February Sucks -- My Outcome

"I woke up in Marc's arms. Even half asleep, I felt the same possessed feeling that I had at the club, and during our sex. He woke up and we did it again, then he made breakfast for me. It wasn't as good as when you do it, but he'd worn me out to the point I would have eaten just about anything, even hash browns. (He didn't make hash browns, thank goodness.) Then we were together one last time.

"When I got into his car, I started thinking about you, and how devastated you must feel. I know we are in for a rough patch, but I don't believe for a moment that our marriage is in danger. Our love is too strong; we are just too perfect for each other.

"Marc pulled into our driveway, said 'Thank you for a wonderful evening and morning,' and gave me a hug and a last light kiss. He stayed in the driveway until I had the front door open, like you always did when we were dating. I expect he does that for all of his dates, but it was still nice of him to do it. I smiled and waved, he smiled and waved, and it was over. I walked in our front door, eager to show you just how much I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. I feel exactly the same way now, as I write this.

"I don't think Marc thought he was doing anything to you. I think he just assumed he had a right to me, just like he would have a right to any woman he wanted. He picked me, and that was that. Not that he would have forced me; if I'd said no, I'm sure he would have gone on to someone else. He was completely sure I wouldn't say no to anything he wanted, and he was right.

"You need to know that Marc was kind and considerate to me the whole time. He didn't mistreat me, far from it. He was chivalrous and gentlemanly. He treated me like a lady, holding doors for me and everything. He even surprised me by remembering my name the next morning. I knew it wasn't about me; I'm quite sure he'd have treated any other woman the same way, and has done so often. Still, I can't help thinking well of him as a man because of it.

"This part will hurt, Jim. I'm crying as I write, thinking about what you will feel when you read it. Tears on the paper are such a cliché; I've 'borrowed' a couple of your handkerchiefs from your dresser. They'll be ruined when I finish this; I'll buy you some new ones this week. I would never dream of writing or telling you this, except that you told me to.

"Marc is an excellent lover: no doubt from lots of practice on lots of women. He knows his way around a woman's body very, very well. He knew what would please me and excite me better than I knew myself, and he used it all. He knew when to be gentle and when to be forceful, but even at his most forceful, I never felt forced: it was something I wanted as much as he did. He was always completely in charge, even at his gentlest. It was as though I was the instrument, and he was the virtuoso, and he was brilliant.

"I've read and heard sex described as a man possessing a woman. I never really understood that, but I do now. You treat me as an equal in all things. If there is possession involved, it's mutual: we belong to each other. Marc possessed me from the moment he took me in his arms on the dance floor until he dropped me off at home, and there was nothing mutual about it.

"I responded to him, fully and completely. I lost track of how many times I came; they all ran together after a while. From the moment he took me in his arms, he dominated my senses to the point that there was no room for anything else, including what is most important in all the world to me: you and our children.

"This is the worst part. I'm crying as I write this, but you asked, so I must tell you. I'm so sorry, Jim, but this will hurt. Marc is a very, very skilled lover. With all the experience he's had, he ought to be. If he weren't, it would mean he's a fool, which he isn't. It was by far the best sex I've ever imagined, let alone had. He's learned and practiced well, so that he can give a performance like he did on me. I mean that exactly as I wrote it: it was a performance, and it wasn't with me, or for me, it was on me. You'll never have the experience he's had, thank God! But you've learned so much through the time we've been together, as have I. You have a far better motive: you want to learn because you love me. That's far more valuable to me than even the greatest sex.

"That's the hardest part. I think it gets easier from here. I hope so, anyway. Your second handkerchief is almost soaked.

"One more thing you must know. If Marc LaValliere got down on his knees in front of me and asked me to divorce you and marry him, I would tell him no. That would be true even if we didn't have Emma and Tommy. If I were single and both you and Marc asked me to marry you, I would choose you in a heartbeat. I would not need to think about it, and I would have no regrets. He is an excellent lover; you are an excellent man. He may be the city's unofficial hero; you are my official hero.

