DJ Wife Ch. 01

I must have sat there longer then I thought for suddenly I heard the two of them get out of the tub and heard the water start to drain. A second later I heard her footsteps come through the bathroom doorway.

She stopped and gasped then said,"Tony, what are you doing home?"

She said it louder than necessary, probably to make sure her lover would stay in the bathroom. She also sounded angry.

I turned to her and said, "I don't feel like working today."

She looked puzzled because I always worked no matter how I felt.

"Why not?" she asked still half-angry.

"I was just thinking about life and about friends who aren't here anymore." Two of our friends had died recently, one suddenly and the other after a long illness and I had heard that a friend from high school had been killed a few weeks ago.

"This isn't the place or the time for that type of thinking or..or a sudden mid-life crisis."

She still sounded upset.

"I know. I'm sorry for disturbing your day to relax. I didn't mean to disturb you that's why I stayed in here."

She made an angry snort so I got up.

"I'll go now. I guess back to work, I...I can rest and think there."

I walked out of the bedroom but my tone of voice must have registered. I had been speaking softer and slower then usual and my depression must have shown on my face.

When I was half way to the stairs she came hurrying out of the bedroom. "Are you okay?"

This time all the anger was gone, I could hear concern in her voice. I thought it was obvious that I wasn't but I didn't have the emotional strength to say that.

"I don't know. There have been too many people we know dying and too many divorced lately."

I finished with, "And too many jobs that lead nowhere."

I let her think all of this melancholiness was caused by a mid-life crisis. I still wasn't ready to confront her and I really had been thinking of those things while I had rested on the bed. I made sure that I didn't say anything that hinted that I was including our marriage in the ones that were ending.

"We should talk, but I have something to do first... I have a special meeting at work I'm really supposed to be at soon. But I promise I will call you at work as soon as I can. We will talk then."

I just nodded and headed for the stairs. As I started down she ran to the top. I must say that she looked ravishing standing there naked, if she hadn't done what she did I might have decided to stay for awhile.

"I promise I will call as soon as I can."

I just nodded, went down the stairs and out of the house. I got in my car and drove away. She was going to call me at work but I wasn't going back there. Not today anyway. I didn't know where I was headed but it wasn't there.

I learned later that she did call work about twenty minutes after I drove away from the house. That was a lot less time then if she really had had a meeting at her job.

Of course they told her I had left early and hadn't been back. Some friends told me later she started calling around trying to find me but I hadn't called or visited any one so no one knew where I was. I stopped at a bar where I had been spending time. It was a place to kill time when I didn't feel like going home. It was a nice bar designed not to look like one. When I stopped there I would have just a mixed drink followed by whatever fruit juice was handy. I would drink both very slowly. That day I bought a whole bottle of whisky. The bartender said I could get one cheaper at a liquor store. I told him I didn't feel like taking the time to go so I didn't care how much it cost. He warned me about driving drunk; I said I wouldn't.

I kept that promise because I ended up just taking one drink from it. I drove for a while before ending up where my wife finally found me: a city park about an hour's drive from our house. I had driven to an area of the park not usually used that time of day and parked on the side of the road. I was sitting by a stream with my bare feet in the water. The stream was down a short embankment so I couldn't see the road. I heard her car drive up but I wasn't sure it was hers until I heard her park. Even then I wondered if it was a police officer checking on my car.

She never told me how she found me, but it may have been the GPS device in my car. I figured that after calling a many of our friends and driving to different locations she remembered my car had one. Some of our friends later asked what was up since she was sounding desperate by the end of the calls.

I listened to her footsteps as she got out of her car. She went to mine and stopped for a few seconds probably looking inside. She next ran to the embankment and called my name. I could hear the desperation in her voice even though she was trying to make it sound normal.

I finally answered her and she started down the rise.

I called to her, "You're right, taking time to sit with your feet in a stream is refreshing."

She stopped and as I looked at her she looked confused, like she hadn't expected that response. I decided to get up so I threw away a branch I had been making marks in the sand with.

She surprised me by shouting, "No, don't, we can talk, please..." as I picked the small branch up.

On the way home I realized that the stick had been short and bent and in the light of dusk she might have mistaken it for a gun. I wasn't sure if she thought I was going to shoot myself or her. At that moment I wasn't sure why she had said that. But whatever the reason she ran to me giving me a quick hug.

She said, "We need to get home and talk, whatever is wrong we can talk it out." I nodded and she continued, "Maybe your blood sugar is low, we need to get you home so you can eat some fruit."

I hadn't thought about it before she mentioned it but she might have had a point. After my last physical my doctor told me I was getting close to diabetes. I wasn't there yet and I may never get that far but it was something he wanted to keep an eye on I needed to watch my diet.

She wanted me to go with her, leaving my car, but I insisted I was okay enough to drive. I had driven there after all. She made me promise to drive very carefully and after making sure the bottle of whisky was in the trunk he let me drive off. She followed me all the way home.

On the way home I didn't blame her for being confused and concerned for she had never seen my act like this before. I had only seen myself act like this twice before. I wondered if the concern was fake, but I thought that was unfair; she had never faked any feelings before.

