Do You Trust Your Wife?

Many thanks to whoredinarygirl for first editing and improving this story.

Grateful thanks to Dowageroftwo for further edits, ideas and suggestions that made it much better.

I didn't do anything wrong, I told myself as we were walking to the car. Sheila was the one who had made a spectacle of herself with Harry.

He had been squeezing her ass with both hands as she rubbed her crotch against his. I should have gone up to them immediately and dragged her away, but I was stupefied at first.

I'd always trusted Sheila. It was one of the things that made me serious about her. Soon after we had started dating, she had told me that trust was one of the most important things in her life. She had been deceived a few times and didn't take well to betrayal.

That was putting it mildly. She was almost rabid on the subject. We both agreed that cheating was despicable, but I took the position that nobody was perfect. If someone lapsed once, deeply regretted it and never strayed again, it wasn't the same as someone who schemed and cheated for months or years.

Sheila made no such distinctions.

"It's a matter of trust," she would say. "If you trust someone completely and that trust is broken, it can never be the same again. I totally understand how the shock of betrayal can make a husband or wife take vicious revenge on the cheater, even if it means a prison term. That's what I would do."

I didn't get frightened when Sheila spoke like this. There was no way on Earth I would ever cheat on her, so her savagery on the subject was irrelevant to me.

When I saw Sheila carrying on with Harry at the company party, I was sure she was doing it as a reaction to seeing Scarlett and me. Overreaction would be a better word. She didn't see me do anything wrong. She reacted to what she thought she saw without giving me a chance to explain.

I made my head of HR, a woman, talk to Scarlett, my executive assistant, shortly after she was hired. Her resume said she had graduated summa cum laude. From the way she looked, she had done it by screwing all her professors. Scarlett didn't seem to have a clue about dressing appropriately.

My first impression was wrong. She turned out to be the luckiest break I ever had. She saved me so many times I can't even count them, and Sheila knew that Scarlett was a major factor in my rise up the corporate ladder and the lifestyle we enjoyed.

The first time Sheila saw Scarlett, she turned into a tigress in the jungle ready to kill the predatory female getting too close to her male. And this was after Scarlett had begun wearing expensive business suits that hardly showed an inch of skin. The trouble is that no matter how nicely a suit is tailored, it can't hide the fact that Scarlett is one of the hottest women on the planet.

So is Sheila but not in the same way. She doesn't look like she's ready to jump your bones if you just ask her. Scarlett isn't like that, but she has the aura of a woman who's dying for sex. Although she is as fiercely protective of me as my wife, Scarlett's never tried anything with me.

On the night of the party, Scarlett was still suffering from a bad break-up with a boyfriend she had been with for more than a year. She had told me she thought he was the one.

I wanted to say something when I met him and realized he was a self-centered jerk and was probably using Scarlett to show off. But it was an unwritten rule that Scarlett would not advise me on my marriage and I wouldn't comment on her social life. We both knew those kinds of discussions could become dangerous.

She must have been feeling hurt and unattractive when she chose her dress for the party because it wasn't much of a dress. It was bright red and clingy, but there wasn't much to it. There was so little material on top that she was falling out of it and it was so short that everyone at the party soon knew that the color of her thong matched her dress.

I wasn't the only one who stared at her. So did every other man there. And every woman, too. Except they didn't stare. They glared.

Maybe seeing Scarlett dressed like that made Sheila have an extra drink or two. She probably heard some other wives talking about Scarlett. As bad as it was, I don't think it would have been a disaster except for what Scarlett did.

We were both at the open bar at the same time and talking while we were waiting for our drinks. After we got them, we walked away together and continued our conversation. I can't even remember what we were talking about.

We ended up by a wall and I was leaning against it sipping my drink as Scarlett stood facing me holding her drink. She was close to me but not that close. Nothing was touching, except...

While we were talking, I suddenly became aware of Scarlett stroking my arm. I hadn't noticed immediately because I was wearing a dinner jacket. She noticed at the same time and quickly snatched her hand away.

