Just Once... Who Wouldn't Mind?

This is my first attempt at writing a story in English, my second language, and of course my first contribution to Literotica. I was thrilled by this invitation from Kalimaxos to write an ending to his excellent "Just Once... If You Don't Mind?". I have not read all the endings published on the site. But I did read some, and I guess I am choosing the least frequented path. I wish to thank Kalimaxos for his writing and for giving us this opportunity.

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?"

******

******

******

The Shock

I could hear her, but it was like my brain had disconnected from the rest of my body. I was stunned, knocked out, unable to move or think, let alone articulate anything meaningful.

"What the f...?" I muttered to myself.

"What?" Leslie asked.

All I could think at that moment was that I had just read the death sentence of my marriage. I had not even recovered from the shock of the phone call, but I had managed to put it in the "to be dealt with later" paper stack. Now though... a letter was strongly hinting that the person who had written may not be my wife any longer.

"What is it, what does it say?" Leslie insisted.

It was just too much. I had to have misread. I had to read this letter again. There was clearly something that I had missed in there.

"Rick, hello?! What is it?"

One of the personality traits required to become an Army officer is the capacity to quickly get back on one's feet after a traumatic event. On many missions during my postings abroad, I would surprise myself by how fast I was able to get back in control of a chaotic situation following an attack or an accident. The "act now, whine later" state of mind saved my skin and my fellow soldiers' on quite a few occasions. I may have been in shock after reading Marcy's letter, but it did not take long for Colonel Weston to kick in and assume command. This came in handy because poor old Rick was dumbstruck, unable to think clearly.

As my brain switched to problem-solving mode, the priorities lined up in my head. Priority number one was to send Leslie home, without sounding too rude. After all, she was not to blame for this. This was strictly between Marcy and me.

"Rick, I would..."

"Leslie, listen", I cut her. "Thank you very much for coming over here tonight. But as you can probably figure out, the content of this letter was like a bomb dropped on my life."

I was apprehensive, but I had to ask... "Did you read it, Leslie?"

"NO!!! Seriously, Rick, I never would have dared read it!" she assured me, a bit upset that I even had considered the possibility.

"Ok then. Well, please, as much as I appreciate your company, I have a lot of thinking to do. Can I take a rain check on whatever you had in mind to do with me tonight?"

It was clear from the expression on her face that she had not expected that turn of events. I was relieved to see only sadness and worry in her eyes, and not anger or hurt.

"Ok Rick, I understand. You won't do anything stupid will you...?" she asked, taking the recorked bottle of Moscato that I had handed her back.

"Not to worry. And before you say it, no, I won't hesitate to knock on your door if I need anything!" I answered with a smile.

I guess I had managed to sound reasonably cool, because she gave me a warm smile before she left in the dusk, her sundress revealing the wiggling of that wonderful little ass of hers as she walked away, but at that moment, my mind was just not into that.

Priority number two: keeping my shit to myself.

I called the office and left a message in my secretary's voicemail to inform her that I would take the rest of the week off. Family emergency, e-mail only. She knew me well enough to know that I had serious reasons. And on top of it, she also knew better than to ask about it.

Priority number three: anesthetize the pain.

I went back to the kitchen and literally engulfed the content of my glass of Moscato, and then what was left of Leslie's. I then saw the letter, that I had not put back in its envelope. In a burst of anger, I tossed it off the table like something too filthy to even look at.

With Leslie and logistics taken care of, my composure just dissolved.

I grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels from the cabinet and headed for my recliner. Fuck the glass. And fuck the manners. I dropped to the recliner and raised the bottle: "To the Bitch! Go ahead, fuck your Doctor Dildo, you crappy slut..."

I swallowed, directly from the bottle, two gulps of the amber liquid that I liked so much. But at that very moment, it tasted acrid.

God, was I mad.

"...playing soldier...yeah... Fucking whore!"

I must have spent a couple of hours bitching alone about my wife, downing the JD. Then I guess I fell asleep, the level of ethanol in my blood possibly approaching a very concerning level.

