An Unfaithful Wife: Brad's Story

An introduction and a couple admonitions:

By way of introduction this is one of several stories, maybe three or four, involving infidelity without my concomitant effort to reconcile the spouses. Something else will happen. No mayhem, just something else. Also, it's in two parts, but it's all here, no sequels.

A couple admonitions are in order. First, the sex here is minimal. Second, anything that smacks of the political is just for the purposes of this story so don't get in an uproar. Third, if you're a skimmer stop now. You'll only be wasting your time. Last, if you've read anything I've written before you'll very quickly recognize who the heroine is. I don't care. It's my story and I know who I like. You don't like her, then write your own story.

Well, here goes...

*****

"An Unfaithful Wife: Brad's Story"

By Carvohi

Prologue:

My oldest son called me the other day. He said he needed to talk about a problem he was having. He's been married just under three years and he's afraid his wife's been fooling around. Since I've had some experience in these matters he's confident I can help him. I think I can. To be sure this hasn't been something I've thought about in a long time, but he's my son and his mother and I had our problems.

It wasn't recent; in fact I had to ponder way back to the 1990's to come up with anything. I'm proud of my boy. I'm proud of all my kids. If he needs his dad's advice, I'll try to share what I have. Think I'll just sit down and try to go back; kind of refresh my memory. Maybe I'll jot down some notes. I want to be ready for him when he gets here.

Now let's see...

~~v~~

Part One: First Love.

I'd met the woman who I'd thought was my one true love back in high school when I was in the tenth grade. Her name was Carol Manning, and believe me, she was the cat's meow, long blond hair, not big but a well-proportioned body, and brilliantly flashing blue eyes. She was easily one of the most popular girls in our class. We were the same age. Every guy was after her.

Me? The names Brad Wernicke I was kind of skinny, a little on the tall side, gangly I guess. She wasn't interested in me at all. Couldn't blame her; I was shy, socially backward with girls, not especially athletic, and with no distinctive artistic or musical attributes.

The first time I saw her was at her sixteenth birthday party. Her boyfriend at the time was a high school dropout two years older than her, a real jerk named Vernon Smithers. Everyone's met the type; worked on cars all the time so his fingernails were always grimy with body putty, lifted weights till his head looked too small for his torso, greasy black hair, and spent most of his spare time on the 'corner' glaring and snarling at the younger guys. He always had the same line. If anyone dared glance in his direction he'd glower and say, "What're you looking at?" He had just two outstanding advantages; he had a part-time job, and he had a car. I hated him.

So she was at her party prancing around in this corduroy jumper with suspenders; white knee high stockings that made her legs look more naked than they really were, low heeled shoes that accentuated fantastic calves, jiggling tits, hair waving all about, and just smiling at everyone. I swear she looked like a goddess.

She saw me. I was way across the room. I hadn't even been invited. I'd come with another guy who knew her. Man, she didn't know me from Adam, but she looked right at me, she smiled, and just sort of glided through the crowd and got right in front of me. She put her hands up around the back of my neck and touched me so softly with her fingertips that my whole body shivered, then she leaned forward and kissed the living shit right of out me. With that done, she stepped back, giggled, took the thumb and index finger of her right hand and gently pinched my cheek.

Last, without a single word she did a one-eighty and walked back to her boyfriend. I saw him. If he'd had a gun I would've been dead. Oh yeah, I had an enemy, but I didn't care. I'd fallen desperately and hopelessly in love. She must have known too because she ever so slightly tilted her head and looked back at me before she turned back again to her boyfriend. She must have said something about me, because he glanced in my direction and hurled over one of those, 'I'm so much better than you' predatory smiles.

Carol reminded me of that girl in the movie "Foot Loose"; she might not have been to bed yet, but she sure must have been kissed a lot. She was way out of my league. I recalled Mrs. Warheime, my English teacher, she was a Dickens fanatic. It was like Carol was Estella and I was Pip; she was the unassailable beauty, and I was the dirty little boy. It didn't matter. I didn't care. I had to have her. I'd do whatever it took, but I had to make her mine.

