Jealousy

"There you are," she said. "I've been looking all over for you."

I got a beer and told her I'd been outside smoking a cigar. Susan wrinkled her nose playfully at the smell, then led me around to meet some more of her friends. They seemed a nice enough bunch, although some of them were a little guarded toward me.

We had just gotten another round of drinks when Paul slithered up to Susan.

"Dance time, honey," he said, ignoring me completely as he grabbed her arm and tried to pull her to the dance floor.

"Paul, I'd like you to meet my husband," she said, rather forcefully.

Paul turned to look at me and his face went pale.

"Dutch McDonald," I said, holding out my hand with a totally transparent smile on my face.

"Uh, ur, Paul, Paul Lefleur," he said, shaking my hand hesitantly.

There was a sense of foreboding, an atmospheric charge as I turned toward the bar and drained my beer in one big gulp. I was honestly going to let it go, and leave without causing a scene.

"Drink up, honey, it's time to go," I said to Susan.

"B-but, it's still early," Susan said in a puzzled tone of voice.

"I said, it's time for us to leave," I said with more force than I intended.

"Dutch, we've only been here a couple of hours and the party's not over until midnight," she said. "Dutch, what's wrong?"

I was about to answer when Paul pushed me too far. A little bit of a crowd was starting to gather as people sensed trouble in the air.

"Buddy, maybe she's not ready to go," Paul said, moving between Susan and me. "If you want to be a party pooper, knock yourself out. She's a big girl and she can find her own way home."

"Watch it, mister," I said in a low voice fraught with menace. "Susan, let's go."

"Why don't you..." Paul started to say, and that's as far as he got.

He made the dreadful mistake of putting his right hand on my chest, to sort of push me away from my wife. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward, then punched him hard in the stomach right under his ribcage.

Pappa, my grandfather, taught me how to box when I was 8-years-old and it became apparent that I was going to fight any kid who teased me about my name. It was a skill I'd never forgotten.

So as Paul slumped over with a "whoosh," of air, I hit him with a haymaker left hook right smack in the eye that sent him sprawling on his ass.

"A real man, huh?" I raged at him. "I'll show you a real man, you motherfucker."

I was going to kick him in the balls when some of Susan's friends grabbed me and held me back.

I jerked myself free, turned on my heels and stalked out of the hall. I looked back to see if Susan was following me, and felt heartsick and enraged as saw her and the rest of her co-workers hovering over Paul. Well, fuck her, I thought. If she wanted him, she could have him. If she was more concerned about his welfare than mine, then piss on her.

I stormed out of the hall and it was like Moses at the Red Sea the way people moved out of my way. I threw open the swinging doors and just before they closed I heard Susan yelling for me to wait.

I didn't stop, but strode right out to the car, and again I heard Susan yelling for me to stop. I ignored her, got in the car, turned on the ignition, backed it out, put the car in drive, turned to take off, and there she was, standing right in front of the car. I rolled down the window, and yelled for her to, "get out of my fucking way!"

But she just stood there with her hands on her hips.

"I'm not budging an inch until we talk," she yelled back.

I started to put the car in reverse and back out of the lot that way, when I saw that someone – a friend of hers, as it turned out – had pulled up behind me. That person got out and walked off, leaving me nowhere to go except forward. I tried one more time, but my rage was already beginning to dissipate.

"Susan, please get out of my way," I said.

"You'll have to run me over first," she said.

I rubbed my hands over my face, squeezing my eyes shut as if that would make the past hour or so go away, then I threw the car into park, shut off the ignition and got out.

"OK, you wanted to talk, so talk," I said.

"What the hell was that all about?" she demanded.

"He asked for it," I said.

"Like hell," Susan said.

"Susan, maybe you aren't seeing what I've been seeing, but he's trying his best to seduce you, and you're playing right along with him," I said.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?" Susan said.

"I saw you two together once before," I said, and I immediately regretted it.

"When was that?" she said.

"The night I came home from Dallas, that Friday night, I saw everything you two did that night," I said.

I could see Susan's eyes narrow as her outrage built, but I'd already started, so I plunged ahead. I told her how I'd wanted to join her, then saw how wrapped up she was with this Paul, how I had hung back and followed her.