***

The Storm

I must have seriously passed out, because the sun was up in the sky when I finally woke up. Jeez... 12:20... Last time I had slept that late was, what... in my teens? The bottle of JD was laying empty on the floor. Conscience clear: it was way less than half full when I took it out of the cabinet the night before.

Getting up from the recliner was quite an undertaking, first because one is not supposed to sleep fourteen hours in a recliner when drunk, and second because at 48, my back no longer was what it used to be. One reassuring (or frightening) thing was that my skull and stomach were perfectly in phase with my back... JD was my best friend the night before, Advil would indeed be my new best friend that morning.

I went out to the patio to have my coffee, and I suddenly felt very grateful than the fence between my backyard and the Nielson's was hidden by a hedge thick enough so that no one could sneak through. I was not in the mood for neighborhood chit-chat, let alone with them. They knew too much not to ask questions that I did not feel like answering.

The thought of locking the little gate came to my mind, but I did not want to send the wrong message: I was not mad at them, I was mad at my slutty wife. And on this topic, no, things were absolutely not going better.

As soon as my G.I. track sent the signal it was ready to resume food reception, I fixed myself some breakfast and went back outside to eat it. The only thing I could think of was plotting twisted schemes to go to Bogotá, creep into the Bitch's and her Doctor PerfectDick's hotel room and snatch them the cruelest way possible. And then move on to another bloody scenario.

Playing soldier. "You want to know what a soldier does when he plays, you cunt?! How about saving his skin and everyone else's!? Would you call THAT playing!?"

What little control I had over myself was barely enough to prevent me from yelling.

I could not believe that she dared compare what had happened during 15 minutes between Diedre and me with her perfectly planned 6-week affair in South America. A bird house next to a mansion. A chipmunk next to a tiger. Did she really think I would buy this? If so, then she was a blinking idiot on top of being a tramp! If someone accidentally walks into you on a street, do you bring them down with 3 bullets to their chest? If this was Marcy's idea of making things even, she was in for a surprise.

At the end of the afternoon, I received a call from our son Kyle.

"Hey Dad, how you doin'?"

"Hey son! Well, not too bad. Taking advantage of your mom being away to bring more stuff home to try and get back on track with all the paperwork backlog at the office. What about you?"

"Oh, same old stuff with school. Hey, how's Mom? Any news? She didn't even text me to say she was ok."

Marcy made a point of trying to call to her children at least twice a week. Kyle was ok with this, but I knew Rhonda found that a bit too much. Anyway, Rhonda was generally so hard to get in touch with that trying was the keyword, here.

"Well, she's ok, son, don't worry. She texted me to say she had checked in at the hotel. She also said that we should not hang by our cell phones for updates: it is a humanitarian mission, and they would not always be in cities where the signal is good. Some of the locations on their itinerary are a bit remote."

Fuck, I HATE lying to my kids. But I did not want to have to give updates I would probably not receive. And I did not want to tell him or Rhonda the detailed circumstances of their mother's escapade. Above all, no matter how mad I was at my so-called wife, badmouthing her to Rhonda and Kyle was something I simply could not do. She was their mother. My peeves against her had nothing to do with the relationship she had with our children.

"Well, ok Dad. Please keep me informed if you get updates. I'll text her now and then."

"You take care son. And don't forget to watch the game this Saturday!" I said jokingly. As if Kyle could miss a football game.

"No chance, Dad! Love you!" He hung up, laughing.

I put down my phone, sighing in relief.

With some luck, he would not call again for at least 2 weeks. That would give me some time to come up with an action plan and a communication strategy. Rhonda was much less of a concern. She was on assignment on board a military vessel in the Austral Ocean, and communication was infrequent at best. Since chatting over the phone was not her cup of tea, I did not expect a call from her for at least three weeks.

My preoccupation of the moment switched to the fact that the bottle of JD was empty. I would not drink water or milk all evening, for sure. As I rummaged through the cabinet to find what could help me ease my pain that night, I stumbled upon a bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella 2003 that my doctor-fucking bimbo had set aside for a supposedly special occasion that I had no clue about. I decided that the special occasion was tonight! A celebration with myself of the end of 24 years of marriage with a lying cheater!

