February Sucks -- My Outcome

GeorgeAnderson's February Sucks is a classic. It was thoughtfully well-written, and has generated about 25 sequels or rewrites built on his brilliant concept. GA has graciously now allowed me to present my modest addition to his universe.

I will not repeat GA's original story, which you can find at the above url, and my story picks up where Linda has just snuck off with Marc LaValliere and Jim returned to the hotel, having left his former friends at the club. The story then changes, but I retain much of the content of the letters from Linda to Jim that GA wrote, and some of the dialog between them, as they are important and GA's writing just cannot be improved upon. So, here we go.

***

I returned to the hotel room which I had so anticipated would be the setting for really great carnal knowledge with my one true love. Now the room might have been an ashpit. I sat on a chair on gazed on the Victoria Secrets lingerie laid out on the bed. My first thought was that maybe I could take those things to her. I even tried to find her location with my iPhone's sharing app, but could not. Just as well, someone would likely be hurt and someone would be in jail if I did find her.

Did I miss any signs that Linda was capable of the faithlessness that I had just suffered? None came to mind. Yes, some things slowed down after our two kids and the unrelenting demands of our jobs to keep us financially comfortable. Nevertheless, I thought we had a great marriage. We had shared interest beyond the children and house, with family trips every summer to new and unique locations, trying out new IPAs and wines in different restaurants, and we had even taken dance lessons, the irony of which was not lost upon me. We were busy being happy, and I still could not see space in our relationship for a third person. Linda certainly never expressed unfulfilled fantasies or desire to entertain another man.

Still in thought, I started packing my things, and thinking twice, packed also Linda's. She would have to return to the house exactly how she had left. I would never be able to look at the lingerie, however, without bringing back this night, and so I left them in the room with a little note to the maid that these were brand new and anyone could have then. I returned the keys and released the room, and drove home. It was too late to grab the kids at Mrs. Porters.

Approaching the house, I fleetingly thought that maybe I would be surprised and find Linda at home, but the house was silent and dark. The bedroom was empty, as I sat on the bed. I took out my iPhone and started to review my pictures and video. As sour was my mood at watching Linda dance with Marc, I thought I would create a memento for her. Heck, I might even want to show off to my co-workers a picture of my wife dancing with the famous Marc LaValliere. So, while pretending to be checking my emails, I had quietly and unobtrusively took some pictures and even short video clips of their dancing on my iPhone. Toward the end, I was taking pictures of Linda being perhaps too close to Marc during the last slow ballad. Now the images played my mind as our bed was no longer empty. I was seeing Linda's beautiful body on the empty bed with her glorious legs that never end. But Linda was now holding close to Marc as he shoved his cock into a berth I had thought I had reserved for the rest of our lives.

I left the bedroom and went to sleep in our guest bedroom/storage room.

I did not sleep well, and early the next morning I drove to Mrs. Porter in to pick up my kids. "Daddy, where is mommy?"

"Mommy went to meet someone and will hopefully be back soon" I answered, wondering how true my answer was. I made breakfast for the children, played with them for a bit, and, then to clear my mind, I started with usual Saturday chores.

I was not until about noon that I finally heard a car coming into our driveway. Emma immediately ran to open the door for her mother, as I looked through the window. I black luxury SUV pulled in front of the garage, and I saw Marc come out and open the door for Linda. What a gentleman. But, as Linda came out, she and Marc exchanged glances that reminded me of a loving embrace or a passionate kiss if the looks meant anything.

Linda was still wearing her blue dress, and showed no signs of guilt or embarrassment as she entered the house.

"Jim? Jim, I'm home." She sounded just like she always did when she came home from running errands and as if she hadn't spent all night and morning with another man. She approached me to give a hello kiss saying with a tender smile "It's still just me, the same old me as always." Of course she knew what I'd been thinking. "There's nothing different; nothing has changed. My love for you is just the same as it was yesterday."

"Was it everything you expected?" The question hung in the air. Finally, Linda met my eyes, a worried look on her face.