"Do you mean to tell me that you were spying on me?" Susan spat at me. "You thought I was having an affair with Paul?"

"Susan, I didn't know what to think," I said, and it even sounded lame to me.

"You don't trust me," she said, and now she sounded really hurt. "And all that bullshit about changing things to make me happy, all the attention, the flowers and all of that, is simply because you were jealous? Because you didn't trust me to say no to another man? I thought you knew me better than that."

"Susan, I meant all of that," I said. "But I saw your body language that night, and I knew from the way you were reacting that the door was open to him, even if you didn't realize it yourself. And I saw you in the hospital parking lot, when you gave him a kiss."

"That was a mistake," Susan said after a long second of realization, and a pained expression passed over her face. "I knew it as soon as I did it, but that doesn't mean I was going to sleep with him."

"He certainly thought he was going to seduce you," I said. "You looked like you were having the time of your life that night, and I knew I had to change some things to make you fall in love with me again, to be the kind of husband you needed, or risk losing you."

"How do you know he thought he was going to seduce me?" she asked.

That's when I told her about the exchange I'd had with Paul and his friends earlier that evening, and when I told her what he'd said about her being a pushover, her jaw dropped and her eyes got wide.

"He said that? About me?" Susan whispered.

"Quote, un-quote," I said, with emphasis.

"That son of a bitch," she spat.

You could see the steam rising from Susan's head as she whirled and walked back toward the hall. By a quirk of fortuitous timing, when she had just about reached the entrance, Paul and his friends came out. Paul still had an ice pack on his swollen right eye and he was holding his gut where I'd punched him. He wasn't ready for Hurricane Susan.

"You sorry bastard!" Susan yelled right in his face, and he looked up in shock. "Did you think I was just some conquest, some piece of meat, some trophy to hang up on your wall? I thought we were friends, but obviously I'm no friend to you. A pushover, huh? Well, push over this, asshole."

I couldn't help but laugh as my usually mild-mannered wife kneed poor Paul right in the nuts. He went down like a sack of potatoes, and I think she was going to kick him in the ribs when I managed to get over to her and pull her away.

"I think you guys had better take lover boy home," I said over my shoulder to his friends. "I think he's had a little too much fun for one night."

I was going to leave then, but something told me I'd better make sure Paul Lefleur understood how things were. I turned back and looked down at where he was still writhing on the ground in pain.

"One other thing, asshole," I said. "You got off light tonight. But if I ever hear about you sniffing around my wife again, your aching nuts will be the least of your problems. Is that clear?"

He just sort of nodded, and his friends just looked at me in disbelief as I took Susan by the hand and led her away. The car that had been blocking my way was gone when we got back to our car, so we got in and headed for home. We were both quiet, lost in thought, as I drove us home.

"You know, Dutch, you really need to do something about that temper of yours," Susan said after awhile.

"I'm sorry, Susan, but he pushed me too far," I said. "I held my temper as long as I could, but when he started coming between us, when he tried to push me away from you, I'd had enough."

"It is kind of nice to know that you'll fight for me," she said, after another short period of silence, and I looked over to see a small smile on her face.

"I love you too much not to," I said, and I couldn't help the emotion in my voice. "Daddy never recovered from Mom's death, and he was gone within 18 months. He was lost without her, and that's what I'd be without you. Hell, Susan, I know I'm an awful lot of trouble. I can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, I get mad at things, and I don't always do the right things when I should. I know you put up with a lot from me, and maybe I don't deserve you. But I couldn't bear to lose you. You're my life and I would be lost without you."

"I love you, Dutch McDonald," Susan said as she snuggled up to me. "Always have, always will. You are a pain in the ass, but you're my pain in the ass. And I do love you."

From where Susan was sitting, I had a good look down the front of her dress, at the swell of her tits, which I have always thought were just perfect. I felt my cock starting to stir, and I reached around her shoulder and slid my hand down her dress and cupped a breast.

Susan gave a sort of hiss as I rolled my index finger over her hard little nipple.

"Does the caveman think he's going to get some pussy, now that he's vanquished his mighty foe?" Susan said in a very ironic tone of voice.

