Dinner

I pulled the napkin out of my pocket and looked at it; a phone number, three hearts with arrows drawn through them, and the words, 'we'll wait.'

No, no way! There wasn't any possibility that I could get away from home for something like that. Would I like to take Karen to a strip poker game? Hell yes! But that sure as hell wasn't going to happen. How the hell would I explain that to her? 'Sweetheart, I met this girl and she thinks I'm cute and wants to play strip poker with me." Yeah, right! could see divorce court in our future. To put it bluntly, I was scared as shit; God, I wanted to do it!

I went back inside, to the bathroom and washed the lipstick off my cheek and lips. I didn't smell her perfume on myself and could only hope that there wasn't any residue. How the hell would I explain that to Karen?

I went back to work but it was a waste of time. My whole life had been thrown in upheaval, there hadn't ever been anything that I wanted more. I kept closing my eyes and seeing that girl, smelling her perfume, using my imagination, that kiss, torturing myself. I put the phone number in my phone, not that I ever expected to call it.

By that evening when I went home, I'd calmed down, at least a little. I laughed a little at myself, thinking 'what could possibly go wrong?' What, indeed!

I asked Karen if she'd like to go out to dinner, somewhere nice. She smiled and said she'd love it. "Dress up a little?" she asked.

"I'd like that. I'll wear a jacket, you wear a nice dress, we'll have fun."

"Where'd you like to go?" I asked her.

She smiled and said, "You asked me out, surprise me."

One's conscience can be a powerful thing.

This was our first 'date' for a long time. There's a place we'd heard about, 'The River Lounge'. Seafood, entertainment, dance floor, overlooking the Columbia River. A perfect place to take your wife when you're feeling guilty. I checked my watch, called them and confirmed a reservation for two in an hour-and-a-half.

I showered, shaved, brushed my teeth and found my cleanest dirty shirt. I smiled at my humor, a Johnny Cash song.

I have a tan sports jacket that I've only worn a few times. This seemed like a good time. I even put on a striped tie that Karen bought me a couple of years ago for a friend's wedding. This will be... think, think, think... twice that I've worn it.

A little while after I was ready, my wife came down the stairs... wearing a shimmery, silver metallic dress about four-inches above her knees, a deep 'V' in front, almost showing her bra; shimmery nylons, silver heels, red lipstick, and her brown hair in a beautiful, glamorous bun, showing off her long, sexy neck. A little like Audrey Hepburn. My eyes nearly popped out. I can't even remember the last time I've seen my Karen looking like this.

"You're... you're beautiful!" I stammered.

"Glad you managed to notice," her eyes told me she was only kidding. "Saw this in the store and fell in love with it. Was just waiting for someplace to wear it." Then she looked me up and down, "Not so bad yourself."

So we drove to the River Lounge. I opened my wife's door and we made our grand entrance. We were about fifteen minutes early so we had to wait in the lobby a few minutes. I didn't mind, it gave me a chance to just sit and admire my wife.

We had a fabulous evening; salmon dinner, white burgundy wine, then an hour of dancing and listening to the deejay. By the time we left, I wasn't even thinking about Pauli and Connor.

Not until on the way home, that is, when Karen just happened to remember, "Oh, hon, I almost forgot to tell you, Mom called today. She was wondering if we could come down next weekend, she wants to go shopping in the Woodburn Outlet and wondered if I'd like to go with her."

Shopping! Not exactly on the top of my to-do list. She went on, "I know what you think about shopping, so if you wanted, I could just go and you could stay home and do whatever. I'd prob'ly leave Saturday morning and come home Sunday."

What! Stay home and do... whatever? I let that word bounce around in my brain and the name 'Pauli' came roaring back. Shit, she'd just obliterated my excuse!

"Can I think about it? Not sure what I might want to do," I told her. But my heart rate had just doubled, tripled.

That night was the third night in a row that Karen and I made love. If nothing else, unbeknown to Karen, Pauli had damn well energized our love life.

Pretty much all day Saturday, there was one thing on my mind. What the hell do I do? Surely, I'm not thinking about actually doing this. Yeah, actually, I was. I had to talk myself out of it, but every time I tried, that kiss entered my mind again.

