Frank and Ruth

I was on my back, totally fucked out, and she stood next to the bed looking down at me and looking for all the world like she had just awakened and was as fresh as a daisy. No one seeing her at that moment would have believed that she had been sucking and fucking me for five hours. No one would have imagined that those lips had been wrapped around my cock and that mouth had swallowed my cum. She looked so fresh that no one would have believed that her pussy had taken two of my loads and that her ass -- her beautiful heart shaped ass -- had taken a third and a fourth. She looked exactly like what she wasn't -- a sweet looking faithful wife.

She smiled and said, "Take plenty of vitamins baby; I need you to last longer next time" and then she left me to go home to her husband and kids.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

As I had watched her dress I'd thought back on the circumstances that had brought us together. I was your typical dyed in the wool every day clueless husband. I'd been married to Ruth for a little over six years and I was happy in my marriage. I could barely stand to be away from my wife, but we both had to work if we were ever going to have the house and family that we wanted.

All that the end of the work day meant to me was that it was time to hurry home to my lovely and loving wife. Make no mistake about it -- Ruth was my reason for being and she had been from the moment she called me a clumsy asshole.

It had happened at Clancy's; a night spot in lower downtown. I was in the habit of stopping there after work with some of the guys I worked with to hoist a few and let off some steam by bad mouthing management. Clancy's had a band Thursday through Saturday and it was a Thursday night and the place was crowded.

Service tended to be a bit slow on live music nights because the place was so packed that the waitresses had to slowly and carefully work their way through the teaming throng. Sometimes it was quicker for you to just go up to the bar and get it yourself. I was sharing a table with seven of my co-workers (actually two tables pushed together) and four of us were dry. I volunteered to make the bar run and I'd just turned away from the bar with drinks in hand when someone ran into me and caused me to spill the drinks. I heard:

"You clumsy asshole! Look at what you've done to my dress!"

I turned and looked into the most startling blue eyes I'd ever seen. My eyes dropped to her dress and I saw the wet stain on the fabric covering her very impressive breasts. The lecher in me wanted to grab a towel or something and go to work on rubbing the area dry, but her tone of voice and the word "asshole" pissed me off so I fired back:

"I was standing here lady and you ran into me; I didn't run into you so if you want to blame someone blame yourself."

I turned back to the bar and got the bartender to top off the drinks and then went back to my table. About ten minutes later I was looking across the table at Olivia trying to talk myself into asking her if she would like to dance. Her fingers were tapping the table in time to the music and I got the feeling that she would like to take a couple of turns around the floor, but she was married and I was afraid that she might think I was trying to make a move on her. Pam, who had been sitting beside me was out on the floor with Gary and just as I thought to myself "To hell with it; I don't care if Olivia does think I want in her panties I want to dance." As I opened my mouth to utter my first word someone sat down on Pam's chair. I could see Pam out on the dance floor so I looked to my left and saw the woman with the starling blue eyes and impressive breasts. She looked at me sheepishly and said:

"I'm here to apologize for being nasty to you. You were right; it was my fault."

I took a long look into those eyes and I was lost. I said, "I'll accept your apology on one condition."

"And that is?"

"That you dance with me."

Her face lit up in a smile and she said, "Done!" She stood up and said, "Let's do it."

From that moment on Ruth and I were joined at the hip. Six months later in front of family and friends we took our vows and for the next six years I considered my life perfect.

Until.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was a cliché. We both were at a place where we had never been before. At least I never had, but her? Who knows? I was in Lone Tree, not all that far from Castle Rock, but still a place I never seldom went to. I was meeting a client for lunch and halfway into it I saw a shocked look come over his face and he mumbled to himself:

"I wonder if Larry knows."

"What?" I asked.

He looked at me like he didn't understand so I said, "You just got a weird expression on your face and mumbled "I wonder if Larry knows." Since it happened in our discussion of clause five in the contract it made me wonder."

"Oh? I wasn't aware that I said it out loud."