Once we got to my car she pointed out the bottle of whisky and insisted I put it in the trunk. I picked it up showing her it was still almost full. I told her I had had one drink only. She still insisted it go in the trunk. I wasn't sure if that was so any police officer who might stop wouldn't see it or if she were not convinced I wouldn't drink anymore. I put it in the trunk. As I did she again reassured me, even though I didn't need it, that everything would be better once we got home and I was able to eat the right type of food and where we could talk.

I was reassured that her concern seemed real. She really was worried about me. We made it home all right. Once we were in the kitchen, while she prepared some fruit for me, I sat down.

I said, "I have been thinking all this afternoon. I decided to quit my job and to move."

"We can discuss this later."

"No, I decided my job is going no where; it's too stifling. I can sell the house and use the money for a down payment on a small house in the town next to Pismo Beach. I could start an online consulting business, much like Jim did, and spend my mornings working via the internet with maybe a trip out of town every so often. In the afternoons, I could walk on the beach and enjoy life like you're always telling me to do."

"I don't like the beach."

I could tell she said that automatically, probably while wondering what to say.

I said, "I don't really expect you to be visiting all that often."

She turned to look at me for a moment as the implication of my words hit her. Her eyes got big and she stared at me in shock. I had never seen her react like that before.

Finally she said, "But...but...but why?"

Then the light went on in her eyes and the blood drained form her face.

"You know... of course."

A pause then, "I feel like I could slap myself on the forehead. That is what this is all about. I should have realized it as soon as I saw you sitting on the bed. At first I thought you did know, but when you started to talk I thought - I hoped – that you hadn't figured out that I was in the tub with someone. You had me fooled."

"I wasn't faking it. I really was feeling melancholy but it was because of your affair not a mid life crisis that hit me all of a sudden."

She nodded and asked, "How long have you known?"

"Almost from the beginning I think. I'm not as stupid or as nonobservant as you think."

I said that last calmly, almost peacefully, but she violently shook her head no,

"You aren't stupid...sometimes you aren't observant."

That was one of our on going arguments the past few months.

"But I never thought you were stupid."

"Maybe so, but as I said I've known about it for a couple of months. This time I knew something was up for months but it was a bit confusing. A comment you made on the radio made the light go off in my head."

"This time?" "Yes, I knew about your other affair...at least I hope it was just only one other. It was a little over two years ago and lasted two months."

Her eyes went big and her mouth dropped open.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I wanted too, badly, but I had no solid evidence and it ended before I could decide how to get some. This time I decided I was going to get some to show you that I knew."

She looked ashamed and like she had something to say she very much didn't want to say.

Finally she said, "This was my third affair."

This time it was my turn to have my eyes widen. I hadn't caught the other one.

"It was seven years ago, just before I got my first DJ job."

"I wonder how I missed that one." " It only lasted 25 days and three weeks of it I was gone."

I must have looked puzzled for she said, "Remember that month-long trip I took to attend that radio announcers school?"

I nodded.

"They had classes for DJ's as well as announcers and it ended with a large conference." I nodded again.

"The affair started one week into the trip and we had sex twice after we got back. I was so afraid that you would find out that I stopped it."

"So you found only three guys that were better than me?" "It was only one guy, the same guy all three times and no that is not why I had sex with him."

"So you have had three affairs with this guy and he's just the same as me?"

She must have caught my double question as she said, "It was only three times and yes he's more experienced than you, in some ways, and he is more spontaneous than you...and um, more... fun... sometimes."

She said that last slowly with her head down.

I said, "So all that means that he makes love to you better than I do."

Not when you really make love to me. You may not do everything he does but you making love to you is wonderful and your love for me makes it even better."

"But I don't do it enough?"

She only nodded.

"Sometimes you're too busy especially lately and sometimes you don't want to take the time and sometimes it seems you don't want to. Maybe it's because you're too tired or I did something to make you angry or did something you are ashamed of but it doesn't make me feel good when I can sense you don't want to make love to me and you try to act like it's something else."

I just looked at her when she was done. I wasn't sure what to say. I had shaken my head when she said there were times I was ashamed of her but her expression told me she didn't believe me. There were times I was ashamed of her. I mentioned the time she played with squirt guns with the neighbor kids and sometimes the way she acted when she was in her DJ persona while in public. She was flirty and immodest to a degree and she acted like a teenager.

I had stopped going out with her when she attended a radio gathering because of the way she usually acted.

Finally I asked the question that had been burning in me, "Why...how did, I mean why him... Why anyone?"

"The first time was on that trip. John and I had been spending a lot of time together when he was teaching me how to run boards and how to talk on the air. We had lunches together and a couple of dinners when you were out of town. Sometimes we would talk for an hour or more. That was one reason it took me so long to learn everything. I appreciated his desire to teach me something I had wanted to do all my life. I began to appreciate that he was a good listener when you and I started having problems and I told him about it. He would sometimes just let me vent, "

She let it unsaid but I knew she was thinking that I didn't like to hear her vent,

She continued, "other times he would offer suggestions on how to respond to you. Some of those suggestions worked. During one of our worse fights I remembered something he had suggested and I responded to something you said the way he said to. I was surprised when you calmed down immediately. I wasn't sure how saying something with those words could make that much of a difference but it did.

