750 Words About Guilt

Just a quick story about a feeling of guilt, and maybe a change of attitude, from a different perspective than usual here. Story itself is exactly 750 words long.

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Funny the things that make you feel guilty.

It was warm on Sunday morning, in Jill's bed, under a light sheet and comforter. I could hear her, puttering around the kitchen, making us breakfast, I assumed. No smell of frying bacon or sausage yet, so she must've just started.

There were pictures on her bedroom wall, pictures of Michael, her husband, and Jill, together on a ski trip, pictures of their children at various ages, and, worst of all, a photo of them taken at their wedding. Those things never bothered me.

Her husband, 1SG Michael Bronstein, was away, at his two weeks of AT, Annual Training, at Fort Leonard Wood -- Fort Lost in the Woods -- in Missouri. A surveyor with the 476th Engineer Detachment, 365th Engineer Battalion in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, and this was his house, his bed, and, of course his wife.

Did it bother me that I had been fucking his wife? No, that never bothered me. Did it bother me that he was an Army Reservist, a soldier who had been deployed twice to Iraq? Nope, not at all. Did it bother me that, having spent six years in the Army myself, that I'd be derisively referred to as Jody by other soldiers? Not just no, but Hell no! Did it bother me that Jill was in the kitchen of the house that First Sergeant Bronstein mostly paid for, cooking breakfast for her side guy? If a guy couldn't keep his wife at home, he deserved to get cucked!

Of course, Jill Simpson was the first soldier's wife I nailed, but hardly the first wife. Wives are easy to get into bed, at least easy for me. My parents had blessed me with central heterochromia: eyes of different colors, one an icy blue and one a brilliant green, and those really caught women's eyes. It was the ice breaker an otherwise just average guy like me needed to chat them up, and once I got them talking it was pretty easy for me to see which ones were down to fuck.

You know, guys really marry women to get into their pants. Yeah, most of them have done the work and gotten into their pants well before the wedding day, before any engagement, before any talk of being 'exclusive,' whatever the Hell that means, arises, but that's just it: it was work on their parts. Putting a ring on it simply means that they don't think they have to work for it anymore.

But of course they have to keep working for it! When husbands stop working for it, wives become like ripe apples, ready to fall from the tree. That's when it's easy for me to pick 'em and take a fresh bite!

So, what was making me feel guilty? Rover -- and who really names a dog Rover? That's comic strip stuff -- was their chocolate lab, and he had jumped up into the bed and curled up beside me, kind of jammed against my legs, falling asleep next to me just like I was his master.

It was one thing to sleep with a guy's wife. I used to think of that as a challenge, a way of competing against other men, and coming away with a win in a game they never even knew they were playing. But to steal the affection of his dog? All of a sudden I felt like the lowest of the low.

Jill called me, telling me that breakfast was ready. I got out of bed, being careful not to disturb Rover too much. He raised his head a bit, and made some kind of weird grunting sound, but went back to sleep in just seconds. I pulled on my boxers and pants, plus the golf shirt I had worn last night, and walked into the kitchen.

Jill had really gone all out. Two eggs, sunny side up, some corned beef hash, fried apples, OJ and coffee. Wearing just a pink satin shorty robe, her brunette hair still messy from last night but pulled back with a scrunchie, a smile on her face, she was just how a woman should look in the morning. Bronstein was a luck man to have a wife like her.

And here I was, fucking his wife. Rats!

That was when I knew what I had to do. I walked over, kissed her, and said, "Sorry, looks great but I've got to go."

That was the end. I left and I never came back.