Heel and Toe

I waited a short while as she continued to stare into my eyes before I mentioned the rest, "You said something happened to make you wake up. You said it happened twice. You also said that you made out very heavily twice. Those two remarks don't have to match up, though I always felt they did. The time stamps made a tremendous difference to me, making me believe you got right to the edge before turning back. There are pictures of you very hot and heavy followed by pictures of you escaping him as he chased you. He didn't look like a man who was fulfilled. He looked like a guy who'd just lost the big game. You looked resolute, almost triumphant in your distress. You weren't happy with what just happened, you had plenty of questions about yourself, but you looked like you'd just made a major decision about him and were happy with the decision."

Devon was shaking, the flow of blood from her lip was slowly stemming.

"All of that told me something. I know you; you may have gotten swept up in the thing. I know all the factors like the resemblance to high school, the drinking, the dancing, and that your mother approved. He was attractive and smooth, and yeah, you have a line in the sand concerning appropriate behavior for a married woman a lot further down the beach than I do. We've been through all that and there's no point to rehash it. Which leaves two factors.

"You'd begun to be into him, not love but infatuation, more than a crush anyway. I asked you about that back then and you assiduously avoided the subject. Devon, you can't make love unless you're into the guy, the messages you wrote each other weren't love sonnets but were enthusiastic. You had a real lusty flirting game going on, add in the other worldliness and that you mom was keeping you off balance, all the booze they threw at you, stir in a skilled seducer who your mother briefed on all your weak points, and it adds up to the part you left out: that you liked playing with him. You admitted titillation, you liked pushing it, seeing what you could get away with. I think you got too drunk, too caught up, and pushed it too far. Devon, I think you were completely intimate with him."

Her mouth opened in a competition with her eyes to see which could grow larger.

"And that would answer the last mystery. You mentioned something scared you about a month before I confronted you. It was probably after that night out with your mom when you were acting so distracted, and avoiding me so much, that I hired the private investigator to follow you."

My wife's eyes clenched shut in painful recognition.

"Dev, if you were intimate with him that would explain how you got so scared off that you ended it. Then you somehow allowed your mom to talk you into going back a month later when the investigators caught you. He became the flame, and you were his moth. There was a considerable attraction for him you had to defeat, which ultimately led to another foray in his backseat. This time you held him off, which would explain the looks the two of you had leaving his car. The mystery has been what were the circumstances that scared you away but saw you drawn back."

Devon had gone pale. Which unfortunately, made me think I was on the mark. Here's the thing, I'd been thinking this for over a year and a half. I knew the guy was toast. I'd dealt pretty well with the fact of her fucking him. My last reservations about Devon centered on her not being totally open and honest with me.

She was scared to death. I gave her time by talking softly playing out what I thought happened. If she just nodded "yes" that would satisfy me, "It seemed to me he got his hooks in you. Maybe not your heart, but he hooked you with lust. You were uncertain and shattered about what you were doing yet had to go back for more. I know you well, you had to beat the temptation because last time it beat you."

Devon's face went from deathly pallor to crimson red. It was very much a "how could you know that?" expression. "Dev, I always thought I'd seen the worst of it, but I was wrong, I think you were completely intimate with him that first night you went to his car. That's what killed our own intimacy at the same time. I know you, it wasn't just a sex act, it meant something to you even if it was just powerful lust. That threw you: you hated betraying me, you hated giving in, you hated being bested. You had to be sure about yourself: so, you had to see him again. And luckily for you your mom was still after you to go on another date with him."

Devon was crying tears of huge proportions. Her mouth was twisted in a ring of grotesque horror. But now she fought to respond. Devon was subdued but determined. I watched her evaluate me then something deep within herself. I was stable and solid, no threat to bolt. If her secret was ever going to come out, it was now. She shook her head in dismay, uncertain of her future.

"I was doing what my mom said she needed, but I was keeping secrets from you. I was already conflicted and confused. I see it as you do now, that I was seeing another guy on a regular basis. My not seeing it as dating then allowed it to grow. You know all this. But not that I thought he was handsome and smooth and charming, and all of that seemed to make what was happening with him okay with Mom. I can't describe how large a factor her approval was. If she'd scowled at me once I would've been out of there in tears, but she smiled and in a knowing, sharing, way.