"How can I say you're my hero when I've told you I had better sex with Marc? Neither you nor I believes there's such a thing as 'just sex.' I don't think it was 'just sex' for Marc, either; if it had been, it wouldn't have been as good. And that was what we spent most of our time doing. But what you and I have together is more important than anything Marc and I did. If I were to trade what you and I have for a lifetime of nights with Marc, I would be the world's biggest fool.

"I don't love Marc. Not even close. I like him, I respect him for what and who he is, and I enjoyed my time with him, but that's all. It's over, one and done, and I'm more than ready to move on with what's really important to me: to return to where my heart is, and has been for the last ten years.

"Which brings me back to the beginning of this letter. How could I do this, loving you as I know I do? Or to put it another way, why didn't my love for you stop me? I'm not sure I completely understand, but this is what I think. When I got up to dance with Marc, I thought it would be a couple of dances, a few minutes' teasing from our friends, and that would be the end of it. The man who every woman at our table wanted, wanted to dance with 'just the same old me.' So I went to dance with him. I had no idea at the time of doing anything more than that: just a couple of dances. What could be wrong with that? Then came the slow dances.

"I think men like Marc really do believe they have a right to any woman they want. What was it Henry Kissinger said, 'power is the ultimate aphrodisiac?' When Marc asserted his 'right' so confidently and strongly, it never even occurred to me to question it. If I thought at all, it was something like, 'Oh, of course,' and I didn't think about it any more, except to be flattered that he wanted me. It was just who he is.

"It wasn't that I stopped loving you or the kids. It was more like I wasn't thinking or loving at all; everything in me was just reacting to him, like an instrument reacts to a musician. I'll say again, there was and is no love for Marc anywhere in my heart. My heart is at home where it belongs, with you and our children, and that's where it will always stay.

"Jim, I know you're hurting terribly, and I know it will take time for you to heal. Take the time you need. Do anything you need to do. I ask only two things: don't do anything that would hurt the children, and please don't take a lover. I know it sounds hypocritical, but that would destroy me. I will do anything to help you heal. (I've already arranged to get my blood drawn for the tests tomorrow morning.) Even the worst hurts heal with time, and I will be right here for you for as long as it takes, and forever after.

"I know you very, very well by now, and I know you love me. I can see it in your eyes, behind the pain; I can feel it as I write this, even though you're not in the house. I trust my future, and my children's future, to that love. I know you're upset that my love for you didn't prevent me from letting Marc take our special night, and borrow things that I had promised would be only yours. I understand, but now, everything he borrowed has been returned, and like my love for you, they are unchanged, and will be yours as long as I have breath.

"Love, as always,

"Linda."

The letter was brutally honest, which is what I wanted and asked for. But the letter seemed less honesty than Linda rubbing into my face that she had the best sex she could imagine with Marc, not me. Perhaps Linda took the opportunity for a little emasculation to bully me into accepting her transgression. More notably, she excused her conduct and basked in the wonderful sex with Marc, but showed no regret for her adultery. The letter did not make me feel better.

That evening, after dinner and putting the children to sleep, Linda asked if I had read her letter. I nodded agreement. Linda sighed. "Jim, I haven't changed; I'm still just me, the same old me as always. I know ever since I came home Saturday, you've been looking for something about me that's different. You haven't found it, have you? And you won't, because it isn't there, it's in how you're looking at things. It wasn't even 24 hours out of our whole lives together. We can't let this break us, Jim. We can't. Please tell me what's making this harder for you than it has to be. Jim, honey, please check your ego."

"I am still trying to understand and comprehend what you did."

"Sure. Take your time honey. Can I further explain or answer any other questions?"

"I guess that he did not use condoms?" Linda tilted her head away from me and responded "you know the answer to that."

"Your letter did not mention whether you sucked his cock. You did so, didn't you?" Linda just looked away and gave no answer.