That night I logged onto my email. There was a message, 'Hope you can do it.' It was accompanied with a picture file. I clicked on it; ah shit! Pauli in a skimpy little bikini, from her neck down. I blew it up to fill my monitor. Damn, the girl has a body!

I looked at that picture and couldn't help myself. With shaking fingers, I typed a reply, 'Next Saturday night?' and scrolled to the 'send'. My finger hovered over the return key for at least a minute before I... deleted it. I couldn't do it.

But it haunted me; the picture, the kiss, the... everything! And Karen would never know. She'll be in Portland with her mom. I didn't sleep that night, thinking about the 'what if'.

Mornings are always clearer thinking times. Just not THIS particular morning. I probably hadn't slept over an hour or so but was up early. I powered up the computer in my man-cave and opened that picture again. This time after I typed the message, I did hit the 'send' button. It was done. I was going to meet Pauli and Connor next Saturday night for strip poker.

I thought that having made that decision would relieve my mind, but as soon as Karen poked her head in my man-cave and said breakfast was ready, my confidence had already disappeared and my conscience was flaring. Acting normal when I planned on cheating on my wife in a few days was, shall I say, 'a little difficult'.

Later that afternoon, Pauli answered my message with her address and a time of 8 pm Saturday. That only served to raise my anxiety level another dozen steps or so.

That week was a nightmare. Every day that went by brought me closer. I desperately wanted to send Pauli a message that I wasn't coming, but every time I tried, that picture was in the way, the view of that ass or my memory of that short kiss.

I was lucky I didn't get fired off the project I was working on from being totally worthless, but nobody questioned my mood, which, in itself, kind of concerned me. Did they think zombie is normal?

Pauli sent me a couple more pictures. One of her in a tiny little pair of sheer panties, nothing else, from just below her nipples. The other, a blue mini-dress, the 'V' all the way down to her navel. She had to know what she was doing to me. Psychological warfare and I was so losing the battle.

But the guilt was awful. I was going to cheat on my wife, the woman I'd married thirteen years earlier. Karen was twenty-two, and I was twenty-four, home on leave from the Coast Guard. We met at our high school's basketball game. She stepped up behind me and said, "Hi." We married nine months later and have been together ever since, even including my stint in Kodiak, Alaska. I'd been with a couple of other girls, but I discovered that night that there was such a thing as love at first sight.

I've written lots of stories about wife-swapping and watching, but never in a million years would I do something like that. The stories are just fiction. I love my wife too much and we're a hundred percent monogamous. At least we were until Pauli came into my life. Now, everything I've ever believed was turned topsy-turvy. I knew I had to do it but just didn't have the strength to turn down what Pauli was offering. Not without my wife, especially, and she was going to Portland at the one time I needed her more than I ever had. I didn't really expect anything except being there and a little messing around, but still, it was cheating.

Friday evening was hell. I knew Karen was leaving in the morning, and I had no idea what might happen when she came home. I knew she wouldn't know, but could I keep the secret forever? I had with my Lit account and my stories, but that's different, a lot different! But I also knew there was no way that I had the willpower to resist what awaited me Saturday night.

We went to bed and I lay there with my eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Karen wasn't sleeping either, like she knew something was wrong. She rolled over away from me and put her hands underneath her face like she often does just before going to sleep.

"Hon," I heard my voice say, "you can't go tomorrow."

She rolled back over toward me, rubbing her eyes, "What? What did you say, sweetheart?"

I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I looked straight at the ceiling and repeated myself, "You can't go tomorrow."

Now she was awake and scooted herself up on her elbow, "Why not? Mom's expecting me."

I continued to stare, "I can't tell you, but please, you can't go." In retrospect, I guess I could have just gone with her, but my mind wasn't working so well to think that logically.

Now she looked like she was concerned, "Sweet, what's going on? Are you sick? I need to tell Mom why."

The ceiling was staring back at me like it was going to devour me, "There's, there's a... girl... you just... can't."

Now she sat up, "A girl? What do you mean, there's a girl?" She looked scared, "Have you done something?"

I shook my head, "No... yes... not really, not yet... but tomorrow..."

Her eyes were wide, "What's tomorrow? What are you telling me?"

For the first time, I looked over at her, I didn't know how to do this. "Can I... start at the beginning?"

"Oookay," she scooted back to lean on the headboard, "start at the beginning."