Well, one by one, guy by guy, I slowly managed to out maneuver all my competitors. By the time we reached graduation there was just she and I. Oh, and it helped a lot that her parents made her stop seeing Vernon.

Graduation came; we got our diplomas, and took off for the beach. We were old enough, and together we finished what we'd started. I was a virgin. I thought she was too. We made mad passionate love in the back seat of my rusty old Ford. Of course we used a rubber. I ejaculated too soon, and though she pretended, I knew she hadn't gotten anything out of it. I made up for it later. We had all summer. She surprised me a little; she knew all about fellatio and cunnilingus.

One of the really great things about my old car was that it had a bench seat in the front. We'd go riding around on these old country roads. I'd turn the radio up real loud, and she'd lay down with her head on my lap. At first she'd just softly blow her warm breath on my crotch. I'd start to get hard, and she'd pull down the zipper to my jeans or slacks, pull out my Johnson, and kiss and nibble on it while we rode around. Then I'd pull off on the side somewhere, push the seat back as far as it would go, slide over to the middle, she'd straddle me, and we'd go at it.

Afterward we'd sit up side by side and talk about the future. The whole time we talked she'd use her fingers to scoop up the juice and loose semen from my penis and put it in her mouth. Sometimes she'd go back down on me and lick me clean with her tongue. She said she liked the taste of my semen. Talk about glory days.

September arrived and it was college for me. I wanted to become a school teacher; a math teacher. Carol wanted to be a nurse, an RN. I went to the local commuter's college, and she got a room in one of the dormitories at one of the big downtown hospitals.

For the next four years we had our ups and downs. In addition to classes I had to work, and Carol was close to twenty miles away so we didn't get to see each other very often.

I think I also got a few doses of maturity from my home life. First, my dad collapsed at his work one day, massive brain hemorrhage. They had him in intensive care for days all wrapped in ice. They had to open him up and scoop out some of his brain tissue. That left a dent in his head. The company he worked for gave him a small severance package, and then let him go leaving us all high and dry.

Dad was a cripple, and spent the rest of his life sitting in a chair. Sometimes mom had to help him with his food; he'd get mad and garble out a bunch of barely understandable cuss words, or he'd just sit there with tears falling down his cheeks. He could have sued, but he wasn't the litigious type. He was proud too, so he never put in for any kind of government assistance. Mom had to go to work, and I had to help out with my siblings.

I had; and still have a younger brother and younger sister. Without my dad's strong hand little brother, Todd, went through a spell of trouble. He missed time from school and his grades went right down the toilet. Mom had to go to the police station once to get him out.

Little sister, her name was, is, Susan, she was a real heartache for a couple years. I guess she was a lot like Carol; Susan got too pretty and too popular too soon and that attracted all the wrong guys. Mom and I had a tough time keeping her on the straight and narrow. I had to surreptitiously follow her around in my car a couple times to make sure she stayed away from one guy who was way too old for her. Todd and I caught up with him one night, we had a long talk, and the guy agreed to stay away. It was a good thing too, because Todd liked to fight.

Poor dad just helplessly watched. It was pathetic; Dad had been such a powerful man, a real role model. He'd kept us all together. I did the best I could, but I was never the man he'd been.

It was mom who broke my heart. Dad was a fixture in a chair and mom still had 'her needs'. There was a small tavern a couple blocks from our home, and mom started sneaking down there so she could 'hook up' every now and then. Sometimes she'd get home late from her job and tell us it was because of 'mandatory overtime'. Other times she'd get home her regular time, clean up, put on something pretty, slip out the back door and be gone for two or three hours. Dad knew but never said anything. He was a proud man, and I knew what she did really hurt him. I think in the end it helped kill him.

Dad died while I was still in college. His death affected mom in the most profound ways. Even though he was a cripple and even if she was doing awful things she really loved him. After he died she cried all the time, she never did anything but work, she stopped eating, she lost all interest in everything, and she just moped around our house. I suppose her guilt and loss nearly killed her. It's true 'you really don't know what you've got till it's gone'.