"Jim, I know you have questions. I know we need to talk, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know, honestly and completely. But are you sure you want to know... that? I'll tell you honestly, but I don't want to hurt you."

"It's a little late to be thinking about not hurting me, isn't it?"

Linda winced. "I know, but I'm afraid that telling you what happened will hurt you more, and that will make it harder for us... well, for you to get past this so we can go on with our marriage. Can't we concentrate on the future? We can't let just one night ruin our whole lives."

"So, was the night, and morning, with Asshole everything you expected?"

"Marc isn't an asshole. He's a good man, a gentleman. I think you would like him, if things were different."

"All right, then. We'll try again. Was it everything you expected?"

"Everything and more." There was both sympathy and resolution in her gaze as she looked directly at me.

Well, I asked for that, didn't I? At least she seemed to be serious about telling the truth. I sighed. I might as well get on with it and find out how bad the damage was.

"This was supposed to be our special night."

"It was a special night, but I understand that you could see that it was special only for me. I know I spoiled your night, but, honey, you will get over your male ego and you will see that nothing happened to us. I have not lost one bit of my love for you, and you still love me." I just continued to stare not truly believing what I was hearing.

Linda wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered "Let me show you how much I want to be with you. I want you to take me upstairs right now. I want to do whatever we would have done last night. I am yours, but maybe you should reclaim me. I would really enjoy having you go down on me and then make tender love just as we always had and will do forever."

I took Linda's arms and removed them from my neck. "You should go and take a shower."

"But I already showered this morning, and what I really need is you in me" Linda begged as she looked into my eyes. "Don't you want what you missed yesterday night?"

The woman was truly amazing. She had just spent a night fucking Marc, and now all she could think of was continuing her fuck session with me. "Please go and shower. I don't want you near me, and I don't think you should be anywhere the children with Marc's stench on you. And please get rid of that blue dress that I never want to see again."

"Will do. Did you bring my things back from the hotel? I was hoping tonight to try on the lingerie that I bought for you and start making up for..."

"I gave that away because at this point I cannot see us together."

Linda looked dumfounded, but, seeing the intensity of my resolve, she slowly turned around and walked upstairs. I shortly heard the shower, and then there was silence. Checking upstairs, Linda had fallen asleep on the bed. It had been obviously a long night for her.

I told Emma that her mother was asleep, and she was the girl of the house, and needed to watch her little brother, while I went food shopping. Whatever else, Emma and Thomas still needed to eat, and life had to go on, but how was still the question.

I did call my brother. As much as I was humiliated by Linda's betrayal, I had to talk to someone and my brother was someone I could trust. I told him the whole story.

"Are you planning on leaving the house and getting away?"

"No way. This is my house and I am not abandoning my house for that slut. I can't force her out, but I am not leaving either. First, I don't want to abandon the kids. Running away will hurt them more than hurt her and running away would only show cowardice. I am not a coward. Second, I am not going to spend money and suffer the inconvenience of a motel somewhere. Again, that would be just me hurting myself for her transgression. I am staying in this house and dealing with it, but I am moving to what is the guest and storage room."

We talked a bit more, with my brother sympathizing and discussing options of continuing the marriage versus divorce, but it was more talk than any action points.

I was not sure when Linda woke up or what she did, as I occupied myself around household chores and made fish for dinner. Linda came down eat with us, and then spent the evening with the kids, and little interaction with me. That was fine. After putting the kids to sleep, Linda came down and we sat in the rec room to finish our conversation.

"Honey, my dearest Jim, I really don't know how to make you understand that this was just one night out of the almost four thousand nights we already spent together and the countless thousands of nights that we will be together till death do us part. We will have many special nights. I will make up for last night, and I will be the best wife you could ever have."

"It may have been one night out of many thousands, but it was a night where you chose Marc over me. Before last night, I thought I was your only man, just as you were my only woman. Now I am second in line. What am I missing?"

