February Sucks

A few minutes later, the band took a break. In the relative quiet, we could hear loud laughter from another table, and turned to look.

"Hey, isn't that Marc LaValliere?" Phil was craning around me to see.

"It is, it is!" Dee squealed excitedly. Marc LaValliere was the star tight end on our city's football team. Unlike many others on the team, he made his year-round home here. He had the reputation of being a genuinely good guy, and he was as well known for his community activities as for his exploits on the field. Marc became the main topic of conversation at our table, as the guys talked about his football feats and the women praised his good works and good nature.

"It doesn't hurt that he's a hunk, either," Dee put in. Linda and I both knew who he was, but we weren't very interested in anything besides each other just then. We let the conversation wash over us, holding hands under the table.

"Hey, you two, get a room!" Linda and I looked at each other. We hadn't even been kissing. Well, not really kissing, anyway. My feeding her wings (so she wouldn't get sauce on her new dress, of course) didn't count. Besides, we'd already gotten a room. We were saved from further embarrassment when the band started again.

"Shall we dance here, or upstairs?" I whispered to Linda. Before she could reply, Jane interrupted.

"Look! He's coming this way!" Sure enough, Marc LaValliere had left his table and was heading for ours. I was amused by the reaction of the women at our table. Four of them primped and strutted, all but saying "pick me, pick me!" If you think a woman can't strut while she's sitting down, you have a lot to learn. Linda looked downward, and held my hand a little tighter.

"Hi, I'm Marc. Would you like to dance?" He was standing behind Linda's left shoulder, holding his hand out to her.

I felt Linda gasp as she dropped my hand as if it were a hot potato. I watched dumbstruck as she turned her back to me, gave Marc her right hand (it almost disappeared in his big paw) and gracefully rose from her chair.

"Hey, man, now my feelings are hurt. I thought she was just dancing with you tonight." Dave smiled as he needled me.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," I groused.

"Relax, Jim. It's just a dance." Jane tried to soothe me. I tried to believe her, but I couldn't help having a bad feeling about this.

The band played a couple of fast songs, and our whole table watched them dance. So did everyone else in the room. Marc was good, far better than I was, and Linda was clearly enjoying herself. Her partner and her dress combined to show her off to perfection.

"Don't they look great together? Come on, Jim, let's join them," Dee invited, clearly trying to distract me.

"Thanks, but no."

The next song was a slow one. I watched Linda melt into his arms, fitting perfectly as though she belonged there. He was good at that, too. Lots of practice, I'll bet, I thought to myself sourly. Marc said something to Linda; she smiled sweetly as she responded. He wasn't doing anything I could legitimately object to. He didn't dance any closer to her than I danced with Dee or Jane; his hands didn't go anywhere they weren't supposed to.

Another slow song, a ballad this time. I could see the band leader watching my wife and her partner, taking his cues from them. Marc was smiling as he held Linda in his arms; he was clearly pleased with whatever was going on. I'd seen enough. I rose from my chair, and felt Jane's hand on my arm.

"Wait, Jim. Let her have this. Don't ruin it for her."

I jerked my arm free, and then I looked at Linda's face. She clearly wanted to be exactly where she was, and nowhere else. She did not want any interference from me. I slumped back into my chair. Finally, the song ended. Marc nodded at the band leader, who started a faster song. He and Linda left the dance floor, smiling at each other, but not touching, not even holding hands. Linda gave him a last brilliant smile as she turned toward our table and Marc turned toward his.

The difference between a woman's best smile and her second-best smile isn't much. Unless you know the woman well, you probably wouldn't notice it at all. As Linda neared our table and our eyes met, her best smile faded to her second-best. I knew then that we had a problem.

"I keep telling you that you're the most attractive woman in here," I whispered in her ear as I seated her. I reached for her hand, and held it in both of mine. "Is it time to take the next dance back to our room?"

For just the tiniest moment, I could have sworn Linda was afraid. Her eyes widened and I could feel her hand trembling. She covered the moment quickly, though, and looked away from me, across the table.

"I'm sorry, everyone, I just have to go to the restroom right now. Linda, come with me?" Dee's voice could be heard far beyond our table. I was too preoccupied to wonder why she had to broadcast this to the room at large. Linda looked at me apologetically.