"Sure would make me feel a lot better about tonight," I said as I continued to play with her nipple.

She just harrumphed, but her left hand dropped into my lap and she started to softly caress my cock through my slacks.

When we arrived home and I'd shut the car off, I pulled my wife to me and we kissed, hot and hard. I was still feeling the adrenaline rush from everything that had happened that night, and I was as horny as I had been in quite awhile.

Susan's hand kept rhythmically kneading my cock, which was threatening to put a hole in my slacks, and I cupped first one tit then the other as our lust began to take off.

When we came up for air, we both looked at each other, then we both chuckled.

"What am I going to do with you?" Susan asked rhetorically.

"Fuck me?" I said.

"Yeah, I guess maybe I will," she said.

We barely took the time to greet Brooke and Keith, who were playing a video game, before we high-tailed it up to our bedroom.

I draped my jacket over the back of the chair that sits in front of Susan's vanity table, pulled off my tie, slid my shoes and socks off and started to unbutton my shirt. I looked over to see Susan striking a very sexy pose in just her strapless bra and panties.

Susan walked over to me and finished unbuttoning my shirt for me, and as I pulled it off, she bent down and licked, kissed and nibbled on my pebble-like nipples. She worked both of them while she unbuckled my belt, opened my slacks and let them fall to the floor.

My throbbing hard cock was poking through the hole in my boxer shorts as I pulled her up for a kiss of smoldering passion. As we kissed, I reached around and unhooked her bra, then slid my hands down and pushed her panties off her butt so that they fell in a satin pool at her feet.

I squeezed Susan's buns as I bent down and captured each nipple with my lips, and I was gratified to hear a hiss of passion escape her mouth. I could feel her soft hands pull down my shorts, and we stood together naked, ready for love.

I wanted something a little different, so I turned Susan around and guided her toward the bed so that she was on her hands and knees. I knelt behind her, swiped my fingers between her legs and discovered that she was very hot and very wet.

Susan groaned as I worked my fingers in her soupy pie, moving up to strum her clit, then I took some of her juice and slathered it all over my cock.

"Oh God, Dutch, fuck me!" Susan panted. "Get behind me and fuck me like I'm your bitch."

I sort of arched an eyebrow at that, because Susan has never really expressed any sort of desire to be dominated sexually, and, truthfully, I'm not sure I could do it even if I wanted to.

But I knew what she meant, and I was ready to give her what she wanted. I watched intently as Susan reached underneath her body and opened her pussy up with two fingers, inviting me to stick my cock in there and fuck her hard.

I gripped my cock at the base, pressed the head to her steamy slit and rammed it home with all the force I could muster.

We both groaned heavily as I filled my wife with my hard, angry meat. I grabbed her buttocks and in seconds I was happily fucking Susan from behind like, well, like a dog in heat.

I could see from behind that Susan's eyes were closed and her head was lolling around in mounting passion. She had fistfuls of the sheet clutched tightly in each hand as she worked her body in tandem with mine. Little mewling sounds escaped her lips as I bored my cock in and out, in and out.

For myself, I was grunting and groaning from the feeling of my wife's active pussy around my dick. I was churning relentlessly in Susan's twitching, velvety cunt, my body tensing to hold back the flood of cum that I had boiling in my balls.

I kept my cock working in a steady rhythm as I reached down and grabbed Susan's dangling tits, and as I squeezed her breast flesh, she stiffened, then went into a series of convulsions as her orgasm swept her away.

She cried out sharply from the intensity of her climax, and I couldn't hold it back any longer. With a gasping roar, I felt the crackling of my cum exploding through my shaft and out the end of my dick.

I grabbed back onto Susan's butt as I pumped a huge load of cum deep in her clenching cunt. I just kept pushing as secondary cumshots spurted from my cock, until I was finally drained of every drop of semen I had to offer.

I pulled my cock from Susan's dilated pussy and we both slumped forward on the bed, as satisfied moans of pleasure filled the room.

We lay there for long moments in sweaty cum-soaked relief, our bodies molded together as if they were one.

Finally, I rolled onto my back and pulled Susan into the cradle of my arms.

"I'm sorry I got mad and ruined your party," I said softly.