"You really wanted me to go down on you and make love as soon as you entered the house. Why were you in such a hurry after being with Mr. Wonderful for the prior twelve hours?"

"I don't want to talk about that and it would not be helpful. It was a mistake."

"What do you mean mistake? What are you not telling me?" Linda was now looking at the floor and shaking her head no, but said nothing.

"Tell me Linda if you want to have any hope that we could even remain friends."

"You will hate me, I can't."

"Well right now you are telling me that I should just go directly to a divorce, because honesty gives you at least some chance, while hiding will kill anything."

"Please don't hate me, baby, and just understand that as I said in my letter, Marc had dominated me to the point that I was not acting normally. I started slowly releasing Marc from my senses as I left him and entered our home, but it took a while to completely drain Marc's domination from my brain." She then became silent before announcing through her tears "I can't, I can't."

"Linda, I am about to walk away from the house until you answer. I promise that whatever you say can only help you at this point, because any alternative is worse."

"I told you in the letter that we had sex that Saturday morning. I was too ashamed to tell you that we had the last of our sex just before I left for home, and Marc would not allow me to clean up before he took me home."

My head was blowing up. My bitterness was unmistakable as I asked "You came home and tried to get me to go down on you and have sex even while your cunt was full of Marc's cum?"

Linda was now in full crying mode. "Marc got into my head that this was really kinky and that you would actually get a rise out of eating another man's cum out of your wife and having what he called sloppy seconds. As I told you and it is true, I was not thinking straight and I just followed what Marc dictated. If I thought anything it was that you eating his cum out of me was erotic. We never did anything like that and so I thought, why not have some fun, or at least what would be fun for me. Let's try out and see what happens. I probably would have told you before you did anything if that is any consolation."

Where had my wife disappeared? "You really believed that I could get a rise out of eating his cream pie and sloppy seconds?"

"I told you that I needed time to end Marc's control over me. I was in an erotic mode, and this was erotic and fun. It was not until I took a shower and started washing up that it dawned on me what I had been willing to do to you for Marc. All I can hope is that I was going to tell you."

"So this was Marc's final humiliation of me. I would not only be a cuck, but eating and sharing his slime, and you went with that idea." Linda got a strange look on her face but wouldn't answer. After some silence, she just whispered "I am sorry, I am sorry. I probably would have told you."

Very quickly, however, she resumed offense. "Whatever you may think about my coming home with Marc still in me, nothing happened. I took a shower and am clean. I am still the old me that loves you and our family. Yes, you were humiliated, and I am so sorry for that. I am not you, but I am trying to feel your pain. I hurt too for the pain that I caused, but please park your pride and accept that you love me, and we belong together."

That night I remained in the guest room. The next morning, I took a little time off from work to see a divorce lawyer who I had called on Monday based on recommendations from a couple co-workers. The lawyer confirmed the expected bad news that Linda would most likely get custody of the children and the house even with the evidence of her infidelity. The bright side was that there might not be any basis for alimony as both Linda and I had made comparable incomes. But there was a risk that Linda might get as much as 70% of the marital assets.

I asked the lawyer about claims that I could make against Marc or his team based on morality clauses or alienation of affection, which I had read about in some online literature. The lawyer laughed.

"Yea, it is an urban legend fostered by some fantasy writers publishing on Literotica about cuckolded husbands getting big settlements for claims based on those arguments. But there is no such thing. It is pure make believe. Even as the cuckoldee, you cannot benefit from a contract between an employer and an employee because you are not an intended beneficiary. And, while some states still have alienation of affection laws, no attorney would ever file an action based on that, anymore that they would sue on anti-miscegenation laws that prohibited interracial sexual relations. They are vestiges of a caste system, with the alienation laws basically treating women as men's property. We are way beyond that."

"I am not surprised, but thought I would ask. I just hate someone like Marc getting away with what he does in destroying families."