"Reg, Mom always, always, always, talked well of you, that's part of how it slipped past too, being with him was never made a choice for me, because I wasn't going out to see him, I was going out to help her. She would never hurt us because she thinks you're wonderful and we are a perfect match. This was something she and I could do together: not dating, just going out and being girls together. It wasn't portrayed as illicit, but she asked me to keep the specifics away from you, saying it was a quirk she had to work out about Dad being gone, and that it would be over soon. I thought she feared your disapproval of her.

"Reggie something that has rarely come up is how I felt about my father's passing. Before you I thought he was what made the earth spin. He was just a great man. I was the youngest, I was his little girl. When he died I had you to lean on: the other man who could put the weight of the world on his shoulders. Around you I was fine, sad about his passing, but content. But away from you without my father to spin it properly my world shifted in its orbit. I was shaky. Normally if Mom was weak, I could help her, if I was weak, she could help me. But Dad dying threw both of us. Mom was so needy and thankful for my presence that I agreed to help her despite my misgivings. She needed me to be stable, but I wasn't, I faked it for her. Once our nights out became normal, I never saw I was sliding down the slippery slope until I was already in trouble.

"You're right, Reg. I was pushing matters with him. It became a game, an enjoyable game. I played it partially to take my mind off my mother's bizarre behavior. Part of it was to take my mind off the loss of my father. Everything I told you was true. I just left out the details. I didn't think the details could help; in fact, I thought they were the worst thing I could tell you. Now it appears they could help. I'm scared though, Reg."

Devon was so depressed, so sullen, perhaps even defeated, that I almost stopped her.

She looked at the floor unable to face me, "You're right about my big fall being the night a month before you confronted me. I got drunk and started matching him tit for tat or blow for blow." Her face contorted, "How Freudian was that? She forced a rueful smile. "Reggie the first part was unfortunately true, I promise the second never happened. H-He was feeling me up good. He'd gotten me out to his car, that was good to give mom at least ten minutes with her guy. He was rubbing me... down there too, I was stopping him before I came. Then he started stopping right before I came: to tease me, which took it all to a different level."

She took a moment to collect herself, I feared she may breakdown, "In my stupor, I'd had a lot to drink that night too, it became a competition of sorts, a battle of wills. You know how competitive I can be, it wasn't that I had feelings for him, it was my competitiveness being channeled back against me. Another bit of insider trading info given to him by my mother. It still wouldn't have gotten out of hand if I hadn't been drinking so heavily, but I had to drink because I couldn't let him touch me without a mind-numbing buzz."

Devon was grey going on green. She was completely disgusted by what she was remembering. She took a big breath and kept going, "Reg, I had to help my mother, to do that I had to keep the guy away from the table so she could spend time with the guy she'd picked out. And that had proven to mean letting the guy get a little handsy. I know it's all wrong, and I didn't see half of it at the time. Look at what I was doing: going out to see a couple guys, without my husband's knowledge, drinking with the guy, drinking enough to let him cop feels, it's all behavior opposite of what you expect of me." Devon's expression turned darker, "But that night, it shifted into something else. I was too polluted, and completely fed up with the guy, and somehow at that point, I was determined to tease him back. I was going to beat him at his own game!"

Devon was quiet for quite a while. When she started explaining again, it had the take of a ghost story: something she could scarcely believe yet was all too real, "I-I took off all my clothes, every stitch. Even my shoes! I rubbed myself all over him. I wanted to drive him wild. I wanted to beat him at this game! That's all I saw. I didn't see what I was doing to us. I didn't see I was being evil or breaking vows. I didn't see I was hurting you! The guilt that came later when I sobered up was absolutely debilitating. I hated what I'd done. I hated myself. I didn't deserve you and I couldn't bring myself to be anywhere near you. I cried for a week. It was all I could do to hide my breakdowns from you. It's obvious now I didn't hide nearly well enough."

I held my wife until she pushed me back far enough to look me in the face as she finished.

"Reggie, promise me you will love me after I tell you! Promise me."

