How Much Worse Can This Get?

How Much Worse Can This Get?

Part I

He discovers that his life was a lie.

Note to Readers: This is a two-part tale, and as is my practice for multi-part stories, voting and comments will be disabled until the story is completed. I know how that pisses off those of you with impulse control issues. Those of you that fall into that category may want to skip this one. However, I am finishing up the conclusion, and it should be ready to be submitted as soon as this chapter is published.

MAIN CHARACTERS:

Jackson "Jack" Healy: Married to Dakota for eighteen years

Dakota Healy: Jackson's wife and mother to two girls

Sheridan Healy: Daughter age 13

Helena Healy: Younger daughter age 11

Montana Edgerton: Dakota's older sister

Byron Dubois: Lover

Frannie Graybull: Jackson's AA

Ennis H. Dixon: Jack's Lawyer

Cheyenne "Butch" Gillette: IT director at Jack's company

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My name is Jackson Healy, but most people call me Jack. I can't believe I've been standing in the doorway of my bedroom for almost ten minutes watching my wife Dakota fucking some guy I've never seen before. I had plenty of time to record the action on my iPhone. I was able to get some great stills too.

The two love birds still hadn't noticed me, and judging by the action on my side of the bed, I had plenty of time to get more recordings. But to be honest it was becoming a bit repetitive.

As I thought about it for a minute, the guy did look familiar to me. Maybe it was because he looked a lot like me. I mean, he wasn't any younger, taller, or in better shape than me. Brown hair, blue eyes, with ten fingers and ten toes, same as me. I guess you get the point. And, most importantly his dick certainly wasn't any bigger than mine. I thought that all cheating wives went after guys with big dicks, didn't they? I figured that was the point, right?

So what was the attraction? I guess the attraction was that the guy she was screwing wasn't me.

I know it was the cliché of clichés, but I had come home a day early from a business trip to find the ubiquitous strange car in the driveway which led me to this point. That was another thing that was bothering me. Why would my wife have her lover park his car right in the middle of our driveway? We live in a tract home on a cul-de-sac with twelve other houses. We were a pretty close group as most folks are in these types of neighborhoods are. Did she not care if anyone knew she was cheating?

Catching your wife in your bed getting drilled by some piece of shit is a shock of course. But honestly what hurt the most was that in our eighteen years of marriage, Dakota had never, and I mean never come close to the sexual fever she was displaying before my eyes. Our sex life was fairly vanilla but satisfying; at least I always thought so until a few minutes ago. She had never once, even hinted at wanting the kind of sex she was getting right now. She was quite obviously, loving it too.

In the time I have been standing here, she has said, "Oh fuck me, fuck me harder" at least six times. I can honestly say that in all the years I have known her she has never said the word fuck in lust or any other situation. I didn't even know she knew the word. Nor had I been the recipient of any of the other several terms of encouragement she had been growling passionately in her lover's ear the past ten minutes.

The oddest thing was my lack of a crimson rage. I had no desire to grab a gun and shoot them both, or secure one of my daughters' aluminum softball bats and beat them with it. Of course, I was angry, sad, hurt, and confused, as I would think any husband in my situation would be. I think the lack of rage was because I just accepted that my marriage was over. How could it not be? In time I would probably like to know why, but that really didn't matter right now. She did it, and it ended our marriage, case closed, end of story.

As I was contemplating what to do next I noticed that there was an unopened box of Trojans on Dakota's nightstand. Why the hell have rubbers if you weren't going to use them? After we had our two daughters, Sheridan, age thirteen, and Helena eleven, Dakota made me wear them until I got a vasectomy. She said two kids were all we needed, but I had hoped to try for a son. I have always regretted not pushing back harder on that issue.

That's when I noticed that something was missing. For as long as I could remember, Dakota had four photographs displayed on her nightstand. I called it her shrine. And now, two of them were nowhere to be seen. The largest one was a family portrait we had professionally done when the girls were just babies. It was gone, and so was our wedding photo. I had never placed any significance on it, but our wedding photo was the smallest of the four. I might have to rethink that.

