Just Once... I Do Mind, But...

WRITTEN IN UK ENGLISH - READ ON:

Kalimaxos finished with the end of Marcey's letter and a brief conversation with Leslie, the sacrificial lamb offered by Marcey as a bedwarmer in her absence with her fuckbuddy, Dr Trey.

"I have reserved a room for us at the Ambassador Hotel near the airport. If you still want me meet me there two hours after my flight is due back. I plan on going there alone after my arrival. Please don't come to the airport when my flight lands. Please don't make a scene. Either take me back or walk away.

I plan on seeing you at the hotel. I'll be waiting for you in the lobby."

When I finish reading it, I noticed Leslie was at the kitchen island filling her glass again.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

"I will be," I replied.

She nodded and came back with the bottle and her filled glass. Sitting next to me this time, she refilled my glass and turned to look at me with those doe-like eyes.

"So, Rick? What do we do?"

THIS IS MY CONTINUATION. I'VE WRITTEN IN UK ENGLISH & ITS UNEDITED I OWN ALL MISTAKES. THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT WRITING. IT'S PROBABLY TOO LONG, IF SO AND YOU HATE IT, SORRY FOR WASTING YOUR TIME. I'VE TRIED TO THINK OF THOUGHT PROCESSES RATHER THAN JUST EMOTIONAL RESPONSES. IT'S NEITHER BTB NOR RAAC. I HAVE ASKED AND BEEN GIVEN THE AUTHOR'S PERMISSION TO WRITE THIS ENDING, FOR WHICH I AM GRATEFUL.

"Leslie you are both beautiful & very tempting to an old guy like me, but, barring a 15 minute flirtation with a fellow soldier after she and I were almost blown up by a roadside IED, I've never cheated on my wife."

"I've never planned or wanted to cheat, what I did what I did in shock, with a woman who was scared damn near to death and she was a soldier and not easily scared. We both needed a human touch after extreme peril, my God, some of our colleagues that day never got the chance to come home.

Leslie, I can't excuse myself for what happened but feeling as bad as I do with the contents of Marcey's letter, how can I make things worse? It would just make me as guilty as she is. No moral high ground for me if I take advantage of what is your really tempting offer.

So no Leslie, we are not going to do anything together. You have no idea how good for my ego you would be but that is it. Genuinely thank you, but no thank you. I'm clearly no saint but I just can't do it."

Leslie smiled, a slightly embarrassed smile, she couldn't quite believe he was rejecting her, no matter how gently or how well explained. She had wanted him, her husband had wanted to see them together, but here was a scorned husband holding to his marriage against what he must know, it is rocked to its foundations and likely to crumble.

His marriage at best is on life-support not seeming to have the remotest chance of a future yet he was turning down a beautiful woman offering herself on a plate. The sucker must be completely In love with the bitch despite what she is doing to him.

"I understand Rick, but do you remember an actress called Lauren Bacall? I've been told I look a lot like her, and I think she was really hot. She spoke a line in a movie: "You know how to whistle don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." Well Rick, I find you attractive so if you change your mind, you know how to whistle Rick? Right?" With that she left.

I settled into a chair with a cold beer and started to think of what my future held. I couldn't see any way that divorce wasn't in it, what Marcey had done was so stone cold, so calculated, all about her and I didn't rate a moments consideration. Shit, she hadn't even bothered to answer a text never mind talk to me until I embarrassed and threatened Penny and then Marcey's asshole new man Trey.

That fucker was going to pay a price, maybe the ultimate price the way I was feeling, maybe something to fuck up his life or maybe even his ability to work as a surgeon. I'd take my time but no way that smug bastard was going to fuck my wife for 6 weeks and not suffer.

Then again, was she really my wife anymore in anything but name? Was she worth going to jail for? Probably not, but I would have my pound of flesh, from him at least. Almost certainly from Marcey too and perhaps for some of the others in the party like Penny who confessed on the phone that she too had thrown aside her wedding vows and then begged me not to talk to her husband. I'd threatened to when she didn't want to answer my questions about Marcey.

There is no way I'm going to be the only one feeling pain in this, I could probably get a few of Marcey's colleagues' spouses to turn up at the airport and blow the crap out of a few marriages, these clowns had been out of the country and out of their frazzled minds it seemed and seemingly having a sexual free for all.

