February Sucks the Continuation

This is my continuation of the story by GeorgeAnderson, February Sucks. Please read his story first. I am grateful to GeorgeAnderson for granting me permission to write this continuation.

I am also grateful to Randi for her editing skills and my team of beta readers for their very helpful input.

I had read Linda's letter. The letter that I had insisted she write for me. She had been honest with me, I had to give her that. She had been brutally honest, in fact. Almost as if, despite what she had said, she had enjoyed writing it? Had been somewhat gleeful about rubbing my face in her cheating?

At first, I wished she hadn't been quite so open and honest, but then I realized that was a load of crap. One way or another, I had needed her to be honest, even if her honesty hurt me.

I thought further, upon consideration. Why hadn't she been honest with me before? Another thought occurred to me. If another man had approached her who had been as handsome and as poised as that asshole Marc LaValliere, but who hadn't been a famous football star, or a famous athlete in a different major sport, would she have still left me for him, still humiliated me in front of all our friends and a room full of strangers?

Well, that was the question wasn't it? Sure, she promised me that this would be a one-time thing only, that she'd never cheat on me again, but the rub was this: how could I ever trust her again on anything?

After all, how many drug users have ever said: "No thank you! One hit of heroin or crack cocaine is more than enough for me."

I remembered her writing that 'Marc was a very, very skilled lover,' which meant that he was better in bed than I ever had been, and this is how I saw it: better than I could ever hope to be. Could I put up with being second best with the woman that I loved for the rest of our lives together? I remembered the humiliation of being the recipient of her false second-best smile that Friday evening.

I needed to speak to someone about this shitty situation, but all my friends (what friends?) knew of my utter humiliation at the hands of Linda my wife and Marc LaValliere, the Asshole.

They'd tried, when I'd returned to the table, walking toward them like a zombie, to tell me that everything would be all right, and that Linda would come back to me. They assured me that 'after I got over my hurt,' everything would be back to normal between Linda and I. I didn't believe them, because I didn't think that even they believed the bullshit they were trying to feed me. Certainly not Jane and Dee, and as for the others? Who gave a shit what they thought?

It was a couple of nights later, Linda was gently snoring, her sleep obviously wasn't impacted by what she'd done, something I found interesting, concerning even, but I wasn't getting much sleep. I made a decision. If my former friends were of no help to me, maybe Mr. Google could be my new friend, provide me with the help and guidance I needed but hadn't been getting?

I walked downstairs, making sure not to wake anyone, and I quietly shut the door to the den, turned on a desk lamp and fired up the computer. I searched on 'infidelity' and was surprised and a little dispirited at the amount of resources there were. Some of the personal stories of husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends being cheated on were as bad as mine, some even worse, if you could believe that. It was true.

I read of a husband who had accidentally discovered that he was not the father of his twins; I read about a wife who found that her husband had a secret second family with three more children, a young man who found his fiancée in bed with his own mother only weeks before their planned wedding, a man whose wife blurted out, drunkenly, that she was having sex with his best friend, plus a couple of cheaters who felt so guilty about cheating on their respective spouses (who they both claimed to love) that they were undergoing therapy as a pair of cheaters to help them get beyond their guilt. That one really did make me shake my head. I thought, 'Well, stop cheating on them you dumb fucks!'

I also found several websites where you could get advice on what to do if your marriage or relationship was in trouble.

I decided to go with the one that looked the best. You could sign up with an anonymous account and start posting on it pretty much straight away. Using an old Hotmail account I kept for signing up for social media sites, I opened my own account there.

I used the name HurtDude, and 20 minutes later I had posted my story (with no real names but I did name the venue) on the "Dealing With Cheating" sub-forum on the site.

I then opened a new browser tab and for want of something to do, checked my emails and read a couple of news sites.

Much to my surprise, half-an-hour after I had posted my story, including the gist of Linda's letter to me, I got a ping telling me that I had a reply on the site.

Intrigued I returned to the forum, hit reload and read the reply to my post from a moderator on the site, no less.

"Hi, HurtDude. Sorry to hear about what happened to you. Although what you report is a fairly rare event in the annals of cheating, this type of thing is not entirely unheard of, either.

