Chapter 3

They breathed heavily beside each other until John had to take care of his post orgasm piss. When, he was done he stopped at the honor bar.

Sophie breathed normally with her eyes closed, but her pelvis shifted every few seconds. "And I thought I knew what sensitive was before? Now it's like my body's a thousand broken power lines stitched together. A thousand different lines showering sparks, snapping and flailing about and taking my body for the ride."

She opened her eyes and rubbed the red splotch on her shoulder.

"Sorry about that."

"It was worth it. How bad does your head feel?"

John filled two glasses with tap water as he considered. "Stings a little. The hair's matted in a few places, but not bad. Glass of water?"

She put her elbows underneath her and rose up a little. "There's a couple diet ginger ales there. Would you mind getting them, because I'm not trusting my legs. I hope this fades by tomorrow. Otherwise I'm going to have to wear crotchless panties at the presentation."

He drank half a glass of water before bringing over the ginger ale.

"You mind if I use your shower?"

"Please. I'm not planning on getting out of bed for at least an hour."

The hot water drained John of thought, but when he got out of the shower his brain turned on again. With mirrors on two of the walls, he got a good look at the scratches Sophie left on his ass. She hadn't drawn blood, but they would be noticeable for a couple days. His head had burned like crazy when the shampoo hit his scalp, but it didn't feel like Sophie had done enough damage to warrant stitches. But he stank of gardenia shampoo and body talc and with every step the smell of infidelity moved with him.

He came out of the bathroom in a towel to see Sophie watching something on the tv with the sound turned down.

John had never taken a walk of shame. When he was an asshole, it never mattered and in most cases it was his hookup who hoofed it.

He poured another glass of water and sat on the bed.

Sophie looked at him. "Do you still hate me?"

"It's been ten years since I thought about it." He took a long swallow then rested the glass rim against his chin as he took a long look at her. "Not any more."

Sophie turned her eyes back to the television as there was an advertisement for a Hyundai dealership.

"I have no idea how tomorrow's going to go."

He took another sip of water.

"You'll still be in this apartment tomorrow night?" At her nod, he put down the glass and started getting dressed. "No promises."

John finished dressing as she channel surfed and landed on a Harrison Ford movie. She hadn't turned the sound up as he left the room. John wondered if Sophie was thinking that this was the moment her marriage ended.

When he got to his car, he stopped. It would be a little past two when he got home. He normally took a shower after the kids had been put to sleep so it wouldn't be remarkable if Elaine heard him. He was sleeping on the love seat and she wasn't going to join him in the shower, so she wouldn't see tic-tac-toe boards on his ass. If he wanted, he could get away with it.

Between the discomfort of draping his legs over the love seat and moral queasiness, he only managed a couple hours of sleep. The plan for tomorrow was for Elaine to run the kids over to her parents and when she got back they would talk.

He went to the closet and grabbed his travel bag that he had just in case the company needed him somewhere at short notice. Being in HR this hadn't happened, but he had read it in a business book and kept it there hoping for the day he would have a use for it.

He drove out at 6AM just as heard the shower upstairs turn on. It wasn't cowardice. He didn't want to see Elaine yet, he wanted to make his own script. Elaine had the high-powered job and attended the ivy league university. Where talent left off, will power took over. Before Peter was born, John spent a year as a single father as Elaine worked fourteen hour days at the office, came home, kissed Sasha and him on the cheek, shoved food in her mouth and spent four hours on the computer pushing the project forward. He had sex with her seven times that year and twice she had fallen asleep halfway through.

He neglected to take sex pics of Sophie. If he wanted to go scorched earth, he would need that.

No matter how he turned it, he just couldn't figure out what he wanted to do. If he started all those when and who questions, it would drive him insane. But if he did, he could at least check it out. Working from that, he could determine if she had a method of picking up lovers. He could start backtracking and figure out if it really was a first time as she had all but said. How many men and how many times?

He should work out a formula like Sophie had. If it had been a three-night stand, they would go to counseling. Anything worse than that and he would divorce her. And if she said they only fucked a couple times, he would wait and catch her with her next boyfriend.

Enough of moody thoughts. He had been sitting in the employee parking lot for thirty minutes. Inspiration struck him as the warm sunlight shone on his face. He was making himself miserable. It was too late to do anything like a detective to find out if she was cheating. She had already admitted that and if the detective bugged her phones, in what world would their conversation go, "Well, Elaine, I know we stopped the affair eleven days ago, but every time I think about the six months and 13 days we were having sex twice a week, doing anal sex and threesomes, and asphyxiation sex and doing those two gangbangs with midgets, I know you're the gal for me."

It didn't matter. Today he was going to let it go and whatever happened tonight would be. The security guard gave him an odd look as he whistled past the security checkpoint.

Twice people came storming into his office and came up short staring at his beatific smile. Both women left his office subdued. He didn't even have to fill out a form. He turned on a radio for background noise and flew through his work that morning.

He received a pleasant surprise at lunch when he learned the feud between she said in development and he said in engineering had ended. He could throw away the sexual harassment and tolerance seminars he was arranging for the branch. He happily shredded the request forms except one which he folded into a tiny paper hat.

He left work at five and stopped off at a fast food restaurant getting twelve pieces of fried chicken, biscuits, Cajun rice, onion rings, mashed potatoes and lots of gravy. Elaine didn't mind eating fried chicken sauteed in a stir fry sauce, but drew the line at the kind that came out of a bucket. Tonight he bought it because it might be their last meal truly as husband and wife and even the most despicable soul deserved a greasy last meal.

