30 Years of Love 90 days of Lies

"Your mother and I weren't really religious people. I knew that she didn't consider herself a Christian, but I thought it was something like maybe she was just a different sect. You know, the way the Baptists and the Lutherans and the Mormons try to say that they're totally different from the Catholics? But I'd never really sat down and discussed religion with her once in all of those years. It's probably because...Well religion isn't really important to me at all. I never even give it a thought. To me Sundays are the days I do my longer runs if I'm doing a marathon that year and the day I watch football and wash my Mustang. Church just never enters my mind."

"The only time during thirty years of marriage that your mother and I are ever separated is the yearly religious retreat that she goes to with her parents. Your Aunt Rose always goes to it too, and you even started going when you were about twenty Conrad. You never said a word to me about it son. And I guess that's why what happened between us, did."

"Anyway...just after our thirtieth anniversary, your mom told me about the conference. I never gave it a second thought. After all, she'd done it every year since before we were married. There were some years that I had I to use our SUV to drive all of you guys to the airport and then pick you up three days later, but other than that it wasn't a factor. I'm not stupid, but your mom cheating on me simply never entered my mind. We loved each other so much. Our sex life was perfect, even after thirty years we couldn't keep our hands off of each other and with you guys out of the house we'd started experimenting even more."

"There was no thought in my mind that anything was going on. And if I had even dreamed that there was, I'd never have expected it to happen in a place that her parents, her sister and our son went to with her. The retreat or conference was usually held in Las Vegas, so that year I decided that I'd surprise your mom and meet her there. There was also a huge home builder's conference there at the same time. So I checked her reservations to make sure that I'd be able to find her."

"Your mom and your grandparents left the day before I did. When I got to Vegas, I checked in and found out that the hotel she stayed in was right down the street from where I was staying. I had visions of taking my wife out for a ritzy Las Vegas evening and then retiring to one of our hotels."

"I went to her hotel and found out that the conference was some kind of Pagan retreat. I had no idea what a fucking Pagan was, let alone that your mother was one of them. I couldn't even get into the conference because I wasn't a Pagan myself. Luckily I had a friend who worked for hotel security and he got me in. "

"As the big door closed behind me, I was sure that I was in the wrong place. The huge conference suite was dimly lit and it smelled like sex. I was sure that I was in the wrong place. Then I noticed that all over the room there were couples in acts of copulation. I also noticed other people running around naked eating or drinking. I was even more certain that I was in the wrong place until I spotted your Aunt Rose. Rose had her head buried between some older woman's thighs and was oblivious to everything going on around her. Rose was making all kinds of slurping sounds and trying to get face as far into the woman's crotch as she could. I wondered what her husband would think and then it hit me. I pulled out my phone and took a picture. The flash startled her and she looked up and saw me with horror written all over her face."

"Seeing Rose had lit a fire in my mind and from then on, I was on a mission. I walked around the place as if I owned it until I found Kathy, the woman I'd loved and been married to for just over thirty years."

"It wasn't hard to find her. I simply looked around the room until I found a tall skinny woman with an incredible ass and no chest. She was in a pile with two or three men and so into what she was doing that she never knew I was there. She was giving one guy a hand job and she very gently moved her hand up and down on his dick as he pumped his hips. He had both of his hands locked on his balding head and the biggest smile on his face. I wanted to shoot that fucker before he got a chance to shoot off."

"Another guy was jacking off while he watched Kathy's ass cheeks clench and unclench. As I watched, he ejaculated all over my wife's back and shoulders, giving out a huge roar as he did. The third guy was the one I wanted to kill the most. He was pumping his dick in and out of my wife's pussy, doggy style and there was no question that she was fucking him back. He was slapping her ass like he owned it each time she slammed it into his abdomen. Kathy just had a blank look on her face. It was as if she did this every day and there was nothing unusual about it. I did notice that her nipples weren't extended, but that was probably because none of the guys there were playing with them yet."

