For The Gander

"Now's not the time," Steve said. "Grab another beer after we're done."

Her father came back, his still hard dick bouncing from one thigh to other. In his hand, he held a bottle of vegetable oil.

"That's for my ass, isn't it, Daddy?" Evie asked, feeling both nervous and excited.

He smiled at her. "Sure is, pumpkin."

"I don't mind sloppy seconds," Steve said. "It's actually kinda hot."

"Good," her father said. "Because it's not for you."

"Ah," he said, recognition dawning.

Chris was speechless the whole time her father and his friend double-penetrated her. So were they, but for an entirely different reason.

#

Afterwards, he carried a very sleepy daughter up to bed. The last time he'd done that, she'd been a child. It felt strange. It also felt right.

Steve was still smiling and Chris still looking like he'd seen a ghost. He clapped the poker player on the shoulder. "If you need me to cut a larger check-"

"No, fuck that," Steve said. "He's going to keep his mouth shut because he doesn't want anyone notifying the IRS about all that undeclared income. Ain't that right, Chris?"

He stared at Steve, too numb to be either upset or afraid. "No need for threats. Hadn't planned on telling anyone."

Steve eyed him warily but said nothing more.

"Then we're good," Bill said, offering his hand.

Chris stared down at it as though it were a snake. "Let's get one thing straight. I'm glad our business arrangement worked out. But what just happened? I might not have a problem keeping it to myself, but that doesn't mean we're `good' or anything."

Regarding the guy silently, Bill nodded. Some part of him felt that he should have been equally disgusted himself. He'd have wondered why Steve wasn't, except that his friend had noticed how much his young mistress resembled his daughter. And he'd smiled most wickedly when letting Bill know that he saw it too.

"Fine," Bill said. "Pleasure doing business with you."

Chris grunted something like a response. Then Steve suggested that it was time to go.

"Thanks," Bill said to Steve. "For everything."

"Don't mention it," he said. "What are friends for?"

The two of them shook hands then Steve ushered Chris out to the driveway.

Bill finished his beer, had another, sent a quick letter, then went upstairs. He crept silently across the bedroom and hopped in the shower. He didn't take long though. Mel wasn't a particularly light sleeper, but there'd been plenty of mornings when the sound of her showering had woken him up for him to risk the long soak his sore muscles cried out for.

"Must've been some night at the bar," his wife mumbled when he crawled into bed.

His breath caught and he went still, as if that might keep a woman who was already awake from waking up. Or perhaps just because the sudden sound of her voice had taken him so utterly by surprise.

"What's that?" he asked, finally resuming his trip under the covers.

"You don't usually shower before bed," she said. "Especially when you've been drinking."

Frantically, Bill searched his mind for an acceptable response.

"What's she look like?" Mel asked, sitting up.

She didn't look like she'd been sleeping.

"I don't know what-"

His wife rolled her eyes. "Don't lie to me, Bill. You've been cheating on me for some time now. And if you were trying to hide it, you haven't been doing a very good job."

His mouth went dry. He wanted to deny it, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Besides, part of him was glad that she knew. Had wanted her to find out. Wasn't like she'd gone out of the way to hide the fact that she was having an affair of her own.

"Mine's tall and handsome. A lot like you, in fact," she said.

"So you admit it?"

Mel shrugged. "Why not. We're long past pretending, aren't we?"

Oddly enough, the only thought that came to Bill's mind at that point was that the difference between marriage and dating was that married couples argued in bed. He tried picturing himself lying beside one of his past girlfriends while the two of them confessed to cheating on one another, and failed. If something like that had ever happened, they'd be standing up, facing each other, faces flushed red and voices elevated.

"Do you still love me?" she asked.

"Yes," he said without hesitation.

His wife stared at him, nostrils flaring. "Do you mean that? Or are you just saying it?"

Without thinking that she might not welcome it, he reached over and took her hand in his. To his relief, she sighed and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

"I love you too, Bill," she said. "God help me, I get so frustrated with you. Our life hasn't turned out anything like I expected. The constant disappointment is killing me. But the flame's still burning. It's nearly extinguished, but there's some life left to it yet."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Bill tried to decide whether to tell her, then nearly laughed at himself as he realized that the thought hadn't even occurred to him to come clean about what had just gone down in the living room. He'd been about to lead off with the arrangement he'd made with Chris.