I climbed out of bed, got my laptop, scared shitless at what I was about to do. She watched me, almost holding her breath as I flipped up the screen, pressed my fingerprint on it, then opened Firefox. These were the seconds that I'd been agonizing over the last several years, revealing my Lit account to my wife. Showing her the stories she had no idea I'd been writing, scared what would happen if she ever found out.

I typed in 'li' and the rest of the URL popped in and I clicked it to open. "This site... I found it a long time ago... a place I could post stories."

"What are you talking about? What stories?"

I scrolled the little pointer to my profile, then to 'My Stories'. My fingers were shaking and it was hard to manage on the laptop. There are almost a hundred stories over the last four years. I scrolled down and clicked on 'Ten Year College Reunion, Ch 1'. It opened and I said, "I wrote this."

She read for a moment and asked, "You wrote all of those?"

I nodded, more scared than I have ever been in my life. "Yeah, I did."

She read several minutes, then said, "This is good. I actually like it. But I never knew... why didn't you tell me? And what does it have to do with tomorrow."

That first chapter is pretty innocuous, just introducing the couple, hardly any sex. She didn't seem mad about the Lit, though. That was encouraging, but to answer her question, I just told her, "Keep reading, three chapters." I sure as hell wasn't looking forward to showing her my profile or the pictures of Pauli, and explaining that to her.

Karen was already leaned back against the headboard with my laptop on her lap and I couldn't help but notice her satin nightgown gaping open a little in front. She's a gorgeous woman. I'd kind of taken her for granted lately and that night out a week earlier had reminded me just how beautiful she is.

I waited, kind of reading along with her as she scrolled down, then went into chapter two - the dinner. In a bit I heard a little giggle and she looked up at me, "It doesn't taste like chocolate?" she giggled, "where'd that come from?"

I shrugged. She just went back to reading, not really expecting an answer.

Then she clicked on chapter three, the strip poker game. I held my breath, expecting something, not sure what, most likely throwing me out of her bedroom, maybe out of the house. That was where the story moved far beyond just a renewed friendship and Adriana's revelations to Matt. Where... Pauli wanted to go.

When she finished, she sounded incredulous, "You wrote... this? Why?"

I know by then that my voice was shaking, I was scared. "It's... a... story..."

"You want to do this? Us to do this?"

"No, I... no, it's just fiction... you know, every guy's fantasy..."

She was wide-eyed, "Your fantasy?"

"No..." then quietly, "maybe, but... not something I'd ever do... until..."

"Until? There's more you're not telling me, isn't there?"

I gulped. My skin was clammy, hands sweating. As much as I'd feared her finding out about Lit, that seemed pretty minor, now. I had to tell her..."There's a girl... I never intended anything, she saw me reading... in the restaurant when you and your mom went to the bathroom..."

I hesitated, crap! Those words I'd thought of so many times, 'What could possibly go wrong?' came back to haunt me. "She... walked by our table, saw me reading... and asked me about it..."

"This girl pretty?"

I nodded, "Yeah... very."

"I showed her the website. Gave her my contact info." The sweat must have been rolling off my forehead, scared shitless! "We've been in contact. She likes my stories." I pointed to the one she just read, chapter three, "Especially, that one."

Karen looked straight into my eyes, just waiting, like she maybe had some idea what was still coming, the thing I really, really didn't want to tell her.

I gulped again, taking a big breath, "She wants..." I didn't know if I could do this, but had to, "wants to... play out that scene."

There, it was out, but I guess not all of it, which Karen guessed, "With you, this weekend?"

I nodded, "And her boyfriend; she has a boyfriend."

I'd gone this far and rushed ahead, "You were going to Portland, going to be gone. I had told her I couldn't... but then, Portland, your mom... told her that, we made arrangements... tomorrow night. That's why you can't go to Portland... I'll tell her plans changed. I can't come... but I need you here."

I didn't know what the hell kind of reaction I might get. I had no idea about the expression on Karen's face. I just wanted to keep talking, so she couldn't. I was so damned afraid what she'd say when she did. "We'll go out, anything."

"But you were going to go through with this. You've been planning it for how long?"

I took another breath, "A week, week ago today I met her and her boyfriend at lunch. It was just supposed to be to talk about a story, not this."

She laughed, "I guess it was about a story, huh?"

I nodded. "Yeah, guess it was."

"This girl, how old is she?"