Elaine's car was already in the driveway. He found her sitting in the middle of the couch in the living room, hands clasped together and her legs pushed together so closely it seemed her feet had been bound into this position. She looked at the bags in her hand with surprise.

"I thought we were going to talk then eat."

"Wouldn't it be better to enjoy a meal together? If it goes poorly, I might not be in the mood and it's a crime to eat onion rings when they're not fresh."

She grabbed plates while he deposited the feast on the table. He snapped the cap off a cold stout and took a long pull at the bottle. It was a quiet meal, but relaxed, at least on his part. He avoided her attempt to talk about the children because he didn't want this to be about them. It was one of the elephants in the room, but he didn't want to stay in a marriage for his kids. Another part of that was that he didn't want to think about custody. She never directed her win-at-any-costs face toward him, but it was there.

Once they stored the leftovers and cleaned up, they went back to the living room. Elaine sat in the clenched position she had when he walked in. He dragged a kitchen chair and set it three feet in front of her.

Elaine shuffled and unshuffled her hands three times before looking into his eyes. "What do you want to know?"

John looked at his wife and his words were gone. Though it had gone through his head a hundred times since Monday morning, he'd never been able to think of a question to which he really wanted an answer.

"What we're you planning on telling me?"

"You won't believe me if I tell the truth." She began twisting her wedding ring around her forefinger. "Until this happened, I hadn't done anything unplanned going back to I was twelve. Except you. When you asked me out, I said yes. The only reason I had been talking to you had been to get you to introduce me to Archie Paulson."

"Why him?"

"To get him to ask me out. Not that it was certain that he would say yes, but he wasn't the most handsome guy in the world and he did have a stutter. My plan wasn't to walk him into marriage if things went well. His interests matched mine reasonably well and his family had connections."

"You didn't fuck Archie Paulson, did you?"

She shook her head.

"Then get to the second unplanned action."

Elaine toggled her wedding ring a couple times.

"It was at one of the big business dinners. Seating for maybe twenty. The new VP was supposed to be seated next to me. I don't remember why he couldn't make it, but he sent his aide to take notes on the main point as well as any undercurrents. He'd been shoe horned into the job by his uncle fresh off of getting his MBA. He was just 25."

John held his hand up. "He, who?"

"Rod Erickson."

The name meant nothing to him. He was an asshole destined for an Italian suit and a trip to Biarritz. "Go on."

"We flirted during dinner and it started getting a little physical. I don't know why. He was good looking, but..."

John interrupted. "Have you been taking your medicine?"

"If I could blame it on depression, it would be so much easier, wouldn't it? No, it started because ... my being at the dinner was a waste of time. It was a bone thrown to a minority shareholder. Rod was handsome and it surprised me that he was acting interested in me. Maybe it's just that he was bored too. We didn't start chatting until about a half hour into the dinner and the only thing on his legal pad were doodles. I don't know why he asked me to join him for a drink. But it felt good to be desired." She smiled for a second and then looked up and saw his face and the smile was gone. She wouldn't meet his eyes now. "When he took my arm, I thought we were headed for the bar, but he kept me talking so I didn't realize what was wrong until he pushed the button for the elevator."

"He wasn't restraining you, just holding your arm? When you stepped into the elevator, you had to know what was going to happen."

She didn't quite nod her head. "There was what I wanted to happen and how I thought it would go. It was easy to pretend we would drink a couple scotches and flirt and then he would kiss me and I would step out of it. Then he would see me to the door and I would go back to my room."

"But that didn't happen."

Her face flushed. John held his hand to stop her again.

"Is this story turning you on? You smiled when you thought about him wanting to fuck you. Now you're getting flush because you're about to get to the fucking part."

Elaine shook her head. "I told you. We didn't have sex."

"But he did stick his fingers up your cunt and you did jack him off. I'm betting that his fingers had a good time with your tits too."

Elaine tried to grab his hand, but he jerked it away.

"That happened. All that happened. But I didn't smile because Rod was handsome or sexy or what happened. The way he looked at me ... that a young man smiled at me and wanted me. I'm the smartest idiot you'll ever find. It doesn't sound like an excuse even to me, but it wasn't planned. It happened. The flush was shame. You think I don't know how wrong it was to smile? You think I need a therapist to ferret through my subconscious to figure it out? My mother and father raised me in a loving home. I have no one to blame but myself. It just ... It felt good to be wanted by a handsome younger man. He didn't want to make love to me. He wanted to fuck and since that didn't happen that night he pursued me. It was insane.

"You think I wanted this? The night we met my entire life changed. You overwhelmed me with a look. The night we made love shattered me. It was so wonderful and then you whispered that you loved me. Eleven years and two wonderful children later, my life is more perfect than I could have hoped and I risk that all for nothing." She grabbed a tissue and blotted her eyes.

John's heart hurt. "El ... uh..." He cleared his throat and swallowed twice. "Forget about how long it went on and the lies." His voice grew quiet. "Even if I forgive you what's going to stop you from doing it again?"

"Because I won't."

John shook his head. "Ten years from now I'll be older and uglier, but you'll be a bigwig. There will be a dozen Rods fawning at your feet. A few of the lap dogs will honestly want to be with you. It may be because of the wealth or power or prestige, but it won't be about getting pussy or checking off CEO on their fuck list."