He saw that I wasn't going to ask -- take it and farther -- and he must have thought that he needed to explain so he said, "Larry's girlfriend just walked in and she is holding hands with a guy who is most definitely not Larry."

Being the curious guy that I am I turned to look. I saw a woman and a man standing at the entrance waiting to be seated by the hostess and I saw that indeed they were holding hands. The man was not someone I had ever seen before, but the woman was my wife.

If you have ever been in a like situation you know the emotional war the instantly takes place. You wanted to get up, run to them, pull the apart and kick the shit out of the guy. There was denial. It couldn't be Ruth! It has been said that somewhere on this planet everyone has someone who looks like them. A doppelganger I believe is the term. Surely that must be what is happening here. It couldn't be my Ruth. It just couldn't. There was recognition. I recognized the dress she was wearing. I was with her when she bought it. There was curiosity. If she is Larry's girlfriend and the guy she is holding hands with is not Larry that means she is getting together with at least two guys behind your back. Are there others? How many? For how long? Then of course came acceptance. How could you not accept what was right before your eyes.

All of the above took place in an instant -- maybe a second or so -- and then I turned to face Chad. He took one look at my face and asked:

"What's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

My hand was shaking when I picked up the water glass and took a drink. As I set the glass down I said, "Not a ghost, but something just as upsetting. I know her. She is married to someone I know and that someone isn't named Larry. Who is Larry?"

"A guy I work with. I doubt that Larry knows she is married."

"I would appreciate your not telling him until I've had time to prepare my friend for the bad news. He worships the ground she walks on and this is going to devastate him. If Larry doesn't know maybe he will take her in when she gets kicked out of the house."

"Not likely. Larry is married, but that brings up a question. Hubby worships the ground she walks on, but he will kick her out?"

"No doubt in my mind. No doubt at all."

Fortunately they were seated on the other side of the room from us and Chad told me that she was seated with her back to us and since my back was to her she did not know that I was there. I didn't finish my meal -- for some reason I had lost my appetite -- but I did finish my business with Chad and then I got up and left the restaurant. I went out through the kitchen and back door to make sure that Ruth had no idea that I'd been there and seen her.

I stopped at the office and told my boss that Chad was on board with what we wanted to do and then I took the rest of the afternoon off. I stopped at the bank and moved some money round. Nothing that should grab Ruth's immediate attention, but I guessed that private detectives didn't come cheap. We had three accounts; a checking, a savings and the new house account. Ten percent of the net from each of our paychecks went into the new house account and the goal was twenty-five thousand for a down payment. We were still a year or so away from reaching that goal so I didn't expect that Ruth would be paying much, if any, any attention to the house fund just yet.

I briefly flirted with the idea of just following her around myself, but quickly realized that there wasn't any way I could do it. For one thing I couldn't take that much time away from my job and for another my inexperience at doing something like that almost guaranteed I'd somehow fuck it up and the last thing I wanted right then was for Ruth to find out I was onto her and besides, it didn't appear that we were going to need a house fund anymore anyway.

After leaving the bank I called Jack Webster. Jack and I had been close friends since the seventh grade and Jack was an attorney. He specialized in business law, but I was hoping that he could steer me to a good divorce attorney. He told me to come into his office and he would have a list ready for me. When we met he handed me a list with thirty-one names on it. I was a touch confused and asked him which one I should see. His answer surprised me.

"All of them."

"All of them? All thirty-one? No way on God's green earth could I afford to do that."

"Sure you can. You will notice that twenty-seven of them are underlined. They are the ones who give a free first consultation. The other four have a flat first consultation fee, but even then it isn't more than a hundred bucks."

"I still don't understand why I need to see that many."

"Because once you have talked with them ethically they won't be able to take Ruth on as a client. That is a list of every divorce and family law attorney within fifty miles. If your problem goes the divorce route and Ruth decides to fight it she will have to go way out of the area to find an attorney who will be able to take her case. Donald Ashcroft, the one with the star next to his name is the one you will want to use. He is the 'killer whale' of divorce attorneys. Both his first and second wives cheated on him and he hates cheaters. Want me to call him?"