"Once I saw her, I shot off a few moments of video tape on my phone. It wasn't high def video like we shoot on our phones now, but it was good enough to take to court. I slowly rotated and filmed the entire room and then I headed for the door."

"The only person, who tried to stop me, was of course..."

"Me," said Conrad. "But Dad, I saw the hurt in your eyes and I needed to try to explain to you what was going on. I knew that you'd jump to the wrong conclusion and do exactly what you did. I figured there was some way that I could explain to you that for a lot of the people there; this was the way they practiced their religion. The Pagan rituals had been practiced that way for thousands of years. It predated Christianity. I had to try for the sake of our family."

"For a lot of the guys I spoke to later, it wasn't about religion," I spat. "It was just about sex. In fact, they became Pagans for the free and easy pussy. Some of them said it was way easier and much cheaper than finding hookers."

"So when I saw Conrad," I continued. "I was already pissed. Him, trying to tell me not to go was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Rad decided then that he was going to make me listen to reason, so he tried to prevent me from leaving. I very gently propelled him towards a place where he could continue to practice his religion."

"He shrugged off my arm and threw me across the floor into a group of people," said Conrad. "Even seven years ago at fifty he was strong as hell."

"He's still strong as hell now," smiled Darla. "We probably wouldn't have even been in the nursing home to run into your mom, if he hadn't broken his leg skiing."

"Conrad was, of course, so intent on explaining his religion to me that he didn't notice how badly I was hurt. I never even went back. I checked out of my hotel then. I paid the full weekend rate and flew home that evening. It took less than fifteen minutes for Conrad to find your mother. I knew that because she started trying to call me then. By that time, I'd already gotten back to my hotel and checked out. I went up to the room, got my bags and hit the airport. I didn't want to wait for the next day to leave like you guys had to, so I found another passenger at the airport and changed tickets with him. It cost me a thousand dollars. He was happy to do it because it gave him another day in Vegas and a grand of my money to gamble with."

"That was why Granddad couldn't find you the next morning at the airport," said Conrad. "When you wouldn't answer your phone, he checked on your hotel and plane reservations. We went to your hotel but they wouldn't give us any info. This was before 911 when anyone could get info on their family members. The airline just told him that you'd be flying out that next morning so he went to the airport and sat there in the lounge waiting for you to show up. Mom sat in the room and cried the whole time."

"Yeah, I guess we all did a lot of crying," I said. "I flew home and immediately contacted my lawyer. I canceled all of our joint credit cards including the ones your mother had with her. I also canceled the cell phone accounts for your phone and hers. The three of us were on a family plan. I just removed you two from the plan. It didn't help. She called me from payphones or other people's cell phones until she got her own."

"Dad it was awful," said Conrad. "She didn't eat. She didn't sleep. She just kept trying to call you and crying. Unlike you, the airport was so busy from all of the people flying in and out, that we couldn't get a flight out. We had to stay there the whole time."

"You should have just gone back and enjoyed your conference for a couple of more days," I said.

"I did," said Conrad sheepishly. "Mom didn't, neither did Grandma or Granddad. Aunt Rose was so afraid that you'd tell Uncle Derek that she stayed with them. Uncle Derek, unlike you, had some idea of what went on but I don't think he knew what Aunt Rose did. I think he thought that when they got married she'd just attended for the rituals and didn't really participate in the...uhm...sex part."

"Granddad assured Mom and Aunt Rose that he'd have a talk with you and straighten everything out. You guys got along pretty well. And I think he thought that he could convince you that everything was alright. Everyone knew how much you loved Mom. I mean it wasn't like you guys were newlyweds; you guys had been together for thirty years and had grown kids. Dad you were fifty two years old and had married Mom when you were twenty two. You had been with her for most of the years that you'd been alive and vice versa. The thought of either of you with anyone else was just silly. The thought of the two of you without each other was equally silly. Even Mom was sure of it. She just kept crying and crying and everyone there knew that there was nothing she wouldn't have done or changed to get you back. Dad, you were everything to her."