She looked away from me and her eyes scanned the room. So did mine. Every eye was on us. We both saw Sheila at almost the same time. Her face was bright red.

I turned to Scarlett and said something. Two days later at work, she told me I had told her, "I have to go to Sheila right now." I turned and began walking to Sheila, but she wasn't where she had been. I didn't see her anymore.

I searched for her the next forty-five minutes but couldn't find her in the crowded ballroom.

I was back to where I had been standing when I was talking to Scarlett and still scouring the room for Sheila. The band was playing at the other end. I saw two women looking at me and talking. When they saw me looking at them, they turned around and walked away. A moment later, two other women did the same thing. After the third time it happened, I left my position and began circling the room again.

When I got to the dance floor, I saw them, and I saw everyone watching shift their attention to me. I stood like a statue until the dance ended. Then I walked toward them. As soon as he saw me, Harry said something to her and then walked quickly toward an exit.

I glanced at him, but my eyes went back to Sheila.

She stood stiff and straight as I approached her. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke for her. I saw anger there, and her face was red with embarrassment. When I got close, I also noticed her arms stiffly at her sides and her neck rigid. This was what she always did when she was stubbornly defiant.

I reached for her left hand. She didn't give it to me, but I grabbed it.

"Let's go," I said into her ear through clenched teeth.

She almost fell over as I pulled her. But then she recovered and began matching my rapid pace. The crowd parted for us, and we were soon out of the room. When we got to the elevator that took us to the parking lot, she ripped her hand out of mine and stood next to me silently.

Sheila said nothing when we got in the car, but she began talking as soon as we left the parking lot.

"Everybody knew," she spat out. "They all could tell."

I was strangely calm. Later, I thought that maybe if I had been more angry about her and Harry, it might have been a better response. I guess I was still in shock over what I had seen.

"What could they tell?" I asked.

"That you're having an affair with Scarlett. The way you were behaving with her it was obvious. They all witnessed my humiliation."

"I don't care what everyone thinks," I said. "I care what you think. You saw us talking, and now you think I'm having an affair with her?"

"You were doing more than talking. You were touching."

"Where did I touch her?"

"Don't twist my words! She was touching you, and you didn't stop her. Are you going to deny that?"

"I'm not denying anything that happened," I said. "I know that she was stroking the sleeve of my coat with her fingers, but I didn't notice it until she pulled her hand away. It couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds."

"A few seconds! Those few seconds gave you away. A woman doesn't touch a man like that unless she knows him intimately. Don't try to deny it. You're sleeping with her."

"Listen to me, Sheila, I don't deny anything that happened. Because nothing did happen."

"Liar!" she screamed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand raised as if she was about to slap me. But I didn't react to the threat. I just stared straight ahead at the road. She put her hand down.

For a while we drove on in silence. Finally, I spoke.

"Sheila, do you trust me?"

She didn't answer for a while.

"I don't know," she said in a quiet voice.

She was no longer angry. She sounded sad and resigned. I couldn't remember hearing that tone before. It worried me. I had dealt with her anger many times and was almost comfortable with it. This mood made me uneasy.

"We've been married for sixteen years and I've trusted you," I persisted. "You've always said you trust me. Then Scarlett strokes my arm and you no longer trust me."

Sheila didn't say anything.

"Speaking of trust, where were you for nearly an hour while I was looking for you?"

She still said nothing.

"Were you with Harry?"

I thought that might get an angry response from her, but she just stared through the windshield.

"Why was he massaging your ass while you were grinding into him?"

She didn't respond to that either. I stopped talking, and it was silent for a few minutes. Then she spoke. Her voice was no longer sad and weepy. It was hard as steel.

"Do you trust me, Sheldon?"

"I've always trusted you."

"What if you found out that Harry had gotten a room at the hotel tonight and took me there so I could recover from finding out about you and Scarlett?"

"Is that what happened?"

"What if Harry comforted me?"

"Are you telling me that you slept with him?"

I tried to keep my voice calm, but inside I was exploding.