I said yes, he made the call and I had an appointment to see Ashcroft at eleven o'clock the next morning.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Ruth was home when I got there. She usually got off work an hour before I did so she almost always beat me home and had dinner on the stove when I got there. I had decided that I was not going to give Ruth any indication that something was wrong between us. I could pretend to be a loving husband just as she had pretended to be a loving wife. I had no idea how long it was going to be before I split from her, but I decided that I wasn't going to go without sex until I had to. Some nights I might be getting seconds, sloppy or otherwise, but I'd had sloppy seconds before both in high school and college and they hadn't hurt me.

Talk over dinner was the same as always and I marveled at the way my so-called loving wife could behave after sticking her knife in my back. And I also wondered about how long she had been doing it. She felt no different now than she had when I married her and I couldn't help but wonder if it had been going on all along and that's why I hadn't noticed a change. During dinner Ruth was sending me all of the usual signals that let me know she intended to fuck my socks off when we went to bed and this of course made me wonder why. Did she not get laid after her lunch date and had come home horny? Or did she get laid and she wanted to fuck me because she got a charge out of giving me her lover's leftovers? Maybe it was a guilt fuck. She felt guilty over stabbing me in the back and giving me some made her feel better. Quite often Ruth was the initiator when it came to our making love. Did the fact that we made love a lot mean that every time she made the first move it was after getting laid by some other guy? I'd damned sure be asking those questions when the confrontation came.

One thing I was pretty sure of is that Ruth always came to our bed clean. We always started our love making with oral and I would have known what she was doing if she came to me fresh and wet from some other guy. I won't go into that other than to say it was more of that college stuff. When we went to bed that night I was as willing as I've always been and I gave a good account of myself (or at least I think I did) and made sure that Ruth had no reason to suspect that I knew that something wasn't right with our marriage.

My meeting with Donald Ashcroft gave me a little hope. Even though we lived in a state that had no fault divorce laws and things were normally split fifty/fifty there were some things that could go in my favor if we drew the right judge. Five of the seven judges sitting in our district had been known to cut the aggrieved party some slack in cases that involved infidelity. If I had solid proof of Ruth's adultery I could very well get out of paying alimony even though I made almost twice what Ruth made. Four of the seven had been known to make the offending party pay all attorney's fees and court costs.

That prompted me to ask Ashcroft for a recommendation on private investigators and he gave me the name of the one he preferred to use and when I left his office I called and made an appointment. I walked into Spenser Investigations with all of the information I was asked to bring with me and after half an hour of filling in Mr. Spenser on what I knew and wanted to know I gave him a retainer and left his office.

I would like to be able to say that things moved swiftly after that, but I can't because they didn't. It wasn't because the PI couldn't find out anything. He found out a lot, but he couldn't get me the 'slam dunk' proof I needed to put in front of a judge to prove infidelity. He had pictures and video of Ruth going into hotel rooms with two different men for long lunch hours, but that is all he had. He had some of Ruth holding hands with the two men, but no kisses caught in public. He was able to find out the men were Larry Maxon and Alex Compton and that they both worked with Ruth.

The hotel was always the downtown Hilton and its employees must have been the most upright and ethical people in town. They could not be bribed and even though the PI tried to get four different desk clerks to work with him he could never make it happen. "We strive to protect the privacy of our guests" is what he got from whomever he approached. Even the offer of one thousand dollars was turned down. The PI just could not gain access to a room in order to obtain audio and visual proof. He couldn't even get the names or check in information of those who went into the rooms. "I cannot divulge that information without a court order" is what he got.

We knew what was going on in the rooms, but us knowing and not being able to put beyond a shadow of a doubt proof in front of a judge just wouldn't cut it. As Ashcroft explained to me "No sitting judge was going to make a decision based on supposition. Reasonable doubt is what any attorney hired by Ruth would point out. Both of the men she was seen going into the rooms with were fellow employees and they could say they went into that room to meet with a client and we could not prove otherwise."