I poured myself a glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the framed picture of Marcy and me that she loved so much propped on the mantelpiece.

I closed the distance between the kitchen island and the mantelpiece in two long strides and picked it up from its perch.

"FUCK YOU, BITCH!!!"

I took a sip from the glass I was holding tightly and threw the frame onto the stone wall above the fireplace.

Then back in the recliner for another round of profanities.

"Playing soldier. Far too many kicks to the ass fail to reach their destination," I thought.

I had spent my whole career making sacrifices. And that was where it had gotten me. Tomorrow, I would call Diedre. My only mistake in Iraq was to not have gone all the way with her. After our too brief sexual encounter, I took the attacks as a sign that I should not go there. Stupid idiot. I should have taken it has a reminder that life is short, and that life rarely offers you a second helping of the good things.

I raised my glass: "Marcy, you want a revenge on something? Well, I'll give you a real reason to be mad at me! Cheers!!"

I still remember I finished the bottle and went to bed. Clear improvement on the night before.

Thursday morning was a bit better, or should I say a bit less bad. The headache was a little more manageable. But I was still fuming. I had not bothered to pick up the broken glass from the frame I had crushed the night before, and I cut my heel on a shard of glass. I spent most of my day in the recliner, lining up the empty beer cans where the picture of my wife used to be.

I heard Leslie's characteristic knock on the backdoor at the end of the afternoon. Perfect. How do you make an already bad day even worse? By having someone question you about it...

I limped to the back door. Leslie's luminous smile faded in no time when she saw the state I was in.

"My God, Rick, you look like a wreck, why don't you let..."

"No! I need nothing. Go home Leslie, and leave me alone, for fuck's sake!" I almost shouted, slamming the door.

I waited to make sure she was walking away before going back to my recliner. The next cans of beer were of much better company: they would not ask any questions. And they would not think of setting me up with the neighbor's wife to clear their conscience.

That night, I finally came up with a plan: tomorrow, I would go to the hospital Marcy worked at, and I would pay a visit to the President to show him the letter she wrote. I remembered that Marcy's employment contract clearly stated that the hospital had a strict policy forbidding intimate relationships among its employees. So much for enforcing it! I would threaten the President to sue the hospital unless they fired Marcy and her Doctor Pussylicker.

Ok, I would get no real benefit out of that, but it would be sweet revenge.

But before that, I would call Diedre. My slut of a wife was not the only woman on Earth, after all. I didn't depend on her for sex. There were certainly other women who would find me attractive. I too could make a woman pussy drip and squirt! I too could have a weekend of wet dirty fuck with one of them!

And... one that 'I' got to chose.

GO FUCK YOURSELF MARCY!! Cheers!

***

A Diversion

I was awakened by the distinct ringtone of my secured job cell phone the next day. It took me a few seconds to understand what was going on.

A quick glance at the clock on my bedside table left me puzzled: 5AM. Who would call at 5AM, for Christ's sake?

"Rick Weston"

"Bonjour Rick, Laurent Duchemin, Ministère de la Sécurité à Paris »

Ok, I was quite fluent in French, but this early in the morning, and with the ethanol still coursing through my veins, I was not up to it. I knew Laurent a little. French and American intelligence services worked together on several projects. He was a nice guy, but not very keen on small talk. Rather straight to the point.

"Bonjour Laurent, to what do I owe the pleasure of such an early conversation?"

"Early? Well, I did wait until 8 AM to call you?"

"Well, I live on the West Coast. It's 5 AM here"

"Oh, sorry Rick, my mistake. I thought you were in Washington," he replied

His Parisian accent was so thick that I briefly considered asking him to speak French to make things easier.

"It's ok Laurent, I am up now. What is the issue?"

A sticky situation had arisen that would involve the intelligence services of several countries, and to which my company was a main consulting firm. And it was a major issue. Not uncommon, but this was a behind-the-scenes event that nobody wanted splashed on the opening of the 5 o'clock news. After three minutes, I was completely awake, and I had switched to full Colonel Weston mode.

We talked for almost an hour. When I hung up, I knew what the rest of the day and following week would look like for me.