The lawyer stared at the ceiling for a minute and then continued "But the facts of your case are interesting. There is another body of law called intentional infliction of emotional harm or emotional distress. It is a last chance sort of thing, and can't think of where it was successful. But our law permits damages if we can prove that Marc acted intentionally and his conduct was extreme and outrageous, and if you could show severe harm. It would be a stretch, but I can argue that the legal criteria is met where you have the combination of Marc publicly taking away your wife on your special day and then then convincing her to serve you cream pie and sloppy seconds. That is outrageous I would say. The pictures and video that you have of Linda and Marc certainly prove that Marc was propositioning Linda at the club. That will help. I am thinking that I could get our judges to allow us to file the complaint under seal in view of the impact on your children, for at least an initial period of time. We could then send the complaint to Marc's team and see what the team president and general manager would think about the complaint eventually becoming public. They might force Marc into a settlement or even propose their own."

"I don't want the sordid affair to become public thought. The children will go through enough without having their friends and friends' familiar know about this."

"We are copacetic. There are so many husbands whose first reaction on discovering adultery is to broadcast the affair to everyone. That is fine if there are no children involved, but only a truly asshole father would subject his children to that sort of notoriety. Glad to see that you are putting the interests of your children first, even if it is not sexy and you don't burn the bitch. You have to choose between burning the bitch and protecting your children."

"So, what now?"

"Don't make important decisions like this without giving yourself time to think and make sure you are doing the right thing for yourself and for your children."

I left the office feeling better, but knowing that I still had to make some choices.

After dinner, Linda and I again sat down to continue our discussions. I took a deep breath. "I saw a lawyer today."

"Oh?" Linda turned pale. "Honey, please, No...." she spoke silently as she began to sob. She threw herself at me crying, and I could not turn her away. She was hurting and despite everything, there were still remnants of our past life and love.

"I never meant to hurt you or us. I ... I... I never looked for another man. You saw that this just happened and I was out of control. I... I... I love you and our family, and I want only you and our children. Please tell me you still love me."

I really did not want to answer her, but we had to move forward.

"I don't know if any of my love for you is still there. It is hard for me to tie up my feelings right now. I was betrayed in the worst possible way by the last person I would have expected."

"I was stupid. I did not see what I did as a betrayal. It was just going to be once-in-a-lifetime in the course of our lifetime together. I didn't know how much you would hurt. Marc convinced me that this would be just a fun night and I went along." She remained silent for a little before adding, "It was fun until it wasn't. I just did not know."

I wondered what her thinking was. "If you did not know, why didn't you give me a chance to convince you not to do it?"

"I wanted that one experience of being with Marc. If I gave you chance to fight for me, it would just create a scene and maybe Marc would beat you up, and I would still have gone with him."

So Linda had me pegged as a loser. Her letter was already a dagger into my heart and Linda's every addition just seemed to twist that dagger to increase the hurt. Did Linda behave out of character, or did I finally see the real Linda. Her letter professed love and desire to spend her life with me, but the actual words and thoughts demonstrated only disrespect. She cared not for having cuckolded me, and only wanted me to get over my hurt and pretend that nothing happened while she lived in the warm memory of her wonderful night with Marc.

"Really, Jim, we are adults and can weather this storm."

My blood rushed to my head, and, for the first time I raised my voice. "Linda, you are out of your mind."

She hesitated, obviously unprepared for my approach.

"What?" she raised her voice.

"You really cannot understand how you ripped my heart out and trampled on it, do you?"

Her eyes were again watering as she stared into my eyes, and again tried to reach out to me.

"No, please, honey, I could never trample you heart. You got it all wrong. I tell you again that I do not love Marc at all. I love you. Marc was simply an interlude but you are my life. Please, honey...Oh God...why can't you see it as it is? Please don't destroy what we have."

Woman's unfathomable logic again that Linda could say that I was destroying what we had. Linda again stroked my cheeks and placed her head against mine.

"Please make love to me my dear Jim. Maybe you will see that you really want me and we should stay together. We both need to do that for each other. Please."