"Dev, I love you and have believed you were intimate with him all this time. I don't think this will change a thing except you will have finally told me. Which means quite a bit to me."

Devon's expression was hard to read. Mostly it was love but also sorrow for hurting me, sorrow at my pain. But there was some thing amiss. I still had something wrong.

"Reggie this will change something. At least it should. But you've invested in a narrative that isn't quite right. I don't know how you will react to this, but I know what I feared when you spread those pictures of me out on the kitchen table. Remember that you were confronting me, so I'd already struck out, yet somehow, I was still up to bat. I feared one more misstep was the straw that would break the camel's back.

"Reg, that night a month before the one you have pictures of, he finally threw me down on my back across his back seat. I'd been sitting in his lap with my legs around his waist. I was so proud of what I'd concocted, we could rub ourselves together, but he couldn't place himself for any sort of penetration. I was happy for devising what seemed the ultimate tease. Reggie, I'd never teased a man before: it's powerful. I never teased you: I wanted you to take me and have me. I collaborate with you: I was competing with him. Suddenly he lifted me a little and he twirled us.

I was too drunk, drunk on alcohol, drunk on desire, and drunk on teasing him. I'm not making excuses just explaining why I wasn't in my right mind. I was suddenly on my back, jarring me like that knocked whatever I was thinking of out of my polluted mind. Now my stage reset. He was already between my legs, and he rotated his hips back a bit and his head... it, it wasn't in me - b-but it was between my lips! It wasn't outside of them; it was between them! H-He hadn't penetrated yet. He moved his torso up a few inches and all he had to do was rotate his hips forward. My head was literally spinning I was so drunk, I had to get my bearings and I was about to be taken and ... and I said, I said ... forgive me I said, "Take me. Oh yes, take me ... Reggie." My eyes were closed, and I was waiting, just waiting for you to move forward and claim me, I wanted you to sooo badly. Then I-I heard another man's voice say, "Reggie?"

"It was an instant red alert. All of my sirens - all of them - went off! My eyes shot open as adrenaline shot through my body. What the hell was happening? I was in desperate straits: another man was over me, not you. All this guy had to do was twitch his hips and he would be having me, him not you. I freaked, FREAKED! I started pounding and kicking, and he reacted, but thank goodness not by pushing forward.

"This may sound bad to you Reg. He held me in place, he was shooshing me trying to calm me down. I'm sure part of that was self-preservation on his part, making sure I didn't run to the bar naked, crying rape. I wasn't making a move to do that; I was blown away. I was shaking uncontrollably. I knew where he'd been headed. I knew what was a second away from happening, and that I'd been enjoying it. Worst, I knew that I had not, forgive me Reggie, please find it in your heart to forgive me... I hadn't thought of YOU. My mind was blown!"

Devon looked particularly sad. "Reggie a quick important side note. I wondered how I could do all this to you. My suspicion was damning." She forced herself to look at me. "I worked with our counselor extensively on this. I did it because I didn't think of you. I've worked hard to make sure it can't recur. I don't believe it can -- I'm hypersensitive to it now. That strange time I was having with my mother thinking it felt like high school, it seems that I formed a little bubble and only what was in front of me existed. I termed it high schoolish, but I could have labeled it anything different than real life. Apparently, some part of me walled off what I was doing because inside I knew it couldn't exist with my real life. Please remember that for those trips real life consisted of a dead father and a mother whose soul was screaming. I was happy to do anything that wasn't real life. But what I was doing was incompatible with you. Our counselor thought it was a good thing that even on a subconscious level I was protecting my life with you. I see it as horrible. It doesn't seem much better to me than knowingly cheating on you; if I can't cheat on you with my eyes open apparently, I just close my eyes." She put her head on my shoulder and wept.

Devon seemed spent; I wasn't sure she could go on. She was devastated by what she'd said. I thought I knew what could pull her out of her funk and I wanted to know more about what we'd been discussing.

"Dev, can you tell me more of what happened that night?"