Back to Carol and me; we broke up a couple times, but managed to get things back after what was usually a brief interlude. I never thought about it back then, but looking back now I realized our 'separations' were most likely times when she thought she'd found someone else to 'play' with. I never did anything like that, she was all I ever wanted, but I had my suspicions about her. I mean I cared.

I just lied; it did bother me. I was being faithful. I wanted her to stay loyal, but we weren't married, we didn't get engaged until the spring of my senior year, and I couldn't prove anything anyway.

About the proof thing; I guess I went a little over the top one time. I didn't 'own' her, I couldn't 'make' her be faithful, but once in my junior year my suspicions got the better of me. We were 'on the outs', and I was pretty sure she was up to something. I kept calling trying to talk to her, trying to make up, but her nursing school girlfriends all intercepted my calls. They'd yell at me and lecture me about how I wasn't being fair, and that though Carol really loved me, she needed 'time away' sometimes. They'd tell me she was there in the dorm, but she was so sad and unhappy that all she did was cry and confess to them how mean I'd been to her. I'd never been mean to her.

I mean it; I'd always been a little insecure when it came to Carol, it was tough being a mortal in love with a goddess. I started driving down to the city to see what, if anything, was going on. I didn't accomplish a thing. Carol had a car, but she kept it in one of those big 'private' garages. The only way I could've found out if her car was gone would have been to park my car and walk through all the levels. The only other thing I could do was sit outside the hospital in my car, or drive around it, to see if I could catch her. The only thing I managed to do was drive myself crazy. But I loved her so much!

Gee it was awful; dad was home trapped in a chair watching mom go in and out while I was driving around not knowing anything. I wondered sometimes who had it worse. I think dad did.

~~v~~

I finally graduated and got a job teaching high school math, and Carol got something at a pediatric clinic not far from where we grew up. We got married, had a nice wedding, and we were finally on our way.

A few months in and Carol got pregnant. Our first was a boy so we named him after me. A couple years after that a little girl showed up. We named her Bridget after Carol's mom. With two kids in the family Carol decided, rather than get her tubes tied, she'd go on the pill. Me, not anxious to get snipped, I went along. It never occurred to me back then her decision not do her tubes might someday lead to trouble.

Life went on, and it was good. We bought a small 'starter' home in a quiet older neighborhood. Since we had her mom to pick up the slack Carol never missed much time from work with the pregnancies or child care. Carol stayed at the clinic and got into supervision, while I got a couple promotions, eventually to principal, and transferred to a newer larger high school.

The whole time we were always close. By that I mean, no long out of state meetings or seminars. Every now and then I'd be called away for a few days and once or twice Carol got a chance to add to her education by over-nighting at one of the big hospitals in the city. What I mean was 'I was there and she was there' so there was never any of the old, 'you're never around' or 'we hardly see each other' excuses. Just the same trouble came.

Long about the time junior was in the sixth grade I guess I sort of knew something just wasn't quite right. It wasn't sexual, and I could've sworn our 'regular' conviviality hadn't changed much, but I was sure something just wasn't what it was supposed to be.

What was it that sort of raised my eyebrows? I guess it was the little things, things I'd seen with my mom. Carol always liked nice things, but I thought maybe the hem lines were a little shorter, the blouses looked a little flimsier, and maybe the heels were a little higher. I never said anything.

Another thing sort of nagged at me. We'd always talked. We'd talk about the kids, about vacations, and about our long-term plans. Well the kids, vacations, the bills, household needs were still on the table, but we stopped talking about the long-term. I mean Carol was still looking days and weeks ahead, but anything a year or two years away just stopped getting any playing time.

Sounded stupid I guess, but we'd done some camping. We'd gone from a tent to a pop-up, and for a while we'd been investigating trailers. Carol had been talking about saving vacation and comp. time for a long drive across the country. For a while she seemed excited, and then it just stopped. I would still bring up things like the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, but she'd stopped participating. I'd mention something, maybe ask her a couple questions, and she'd kind of stammer and dodge around it. She'd like nervously nod, agree, and then come back with a remark like, 'yes, but the thing of it is...' or, 'of course yes, but right now is not a good...' When she talked like that I noticed she'd never look at me. She wasn't looking ahead like I was; maybe she had 'other plans'.

