A Slight Miscalculation

Rosa, 42, had been married for 15 years, but to quote her, she wasn't a fanatic about it. She had engaged in several flings with her husband's knowledge, and several more without his knowing, and often shared stories of her assignations with Lauren. She was a very good storyteller, and made the sex with most of her lovers seem fantastic.

"So you haven't sampled anyone since before you got married? You are a rock, woman, but I'm not believing you don't want to," Rosa said one day during a coffee break at work.

"Well... I'm not saying I'm not curious, but I would never cheat on Travis," Lauren said.

Lauren had noticed in recent months that several times it didn't seem to her she was pulling in the same amount of attention from men in bars and restaurants that she had previously. She noticed that more than once, younger women were getting the looks previously directed her way. She had started to question her powers of visual persuasion.

"Let's play the what-if game. What if hubs gave you permission to sample? What then?" Rosa asked.

Lauren's face showed that she had never considered that scenario before. The wheels in her head were turning furiously.

"I guess if I had permission... then that would be a whole other story," Lauren acknowledged with a sheepish grin.

"Have you ever considered... asking for permission?" Rosa queried. "You know anything worth having is worth asking for."

Lauren had never considered that before. Her face lit up, then dropped.

"He would never give me permission. Never," Lauren said.

"Do I have to do all the work around here?" Rosa asked. "Tacit permission. Tell him, then take what you want, regardless of his answer. Tell him he loves you enough to let you do this. You can get past this because it has nothing to do with love. You only love him."

Travis was awakened by the sound of a car pulling up in his driveway. A glance at his watch told him it was a few minutes after 3 AM. A glance at his bottle of Woodford Reserve told him he had killed off about half.

"Big evening, huh?" he snarked at Lauren as she walked in the front door.

Travis took a good look at the cliché his wife had become. Her hair was combed but mussed, her makeup was gone, her clothes looked rumpled. Far from looking remorseful, she looked... smug.

"I could say the same to you," she hissed. "You didn't have to wait up, you know.

"I'm going up to bed. You coming?"

"Maybe never again in this lifetime with you," he snarked back.

Lauren gave him her best look of disgust, then headed up the stairs. Travis poured another three fingers of bourbon into his glass, then went back to watching ESPN.

Travis spent the night in his La-Z-Boy, half-dozing, half-drinking, his stomach roiling. He finally roused himself from his chair around 9 and made himself breakfast. While he was eating, he heard the shower start in the master bath.

"Slutzilla arises," he thought to himself.

Under normal circumstances, Travis could have expected his wife to come downstairs in her robe and with her hair wrapped in a towel. This morning, she didn't come down for about an hour, and when she did, she was dried, dressed and made up, looking like perfection as always. He expected nothing less.

"Any chance you left something for me to eat?" she asked.

"I made a big pot of coffee, but you're on your own for food. And while you're being domestic, I think it's a good time to talk," he stated flatly.

Lauren was surprised at how unemotional Travis seemed. She expected he would be just about foaming at the mouth and irrational, thus easier to manipulate. A rational Travis would make the conversation much more difficult, she reasoned to herself.

"Do you want to know about last night?" she said softly.

Travis detected a note of superiority in her tone. Did she really think he wanted a play-by-play of his cuckolding?

"Not hardly. What I want to know is how you see this marriage going?" Travis said, his voice no louder than hers.

"Like I said yesterday, I intend to... sample some other men for a couple of years. Just sex, not love. I love only you, but I want to sample some more men while I've still got my looks and body. I've given you everything for 23 years; never had a thought of cheating. I want the thrill of... some strange. You're great in bed, but I want some... variety. You know, get some different experience for a while, then you and I can ride off into the sunset together, and I'll be grateful for the experience and pamper you exclusively for the rest of our lives," Lauren said.

Travis listened intently as Lauren spoke, while fixing some toast and jam to go along with her coffee. He thought the act of her fixing toast while talking about the most important thing in his life was rather dispassionate.

He had so many questions.

"This is all about you wanting... variety? I'm not enough for you," he rasped.

She started to answer, but he cut her off.

