Just Small Changes

Shit, now I felt my emotions reawakening. This is the last thing in the world I wanted. I was starting to feel sorry for her now. If she wasn't telling me the truth now and was still acting then she should get the Oscar for the next ten years. And why would she tell me all this bad stuff about herself if she was acting?

"So Jane why did you do it if I was making you happy?"

"It's just who I am Zach. I'm not a good person like you. I kept it under control as long as I could. I played my role and tried to keep being happy but gradually my old self kept surfacing. For ten years I kept it together and was faithful. But then I slipped. Do you remember when you came down with the flu right before we were supposed to go to that party and you insisted that I should go and you were just going to be sleeping anyway? Well at the party I ran into one of the men I used to date after I started working. He started to pay me a lot of attention and tried to get me drunk. I guess he succeeded because we ended up in the back seat of his car and I fucked him twice and tried to get it up a third time. The good wife Jane felt horrible but the slut Jane loved the forbidden excitement."

"After that it was like Pandora's Box had been opened. Oh it didn't fly all the way open right away but it started to creep open a little at a time. I didn't slip again until about a year later. I was shopping downtown by myself and ran into yet another one of those men I used to date. He talked me into going back to his apartment to look at some pictures of us together and we ended up in his bed for two hours. Once again it was a combination of guilt and excitement but the excitement was beginning to win out."

"Jane", I said, "if you had kept it to one slip a year and I never found out then it would have been fine. Well not fine but you know what I mean. But for the last six months you did more than cheat on me you shut me and the kids out of your life. Why did you do that?"

Wow, another couple of tears. "Zach, I don't have an excuse. It was just selfishness. I had gotten together with this second guy again a couple of months later but then didn't cheat for over a year. I had put on another ten or twelve pounds and was feeling very unattractive. I went to a happy hour with the girls from the office and I didn't even get hit on. It seems like I probably went into a depression about then. I had been the good wife and mother which is what I thought I wanted but then I started wanting to relive my youth. For some reason I was thinking that if I let the slut out again that I would become young again. And since you hadn't been a part of that life, I guess I started to grow away. The same with the kids. I was feeling desperate and as you know that is when I started working out at the gym. And yes I was fucking Ernesto from the second week I was there until right now. As I lost weight and started looking better, the slut got more confident. Then Ernesto got me on those pills and I just started making more and more bad decisions."

"I'm not making any excuses. I was doing what I set out to do. Ernesto and his pills was just something that happened along the way. I do deeply regret that I went crazy and treated you and the kids so bad though. After that time you locked me out of the house and the cops came, I just wanted revenge on you. So I started taking afternoons off from work and not telling you. I would go to the bars in the big hotels by the airport and pick up guys. I had office sex with those three guys that you caught me with at the party. Pandora's box was almost all the way open and the slut was back."

When you left with the kids after the party, I knew it was all over. Even though you held out some chance of getting together again, I knew if you found out even half of what had gone on that you would divorce me. You have too much pride to stay with a slut like me. I really got depressed after you left and threw the lid of Pandora's box all the way open. I hope you never find out what's gone on the last two weeks. Even I am too ashamed to tell you about it."

The tears really started to flow now. They were rolling down her face and her voice had a little bit of hysteria in it. "Zach please don't try and keep me from seeing Jim and Alice! I know they belong with you but please let me visit. Don't try and shut me out. I do love them even though I haven't shown it."

Damn it why did she have to do this to me and to herself. It was all set to go after her hard and now I didn't want to. There was still a lot of the woman I had fallen in love with and married in there. She was just so damn messed up in her head!

I did the unthinkable. I took her in my arms and hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

"It's alright Jane. It will be better. As my last act as a nice guy in this marriage, we can have a nice divorce. You can see the kids whenever you want as long as you arrange it ahead of time and it doesn't conflict with anything else that is going on and none of your boyfriends are around. They still love you and will want to see you. You have to get better though. I want you to go to a doctor and get a complete exam. Have him run a test for STD's and I am going to do the same. Also tell him about those damn diet pills and ask him to help you get off of them. You are still on my insurance so it should pay for most of it. That's my price for seeing the kids. Get well and only have protected sex and don't expose the kids to any aspect of your sex life. Okay?"

"Okay Zach and thank you . . . thank you so much!"

I stayed and talked with her for another half an hour. It was mostly just small talk as I tried to calm her down and make sure that she understood what I was saying and that she wouldn't go off the deep end again. After gathering the few things I had come to get and a few more clothes for me and the kids, I left her in a much more stable mood. Pulling the car over, I used a pay phone to call John Randolph. I told him that things had changed and to hold off on our plans. An appointment was made for later that day to discuss how I wanted to change the divorce papers. I then called Jane's mother and told her that Jane and I were splitting up and getting a divorce and that Jane needed her. She was surprised and angry and started firing a lot of questions at me. I cut her off and told her that Jane could answer all her questions but that she needed someone to be with her right now.

After that I thought that I had perhaps made a mistake bringing her mother into all of this so I called Kristi also. Kristi was a friend from work that was close to her. They had gone out on some girl's night's out and it was possible that she already knew what was going on. I told her to go over to our house right away that Jane needed her and she would understand after talking to her.