That broke her free. She nodded, licking her lips to wet them, wincing at the taste of blood on her lower lip, "Thank God he pulled back deciding tonight was not the night for my conquest. He calmed me down and got me mostly dressed. But I jumped at his every touch even thought they were anything but sexual now. He said he was going to get my mom to pick me up and I should stay in the car, that he'd be right back with her. He left the door open; I think so I'd know I could leave and wasn't trapped.

"He didn't have to do all that. I don't think he had any affection for me, but he wasn't just a love and leave 'em guy. Don't worry, I'm not setting him up for sainthood; he knew I was married and probably hoped to keep tapping my cheating ass until he tired of me.

"In a short order my mother's car pulled up in front of his and he helped me out of his car and into hers. I was dressed pretty well, but it was obvious what we'd been up to. He told her that we were in a clench about to get very serious, and I freaked. He didn't lie. When I confirmed that to my mother on the way home, she started to cry. She looked like she wanted to throw up. That was the first she realized that I wasn't okay after my father passed away, that I wasn't the pillar of strength she thought she'd been relying on, and that instead of throwing situations at me I wouldn't bat an eye at, that she'd broken me and possibly my marriage. She was horrified. She switched back and forth the entire ride home apologizing to me then berating me for harming a wonderful man like you. Her bitch act in our kitchen the night you confronted us was her hoping to get you focused on her while she got me outside to put some distance between you and the truth, while she thought up some way to keep you from walking away from the marriage.

"Everything else you said about moth and flame, having to prove myself, no longer being sure of myself, all ring terribly true. I couldn't stomach it. Things were awful between us for weeks. I didn't trust myself, I had to know if I could control myself. I had to know what kind of a woman you married. This would be a terrible pun and none of the resulting visuals are true, but I had to get back on that horse again. That was the hook he set in me. That's why I had to go back and that's why I almost had to make out with him again; just to prove I could push myself away from the bar. I was nervous and almost made the same mistake with too much alcohol. Though on guard this time, I didn't realize they were swapping my drinks until you floated the possibility when you confronted me.

"Reg, don't you see it? During your confrontation we spoke about having a different line in the sand for the marital death penalty. He and I were bumping uglies - externally. I almost got fucked! I was almost untrue. That flipped me out!

"B-But your definition of what would kill a marriage was different. I was desperately clinging to the last respite of the weak: that I didn't screw him, so at least I wasn't unfaithful. But the way you described the line, I'd been unfaithful anyway! You had a much lower threshold than I was clinging to. With your definition it wasn't even close: I was a cheater!

"I didn't think anything could make my head explode worse than what I'd been through, now this. I was about to lose it. How could I be a cheater? I'd fought so hard. He hadn't had me, his head wasn't in me, it wasn't, but it was between my lips, and I was soaked. B-But he never penetrated.

"That was too fine a line of distinction to bet my marriage or your happiness on. Your definition was so much lower than mine that I didn't dare admit everything that happened. Please understand I'd never wanted to touch another man, so the line in the sand had never applied. But my being with him had actually happened and I wasn't entirely sure exactly how it started. Now I was desperate to believe I hadn't completely cheated, that I'd been bad, but not betrayed you. Our differing definitions would sound like I was trying to wiggle my way out of what I'd done. And that would make it seem like I could do it again.

"If I came clean you would not only see me as unfaithful for what I had done with him but also because I'd seen him more than once. You'd believe I was having an ongoing affair! Horrifically I realized there was no way to make you believe otherwise. All I had for defense was that he didn't fully penetrate me and didn't cum in me. I was so happy he hadn't come at all even though I was trying hard to make him. Hell, that wouldn't exonerate me, that information would prove the matter to you!

"I couldn't put one more straw on that camel's back. I couldn't paint the picture in your mind of your wife naked, gleefully writhing on a man's lap with her legs wrapped around him. I never hand stroked him, but his cock was trapped between our bodies. And I was rolling my hips. H-He never came with me. I never came from him. That second time, a month later, he was trying to make me cum, and I was fighting it. He was convinced if he got me off, he could have me any which way he pleased, for as long as he pleased. That frightened the hell out of me. I'd obviously been a bad girl and an awful wife, but what kind of signals was I sending that he thought one little O and I'd become his willing slut?"