"Twenty-four..." God, that sounded stupid, so young.

"And she's pretty, you said?"

I nodded, "Very."

Karen hesitated for a long time before she said anything, you know, like 'you better find a good divorce lawyer.'

"Okay," she finally said.

I was confused, "Okay? Okay, what?"

She looked straight at me again, boring a hole through my eyes, "Okay, we'll go."

I was confused, "We'll go? What? Where? Out that night?"

"To your girlfriend's, to your little game."

Now I was really confused, Karen, my Karen? What the hell?

She went on, "I don't think I have anything for strip poker. Will have to do a little shopping tomorrow."

What the... was she talking about? "Hon? You...?"

She gave me a little peck on the lips, "I'll read more tomorrow, but for now we better get some sleep. Tomorrow might be a late night."

She rolled back over in bed leaving my mouth gaping open. What the fuckin' hell had just happened?

When I got up the next morning, Karen was in the kitchen, humming as usual, grating some potatoes for breakfast, "Good morning, sleepyhead," she said.

What the? I was still confused. Had last night actually happened? "I called my mom, told her something had come up so I'd be down next weekend, instead." I shook my head, this couldn't be real! "She was disappointed, but said it'd be okay."

After we ate breakfast, Karen asked me to show her that site again, "Got a little reading to catch up on," she said, "then going shopping." The cheerful voice was driving me mad!

So I showed her the website on her tablet, then how to get into my profile. She scrolled up and down, then the email messages with the pictures. "This her?" she asked as she clicked on the first one, the bikini.

"Uhuh, her name's Pauli," I told my wife, still absolutely, totally, bizarrely in shock.

She looked at all three pictures, "No wonder," she mumbled. Then she looked away from the screen up to me, "You were going to fuck her, weren't you?"

My mouth must have dropped open. My wife had never used that word in all the thirteen years we'd been married. And to just blurt that out, like, 'weather's great today, wanna go for a ride?' Is this the same woman I went to bed with last night?

But she was still waiting for an answer, "I don't know... doubt it... maybe," I admitted, "but I didn't. Couldn't. Had to tell you."

"Glad you did. You know what might have happened?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I think so, you'd have found out."

"And? That the only reason you told me?"

I shook my head, "No, just couldn't go through with it."

She hesitated, "You said she has a boyfriend?"

I nodded, unsure what the hell to say now, "She says he's not the jealous type." God, that sounded weird.

"Guess I have some competition, then, huh."

"I... I... I..." What the hell? How do you react to that? Damn! Pauli and Connor had suggested I bring my wife, though.

"You do the dishes," she told me, like, she... just wanted me to do the dishes. She sat down in her recliner with her tablet and I just watched while she sat and read. Those next chapters were pretty damn hardcore. And then later, they got really hardcore.

I glanced in at her once in a while while I was cleaning up the kitchen. She was just sitting there, reading. I totally didn't understand. There must be a part of my wife that I've never even known existed. Then I chuckled to myself a little, guess it worked both ways.

Then I wondered about that night. Was she seriously going to do that? Was I? And what exactly was 'that' going to be?

After the kitchen was spotless, I grabbed my laptop, sat down on the couch and started working on the next chapter of 'After the Reunion' that I'd been working on, glancing up occasionally to see Karen's grin, reading about Matt and Adriana trading spouses with Tanner and Tanya for the weekend. Of course, that would have been way earlier in the story. She was probably up to Reno by then.

I'd have loved to know exactly what was happening in the story when I heard a little 'Mmm' from Karen. I thought that it was going to be so cool when we're kind of back to 'normal', and I'd be able to go over the story with her instead of hiding the fact that I was writing it.

She read and I wrote for the next three hours, until shortly after noon, when Karen stood up and said it was time for her to go shopping. I could not help but notice that her thin, stretchy, lounging pants seemed damp between her legs. By then, she should have been almost through all thirty-seven chapters, or however in hell many there were.

I waited several minutes after she left and peeked out the front window to make sure she was gone, then picked up her tablet, opened it and checked to see if I could tell what she'd been reading. It was 'After the Reunion Ch 17, the one where Addie was in the glass cage with Jonah, then Samuel. I wondered what the hell she'd thought about that. I put it down, back where it had been so she wouldn't know I'd been spying. God, I still didn't understand, not at all!