"However, please answer this question: Exactly what happened when the arsehole came into the restaurant? How did he approach your wife? Who else did he approach or speak to beforehand? Please answer these questions, as this is important for me to give you the advice you need. Thank you. BritishMan."

Someone from Britain had responded? Cheating was obviously an international problem, I thought to myself.

I posted that he had been sitting at a table for a few moments and had then, so far as I could see, walked directly to our table and had asked Linda if she wanted to dance; that she'd dropped my hand like it was something toxic and had then ignored me as she agreed to dance with Marc.

A couple of minutes later he wrote: "I dare say your wife is very pretty. And I have just quickly Googled the restaurant and I see it has a substantial dancefloor and features a live band (quite a rare thing these days) with dozens of tables and room for a couple of hundred of diners, from the photos I saw on their website photo gallery.

"With half of them (on average) being women, you are telling me that the Asshole footballer (I love your description of him) left the table he was sitting at after arriving not long before and he made a direct beeline for your wife (without asking any other women to dance) and that she agreed to dance with him without either of them even looking at you?

"I'm sorry to have to say this but if you believe this and believe the letter she gave to you, (I don't think I could have read such a letter, kudos to you, mate) then I have some perfect investment opportunities for you. I can sell you The Tower of London and The Brooklyn Bridge. I think you (and possibly your wife's friend) were set up, though her friend might be involved. There's very little chance that the story you told me is true. I'm not saying that you are lying, I'm just suggesting that the story that you were fed by your wife isn't 100% kosher and can't be entirely true.

"What you need to do is to recall the words of President Ronald Reagan "Trust, but verify." What I'd suggest you do is that you buy several top-quality voice activated recorders of the covert use variety and deploy them around your home. They can be disguised as pens, USB sticks, etc, so you can hide them in plain sight.

"I suggest you place them in your bedrooms, your kitchen and in your cars, but especially your wife's car. And also try to get one in her handbag. Or purse, I think is the name you use for them in the States.

"I suggest your car, also, if your wife ever borrows it. If not, don't bother to do that. And buy high quality units. Don't skimp on them. You'll fuck up if you do, because cheaper ones just will not work well enough, if at all.

"I know that it's quite an expensive proposition, but what price can you put on your peace of mind? Good luck, HD, and I hope that I am wrong and paranoid and that my cynical take on your situation isn't correct. But since I discovered 10 years ago that my now ex-wife was cheating on me with our son's geography teacher, I have pretty much seen it all, sadly."

His reply set me to thinking. I'd assumed that it had happened as I'd been led to believe, that Asshole Marc LaValliere had waltzed in, waltzed up to my wife, who he hadn't known until then, then waltzed off with her to fuck her when we were supposed to be having our own special night together.

What if it had been a set up? Thinking about it, it did seem, looking back on it, that Asshole had made a direct line to my wife, ignoring all the other women in the restaurant, some of whom were about as hot as Linda, and in some cases, let's be honest, here, even hotter than her. So why and how had he chosen my wife out of a couple of hundred or more other eligible women? And why a married one?

Although BritishMan's reply had upset me, it had also empowered me. No longer was I a powerless cuckold, I actually had a plan. I went online and ordered ten voice activated recorders disguised as pens. I paid for express shipping and directed they be delivered to my office address the next afternoon. I returned to bed and actually fell asleep.

We breakfasted with the children, and Linda and I tried to be as normal as we could. I think the kids bought it, as they prattled on about what they expected to do during their school day.

I left for the office, had a reasonably productive day and had mixed emotions when the package of voice activated recorders arrived, mid-afternoon. Anticipation and trepidation.

They looked very good. You could actually write with the pens, the rechargeable battery life was up to 16 hours, they had a 12Gb drive and a high-quality microphone. I charged them up two at a time and by the end of the afternoon they were all charged. I tested each one and they were all of superb quality, with crystal clear recordings.

Later that evening after our meal I faked several errands around the house. I emptied the bins upstairs and downstairs and managed to secrete a pen in each of the bedrooms whilst I did so. I put one in the den, another in the kitchen and when I took the trash out I was able to place one in Linda's car. I put it in the central console shelf, hidden behind some random junk. I tested it in position and it worked well. When I returned to the house, I put one into an unused side-pocket of her voluminous purse.