"And she'd been everything to me," I said. "But the pain and betrayal I felt scorched my soul. You've talked about how much your mother and I loved each other...I don't think you can imagine how much it hurt me to see her that way. Nothing mattered anymore. It destroyed any link I had with sanity. I just had to keep moving to get through it. For the first few days the only thing I felt was pain."

"So why couldn't you at least talk to mom?" asked Michael. "From what I've been told you never even gave her a chance to explain. The two of you never sat down and talked about it. If you loved her that much..."

"Mike, your mom was the most important part of my life," I answered. "But as close as we were, she wasn't a part of me. It's like a person with a knife collection. You love those knives to the point of worship. Then one day you slip, and one of the knives goes through your hand. This thing that you love and cherish has hurt you. You pull that knife out and get it away from you. You don't care that your blood will probably damage the knife; you just want it out of you. And when you pull it out and get it away from you the real pain starts."

"I wished with all of my heart that it had never happened," I said. "But once it had, there was simply no going back. I'd married a woman that I loved and had been faithful to, not some Pagan who needed to be a slut every year."

"Conrad, how many women did you usually screw at those conferences? You're an attractive guy, so maybe three or four a night if you could get it up. So you had somewhere between nine and twelve per year. A woman on the other hand...I saw your mother linked up with three men. She could probably screw as many men in a night or more than you'd do the whole weekend. Let's be conservative and say she did maybe forty guys each year. Over our thirty plus years together that meant my loving wife had cheated on me over a thousand times."

"But Dad, it wasn't really cheating," he said.

"That's what your grandpa tried to tell me. He failed too," I said. "Anyway, by the time you guys got back to town, I'd already gotten a lawyer. I'd spent the day before you got home changing the bank accounts, getting my lawyer and removing all of my personal things from the house. I was sure that the house would be sold during the divorce. I had no intention of ever going back there. I never expected her to get back as quickly as she did. I'd rented a condo across town from us and that morning I remembered that I'd taken my car out of the garage but I'd left a couple of tool boxes and my fishing gear. I hadn't really gone through the garage at all. So I headed over there first thing in the morning. I didn't expect her plane to land until afternoon and I knew I had a good cushion because I wasn't going to pick those assholes up at the airport so they'd had to arrange their own transport to their homes."

"I also expected Kathy to stay with her parents while we worked things out. But it didn't go that way. First, I overslept that morning. Then I ran over there and my Mustang really isn't a great car for hauling things. I couldn't even fit either of the small tool boxes in that trunk. So I'd had to take only the tools that were so essential that I didn't want to lose them. I could only fit lures and hooks and other small items of my fishing gear in the car also. I'd been thinking about tying a couple of my favorite rods to the top of the car when I saw them pull up. I closed the garage and jumped into my car and started down the driveway. Your mom got out of the car and stood in front of mine. If it hadn't been for my performance brakes, I'd probably have run her down."

She tried to get me to talk to her and I refused, so she just stood in front of the car thinking that eventually I'd give up. The whole time, your Granddad and your Aunt Rose were babbling at me to be reasonable. I locked my doors and let all of the windows up. I gunned my engine like I was going to move the car. Your mom was so sure that I'd never hurt her that she didn't even blink. So I just shut the motor down and sat back in the car to wait her out. She kept talking but I couldn't hear her over the radio. She laid down on my hood and put her face up to the windshield and kept talking. I pulled out my phone and called the police."

"When the police pulled up, your granddad thought he could bullshit them. He told them that it was a family squabble and we could work it out on our own. I let my window down and yelled to them that I was the one who'd called them. They immediately came over to the car and I got out. I explained to them that I was moving out of the house and they were preventing me from leaving. I was legally able to live wherever I wanted and I didn't want to live in that house for one second longer."