I had to consider if me doing that and damaging others was reasonable or should I mind my own business and go after targets much closer to home?

NEXT DAY

After a night of broken sleep, my thoughts weren't even beginning to crystallise, other than that I couldn't see how I'd ever get past what she had done. I was bordering on rage most of the time. How in hell do you do something so blatant to someone you claim to love and you've spent half your life with?

I needed to start to really consider the way forward but what I needed to get my head around was do I go scorched earth, or could I see a way to remaining married? Something in between maybe... really?

Her letter clearly said she still loved me even if her actions said differently. I was hurting but I knew my love for her was damaged but still there, but I really saw no way of getting past her disrespect.

Many beers and some heavy spirits later and honestly far too much of both drinking and thinking over the next week or so and I was still undecided exactly how to proceed.

WEEK THREE OF HER HOLIDAY FROM OUR MARRIAGE

I was still trying to get my head around what I really wanted, the last 2 weeks had been full of doubts about what my future held. Backwards and forwards, to & fro nothing close to certainty, but divorce still the likely outcome.

My main concerns about going for divorce was how it would play out with our kids? We were now empty nesters, so no immediate responsibility but either way I reacted, we would always have family get-togethers, that would mean there would never be a clean break, I'd have to deal with her in family matters, weddings, Christmas, birthdays and occasions in grandkids lives.

Could I get past what she had done for the long-term benefit of our family? The family would not want divorce but I couldn't reconcile with her cheating just for family. Surely I owed the man in the mirror more than that?

I'd spoken to a lawyer specialising in divorce, recommended by Joe, a corporate lawyer who is a friend. Joe was a friend of both Marcey & I, someone we both mixed with socially, we'd spent an hour and more together and he was truly shocked at her behaviour.

He told me what a divorce would cost me and yeah it would bring pain but as empty nesters with adult kids who were no longer reliant on us for anything material, no mortgage to be paid, I knew I could pay the price and have a decent financial future. 50:50 on our marital assets, yeah, I'd cope.

WEEK FOUR -- TIME RUNNING OUT TO DECIDE MY FUTURE

I took a few more days to clear my head a little, I'm a retired soldier, what fills my days now is mainly voluntary work with some projects I like, so I had no problem taking time out to get all the thinking time my circumstances demanded.

Probably far too much time as I vacillated between wanting to destroy Marcey and that slippery little shit she was fucking and trying to see some kind of future with her.

I'd met him once and considered him a pompous self-important small man with a huge ego. He'd feel pain either way I decided, how and how much pain the only consideration.

Other times I wondered could I reconcile my mind with to her blatant disrespect? It seems so calculated that she couldn't possibly actually want me to stay, how could she really want that after how she'd left me and what she'd done? Bigger question: how could I want her?

I wondered what life would be if I rid myself of the woman who in quiet times sitting at home, I realised I really didn't like right now, but yeah, in the lonely hours I also knew I still loved her with most if not all of my heart. You don't lose decades of that quickly, much as my love for her was badly damaged.

What stung so much was that she had done this to our marriage seemingly in such cold blood, no worries about my reaction, just an ultimatum to love her or leave her.

DAYS OF UNCERTAINTY DRIFT PAST TOWARDS HER RETURN.

I still had to get my head around if I could get past what she had done. It stung like hell but I still love the bitch and the complications included what was best for me, our family and of course there was no doubt that in her mind I had cheated on her first.

What had that dumb bitch Deidre been thinking when she talked to Marcey and left a half-truth hanging. I hadn't seen her in years and had no plans to ever again, with the trouble she had caused me, she was dead to me.

Shit, I felt incredibly disrespected, but Marcey had felt the exact same sting as well given what she thought I had done in Iraq. In my mind it was nothing like what she had pulled but then all she really just knew "something had happened", not the details.

Probably from what she had been told by Deidre, she imagined that someone who told her she had "looked after" her husband in Iraq meant I'd had been screwing Diedre for much longer than her 6 week sojourn with Dr.Trey. I could like it or lump it. Get over it or end the marriage was her ultimatum, fuck Deidre what have you done to me? Why? I'd probably never know.