I did find out that Larry was married and had two kids and that Alex was single, but that told me nothing. I decided to just confront Ruth and let the chips fall where they may. I told Ashcroft to prepare the papers and let me know when they were ready to be served. I was going to be mean enough to have her served at work in front of all of her coworkers. I'd take the day of service off from work and have all my things moved out of the apartment and be gone before she got home.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was a Wednesday and I'd just left the office after working late on a proposal and had stopped for a beer at The Landing Strip Lounge before going home. I'd called Ruth and told her I would be late and not to hold dinner for me. It was open mike night and maybe one of the want to be standup comics could brighten my mood. I was sitting in a booth staring down at the glass in front of me deep in thought when someone slid onto the seat across from me. I looked up and saw a lovely woman.

"Mind if I join you Frank?"

"Do I know you?"

"No, but I know who you are and hopefully you will know me before the night is over and I do mean that in the biblical sense."

I sat there looking at her as my mind worked on what she'd just said.

"My name is Brenda Maxom" she said and she saw recognition register on my face and went on. "Yes, I'm Larry's wife. I have been following you for several days now looking for an opportunity to get together with you."

"Why on Earth would you do that?"

"Simple really. I want to find out what you plan on doing and if it is what I think it is I want to try and talk you out of it."

I must have looked confused so she said, "I know that you know about my husband and your wife and the reason I know is that the PI I had following Larry recognized the PI you had following your wife. Knowing that you know I have to find out what you are going to do about it and if it is what I think it is I want to try and talk you out of it."

"If you are thinking that I plan on divorcing her you are absolutely right. Why would you want to talk me out of it?"

"Because if you divorce her the why would come out and when that happens I would have to divorce Larry."

"If my attorney is right in what he told me you will come out of a divorce okay."

"No I wouldn't. It is true that I would get child support and alimony and I would most likely get the house until the children are grow up, but my standard of living would take a nose dive. I have friends who have gone through divorces and without exception they will all tell you that life as a single mom sucks. I would be much better off staying married and pretending that I don't know about his affairs."

"Affairs?"

"Yes. Your wife is only one of many. She is the only one I have proof of, but I know there have been others. That said let me get to it. I want to stay married so I can continue to enjoy the life style I'm used to. Plus staying married will allow me to take revenge on Larry."

"You've lost me there."

"Larry is quite possessive and he is also insanely jealous. I'm not a bad looking broad and at parties and other social gatherings if Larry sees me talking to some guy he hurries over to separate us. My revenge is going to be doing to him what he is doing to me. I want him to continue to support me in the style to which I've become accustomed while I take on a lover and give away that which Larry considers only his. With me so far?"

"I can see your point, but I don't see why I should forget about divorcing Ruth because it would cause problems for someone I don't even know."

"Because it would be to your benefit."

"Explain that please."

"First off you don't divorce you don't have to split things fifty/fifty. Secondly there is the revenge factor. You can take a lover and then go home and go to bed with your wife knowing that you are doing to her what she is doing to you."

"I wouldn't even know how to take on a lover."

"You don't need to know how. All you have to be is open to the idea."

"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me here. How is being open to the idea, as you put it, going to help me?"

"It is simple Frank. If you are open to the idea and willing to do it the lover will come to you."

"You aren't making any sense here."

"Of course I am Frank. If you are willing to go the revenge route instead of going for a divorce your partner in revenge is sitting across the table from you."

"You?"

"Can you think of a more fitting revenge than getting together with the wife of the man your wife is cheating with? Think about it Frank. No arguments over who gets what in the fifty/fifty split. No alimony being taken out of your paycheck to support her cheating ass. No paying for her attorney if she wants to fight the divorce. No court costs if you don't file and go to court. No ten weeks of visiting a marriage counselor which is something a judge almost always orders in cases where the spouse fights back and says they don't want a divorce. And there could be other benefits in it for you. Is there something sexual you would like to do that your wife won't do? I'll do them Frank."