The photos of our daughters however, she left visible to her lover. What kind of bullshit was that? There was nothing of significance about them. I think they were just annual school pictures she had framed several years ago. I think they were their kindergarten pictures.

You wouldn't think that asking myself where the photos had gone was important right now. Maybe I was in shock or having an out-of-body experience of some sort, but to me, that became the most pressing question.

As I mulled it over, I knew exactly where they would be. They would be in the second drawer of her, 'I just had to have,' very expensive Drexel Heritage dresser, which I was conveniently standing next to. I quietly opened the drawer, and sure enough, there they were. How did I know they would be there? In what I always thought was a peculiar habit, Dakota cleaned the house the day the cleaners were scheduled. She would do this just before the cleaners arrived. She would put anything loose or without a permanent spot into that drawer. Once I asked her if she thought the cleaners were going to steal her hairbrush. She gave me one of her, 'you are exasperating me' looks.

I thought it was just her, but one time at a neighborhood party in a friendly attempt to embarrass her about this quirky habit in front of her girlfriends, I laughing told several of them about her practice. Instead of giggling along with me and teasing her, they just looked at me as if I was the dumbest human on the planet. Of course, you clean the house before the house cleaners came.

Another thought struck me. Was hiding the photos her attempt at showing me a modicum of respect? Somehow, given the circumstances, I found that very hard to believe. Maybe her boyfriend insisted?

I wasn't really sure why, but I carefully and quietly removed the photos from the drawer. I decided it was time to leave. So with the two photos in hand, I slipped away.

As it was only three o'clock I decided to go check in at work, I had been gone several days, and undoubtedly there would be a stack of meaningless paperwork on my desk that needed to be pushed around. I arrived and hustled myself directly into my office. I'm sure several coworkers acknowledged my presence in some way, but I didn't hear a single greeting. I was singularly focused on sequestering myself in my office to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. I closed my door behind me.

First I displayed the two photos I had absconded with on my credenza to remind me of, well, I'm not exactly sure of what, but I did it anyway.

After gathering my wits, I placed a call to my long-term friend Ennis H. Dixon, Esq. He was a family law attorney, but I knew him back in the day as a playboy rich kid snob. We were roommates throughout college. I once asked him why a rich guy like him was living in the dorms with us poor folk. He said it was because his parents wanted him to mingle with people below his upper-crust social standing. That was so he would understand why he was lucky to be rich. He insisted that I call him Ennis H. When I told him that I thought that was a bit pretentious, he merely responded, "Well, I am."

It's hard not to like a guy who is upfront about what he is. I always called him EH though, just to piss him off. I could get away with it because I was his best friend, probably his only friend, truth be told.

Ennis H. Dixon must be moving up in his world. Because when I called him, I had to go through three subordinates to get to him. That's right, I had to call his office because he refused to give me his cell number. He said his cell was only for clients because it made it easier to keep track of his billable hours. I guess he never thought to use two phones. I thought all pretentious assholes had at least two.

"Jackson, it's good to hear from you. What can I do for you?" He never called me Jack, just to piss me off.

"I need your cell number EH."

"Oh shit, what happened?"

And I laid it all out for him. "For all I know, they are still going at it in my bed right now."

"Oh fuck that is truly evil, man. What do you want to do?"

"A divorce plain and simple. Except that I want her and her fuck buddy to feel the pain."

"Well ole buddy, you're in luck on two accounts. First and foremost, I am the best family law attorney in the state. And secondly, you don't live in one of those pansy assed 'no-fault' states. I'm sure you want primary custody, but I have to tell you that is a tough one. It's not impossible, but it isn't easy. Another thing you have to understand is that even if we prove adultery, she will probably get some alimony out of you. She is a stay-at-home mom, and you make a ton of money, so you might get hosed pretty good even in an 'at fault' state.

"Let me do this. I am going to sick my investigators on Dakota and her paramour. It will be expensive, but if you want custody, we are going to need more than her fucking him in your bed. We need to know everything about her lover and their affair."

"Do it, I don't care about the cost."