This was before the widespread use of affordable cell phones, GPS devices, or laptops, and the internet was still in its infancy so modern notions of electronic surveillance were still just a little over the horizon, at least as far as I was concerned. There weren't going to be any private investigators either. For one, for me the idea of 'spying' on my wife was anathema and second Carol managed the money. Does that set off any alarms? It should.

Carol managed the money. We had a checking account but I never used it. We had one credit card we both used, and besides, most things were still being done with cash. Oh I used the card for gas and trips to the lumberyard, but food and other items were done with greenbacks. Carol did the shopping, bought the kids clothes, and handled the bills. Every now and then I'd ask, "We all right?" And Carol would always answer, "We're good."

It wasn't the money, not at first that set off the real clarion calls. I was a principal and that meant things like PTA, and sports. Fall meant Friday night football and after-school soccer and hockey. Winter was basketball and volleyball, and spring time meant baseball, lacrosse, and track. Of course, I couldn't get to every game, but I was expected to be around for most of them, and that did leave Carol home alone with just the kids every now and then.

I had to rethink this a little. There were a few occasions when I had to be away. There were times for Carol too. For me there were the "Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools" and also the "Southern Regional Educational Board". These two organizations were chartered to establish temporary committees that made periodic visits to participating high schools. Being a principal it meant me having to occasionally participate as a specialist, sometimes in administration, sometimes in mathematics, in visitations to various schools. These visits could take as long as a whole week away from home. Carol, being a supervisor, also had to make occasional trips away from home. I never believed any of these trips turned into anything. Maybe I was wrong. I'll never know.

Still, Carol was home alone with the kids, or was she? Two doors down was Jenny McFurdle; sixteen and ripe and ready to babysit. I suspect something started in the fall of junior's sixth grade year. Bridget was in the fourth grade, and I had Friday night football.

Carol was good about what she did; no clever was more the operative word. She had her colleagues, and I had my football. It was too easy. I might hang around school and stay for a game, or come home, grab a bite, change clothes and take off. Sometimes, if the weather permitted I'd even take the kids. Believe me taking the kids to a football game was great for them. They got to hang out with older kids, and there was always a bunch of junior or senior girls more than willing to butter up the principal by playing nursemaid. Either way, Jenny McFurdle or high school girls it was good for me, good for our kids, and 'good' for Carol, just for her in another way.

~~v~~

I didn't want to drag this out with my son so I planned to lay things out as clearly as I could. I remember I found out there seemed to be two kinds of affairs, one was the sneaky little tryst, and the second the ill-famed 'exit' affair. The 'crapper' in all this was it was possible for a dirty little 'tryst' to evolve, or devolve, into something worse. Here's what really sucked; I was essentially a 'school teacher', while Carol worked around doctors, it made a difference.

Doctors for the most part are wonderful people. They help people. Teachers do too, but doctors save lives. There's clearly something that could complicate things. Both teachers and doctors are all pretty well educated, but doctors, as I've already said deal in life and death, or at the very least sometimes serious medical concerns, and they're always looked upon with great deference. Teachers get a degree of respect too, but not like doctors. This difference can be disastrous; especially if someone's family is on the line.

Backing up a bit; my dad had worked in a warehouse, and Carol's was a plumber. In short we both came from working class backgrounds. Doctors in our families were held in high regard, very high regard. As a professional I worked with kids. Carol's colleagues were doctors. I was dazzled by the purity of innocent young minds. Carol was dazzled by self-assured 'god-like' creatures in white who were seldom, if ever, wrong.

Regrettably for me and my family one of these dazzling creatures just happened to be a doctor who specialized in the treatment of children's cancer. For sure, no math teacher turned principal, regardless of the complexity of the quadratic equation, could ever compete with the surgeon who saved the lives of little boys and girls suffering from ailments like leukemia.