"Do you trust me?" she said. "If you trust me, I don't need to answer that question."

"That's not good enough!" I said. "You're playing games with me. You've never done that before. Why are you doing this?"

"There are a lot of things I've never done before tonight," she said. "I was blind. Now my eyes are open. Everything's changed."

"So you're throwing away sixteen years and two children because Scarlett stroked my arm."

"I didn't say that. All I said was that everything's changed. Have you forgotten that we've had this discussion many times about other people? I know you think if the husband makes one mistake and never repeats it, the wife should forgive him. And you know that I think the wife is justified in doing anything to punish her cheating husband."

"Is that what you were doing with Harry?" I asked. "Punishing me?"

"Our disagreement is irrelevant in this case," she said, ignoring my question. "The way she touched you -- that doesn't come after one night. That's a caress that a woman gives a man she's been intimate with many times. So your idea that one time can be forgiven doesn't even apply. Do you really expect me to trust you after I find out you've been fucking her on a regular basis?"

"I agree."

"You agree?"

"Yes. If I ever have an affair with Scarlett, which I never will, your trust in me would be destroyed. If you have an affair with Harry or anyone else, it would be the same."

"You're trying to twist your way out of this!" Sheila said. "It won't work. And what if I did it with Harry today and never before or after? You said you'd you'd be fine if it was only one time."

"You're the one who's twisting my words. I never said that. I said that one mistake shouldn't destroy a marriage if the couple deals with it and it never happens again. I'm not going to give you a pass for what you did with Harry."

Sheila burst into bitter laughter. It went on for some time, but I could hear sobs in between the laughs.

When she calmed down, she said, "What did you see me do with Harry, Sheldon? Did you follow us to his room? Did you sneak in from the balcony and watch us? What did we do? Did I give him a blowjob and swallow his come? Did we do it doggy style? What did you see?"

"You know I didn't watch you," I growled. "I don't want to know the details."

"But I want to know all the details about you and Scarlett."

"There are no details!"

"I know," she said. "I should trust you. Would you trust me if I told you that Harry and I didn't do anything except what you saw?"

I didn't answer right away.

"Maybe if you had told me that when we first got in the car, I would have trusted you," I said. "Now I don't know.

"I can't go back in time. You've said a lot of disturbing things tonight. And you're still asking hypothetical questions. You've never said that you didn't do anything."

"You know me, Sheldon," she said in that steely tone again. "You can trust what I did the same way I can trust what you did."

She began laughing the bitter laugh again, but she stopped when she saw I was pulling into the garage.

We both looked at the children sleeping, and then I took the babysitter home. When I got back, Sheila was in bed and the bedroom was dark. I couldn't tell if she was awake because her back was to me. When I got into bed, I thought I felt her body shaking. I wanted to put my arms around her, but I was scared to touch her.

************

When I woke up the next day, Sheila wasn't in bed. I dreaded going downstairs but it turned out to be the usual Sunday whirlwind of church, kids' soccer and a picnic dinner with two other families. There was no time to talk.

I watched her to see whether she was still thinking about the night before, but I couldn't tell.

Monday morning was the same as always: getting the kids off to school, grabbing a quick bite and rushing off to work. At work, Scarlett started crying when she told me that she used to stroke her ex-boyfriend's arm like that wherever they were, and he liked the attention. She said that she must have been wishing he had been more like me and out of habit she had begun lovingly stroking my arm without thinking.

She asked whether she should call Sheila and explain. I told her that might do more harm than good.

I should have let her make that call.

*********

As the days went by, it was clear that Sheila wasn't happy. She was avoiding me as much as she could while acting overly enthusiastic about everything the children were doing.

When they weren't around, her smile turned to a frown and her enthusiasm disappeared.

She had been so emotional the night of the party that I was sure she would bring it up again, but she never did. I thought about bringing up Harry, but I decided not to for the time being.

Instead, I went back and forth in my mind about what I saw and what she said on the way home, I decided, in the end, to trust her.