"You should never say that to a lawyer Jackson. It's like giving heroin to an addict." He must have heard the wind go out of me because he paused and got serious. "I'm sorry Jackson, I don't mean to make light of it."

"I don't want you to be sorry EH, I want you to be ruthless."

"I can do ruthless. This could take a few weeks. And to do it I need you to act normal around your wife for a while. Can you manage that?"

"Yes." I gave him the information he needed and emailed the 'evidence' I had. He sent me the retainer form; I did DocuSign while we were still on the phone and returned it. I disconnected a much more dejected but determined man.

A knock on my door roused me from my self-pity. "Come in."

My Admin assistant Frannie Graybull entered tentatively. "Everything ok boss?" she said very timidly.

"Yeah Frannie, everything is great. I wrapped things up early and decided to come home."

"I know Jack but when you blew by me without returning my hello or even a nod of acknowledgement, I got worried. Not to mention you've been in here for over an hour?"

"I'm sorry Frannie, just got a lot on my mind."

Frannie Graybull had been my assistant for over fifteen years. I hired her as a favor to my wife. She was an old friend of Dakota's who had it tough. Frannie's husband had been killed in an accident at work. He was in the military but stationed stateside in a non-combat MOS, so he only had a twelve thousand dollar life insurance policy. If he had been killed in a hazardous duty situation, Frannie would have got another $100K. And with two children, twelve grand didn't go far. It was tough for her. I never regretted hiring her though, because she turned out to be a really competent Admin Assistant.

"Ah, ok Jack I'm going to be heading home now." I'm sure she wasn't convinced. She knew me too well. As she turned to leave, she noticed the photos on the credenza and paused for a moment. "Those are new?"

"Yeah I thought I'd bring them in so I could look at them and remind me why I do this and what is important."

"Ohh that's so sweet boss, have a good evening."

"Bye Frannie."

I was going to say something to her because I trusted her with my life, but at the last second I remembered what EH had said about playing it normally, so I let it go.

How are you supposed to act normal when you watched your wife fucking someone else on your bed just a couple of hours ago? I knew going to a hotel wouldn't work. Too many people had already seen me, so I guessed I better head home.

My mind was working overtime during the twenty-minute ride to the house. I kept trying to come up with a way to act normal. I still didn't have a clue how I was going to accomplish that as I pulled into my garage.

Dakota obviously heard my car coming into the garage. She met me at the garage door. I saw several emotions in her eyes. Fear, worry, and a bit of anger all rolled into one. They were gone as soon as they appeared. She gave me her best smile.

"Oh my god, Jack, you're home. We didn't expect you until tomorrow?"

Yeah, you traitorous bitch I'm home, so fuck you!

"I thought I would surprise you. I got in around three and just decided to finish the day at the office."

"Well, we're glad your home, honey." She kissed me on the cheek. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, but it's not much since I wasn't expecting you."

"That's ok. I'm not feeling very hungry anyway. I'm going to change out of this suit; it feels like I've had it on for weeks. And I started up the stairs.

That's when the girls caught up with me. They hugged me, squealing and laughing all the while. "We're so glad your home. We love you, Daddy!"

"I love you too, guys. I miss you so much when I'm gone on these trips."

At least I will have them, I thought to myself. Their greeting gave me courage and direction. I knew I could pull off the deception if only for their benefit. When I shook myself free of the little monsters, I continued up to what used to be my bedroom. I don't know what I was expecting to see, but everything looked normal. The bedding all smelled fresh. The room was clean, but that was unremarkable. Our bedroom was always pristine. Now I understood why that was the case.

She must have observed me in my trance staring at her nightstand. The two photos were the only thing out of place. I was trying to get a grip on my emotions when I was startled by her voice.

"I'm sorry honey. I accidentally broke the frames when I was cleaning up. I took them to Aaron Bros. to have them reframed."

I just nodded my head in understanding without looking at her and kept changing. At some point, she left.. Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering, she smelled fresh as a daisy, just like every day when I got home.