"Even I did make you second for that one night, it was for only that one night, and you will be the only one from now on. It was good for one night and morning, and nothing more and nothing to get worked up about. It was one guy for one night of infidelity, a fling. "

"A fling? There were ten of us in a public club. A guy came over to you, and, in front of everyone, you chose to abandon me and our special night without even a backward glance. I was left alone with our best friends, or people I thought were our friends, humiliated and betrayed, and you call that a fling?"

"It was one and done. But you and I have our past and our future."

"I want you to be tested for STDs."

"Oh, baby, there is no need for that. Marc was and is clean. He is an athlete," Linda responded.

"Linda, I am not sure that means anything. Do it." Linda nodded agreement.

"I love you, Jim."

"Right now, Linda, I don't have any idea what you mean by that."

If I was going to get over the event, I needed to know exactly what happened between Marc and Linda. But it would be hard to listen to Linda, and the thought occurred that asking to describe her "fling" with Marc in writing would force her to give more thought to what may been her underlying thinking.

"I want you to write down what happened last night and this morning. I already know Asshole fucked you senseless, you don't have to go into all that, but I need to know what you were thinking and feeling, and I don't think I can be in the same room while you tell me. Right now, I can barely stand to look at you, but I still need to know what happened. Maybe it won't be so bad if I can read it instead of hear it."

"It will be awful to write and risky, but I'll do whatever you ask, honey. But I do have plans for us tonight." She smiled tentatively at me.

I just looked at her, turned and went to the guest room, ignoring Linda's continued begging for me to join her in our bedroom.

The next morning, Linda made breakfast and again there was no indication that anything was different today than any other Sunday morning. After breakfast, I said we should go to church, which we often did, albeit not consistently. Linda begged off saying that she had been given a homework project that she needed to write. It was probably an excuse, but I could see how it might not be comfortable sitting in the sanctuary. So I went to church with just the kids.

Our church has post-service reception in the church hall where adults gather, while any kids are within eyesight playing with the jungle gym located just outside the doors to the church's backyard. I started chatting with Greg. He was older and a Vietnam vet. Good person and easy to talk to. I always made sure that I spent time with him, as I always felt that I had never done my duty, and thus respected the men who did their service, particularly a man like Greg who was treated as a villain rather than the hero that served his country that he was.

"You seem a bit down today, Jim" were Greg's first words.

"I guess you get perceptive when you get old" I responded smiling. "Sometimes you discover that people are not what they seem, and sometimes they make you feel weak and it hurts." I stopped, but before Greg could say anything I added, "Sorry, but I should not be burdening you with my issues."

"First, never apologize for saying what you feel, because that is like apologizing for being a real human being. Second, I learned a long time ago that if you give God your weakness, the Lord will give you his strength. You want to talk about it? I ain't the Lord, but I can listen."

I did not want to share my humiliation. On the other hand at least a dozen people in the club, including my former best friends, had already witnessed my emasculation, and Greg was a better person than any of them. "I just don't understand how I could have misread a person that I cared about."

"Are you sure that you misread? Don't forget that the devil was once an angel. So maybe the person changed."

"That is the infuriating thing. I am going back many years but I cannot figure out if she had changed or I never knew who she really was. I understand that all our perspectives are limited and we cannot know the whole of any person or what their story is. But the person of last Friday is the opposite of the person of the Friday before. Can people so readily change or how can they hide sch character?"

"Does it make a difference whether the person changed or you discovered the real person?"

Greg's question did leave me pondering for a bit. "It could because maybe a change can be reversed. An intrinsic characteristic is much harder, if at all possible, to change."

Greg did not give up. "Sometimes good people make a mistake. The mistake neither exposes their intrinsic characteristic nor have they changed. They just made a mistake."

"I don't think that a good person could have done what this woman had done. A mistake is doing something after getting drunk, but she was not drunk and she knew what she was doing and had to know what she was doing to me."

The reception was dispersing and I had to take the kids home. I thanked Greg, and took off for home.