"So you want to have an open marriage for a few years, then go back to being monogamous again sometime in the future? That means I'd get to fu... date other people, too?"

Lauren tried unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. The very thought of her nice, quiet, husband asking another woman out on a date was ludicrous. Travis was the most married man she had ever met. However, if that's what it took for him to give approval...

"Basically, yes," she answered. "Of course, I'm assuming that it would be just sex for you, too."

Travis raised his eyebrows and sort of shrugged. Lauren had no clue about that move. She had a thought, however.

"So... would you like a date with Rosa? You know, the really pretty woman from my office. I'm sure she'd love to do that," Lauren said, knowing that her friend would have no problem fucking her husband, especially if it meant helping Lauren achieve her goal of fucking other men and yet staying married.

Travis looked conflicted. The horny 21-year-old single guy in him wanted to fuck Rosa into a coma. The responsible 47-year-old married guy knew he couldn't.

"I'd love a date with Rosa, but no thanks, babe. That would make me every bit the slut you showed yourself to be last night," he said.

Lauren's face had started to break into a smile, then quickly changed into a visage of anger.

"I am not a slut!" she shrieked.

"If you insist, babe," he said, way more matter of fact than she would have ever expected. "I'm still not on board for this."

"Well, get over yourself, babe, because I'm doing it even if you're not," she hissed.

Rosa stopped into Lauren's office Monday morning at about 11 to find the latter didn't look happy.

"Fuck that sanctimonious asshole and the horse he rode in on!" Lauren hissed to Rosa after she closed Lauren's office door. "Hell, he even turned down a date with you!"

Rosa frowned.

"I didn't realize I was on the menu... but fuck him. How could he turn this down?" she said, smoothing her hands down her body.

"But what about the date? Did you have a good time or did Travis ruin that for you?"

Rosa asked.

"The date was fantastic! Jonas certainly knows how to make a woman feel good," Lauren enthused. "God, it had been so long since I had another man's dick inside me. I definitely loved the difference.

"Who do you think I should try next?"

The two women laughed heartily.

Lauren was emboldened by the fact that she hadn't been served divorce papers immediately. Since she and her husband were barely communicating, she figured it was smarter not to ask about his plans at all.

Although he didn't tell his wife, Travis really didn't want to rush into divorce. He was hoping that she would come to her senses quickly, and abandon her foolish plans of cuckolding him. He believed he could forgive her and they could get past her transgression if she would stop this foolishness.

His hopes were bolstered when Lauren didn't go out on a date the next week, although he still didn't move back into the master bedroom and the two still were not communicating positively. The next Friday evening, however, Lauren was again dressed to the nines, apparently ready to go out again.

"You're seriously going to do this again? Same guy, or you going to fuck someone new this week?" Travis rasped harshly.

"Damn, Trav, haven't you been listening to a word I've said? This isn't about you. It's about me... and my wanting to get a little something-something before I get too old to attract anybody. It's not that I want you less, I just want more... and different. You know I get hit on constantly. I just want to enjoy some of that. I will always come back to you..."

"What if I don't want you to come back to me? I won't share you. I won't sit idly by while you have 'your fun.' I'm not made that way. I won't be waiting for you to sample half the male population of our city.

"I wasn't sure when you did your first date, but I think I could have gotten past that. Once could have been extreme stupidity, but twice is extreme disrespect, extreme betrayal.

"Stay out all night. Stay out forever. We're done. I wasn't put on this earth to take shit from you.

"Wah, wah, wah," she said, making finger talking movements with her right hand. "You know you don't want to lose me. This doesn't have to be an either-or situation."

Travis had his attorney working on the paperwork last week, hoping against hope that it wouldn't be necessary. He would make the call to have his wife served Monday morning, but first he would need to call his two daughters and tell them.

Neither Jackie, 21, nor Michelle, 19, believed their father at first when he made the calls that night, at least on the surface, but in talking with both, he discovered his oldest daughter had perhaps more than a clue that something was up.

"You knew she was going to pull this shit and didn't tell me?" he yelled over the phone. "Don't you think I deserved to know what was going to happen?"