"Sorry, Jim. I can use some freshening up, too." She rose and left, without answering my question. Of course, the conversation immediately turned to why no woman who is out with a group can possibly go to the restroom by herself. I had just started to wonder why my friends were working so hard to keep the conversation going on that topic, when Dee came back. Alone.

"Where's Linda? Is she okay?" I practically shouted.

"Relax, Jim," Dee said, smiling. "Linda is fine, she just has something to do. You don't need to worry about her. She is a grownup woman, you know." Upon which my friends started teasing me about how much I worried about Linda. It's true, I did; she worried about me the same way. I put up with it for about five minutes, and when Linda still hadn't returned, I'd had enough. I got up and headed for the bar, taking an empty plate with me as an excuse. I approached one of the female bartenders.

"Excuse me, but my wife went to the restroom about fifteen minutes ago, and hasn't come out. She never takes that long. Could you please go, or send someone, to be sure she's all right?"

The bartender gave me a dubious look. The plate in my hand gave me an idea.

"The wings are great, and she likes spicy food, but every now and then she gets a reaction. Really, I just want to know she's all right. Her name is Linda. Here, let me show you a picture of her." I put down the plate and pulled up Linda's picture on my phone. The bartender was beginning to look somewhat sympathetic when there was a voice at my elbow.

"She's all right, you don't need to check on her." Dee was addressing the bartender. "Everything's fine. I'll take care of this." She placed a five on the counter. I wondered why the bartender looked at me with what seemed like sympathy as she pocketed the bill.

"What... why... but she went there with you? because you asked her?" I was completely confused.

"Jim, she's not in the restroom. She has left the club."

"Left? Without me? Why? What's the matter? Why didn't she tell me? Where did she go? Is she all right?" I still didn't get it.

"Let's go to the end of the bar where there's some privacy." I just went where Dee dragged me. It was quieter in the dark corner at the end of the bar. Dee looked me in the eye.

"Jim, Linda loves you. She loves you and the children more than anything else in the world, and she always will, and you know it. But she is spending tonight with Marc."

I stood there with my mouth open, looking stupid as my world ended. Pictures whirled madly through my mind, or what was left of it. Linda at the top of the stairs in her beautiful blue dress. Linda at dinner; Linda at the club; Linda as we fed wings to each other. Linda in Asshole's arms. My anger rose.

"So on what was supposed to be our special night, she left me for some asshole jock." I glared at Dee as I growled the words.

"Jim, she hasn't left you. She'll come home to you tomorrow, and you'll have plenty of other special nights together."

"She didn't even have the guts to tell me to my face that she was leaving me. She just snuck out the back door."

"Jim, listen to me. She hasn't left you..."

"Well, if she hasn't left me, then where the hell is she? She sure isn't with me now, is she?" I was getting loud, and didn't care who heard me.

"Please settle down, people are looking at you. Listen, I know this hurts for you, but it's just tonight. Linda knows, we all know, that you're the only man for her and you always will be. You're the good guy."

"Yeah, and we all know where the good guy finishes, don't we?"

"Jim, it isn't like that. You're making way too big a deal out of this. It's only tonight, then she'll come back to you tomorrow and everything will be just like it was before." I snorted at her. If she really believed that shit, nothing I could say would make any difference anyway.

"So, Friend, what was your role in all this? You didn't really need to go to the restroom, did you? My wife gave you the signal, right? She told you to stall me and keep me out of the way long enough for her and Asshole to make their getaway?"

"Yes, she asked me to do that, because she didn't want you to embarrass yourself by making a scene while Marc was here. She also asked me to make sure you remembered that she loves you, and she will always come home to you."

Yeah, I'd remember exactly how much she loved me tonight, for a long time to come. "More like she didn't want me to embarrass her as she walked away from her husband to spend the night with an asshole jock. I don't suppose it occurred to you, Friend, to remind her that she had a husband and a marriage, and she might lose them over this?"

Dee looked me in the eye. "No, it didn't, because I know she won't lose you over this. You're too good a man to let that happen. I told her how lucky she is. She's lucky because the man that every woman in the room wanted, wanted her; but she's even luckier that she has a husband who loves her enough to get past his hurt feelings and not make this a bigger deal than it should be. You know she'll be willing to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to make it up to you."