I was still mad at Marcy, and I still intended to call Diedre and to pay a visit to Mr. Pufferfish (the nickname that I swear absolutely nobody uses at the hospital to talk about their President), but all this would have to wait. I now had much more pressing issues.

After the most thorough shower in a week, and the most nutritious breakfast in the same period, I was ready to do something more useful than yelling at the walls. But then maybe not as satisfying.

I spent most of the day reading preliminary reports, calling my colleagues in London, then Washington and Ottawa, and getting up to speed with the strategy that was being defined for the following week.

I dialed Diedre's number, but I got her voicemail. I didn't feel like leaving a message that would certainly be unexpected and would end up raising unanswered questions.

4:30 PM, already. Clearly too late to take the 40-minute drive to the hospital. This one would have to wait until the following week, I guessed.

I sent an email to my secretary confirming that I would be at the office the next Monday, then I finished reviewing and wrapping up everything and called it a day.

I decided that I had enough of the four walls of my house, so I headed to a nearby restaurant. Better to have dinner in my own company than in the company of pictures of my cheating wife. Fish & chips might not be the epitome of healthy food, but at least I managed to keep the ethanol at a distance.

I went to bed early that night. The mental burden and the ethanol abuse of the week had taken their toll on my body. It took a certain time for the fish & chips to figure out the road to take, but hey, they were worth the enthusiastic piping noises.

***

Feeling the Ground Again

I woke up somewhat fresher on a beautiful Saturday morning. The phone rang as my coffee finished brewing.

"Hello, this is Rick"

"Since when do you call an old friend and don't give a shit leaving a message, Ricky boy?" said a cheerful and teasing voice.

"Dierdre Kiel! Hey, long time no see!"

I gave her the headlines of my week of hell, and she was floored.

"My gosh, Ricky, I don't know Marcy a lot for sure, but this clearly doesn't sound like the girl you described when we were in Iraq," she replied.

"Nope, not at all. I guess the changes were too subtle for me to notice," I sighed.

"Hey, why don't you come over tonight, I'll fix us something a bit better than the canned spaghetti you probably had all week long?"

I learned that Diedre had moved from Boston to a nearby city a month ago, in a brand-new house. She gave me the explanations on how to get there since her neighborhood was recent and had not yet been entered into the GPS apps. It was a 90-minute drive, so she suggested that I bring everything to spend the night, which was more or less part of the plan I had been brewing up all week.

But before everything else, I had to apologize to Leslie for making an ass of myself when she came over two days before.

I crossed our backyards early in the afternoon. I did not even have to knock. Leslie saw me coming and opened the door with a subdued smile.

"How you doin', Rick?" she asked with an uncharacteristically neutral voice.

"Much better, thanks! Leslie, listen, I want to apologize for how I treated you on Thursday evening. I guess too much beer does not suit well with me on bad days... I'm truly sorry."

She lit right up.

"Apology accepted Rick. And I'm glad to see you feeling better!"

"Hey Colonel! You have time for a drink? Come on in!" called Vincent, coming down the stairs.

"No thanks, guys. The invitation is appreciated, but I have other plans for the rest of the day."

"You want to have dinner, our door is always open, you know?! And I'm sure Leslie will do everything to make sure you have a great evening," he winked.

Leslie was blushing.

"Guys, I will be honest with you. I perfectly understand where you're heading, and where you want to bring me. I would lie if I said that I'm not at least intrigued. But now is just not the time for this. I really don't think having revenge sex with my neighbor is a sensible way of cleaning the mess I'm in. And no matter what Marcy said before she left, I don't think this would contribute to sound backyard relationships in the long run."

"I understand," Leslie said, clearly disappointed.

"But I may take you up on your offer to just talk over dinner about all this, the... lifestyle. As I said, I am genuinely intrigued."

"That will be our pleasure, Colonel!" Vincent replied, with a wide grin.

I left them and went back home to finish preparing my overnight bag. I debated with myself whether I should bring Marcy's letter with me. The letter was still on the kitchen floor; I had not bothered to read it again. I finally decided to put it in the bag. If I was to indulge in some side fun with Diedre, a letter of justification might come in handy.