"Please, Daddy. I was put in a really bad spot. One of you wasn't going to be happy with me regardless of which way I played this. Besides, it's her body; you don't own it, and if she wants share it..."

"Don't! Don't go there!" Travis yelled. "I get that she put you in between us, but don't give me that shit about her being able to do whoever she wants, whenever she wants, because it's her body. We. Made. Vows. Vows supersede the 'her body speech.'"

"I-I-I..." she mumbled briefly, then silence.

"Damn, baby."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," she whispered.

Travis was nowhere in sight when Lauren walked in the door at 2 AM. Even though she was an hour earlier than the last date, she looked a little rougher. Gabriel Esposito was a big strong man who was very forceful physically, perhaps the most forceful man Lauren had ever encountered in bed. She ended the evening moving gingerly and had a sore throat from the man occasionally shoving his hard cock into her throat. She knew that by tomorrow she would probably have a couple of grip bruises as well. All in all, it was an excellent night, she thought. She would enjoy Gabriel some other night as well.

Lauren was shocked and embarrassed when she was served divorce papers Monday morning at her office. She burst into tears and ran to the ladies' room. Rosa showed up a couple of minutes later after hearing the commotion.

"You had to know he would have you served, at least," Rosa said. "You hurt him bad, babe. This is his way of hurting you back. Tit for tat. Men are such children. He's trying to force your hand. He's not going to throw away a 23-year marriage and half of his stuff. Give him a week of being by himself and living alone and he'll come crawling back."

Lauren went back to her desk after she straightened herself up, grabbed her phone and immediately dialed her husband.

"How could you do that to me... in the office, in front of everyone? I know you're hurt, but I deserved better than that, Trav," she practically screeched over the phone.

"After 23 years, didn't I deserve better than you unilaterally deciding to open up our marriage? If I wasn't enough for you, couldn't you just have given me a heads-up and we could have gone our separate ways like civilized people," Travis said.

"I don't want civilized. I don't want a divorce. I still love you. You still love me," she wailed.

"I do still love you, but that love lessens each time you fuck somebody else," he growled. "My love is not a bottomless well. Like you, I always thought it was. Who knew? We were both wrong."

Lauren fought the divorce. Her attorney requested and got marriage counseling, even though Travis was dead-set against it.

Lauren smiled and Travis frowned when the pair was ushered into the counselor's inner sanctum and found Lillian Comacho at one of the chairs at the counsel table. The numbers on marriage counselors show that most believe their job is to reconcile divorcing couples, and women counselors seem to lean to favoring the women.

The pair took two of the three empty seats at the table. The counselor cleared her throat to indicate she would start.

"I've read both of your files and seen both of your statements," Ms. Camacho started. "Let's start easy. Mrs. Wesley, did you actually tell your husband you were going to date other men for a few years?"

Travis tried hard not to let the counselor see his smirk. Lauren tried hard not to let the counselor see show shocked she was. She considered lying, but then realized she didn't have a cover story to go with the lie.

"Yes. Yes, I did tell him that," she answered quietly. "This is something I want... no need... to do for me. It won't affect our marriage..."

"Well, I guess we are done here, then," the counselor said. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time, Mrs. Wesley. I'll talk to the judge and get this charade ended."

"But. But. But..." Lauren stammered.

"Honey, if you think for a minute that what you did to your husband would fly with me, you are out of your ever-loving mind. You should be ashamed of yourself, but you obviously don't have any shame in you. Frankly, you disgust me," Ms. Comacho said.

Lauren called and texted Travis several times a day for the next month, as he had rented a small apartment near his home. He didn't answer the calls nor respond to the texts. She enlisted the help of their daughters, who called several times.

"Dad, you know you still love her. If she would stop dating other men, would you give her another chance?" Michelle asked during one such call.

"So she's still been doing it, even after I had her served?" Travis queried with a shaky voice.

He got nothing but silence in response. That was all the answer he needed. Michelle never called again to ask him to try again.

Travis was surprised at how fast word got around about his pending divorce, especially among single women. Several women at his workplace expressed their condolences about his marital problems, as did several women who were friends of both him and his wife. He was smart enough to realize that not all of their condolences were altruistic.