"You might change your mind," he said. "After you hear this."

Skipping most of the details, he filled his wife in on the depraved acts that had taken place right beneath her just a little while ago.

Mel sat still through the whole thing, saying not a word.

"Well?" he asked, after he decided that he could endure the silence no more.

"I appreciate your honesty," she said. "And...I have something I have to tell you too."

Bill didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was impossible to imagine how their family could be any more fucked up.

"So, you see," she said. "I can't very well blame you for Evie."

"What's good for the goose," Bill said, shaking his head.

His wife smiled. "Funny. That's exactly what Evie said."

From head to toe, he felt numb. He couldn't even decide whether it was strange that he wasn't mad. Part of him thought that he should be, no matter that his own actions were equally depraved. But another part of him was simply too stunned to react in any way.

And still another part, deeper down and too shy to speak up just yet, was getting excited thinking about what life might be like around the house from then on. What fun they'd have on their family vacation later that summer.

"I have something else to tell you," he said after a bit.

His wife looked puzzled rather than apprehensive. Perhaps she'd caught the cheery tone in his voice.

"There's a letter sitting in the mailbox," he said. "Should go out in the morning."

"Okaaaaaaay," Mel said, wiping a lock of red-brown hair from her face.

He loved that hair. Loved her beautiful green eyes and her breathtakingly fair skin. She didn't look as good as she had when she was younger, sure, but his wife was still an incredibly beautiful woman. How had he allowed himself to forget that? Just because they'd been fighting? Had the resentment he'd felt inside corrupted his vision?

"The deadline for the enrollment deposit was today, but I got someone on the phone who assured me that they'd still take it."

Her beautiful green eyes slowly widened. "You're kidding."

"Dead serious."

His wife threw her arms around him, hugging him so tight that he almost couldn't breathe. He laughed and wrapped an arm around her. The smell of her hair, clean and floral, told him that she'd showered before bed too. With a smile, he kissed the top of her head.

"What about your sisters?" Mel asked.

He was so happy to see her smiling again that he almost didn't notice the way she'd said it. It had never been about anything other than his sisters in her mind. Why she found it so hard to believe that he'd refused to break his promise in no small part because of what it would mean for his parents, he'd never know. But that was a fight for another day.

"They'll get their money too," he said.

Mel furrowed her brow.

So he told her about Chris, Steve's former poker buddy who'd quit coming around after he'd gotten too good for their local game. Told her how, over the course of two weeks, Chris had turned one hundred thousand dollars into nearly five hundred. There'd been ups and downs, and Bill had briefly considered driving off a cliff when the bankroll got down to twenty thousand, but in the end, he'd come through. Even after paying him his cut, they had enough to handle four years at Princeton, to buy his parents out from under their second mortgage, and to cover the taxes on the portion of the winnings he intended to report.

"You're an asshole, you know," his wife said, smiling. "You could have lost everything."

"I know," he said. "But Steve assured me-"

Mel pressed a finger to his lips. "Hush. I'm too happy about everything working out for you to go ruin it by arguing with me."

He nodded and kissed her forehead.

"Jake was going to tell you tomorrow that he's planning on going to State," she said.

Bill almost said that there'd be no need for that, even without Chris. He still didn't understand why his wife wouldn't hear it whenever he brought up student loans. But it wasn't worth it. Didn't matter now.

"I think part of him was actually looking forward to sharing an apartment with Evie," she continued. "But she's only going to be there two more years. He'd have regretted not going to Princeton by the time she graduated, if not before."

"Yeah," Bill said.

"We're gonna be okay," Mel said, laying her head atop his chest. "I don't know how we're going to do it. Nothing's going to be the same now. And it's going to be really weird when they both leave in the fall. But we'll be okay. Won't we?"

"We will," he said.

They had a long, hard road ahead. Particularly, as his wife had pointed out, come fall. In a way, it was their children that had saved their marriage. The money helped. A lot. But Bill couldn't help thinking that if their cheating had been limited to the affairs they'd had outside the family, Mel might still have wanted a trial separation, perhaps even a divorce. Once they were faced with an empty nest, they'd have to confront the problems that had led them both to stray in the first place. Some of those had not gone away.

But there'd be time to worry about that later. For now, he was just glad to have his wife looking at him like that again. With respect and admiration and affection.

Just then, a naughty grin spread across his wife's face.