"Nothing happened during the lunches or dinners, he would take me out and bring me back home without even a hint of desiring something more. We went out to a couple of movies too. Movies you didn't like but I wanted to see. The first one was a surprise. He hadn't asked me if I wanted to go. We drove up to the theater showing a movie based on a real person. He said he would pay my way to see it. I just looked at him for a second than asked how did he know I would like it?

He said he knew for two reasons. One was that he wanted to see it and that since we were so alike he thought there was a good chance I would like it. The second reason was that it was similar to movies I had wanted to see but you hadn't wanted to see and that I was tired of going to the movies by myself."

There was a pause before she continued, "I knew I was attracted to him, not only because he was nice to look at but because he was a good person. I ignored those feelings though... until one dinner during that trip. I didn't know he was going to be at the conference center so I was surprised that after I checked in and was headed up to my room I saw him. We talked like old friends even though it had been only a week since we had last spoken. He said he was there to teach a class and to host a group discussion during the conference. He went on to say that he was nervous because he had never taught a class before. It had been a last minute decision on his part. He thought that since I could do something new, so could he. I was pleased that I had been an inspiration for him. We met for dinner every night and I attended his first class even though I didn't need to. I helped him prepare for a speech he was going to be giving. In my classes I was a star because he had already taught me much of what they were teaching. I knew answers that no one else knew.

"At the end of the first week after dinner we went to his room and...and we had sex. It just seemed to be the natural next step in our relationship. We hadn't even kissed up to that point. I didn't even think about the wedding ring on my finger." She sounded ashamed as she spoke that last sentence. A second later she looked at me with tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

After composing herself she continued. "We had sex three times a week after that, sometimes in my room sometimes in his. And yes I slept with him, usually because we had sex late and we just fell asleep together. And...and the next day I thought about my – our - marriage but it didn't stop me. It was too new, too exciting that he wanted me as bad as I wanted him. He...he ...he..."

Here she looked down unable to finish.

"Is he a better lover than I am?"

She only nodded.

A second later she looked up at me, "As I said already, it's not that you were bad. Even when you didn't take your time you were never bad. It's just that he has had more experience than you, he knows more than you.

"We had sex two times after we came home but I put a stop to it because I was so afraid you would find out. I knew it would hurt you and I didn't want to end our marriage even though we were having problems. I knew I still loved you. I didn't want to hurt you that much and I wanted to be with you if we could work things out."

"We did."

She smiled and said, "We did. I was so happy but after about five years things started to fall apart again. You were working late and I knew it was because you didn't want to be home with me. I knew I was being a bitch at times but even though I tried to make it up to you it didn't work."

I said, "Sometimes I thought you were setting me up for something, your come on didn't seem real. And I ignored your apologizes because there had been said so many of them...and nothing changed."

She nodded and said, "I started venting to John and he listened and even let me cry on his shoulder. It was during one of those crying jigs that he kissed me. He said he could make me forget my troubles for a while. All of the good sex we had had before came back to me and I let him make me forget. After two months, about half a dozen sessions, my conscience started to bother me. I couldn't continue so I ended it again.

"I finally remembered what we had done before to get our relationship back online and I cursed myself for not thinking of it before I did what I did with John.

"Again things were fine between you and me for another two years. When we had problems again I went to him for advice and he gave me some but again it ended up with us in bed. We did it twice, then he went out of the country for two months. When he came back we had sex a couple of times during the next three weeks before he left again, this time for seven weeks. I thought the affair was over again but it wasn't. That might be why you weren't sure if I was doing anything. When he got back you were out of town. You left after one of our worst weeks ever. That was when I slept with him again. I went over to his place. He took me out to dinner, we had wine and talked. He said I was so tense that we needed a long session of mutual massages. I understood what he meant even though he started it with a real massage - a very long one. He slowly took off my clothes as he massaged me. I was tired when we got done so I just stayed there the whole night."

The last was said in a low voice.

"The first two times when we had problems our sex life didn't stop. We didn't make love like we usually did, but we kept having sex; this last time we stopped completely. I'm not sure why. That was why I was very horny when I went over to his place that night. Not like the Mega-hornies but I was very aroused before I even got to his place. I was thinking you didn't want me anymore or didn't want sex period."

When she took a breath I spoke, "That wasn't all my fault. You weren't acting like you wanted it either. And I tried to do something about it twice. The first time I wanted to make a date night for us. We hadn't had one for a long time, which was probably part of our problems. And it wasn't just my fault.

"I told you we could go to one of your favorite restaurants and have a leisurely dinner. I know you like those."

"I usually do but I knew the dinner would be a prelude to something more."

"I wasn't hiding the fact that I wanted to have sex with you, I said that we could have a romantic evening snuggling before a fire after dinner. You said that you weren't up to it and that it wouldn't be a good idea."