My acting abilities weren't the best because Dakota was as nervous as a cat throughout dinner and the rest of the evening. I managed to mostly avoid her by spending my time with the girls helping with homework.

The dinner meal, which was usually a very boisterous and lighthearted affair, was eerily quiet. I know the girls suspected something was wrong, but they didn't push it. For her part, Dakota just kept staring at me with an expression that was an unreadable mask. If I was going to pull off the 'normal' thing like EH wanted me to, I needed to do a lot better.

After the girls were down for the night, I poured myself a glass of Maker's Mark and collapsed myself into my well-worn recliner in my den. She called it my 'man cave.' It was the only room in the house that I could claim as my own. It reflected my tastes. I called it warm, inviting, and comfortable. Dakota called it 'nouveau embarrassment.'

I knew I would have to face her before bed, so I was contemplating how best to do that when Dakota solved that dilemma for me. She came in looking worried and wringing her hands. Under normal circumstances, Dakota would avoid my room like the plague. She headed for the couch opposite my chair.

"Here sweetheart, come sit on my lap," I said as lightly as I could summon. And I patted my knees. Her countenance brightened, and she quickly jumped off the couch and plopped down on my lap. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm sorry I was such a dud at dinner. My trip didn't go as planned, and I have a lot of things to clean up, so I was distracted."

She brightened considerably. "That's ok Jack. I knew something was bothering you. If you give me a chance, I'll make you forget all about your work problems later tonight."

The thing was though, she didn't make me forget my problems. Oh, we made love all right. And, it was the same gentle coupling as always. We always did a lot of snuggling, and there were sighs of contentment from both parties. I thought that is what she wanted. It was no where near what I had witnessed earlier. Dakota held me tightly and said, "You know I love you Jack, I truly do. You have made my life whole."

I almost threw up on the spot. How can she do that? How can a person be so different so easily? Her lies and deceptions rolled off her tongue as if she was reciting a recipe for a quiche. I came up with the answer to my own question; because she's been doing it for a long time, that's how. That newfound knowledge sent a chill down my spine and a heavy pressure descended on my chest

In a few moments I could hear her rhythmic breathing that indicated she was already sleeping. Not eight hours ago she was philandering with her lover in this very bed and she falls asleep at the snap of her fingers. What type of person can do that?

Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink.

I managed to pull myself together enough to go to work early in the morning. I needed to get out of there before Dakota got up to get the girls ready for school. I left her a quick note on the dry erase board in the kitchen that we used regularly for that purpose. 'Had to get to work early, start working on the problems I told you about.'

Somehow I managed to act reasonably normal for the next couple of weeks. It got easier for me as the days went by waiting for word from EH. Maybe that's how cheaters get good at lying and hiding affairs, just give them enough time to practice.

Dakota, on the other hand, kept getting more anxious. She looked like someone with a lot on her mind, but never really said anything to me. She was always affectionate, but seemed to be going out of her way to be touchy feely. She must have told me she loved me twenty-five times a day. She even complimented me on the way I dressed. She had to be alarmed about the missing photos, I mean they didn't walk away by themselves. So far though, she was taking the 'don't ask, don't tell' approach. I was hoping that would continue for a bit longer.

Frannie had been acting odd too. It was probably because she knew me so well that she could sense the slightest changes in my mood and demeanor. She kept pushing to the point of annoying me to talk about it, but I kept silent. I would only tell her that the pressures at work were starting to pile up on me and that I would be all right. She always knew when I was lying.

The other thing that troubled me was that she kept gazing intently at the photos on my credenza. What was up with that? I had accepted long ago that I wasn't very adept at reading women's moods. I couldn't tell if Frannie was sad, worried, or angry but every time she left my office after staring at the photos I saw that indecipherable look on her face. I think women are better at that than men.

I was seriously beginning to question my sanity. I wasn't feeling any of the emotions that I thought I should have been. I was just starting to feel dead inside. Every waking moment felt like I had a fifty-pound weight sitting on my chest making it hard to breathe. I was going through the motions of being alive. I needed my nightmare to end soon. That's when I got the call from EH to come to his office right away.