"What if it isn't possible to make it up to me? What if there is no way to make this right?"

"Jim, I know how much you love Linda, and how much she loves you. This doesn't have to be a big deal. It's just one night, a one-time experience, compared to all the years and all the love you two have together. It isn't a big deal, unless you make it one. I know she'll come home to you, and I know eventually, you'll be fine." Dee spoke gently but confidently. It was all I could do not to grab the stupid woman and shake her until her teeth rattled for spouting such nonsense. She must be living in some sort of alternate universe if that's what she really thought.

"So if Asshole had picked you, as you wanted him to, you'd have done the same thing?"

"I would." She flung her answer into my face.

"Does Dave know that?"

"No, and he doesn't need to, because I don't think it will ever happen," she said softly.

"Maybe I should tell him."

"Jim, please don't. Don't think that way. I know you're hurting, but that won't help. Please come back to the table. Let us take your mind off it for a while. You haven't danced a single dance with me all night, you know." She smiled invitingly at me.

"I wanted to dance with my wife, but thanks to you and her and Asshole, that doesn't seem to be an option, now does it?" I turned my back on Dee and stalked back to our table.

The talk at the table stopped abruptly when I appeared. The averted eyes told the tale: all of our friends now knew that my wife and Asshole were at that very moment making a cuckold of me.

"Uh, Jim, are you going to be okay?" Dave asked hesitantly after he seated Dee. I wanted to tell him what Dee had said and ask if he would be okay, but I couldn't force the words past my throat. I guess I hadn't gotten over being the good guy yet. I would have to work on that.

"It depends on what you mean by okay." There were a couple of nervous giggles.

"I mean, yeah, that was a shitty thing to do, but you two are going to make it, aren't you? You're not going to divorce Linda over this, are you?"

"I don't see why I shouldn't," I responded coldly. There was a gasp around the table.

"Why are you all acting surprised?" I continued. "We all know how we feel about cheating: once and done. We established that long ago."

"But Jim, it's Marc LaValliere..." Dee interposed.

"So what? I don't care who's fucking her. If it isn't me, that's that."

"Jim, what about your kids? We all know how much you love them, and how much they need you. Think of them before you do anything." Jane's kids were about the same age as mine and were best buds.

"You mean, like my wife is thinking about them right now?"

"Well, that's why you got a sitter, so you wouldn't have to think about your kids." I think Dee meant it to be funny. It fell as flat as it deserved to. "Come on, Jim, it's just one night. It's an opportunity she'll never have again. You wouldn't divorce Linda over one night."

"Why not?" I glared at her. An uncomfortable silence followed.

"Jim, try to think of it this way, maybe it will help." Jane was trying to sound sympathetic. "What if the cover model from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue was here tonight? Say she picked you out of everyone here to dance with, and then she offered to spend the night with you. Can you honestly say you wouldn't be tempted? Can you honestly say you would turn her down?" The pleading look in Jane's warm brown eyes made her look like a particularly winsome puppy dog, and was usually quite effective in getting her what she wanted. Not tonight.

I stood and looked down at Jane. "Yes, I would be tempted, but I would turn her down. You see, I have a wife, and I don't want to hurt her. At least, that's what I'd have done before tonight."

There was another one of those deafening silences. I looked around the table at each of my former friends, all of whom were siding with my cheating wife. At that moment, I sincerely hoped never to see any of them again. I pulled out a twenty and dropped it on the table. "That will pay my tab. You're all covering for the slut I came with; you might as well cover her bill, too." I turned on my heel and stalked out of the club.

My anger cooled as I walked the block and a half to the hotel. It was replaced by the deepest sadness I had ever known. Linda and I were supposed to be making this walk together, holding hands, chaffing our friends about what they were going to get up to once they got to their rooms, and being chaffed in our turn. She was supposed to be holding my arm that way she does, and pushing her face into my coat sleeve when the conversation got too risqué. Instead, I was alone. Alone, I rode the elevator, trying not to remember what Linda and I had gotten up to in other hotel elevators. Alone, I entered what was supposed to have been our room. Alone, I faced the wreckage of our special night.