I guess that's what you call it when you make up a story for your wife. My story was that she misunderstood Scarlett's gesture and went somewhere to let off steam and cool down, with or without Harry. But she never did anything with him. She told him to grope her in front of everybody to get back at me.

That's what I wanted to believe. So I believed it and trusted her, even though we never talked about it.

*********

It sounds like we began living a marriage of convenience, but things got better. She gradually stopped frowning when the kids weren't around. I can't remember when we finally had sex again, but I remember she was the one who initiated it. A few months later, it seemed that our marriage was better than it had ever been. Our house was full of love, and not just for the children.

Sheila's mercurial temper caused a lot of fights, but they were never bitter, and we didn't stay mad at each other very long. Now it seemed we never argued. I felt nothing but tenderness and passion coming from Sheila, and that made me love her more than ever.

She tried to outdo herself for me, and I tried to do the same by doing things I knew she would like. I wasn't doing it for anything in return but that seemed to drive her to do even more for me.

I was in heaven.

Our sex life was better than ever, too. We had always enjoyed making love, so it was hard to put my finger on it, but Sheila seemed to have become even more enthusiastic - and more imaginative. She came up with some wild stuff. Some of it was a bit too far out for me, but often her ideas got me really turned on. When she saw that I enjoyed what we were doing, it seemed to make her so happy that it made me even happier.

In my mind, there were still shadows. Sometimes I wondered whether her newfound interest in expanding our sexual boundaries came from guilt for having had sex with Harry. Or was it because she still believed I had had an affair with Scarlett and wanted to make sure I would never again go out of the house for satisfaction?

When I thought back to what she always said about everything being different once trust had been destroyed and how the victim of betrayal was justified in wreaking terrible revenge, I couldn't reconcile that with how she was treating me. She must have decided to trust me like I decided to trust her.

I still felt that the events at the party were hanging over our heads. I thought about them sometimes after we had great sex or at the office when I looked at Scarlett or saw Harry, who seemed to be nervous whenever he and I were in the same room. Sometimes I wondered whether Sheila was putting on a great act and screwing Harry in secret to get back at me for what she thought I had done.

But if she was revenging herself on me, why would she keep it a secret?

I wished we could talk about what had happened and resolve it. I was sure it would do us both good to air things out. But she seemed so happy that I hesitated to bring it up and spoil her mood.

In time, my nagging doubts bothered me less often. Life with Sheila and the kids was good.

One of the new things Sheila introduced to our sex life was role playing. She was as busy as always with the kids and volunteer work, but she seemed to be have time to find things on the Internet. She told me that's where she came across some of our new sexual variations. I used to look at porn on the Internet, but I stopped after we got married. Sex with Sheila was so satisfying that I was no longer interested.

Now she was interested. She told me that she only looked at things that she thought she could adapt to our love life.

We didn't take the role playing as far as some couples. For instance, we never dressed in costume. All we did was act out little scenes.

Sheila would set them up and tell me who my character was and who she was. Then we would improvise.

For instance, I was a policeman who had stopped her because she was driving erratically. She tried to charm her way out of trouble, and I would blackmail her into having sex with me.

Or I was a doctor examining a nymphomaniac at my office and asking her for details about her sex partners.

Or she was a gold digger married to an old man and I was the pool boy.

A lot of the scenes involved cheating, and I wondered if they had anything to do with her feelings about trust. But she played all the scenes for laughs. We would say outrageous things to each other and try to break each other up. And each scene ended with great sex.

Some of the scenes were darker. Like when she played a woman who was looking for revenge sex against a partner who had cheated on her. When we did those, I listened closely for any signs of bitterness. But I never heard anything.

One scene she liked but I didn't was about a husband who had caught his wife cheating. To punish her, he would tie her up on the bed and then do humiliating and painful things to her. For me, this was too close to wife abuse for comfort. I would tie her up but the only humiliation and pain were in the words I spoke.

Sometimes it seemed to me she was encouraging me to do more than talk, but I couldn't believe she really wanted me to hurt her. If I actually thought that's what she wanted, our role playing would have ended right there and I would have insisted she see a therapist.