I was grateful that my wife drove a hybrid car and that there wasn't much engine noise to contend with. Now? It was just a waiting game to see if the self-described cynical Brit was right and there was more to it that I had been led to believe, or if it had really been a one-off event and something Linda wanted me to get over. But what else could it be? Hopefully I would soon find out.

Linda and I were still talking but we seemed to be going over the same old ground. I was insisting that she had a full panel of STD tests, including HIV, but she caviled at that. She believed that wasn't necessary, but I believed it was.

There was no way that I was going to risk my health by having unprotected sex with her until she provided proof that she was clean. And protected sex? Why the hell should I have to use a damned rubber to protect myself from catching the clap from my own wife who had been stupid enough to allow another man to fuck her unprotected?

In the meantime the pen recorders were doing their little jobs, quietly and efficiently. After a week of low-level hostilities between my wife and myself, I gathered them together and decided to listen to them.

I'd hoped I'd hear Linda talking with her two best friends, Dee and Jane; maybe I'd get a clue about what the fuck had happened and some clues about what I could do to move forward. Also, I wanted to prove that cynical bastard BritishMan wrong.

That wasn't how things worked out. At all.

I listened to the kitchen recorder first and the conversation I got was between Linda and her friend Dee.

LINDA: "Morning, Dee. Coffee?"

DEE: "Yes, please, Linda. Say, has Jim got over himself, yet?"

LINDA: No, Dee. He hasn't."

DEE: "Why not?"

LINDA: "I think he still believes that Marc LaValliere really got to me and in ways that he, Jim, just can't."

DEE: "Well, didn't he?"

LINDA: Yes, I guess he did. I think I hurt Jim even more. I wrote Jim a letter detailing my night with Marc and..."

DEE: "Oh, shit! Linda! You didn't, did you?"

LINDA: "Yes, I did."

DEE: "Why did you do that? You had to know that would be difficult for him to handle?"

LINDA: "Believe it or not that was Jim's idea."

DEE: "Why?"

LINDA: "He figured that if we could get by what happened, he needed to know exactly what happened between Marc and me, but he didn't think he could cope with hearing it from me, so he thought that me writing him an honest full account of what happened would be safer for him, that he wouldn't get into a rage, or something."

DEE: "Oh, I see. And, of course, you sugarcoated it for Jim?"

LINDA: "No. I guess maybe I should have, but I didn't, I gave him what he wanted, the full and unabridged truth. Well, as far as he knows."

DEE: "Oh, shit. And Jim's ego can't handle that? After all, you told me that Marc was the best lover you have ever had and that's gotta have gut-punched Jim."

LINDA: "Yeah, poor Jim. I still love Jim and I know this has got to be hurting him."

DEE: "Jim's a good guy. A bit of a stick in the mud, but still a good guy for all that."

LINDA: "Yeah, he is that. And he's good with the kids, too."

DEE: "Linda, you'll have to work out how you can get back into Jim's good books. Do you have any ideas about that?"

LINDA: Not really. You got any ideas?

DEE: Apart from fucking him to death, not really."

LINDA: "That's not going to happen, Dee. At least not for a while. Thing is, Jim realized, somehow that we didn't use condoms and he is refusing to have sex with me because he wants me to get tested for STDs."

DEE: "Well, I can see how Jim would be thinking. After all, there are a lot of STDs out there, and even though you are probably sure that Marc is clean, if giving way to Jim on the STD tests is the way forward, then that might be worth thinking about."

LINDA: "I guess you're right, Dee."

DEE: "Linda, you'll have to be super nice to him. At the club I tried to cheer him up by praising him. I acknowledged that he was hurting, but I said that he was the only man for you and that he would always be, and that he was a good guy. But then he made me realize that he would be hurting for a long time, because he looked at me with pain in his eyes and he said: "We all know where the good guy finishes, don't we?"

"I tried to calm him down by saying he was making too big a deal of it, but like I say, I could see the hurt on his face. I thought he was going to cry or be sick. I really felt for him. You have your work cut out to help him get beyond this. To get through this. You two have a great many years ahead of you, if you play this right."