I turned on the light, and shut the door behind me. Suddenly, I was weary beyond the telling. I dropped my winter coat on the floor and slouched toward the bedroom. There was a Godiva chocolate on each pillow. Laid out in the middle of the bed was a bra and panty set that I hadn't seen before. They were dark blue, darker than her dress, edged with black lace. In my mind's eye, I could see her modeling them, with that combination of love and sensuality in her eyes that was all her own, that had been all mine until tonight. I took the lacy little garments tenderly into my hands, as if holding them might bring her back to me. It didn't work. I wept.

My wife, my lover, my best friend, had been taken from me by another man. He had casually, easily, plucked her from right beside me, as if he had every right to do so. He didn't care what she meant to me; all he saw in her was a pretty fuck toy for the night. And she had just let him! I didn't matter enough to her to inspire even the slightest resistance. It was as if she, too, thought he had a right to her, stronger than whatever right I had earned by almost ten years as a faithful, loving husband. Yes, it was supposed to be just one night. And the next morning, I supposed. So what? And what would he, and this night, leave in her heart and mind and senses? What could I ever do that would compare to, let alone compete with, the city's hero, the handsome stud, Marc "The Asshole" LaValliere?

I must have dozed off. When I came to, it was almost 1:00, and I was slumped over on the bed with an ache in my back and a tear-sodden bra and panty in my hands. I looked around the room. Thinking about what we had planned for this room, I knew I couldn't sleep there. Home, in our bed? No, that was even worse. Another hotel? That was stupid, I had already bought a hotel room. Maybe one of the kids' rooms. That might work. I repacked Linda's suitcase and my own. I ate both chocolates -- no point wasting them -- and threw the sodden bra and panty into the wastebasket. They were empty and worthless without Linda, just like our "special night."

I checked us out of the hotel. She and Asshole could figure out how she got home. She probably wouldn't show up by checkout time, anyway. The professionally chipper young woman behind the desk looked worried as she asked if the accommodations had not been to our liking. I stared at her for a moment, trying to make sense of her question, then realized that couples who rent a mini-suite like that usually don't check out until the last possible moment.

"No, the room was fine; things have just... changed."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. Her professionally cheery demeanor returned, once she knew that her hotel was not at fault. She must have seen this sort of thing before; it didn't seem to worry her much.

Our little starter home didn't have a spare bedroom, or even a sofa big enough to lie down on. Tommy's room it was, then. I surprised myself by sleeping well, and without dreams. I'm still not sure how I did that, but it was a mercy.

I sat on Tommy's bed and planned what I needed to do. I had no idea when my cheating wife would come home; she was obviously far too busy with Asshole to text or call. I figured she wouldn't show up before noon, which would give me plenty of time to pack what I would need for a week or so and be gone before she arrived. On Monday, I would find a lawyer and get the divorce started.

My former friends -- and, I suppose, my soon to be ex-wife -- seemed to think that somehow, the one-and-done attitude we'd all had toward cheating didn't apply in this case. They were wrong. It didn't matter who was fucking her; it wasn't me, and that was that. They would just have to live with their disappointment.

I got myself breakfast ("The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast," I quoted to myself). As I was putting my dishes into the sink, my eyes fell on our refrigerator door. Tommy's crayon picture of his family was done in the typical style of a four-year-old. He'd taken the trouble to get everyone's hair and eye color right, though, even his sister's, and there was no mistaking the happiness and love felt by the artist. What would it do to him if I let his mother and the Asshole rip his family in half? And what would happen to my girl Emma?

I knew that Emma and Tommy were nowhere in Linda's thoughts at that moment. I wasn't either, and she deserved to lose us all. But to give her what she deserved, I would have to ruin the world of my two young innocents. Could I do that? And if I couldn't, then what? I had no idea, so I unpacked our suitcases, and did some Saturday chores that required at most half my brain.

A bit after noon I took a break and slumped into my living room chair. I didn't bother to turn on any lights, despite its being another dreary, grey day: the mostly-darkness suited my mood, as I tried to think of a way to end my trashed marriage with the least harm to my children. After a while, I have no idea how long, I heard a car in the driveway, then a key in the lock.