There was a bar right down the street from the pay phone so I pulled into their parking lot and went in and drank a couple of beers and played the jukebox while waiting for my lawyer appointment. That made me feel a little better and I was in an okay mood when I talked to John. Against his advice, I told him to let Jane have the house and her car. I also had about $25,000 cash in various accounts and she was going to get $10,000 plus whatever she had left in her account. The planned distribution of pictures and video to her friends and relatives to embarrass her was also cancelled. I felt no need for revenge now and just wanted to put the whole thing behind me as soon as possible and with as little conflict as possible.

Wanting to change the mood again, I self medicated this time by stopping at the mall and doing some shopping for everyone out at the lake. It was mostly toys and games for the kids, both mine and Marcia's, but I also got Marcia a t-shirt and some earrings and her parents some movies for their VCR. Everyone was happy to see me back at the cabins but when I started handing out the presents I was Mr. Wonderful. Kisses and hugs all around brought my spirits up considerably and I even began to enjoy myself a little.

After things had settled down some and the kids had gone off to play, I told Marcia and her parents what had happened. They were sympathetic and Marcia gave me another nice hug. Her parents then suggested that we should stay with them for the rest of the summer and I agreed. They gave me a very generous deal on the rental of a cabin and I started to relax again.

The next week was one of the best of my life. It was sleep late, fun in the sun, great food and either playing with the kids at night or going out with Marcia. Marcia and I still didn't fuck but we did pretty much everything else. I really think though that I enjoyed the kissing and hugging more than just about anything. Friday night we had made arrangements with her parents and they kept the kids for us and Marcia spent the night with me in my cabin. I got two superb blowjobs on that occasion and reciprocated by bringing her to five or six orgasms. We relaxed after that and fell asleep in each other's arms.

The following week I went back to work with the greatest reluctance. It was a long commute but worth it considering who I got to spend time with when I got home. No complaints from Jim and Alice. Those two were having the time of their life and getting more attention and having more fun than they ever had living in the city. They had Marcia and her parents acting as surrogate parents during the day and then me coming home to them at night. The employees of the motel and restaurant had also taken to them and watched out for them and spent time with them.

John Randolph called me at the office from time to time and kept me up to date on what was happening. Once Jane was served she signed the papers immediately and hadn't contested anything. I was getting full custody of the children but I had given her very generous visitation rights. Since it was an amicable divorce John was able to get a judge he knew to rush it through the legal process. In three weeks time we were divorced and I was a single man again.

Almost immediately after the divorce was legally done, John called me and told me he had a check for me from the corporation that owned the health club. He said it was for $666,500.00. As he had previously told me, this was after he had taken his fee out and fifteen percent had been withheld for income tax. Damn! I met with him the next day and then deposited the check into the bank. Just for the hell of it, I guess maybe to make it seem real to me, I had them give me five thousand in cash. Looking inside a briefcase full of bundles of hundreds, fifties, and twenties was an amazing sight.

After I got back in my car I just started driving without really knowing where I was going. Somehow or other I ended up back at my old house. I parked on the street and just looked for a while with all of these emotions going through me like a freight train. I saw Jane's car and so I knew she was at home. It was hard not to think about the last time I had walked in on her unannounced and what she had been doing.

But I had called her friend Kristi a couple of times and knew that wasn't what I would find this time. Jane had cleaned up her act and was in counseling for sex addiction and had not been with anyone since that last time I had seen her. It was time for her to have her first visit with the kids and I decided to go ahead and knock and set that up with her.

She opened the door promptly almost like she had been expecting me and before I could object gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. I could hardly believe how changed she was. It was almost like she was the woman I used to know but there was an air of difference there that hadn't been there before. Things were awkward at first but before I knew it we were actually having a good time talking and bringing each other up to date on what had been going on.

I already knew most of it from talking to Kristi. She had taken the cash settlement she had gotten and paid off her car note and refinanced the house payment at a lower interest rate and paid down some of the principal owed. The result was a payment that she could afford on her salary. Kristi and she had gotten so close that when the lease on Kristi's apartment expired in a couple of months, Kristi was going to move in with her and rent a room which would also help her financially.

It couldn't come soon enough because money was very tight with her just living on her salary. For the life of me I didn't understand why but I felt sorry for her. Why did I even feel a little guilty when she had brought it all on herself? Who knows but I did.

After we talked for half an hour and drank a coke, I got up and said I needed to go. We had already decided that the kids would come visit her this coming weekend. I would bring them to her Friday evening and she would bring them back out to the lake Sunday afternoon. Since it was so much money, I had brought the briefcase of cash in with me as I didn't want to leave it in the car. Picking it up I had an impulse and turned my back to her and opened it so she couldn't see what was in it and got out a bundle of fifty dollar bills and another one of twenties.There were ten bills to a bundle so that was seven hundred dollars. Securing the briefcase again, I turned around and gave her the money telling her to make sure that she and the kids had a good time.

The look on her face made me feel good and the kiss she gave me made me feel even better. I guess what I said at the start of this story was true. I just wanted everyone to love me. Money was only important to me for what it could do. And if it could make someone happy that I used to love and was the mother of my children then that was a good use for it.

As I left the house and drove away, I couldn't help but feel melancholy. I didn't know what the future would bring and whether Marcia and I would grow closer or not. My financial future was certainly in good shape but if I could give it back and not have to endure all the pain and trauma I had endured then I would.

Sometimes things change and in other ways they stay the same. They tell me that change is inevitable but change isn't always good.