her I'll cut his dick off and divorce him so quick he'll never see what hits him." Dawn rose and started pacing again. She always felt that she did her best thinking when she was on the move. "Just because I had my affair, I'm sure as hell not going to stand by and let him have one also. Why would he think that would the fair? What's good for the goose is sure as hell not good for the gander." Abruptly, she stopped pacing and thought, "Would I think this was fair if the shoe was on the other foot? What would I be thinking if everything was reversed?" Dawn realized that she definitely did not like where her thoughts were going and that when she decided "This is definitely one I need to sleep on, if I can sleep at all." Finally calm enough, she went off to bed to try to get some sleep.

The next morning, Mike and Dawn managed to rise, get dressed and out the door and to work with no unnecessary words. They did not see each other for lunch and Mike arrived at home at 5:00 that afternoon. He was surprised to see his wife's car in the garage. She usually did not get home until approximately an hour after him. She was just a little bit of the workaholic, which was the main reason that they did not ride to and from work together. Over the years, he had gotten tired of waiting around work for her to finish one thing or another before they could leave.

Cautiously he entered through the kitchen door. There was no odor of food cooking and there was no wife. "Hmmm," he thought. "This does not look good for the ole watashi." Putting down his briefcase, he looked further into the house and still didn't see Dawn. "Oh shit, I'm a fucking dead man walking," he thought. Then turning and looking up the stairs, he could see their bedroom door and it was closed. He knew that was a really bad omen. Since they were the only ones living in their home, they had become accustomed to leaving that door open. There was no one else there and therefore any reason to close the door.