The rest of the day was a typical Sunday, but with Linda alternately writing and softly talking on the phone in conversations that I could not overhear. Late that evening, Linda handed me her letter. It was too late and I was too stressed for me to read anything that night, and I so I decided that I would read Linda's letter when I was safely behind the locked door of my work office. I again slept the night alone.

The next morning, Linda and I took the kids to school and daycare. At work, I closed the door to my office and opened Linda's letter. I'd always loved Linda's handwriting: it was feminine without being frilly or childish, and was legible and flowing without being fussy. It was her, just like the way she dressed herself and carried herself, and she knew I loved it. That was why she'd hand written it instead of typing. I sighed and began to read. I got more than I bargained for.

"Dear Jim,

"Yesterday afternoon you said that you didn't know what I meant when I said that I love you. I was stunned. I didn't think you could possibly have meant that the way you said it, after we've loved each other for so long. I think you meant that if I loved you like you thought I did, I couldn't have done what I did Friday night. I would have agreed with you. Five minutes before Marc came to our table, one minute before, if you'd asked me whether I could cheat on you with anyone, let alone walk out on you that very night, I'd have laughed and told you there was no way that would ever happen. And then it did.

"My love for you has not changed. I swear it has not. You've given me the opportunity to try to explain how that can be true given what I did Friday night, and I will do my best. First, please know that I didn't do this to hurt or humiliate you, though I know it did, or to get back at you for something. I think in your heart, you know that. Some of what you read here will hurt you badly. But you asked me to be complete and honest, and I'll do my best.

"I need you to understand what I felt like in Marc's arms. I was keenly aware of his size and his strength every moment I was with him. It made me feel small and powerless, even though he never came close to coercing me. I felt overwhelmed; almost absorbed in him. It wasn't as if I had no will, it was like my will was surrounded by his. It wasn't as if I had no choices, it was as if all the choices were already made. I felt that almost instantaneously when he took me in his arms for the first slow dance. I was his at that moment, for whatever he wanted, as long as he wanted me, and we both knew it. I didn't make a conscious choice, I just was.

"Did I like that feeling? At the time, yes. How do I feel about it now? I don't like the idea that I could voluntarily give up that much control of myself to anyone, but I must face the fact that I did, and to someone who I knew didn't care about me at all. I made absolutely no effort to take control of the situation, I just went with it and enjoyed the ride. Would it have been the same with any other big, strong, assertive man who wasn't 'the' Marc LaValliere? I don't think so. You know Paul is big and strong, and sometimes he can be assertive, but I've never felt anything while dancing with him like I felt with Marc. So I guess it must have been just Marc.

"When I signaled Dee to take me to the restroom, she already knew what it was about. She said something about him wanting the only pretty girl in the room who didn't go after him. I think she might have been a little jealous. Then she told me how lucky I was, and that she would make sure you didn't find out for long enough for me to get well away, and would remind you how much I loved you. She told me to have fun, and tell her all about it. Then I was out the door, and Marc was waiting there with my coat. When he put his hands on my shoulders after helping me into my coat, I felt just as overwhelmed and possessed as I had in his arms on the dance floor.

"He drove me to his house, took my coat and hung it up, and put on some soft music. We danced for a while in his living room. I don't know why he did that: maybe he was trying to show me he was a gentleman by not taking me straight to bed. I appreciated it, and told him so. We kissed as we danced. He was in complete control, as he had been since that first slow dance at the club.

"After we danced for a while, Marc swept me off my feet into his arms, and carried me to his bedroom. He laid me on my back in his bed. He gently stripped me, almost worshiping me as he did. When he had me down to my underwear, I was as aroused as I have ever been in my life.

"I have no idea how long we had sex. It seemed like forever, and forgive me, Jim, but forever was exactly what I wanted. One time after we cleaned up, I briefly thought of texting you to let you know I was safe and tell you I loved you, but I was just too tired. All I could think of was sleep.