I began to realise that I should have talked to Marcey about Deidre long ago, I should have trusted her enough. Of course, I knew in my heart without doubt that she would have understood, she'd have hated it, but she would have forgiven me for sure once she knew what had actually happened and the dire circumstances. Then perhaps this shitstorm would not have happened.

I understood now that despite how seemingly cold her actions were, Marcey had her own rage to get past and this 6 week fuckfest was how she decided to even things up. It dawned on my angry mind that this was partly due to my not trusting her to understand my brief and unfulfilling infidelity.

I hadn't explained it, hadn't paid her the courtesy of trusting her with the truth, shit, was I really entitled to my assumption that I had the moral high ground? I realised I'm far from blameless but still I couldn't see a way past her action of seemingly blowing up our marriage with no care for the consequences.

I understood that no matter how painful her letter of justification had been to read and how justified I felt knowing the scales of what I had done compared to what she was doing were hugely out of whack, the fact was she didn't know my truth because I hadn't given her thing chance to hear it or understand it.

I knew now that I had to talk to her before going nuclear, on our marriage, I'd thought of having her served as she came off the plane in front of all the other betrayers. Now though, I understood where I had failed her, but reconciliation was far from my mind. All I owed her now was honesty so that we could have some way to move forward, Christ, we had 24 years together and we had our children.

ONE WEEK BEFORE HER RETURN

In her letter Marcey had asked me to stop fucking Leslie a week before she returned and we had not spoken since the angry phone call when she was shacked up in that bastard Trey's room. She didn't know that Leslie hadn't made it to my bed, nor me to hers. I hadn't been giving her husband Vincent any new wife-watching thrills.

She had asked that I would get an STD check, just as she would be doing and by now, she would have cut off Trey's access to her body to abstain as she'd asked me to do. I wasn't sure that would happen. The last week before coming back stateside and she'd cut him off? Really? Did it even matter now anyway?

My last conversation with her had been painful, no way was I going to call her again but yes, I would look her in the eye and we would talk, perhaps for the last time as man and wife.

DECISION TIME

Marcey's flight was due to land the next day, I'd followed legal advice and had done the usual things about splitting our assets, nothing that couldn't be repaired or reinstated. I'd done it partly to protect myself & partly to let her know how I was as serious as a massive heart attack that she was not coming back to what her letter showed she apparently wanted, a night in a hotel and a return to our marriage.

I'd had divorce papers drawn up ready to be served for I couldn't see that we could survive together after how she had left without a word, not even a kiss nor any idea of her plan. It even took several days and my angry call before I had been presented me with her terms for our marriage to survive in that damned letter when amongst the hurtful things she said that I'd been "playing at being a soldier". Fuck her, I'd nearly died in Iraq, friends did. Playing? Just fuck her.

Tomorrow I'd meet the bitch and still there was a lack of certainty what would happen. One thing was sure, there would be a confrontation and love would be nowhere to be seen, I was still uncertain about what I wanted other than a confrontation. Of that I was certain, shit and the fan were going to meet.

CONFRONTATION DAY

Marcey asked in her letter that I did not go to the airport, that I didn't make a scene, that she would meet me in the lobby of the hotel 2 hours after the flight landed.

Two hours? What could possibly take 2 hours to achieve, there was no reason why anything should take as much as one hour for her to make it to the hotel lobby. Fuck that, I wasn't going to play that game. I'd decide I'd be there at the airport to meet her when the group left the baggage claim, area.

There was a man I was very keen to meet for the second and last time. Whatever else happened he was going to see what a warrior's rage was like, he wasn't coming home from fucking my wife to slip quietly back into his routine. Actions have consequences, I may be a cuckold in his eyes, but he would discover the price of making me an unwilling cuckold.

AT THE AIRPORT- GAME ON

I knew many of the party of doctors and nurses, so as the first of the party that I knew emerged with their baggage I was sitting quietly to the side watching and waiting. I was alone despite the temptation to clue in some other spouses.

Amongst the first of the group was Penny Washington, the slut had betrayed her husband Josh, admitting it to me in that one phone call and she was arm in arm with her lover. None of them seemed concerned that their spouse would turn up to meet them so when Penny saw me, she stopped as if frozen and went suddenly very pale.