"The officer explained to your grandpa that preventing me from leaving could be considered unlawful imprisonment or kidnapping. Your grandpa was slick. He asked them if desertion was okay, because I was deserting my wife and kids. The police turned to me. I asked your grandpa if he really wanted to play that kind of game?

He didn't say anything so I explained to the police that it wasn't desertion because all of our kids were not only grown, but out of the house. Both of us were in our fifties and I'd recently discovered that my wife had cheated on me for over thirty years. I also explained to them that her father had been a part of it. I told them that if they needed to see it, I had video and photos as proof and that I'd be using them in the divorce."

"As soon as the word divorce left my mouth everything got quiet. From what I saw your mother fainted. Your grandmother and granddad took care of her, while your Aunt Rose started begging me to leave her out of it. The cop signaled for me to use that time to get out, so I did."

"From what I later learned, your mom went into the hospital for a few days and then went to stay with her parents. I went into work the next day and started to work with my accountant to put all of the books in order and to make sure everything was on schedule and operating perfectly. From conversations with my lawyer, I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep my business AND cut ties with your mother. And that was what I really needed. I didn't want to have to pay her any alimony because that would give her a reason to or a way to contact me. I'd have to give her a phone number or an address or even a lawyer to talk to in the event that something changed and I didn't want that. I wanted to walk out of the courtroom on the final day of our divorce and never have to lay eyes on her again."

"My lawyer had, of course, heard the entire story of what happened. He told me that even if I could manage to separate myself from her financially, there would always be you three to consider. You'd all get married if you weren't already and you'd have kids and there'd be all kinds of family events where I'd run into Kathy. I told him to draw up the papers anyway."

"When I got back to work that day from meeting with my lawyer at lunch, Conrad, the gem of an idea was already in my mind. You nursed it along by coming in and as usual, giving me your opinion on what a coward I was. You railed on me for being too cowardly to even listen to what your mother had to say. You went on and on about how I didn't understand any of it. Son, it was the wrong thing to do at the wrong time. So I fired you and had security escort you out of the building. I can still see the hurt look on your face, but things were going to get worse for you. In my mind you had simply ramped up your betrayal even further. You painted a target on your own back."

"It didn't take long after that for your grandpa to show up. He told me about your mother having a hysterical nervous breakdown. I told him that she'd still be covered under our company's health plan until the divorce was final. That was the first time I remember seeing that man cry. He told me that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I told him his daughter had already made hers. He started giving me all of this quasi-religious shit and facts and the history of Paganism and I asked him what it had to do with us. He told me that this country was founded on religious freedom. I countered with the marriage vows. He then reminded me of the ceremony we'd done. Our whole marriage ceremony had been based on Pagan ceremony and we had never vowed to hold ourselves only unto each other. I was stunned because he was right."

"He tried to score more points by reminding me that Kathy had been participating in her religion since before we got together. She had done it since she was eighteen years old and over the age of consent. Her deflowering had been the highlight of one of their ceremonies and it had been a beautiful thing. He also told me that his daughter loved me. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that she loved me more than anything or any person on earth including him and her religion. For more than thirty years she had been a good and faithful wife to me three hundred and sixty two days of the year; for that alone, she deserved for us to talk about what was going on. I agreed."

"You could see the relief pouring off of him when I said it."

"I'll bring her home tonight at about six, will that do?" he asked. I just nodded.

"I'll meet you there," I said.

"Aren't you living there?" he asked.

"No, we're probably going to sell the house," I said. "And even if Kathy wants to pay me to keep it. I'm not willing to change the settlement much more so she can have it."

"You're making up your mind pretty early aren't you?" he asked.

"See you at six," I said. "If you're driving her you should wait for her. I don't think it will take more than an hour." He just smiled.

"You don't know my daughter," he said.

"I've been married to her for thirty years," I said. "And I just found out that I don't. But then none of you know me either."