Connie Meong was a longtime friend of his wife's who called to offer regrets at what was happening in Travis' life. She not so subtly offered him a shoulder to cry on and a hot, wet pussy in which he could soothe his manly longings. Travis was shocked that a close friend of his wife would hit on him so openly; the divorcee had never even so much as given him a sideways look in all the years she had known him.

"I would never go after a friend's husband; that's just wrong," she told him. "But now that you're a free man... the rules are different. I'm letting you know that I'm interested."

"I'm shocked. I'm honored. But I'm not a free man yet, Connie, and I won't even date until the divorce is final. I know I'm being stupid, but I won't cheat," Travis said.

"You're such a Boy Scout, Trav. That's one of the things I like about you; always have. Can I at least be considered for a date when you are free?" Connie said.

"Absolutely," Travis said, "but I don't want to get in between you and Lauren. You guys have been friends for a lot of years."

"I appreciate your being sensitive, but just because she's a bonehead doesn't mean I have to pass on a good man. I wouldn't think twice if you were just some strange guy and we had just met," Connie said.

"How about I call you when the leash is off?" Travis joked.

Connie was a 5-foot-nothing Asian sprite, with an athletic body and waist-length black hair, one of Travis' turn-ons. He had to admit to himself that he was more than a little surprised to have a woman express interest in him.

Travis was true to his word and called Connie the day his divorce became official. That next Saturday night, they went to a restaurant and then a local jazz club. Connie could tell that Travis was uncomfortable, and commented on it.

"I feel like an inexperienced 15-year-old," he responded. "I haven't been on a date with another woman in more than 26 years."

"Please don't tell me that the condom in your wallet is the same one from your last date before Lauren," she kidded.

"Was I supposed to have a condom? Shit! I didn't even think about that. What a rookie," Travis answered.

Connie gave Travis a soft peck on the lips at the end of the night. They both felt good about the date and he promised to call again.

Travis didn't think much about taking off his wedding ring on the day the divorce was final, but apparently, it was a big deal to the single female population. Spotting the empty space on his ring finger, several of his female co-workers took notice and commented, and suddenly the flirting level in his office went up noticeably. This was a novel thing for him, and he mentioned it to his best friend in the office at lunch one day.

"There are a lot of fine-looking women in this office. How did I never notice that before?" Travis asked.

"You, my friend, were a pussy-whipped bastard," Robert Ardito said. "You were so much in love with... that woman, you never even looked at other women as sexual creatures. I mean... she is a beautiful woman, no doubt about that, but you let her put your balls in her purse. And maybe that was part of the problem. She gets checked out constantly; she has 'value.' You were so whipped and gave off so much of that vibe that no woman was going to look at you."

Travis went out on four dates in the first month after his divorce was finalized; two with Connie. He had yet to bed any of the three women he dated, but that was never his end game. He was just as busy in the second month, and wound up bedding two women.

Having kept in better contact with their mother than their father in recent months, Travis' daughters had heard her continuing assertion that while she could virtually get any man just by snapping her fingers, their father was just an average man in his late 40s and would have problems even finding a date, let alone get a steady girlfriend. They began to feel sorry for their father, and showed up at his apartment together unannounced one Saturday morning about two months after the divorce.

Travis wasn't happy about being awakened at 8:36, especially since he was up late entertaining his date the night before. Sonya, a buxom 25-year-old, was the daughter of a friend of a friend who had needed a reliable plus-one for a wedding reception. The evening went so well the pair decided to finish at Travis' apartment. At the moment, she was hunkered down asleep in his bed as he answered the door in his robe.

"What?" he questioned as he swung the door open to the smiling faces of his daughters, who were holding bags of bagels, lox and cream cheese.

"Hey, Dad. Can't your two favorite daughters stop by with breakfast?" Jackie said as the pair walked in.

Travis kissed both on the cheek and led them to his kitchen table, where they emptied the bags they carried. They were just putting the bagels together when Sonya staggered out of the bedroom wearing one of Travis' white dress shirts, half-buttoned... and maybe wearing nothing else.