"And I'm sorry I let things go with Paul like they did," Susan answered. "I guess I did lead him on a little more than I should have."

"Susan?" I said, in a kind of tentative tone of voice, and she looked up at me quizzically. "What would have happened if I hadn't seen you two that night? Was there any chance...?"

"I don't know, Dutch," she said as she rolled onto her back and looked off into space. "I do know I could never have cheated on you, if that's what you're asking. But something had to change. We couldn't go on like we were. We were drifting apart, and Paul saw an opening. Let me tell you, he was good. He knew just what words to say, just how to flatter me. He played off my frustrations, paid attention to me, listened to me. And that was a period when you weren't doing any of that. You were so wrapped up in work, in sports, in everything but me, and the kids, because they sensed it too."

"So what would you have done?" I asked.

"More than likely, I would have sat you down and we would have had the 'are you happy' conversation we had that night," Susan said. "And I would have made it very clear that our marriage was in real trouble, that there were others out there who were willing to give me the little bit of attention I needed. Dutch, I don't require a lot of maintenance, but I do require some, and I'd much prefer it to come from you."

"And?" I almost dreaded this part, but I had to hear it straight.

"If nothing changed, then we'd have probably separated, and who knows what would have happened after that," Susan said. "But I honestly don't think it would have come to that. You have some faults, but insensitivity isn't one of them. I know that, because you did do what you had to do. I knew it the very next day, when you gave up an afternoon of football to take me to the city. You knew, and, believe me, I appreciated it, a lot."

"Yeah, I did," I said, a little sheepishly. "You're the most important thing in my life, Susan, and I guess I just needed a wake-up call to remind me that I can't afford to take you for granted."

"Well, I needed one, too," Susan said. "I wasn't the easiest person to live with during that time, either. I let things go as much as you did, and I think when you started talking about making changes, I realized what I had with you and what I stood to lose if I didn't meet you halfway. It took both of us to let it get to that point, and it's taken both of us to start getting that spark back. I got a little selfish there, and I apologize."

We lay there letting our bodies drift into slumber. But I had one more thing to say before we fell asleep.

"Susan?" I asked. "If I ever let things get like that again, give me a sharp nudge in the ribs, will you?"

"I'll give you a swift kick in the ass, how about that?" she answered sleepily.

I just laughed as I reached over to switch off the bedside lamp before snuggling in with my wife.

Paul Lefleur didn't show up for work that Monday, then came in Tuesday with his letter of resignation, cleaned out his desk and was gone by noon. Last we heard, he'd moved out of state.

Of course, Susan wasn't the only wife he'd gone after in the course of his employment at the hospital, and the husband of one of the others, one he'd successfully seduced, happened to be the son of a member of the hospital's board of directors.

When Susan's boss informed this board member about the incident at the Christmas party, after calling Susan on Sunday to get her side of the story, the word was put out on Paul – quit or be fired.

That Christmas was probably the nicest we've ever had as a family. There was a real sense that Susan and I had passed a major hurdle, that we had faced a potential crisis in our marriage, met it head on, and had emerged with our love stronger than ever.

Since then, I've followed through on the changes I made as a result of what I saw that fateful Friday night.

I still work as hard as ever, maybe harder, because at the moment I'm angling for critical promotion, but I've managed to put my job into perspective and worked at not letting it consume me the way it did before.

I've made lunch with Susan at the Y a daily habit and I've lost 20 pounds, I still send her flowers for no reason and we go out on dates two or three times a month, and we keep the drinking to a minimum. I hardly ever drink at home any more, and I may just quit altogether. Oh, and I am working at controlling my temper, trying not to let things get to me.

We both try to do a few more things with the kids than we did, and that includes getting more involved with our church and going as a family a lot more regularly than we did before.

As for our sex life, Susan and I have taken to embarrassing the kids ALL the time now, because we can't keep our hands off each other, and we spend at least two hours on Saturdays and Sundays with our bedroom door locked while we fuck our brains out. That's when we really stretch out and let our imaginations run wild. And, of course, we often put ourselves to sleep at night with some red-hot loving.

To sum it up, I've pulled the weeds and re-fertilized my garden, and the love that was always there between us is blooming brighter now than it ever has.