Shaking off the arm of her lover she came slowly towards me. "Hello Rick, I didn't expect to see you here, Marcey said he was meeting you at the hotel later to reconnect." She was scanning the area as she spoke, doubtless looking for Josh and she started to recover some colour to her face when she didn't see him.

"Looks like you didn't call Josh, thank you Rick, I know you may not believe it, but I love him just as much as Marcey really does love you. This was a bit of a crazy idea some of us had to relieve the stress of working so long in a dangerous country. A one and done fantasy plan. It's over with now, nobody has fallen in love, we all want our real relationships back."

Over her shoulder I saw Marcey walking out chatting animatedly with Dr Trey with what seemed a degree of tension. When our eyes met, she seemed to go through a range of emotions quickly. I saw anger, then fear just before she glued on a half-smile which she obviously hoped looked genuine.

MARCEY, TREY & I

She tried to move away from Trey but he took her forearm and guided her so that together they approached me. Marcey looked like she was still trying to shake his hand off but the smug little bastard held his grip and before she could speak, he did.

Trey said, "Hello again Rick. So, you just couldn't do as your wife asked, had to make the big statement, eh? Well Rick, I can't tell you just how much I've enjoyed your wife's... friendship these past weeks but you can have her back now."

He delivered it with a smirk much to Marcey's clear embarrassment. "Fuck you Cuckold", is what his words meant. Cocky little bastard had no idea what he was facing, but he was about to find out.

I moved closer to them and spoke first to Marcey, as calmly as I could manage, I said to her "Marcey, you and I owe each other some explanations, but first I need a few minutes alone with your boyfriend. Can you take a seat over there for a few minutes, then we'll talk, OK?"

"Christ Rick, he's not my boyfriend, why couldn't you just meet me at the hotel as I asked? Please don't make this more than it is, please don't make a scene. Don't do something we might all regret."

"Marcey, shut up and take a seat, I promise I'm not going to kill him...if he plays nice, not yet anyway. We can just talk Trey, can't we? Just to clear the air?"

"Sure we can Rick, we can be civilised, there has been no harm done, isn't that so Rick" he said with his trademark smirk.

Looking unconvinced and worried Marcey moved away to the seating area, far enough away that she would not hear our quiet talk. I closed the distance to Trey getting so close that despite his apparent confidence, I could smell his fear. The smirk had gone and with it the bravado, he looked like what he was, a frightened little man.

TREY HEARING WHAT IS IN HIS FUTURE

"OK dickhead, let's talk man to man, keep your face neutral and just listen, if you overreact, I'll beat you to a pulp and take my chances with the law. Got it?" He gave the faintest of nods and his trademark smirk was just a bad memory.

"Don't interrupt as I speak and just nod if you understand what I tell you, got it? If you can't manage that, I promise you will get to try the food at the hospital where you all work, as a patient.

Listen moron, I'm a retired US Marine Corp officer, I am going to punish your disrespect, just not right now or here in public view but you will face consequences. Nod if you understand... good boy.

Now listen to your choices, you will feel some retribution that will be painful but not life threatening, or you can ignore me & face career ending injuries, I mean look at those tiny little hands of yours, as a medic you know exactly how many bones there are to break, how many tendons that can be ripped and mangled. Doing that to you over an hour or so would test your bravery and your bodies waste disposal system. My guess is you would both piss & shit yourself before half of the bones were shattered. Nod if I make myself understood.

Good, we are getting this sorted better than I'd expected. I'm not sure if I might have preferred that you acted like a man and not a frightened little slimeball. I'd have enjoyed slapping you down in front of your lover.

Now listen carefully, it's vital for your ability to continue your career that you take this in. You will resign from the hospital and be out of this city within four weeks, gone and never to return. Nod again asshole. Good.

Before you leave town you will feel some pain, not from me personally I'm afraid for I would enjoy it, maybe too much and do too much damage it's so tempting, but take it like a man and I promise those surgeons hands with not be damaged. Can't say the same for your balls, but hey, actions bring consequences. Nod your understanding. Good.

OK, time for you to fuck off out of my life but remember, I'll have a cast iron alibi when the foot falls on your balls. Take it and move on or you will invite more serious consequences you will not recover from. Go to the police and make trouble for me and I've enough friends in low places that it will end you and your hands will be the least of your worries.