LINDA: "Yes, that's true, I know. There's something I didn't tell you the other day when we spoke. Apparently, when Jim got back to the hotel room on Friday, he found a really sexy bra and pantie set that I'd bought to wear and he had lain down on our bed, cuddling them to his face. He'd cried himself to sleep but when he woke up a couple hours later, he found that his tears had soaked the underwear and he'd put the set in the trash bin in the room."

DEE: "Fuck! Talk about symbolism! Look, you know Dave and I will be there for you. And for Jim, too. You need anything and I mean anything, including babysitting your two, please let us know. Let's face it, the purpose of this is to get Jim and you back together, right?"

LINDA: "Right!"

Dee then said her goodbyes and she left to prepare Dave's evening meal.

There was nothing of any real interest on the other pen recorders in the house or Linda's car, but that wasn't the case with the pen in Linda's purse. Until I heard the recording on that pen, I had been pretty sure that somehow I'd work to get through my pain and work with Linda to get our marriage back on track, perhaps by going to counseling as a couple. I also thought I'd have to tell BritishMan that he had been wrong about my wife.

What I heard that purse recorder burnt my love for Linda off like a high-pressure blowtorch. Using a colorful expression often used by my Scottish grandfather about someone who had upset him greatly I decided that my hatred for Linda was so deep that if her teeth were on fire I wouldn't even piss in her mouth.

LINDA: "Hi, Marc! How are you?"

MARC: "I'm good, thank you, Lindybopper. How are you? And how is the cuckold?"

LINDA: "I'm fine, Marc. But please, don't call Jim by that horrible name."

MARC: Why not, Lindybopper? That's what he is, isn't it?"

LINDA: "I know that technically Jim is our cuckold, but I don't like to think of him like that. It starts making me feel guilty. After all, we do have two beautiful children together and I still have some feelings for Jim."

MARC: "I'm sorry Linda, I can tell you are getting upset. After all, leaving your husband of ten years for another man, even if he is a top athlete like me, can't be easy for you. I'll stop using that word. Maybe we should describe him as your ex-husband to be? Would that help?"

LINDA: "Yeah, maybe. It's a difficult situation for me to be in. After all, if I'd met you first, I'd not have married Jim. I mean he's a great guy, but who'd have thought that by working as my employer's charity liaison officer at a meeting six months ago that I'd have met you, my soulmate?"

MARC: "That's true, I feel the same way about you, too. You are also my soulmate."

LINDA: "There's one thing I'm not sure of, Marc. Why the subterfuge with approaching me at the table, asking me to dance and then leaving Jim there. Was it to humiliate him?"

MARC: "Not quite, Lindybopper. But it was to show my status as the alpha male. I needed to show who was the top dog, as it were. Actually, I sort of have regrets about doing that, now. I'm taking his wife, so taking his dignity wasn't really cool. Anyway, how did you get your friend Dee to set him up so easily?"

LINDA: "Oh, Dee is a dear friend but she's a bit stupid and rather naive and gullible. She also a hopeless romantic who spends all her free time reading trashy erotic romance novels."

MARC: "So she was an ideal sap for that Friday night, huh?"

LINDA: "Yeah. I guess she was. I mean, I love her as a friend, but she is very gullible, as I said. And a bit ditzy."

MARC: "How is Jim coping now? Is he over it?"

LINDA: "No. And he's still really hurt by it. I left the hotel room exactly as I would have if I'd really intended to have a night of passion with him, including a new sexy underwear set on the bed for him to find. Actually, he told me he soaked them with his tears and threw them in the trash. And that made me feel really funny in my tummy. It excited me that he was so hurt, but it also upset me that he was so hurt. What's wrong with me, Marc?"

MARC: There's nothing wrong with you, baby. You are just transitioning from one relationship to another. Anyway, how's Jim taking the new situation?"

LINDA: "Like I say, he's upset. Obviously, if he knew that I'm going to divorce him and that we plan to move to San Francisco when you start your new job as head of the new team there, he'd have been even more upset."

MARC: "Yes, he would. Linda, don't tell anyone about my new deal with the team in California. My current team isn't aware that I'm leaving them to take up the new position, and as there's a penalty clause in my contract with them, things could get messy if they should find out before I'm ready to tell them. My new team will pay out on any penalty fee that this raises."