My Happy Ending

"You nasty slut," he said, slapping my ass again.

"Only for you," I'd told him. I came out of the memory wondering again for the umpteenth time how I could have been so stupid. Just as I shook my head to clear the cobwebs I heard the door opening and he stepped inside.

This was the chance that I'd been waiting for all day. The smell of the lasagna in the oven wafted throughout the house filling my nostrils with its tempting aroma. Rence liked my breasts but he loved my ass so I bent over the counter pretending to reach for something. The thong between my cheeks was so small that I was sure he could probably see my asshole if he looked closely enough. The only question I had in my mind was whether he'd run himself into the ground the way he'd been doing for the past few days or not. I had the impression that he was running harder and faster not to get into better shape, but so he could just come home and eat shower and crash and not have to think about what was going on with us.

I'd read about it on a website about divorces. It was the same strategy that alcoholics took. The one day at a time method. All he had to do was go out and run until he was too tired to do anything else. Then he'd eat, shower and go to sleep. If he did that for a few days a week would pass and if he could go without me for a week, he could do it for a month and sooner or later he wouldn't need me at all anymore. I was not going to let that happen. Maybe if I was successful, I wouldn't need Marge's help at all. He walked in and I know he saw me. The only question would be whether he wanted to fuck me first or eat first.

He walked in and came straight into the kitchen. I got nervous remembering some of the times when he had just fucked the cowboy shit out of me after we'd been apart for a while. He walked right by me reached into the refrigerator and grabbed an apple and then started to leave the kitchen.

I couldn't believe that he was leaving or that he'd just passed by me without saying a fucking word. "Rence, aren't you hungry?" I asked. He held up the apple.

"I'll go out and get something later," he said. "I want to get a shower and get out of here. It looks like you're going to be entertaining some of your fuck buddies again. I don't want to be in the way. So I'll go out."

"But..." I began.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It's your house too. And someday, maybe I'll have fuck buddies of my own and I'd expect you to do the same. Besides, there are some things I want to find out about my car. I'm thinking about a few modifications. So I really want to take it out for a long drive with the windows down and the stereo blasting." He turned and left without another word. I'd been thinking that since we were actually talking for the first time in days, maybe he was going to invite me to go out with him. I slumped down to the floor and started crying. I heard Rence moving around upstairs going into and out of the shower. Every step he took hurt me more. I could even hear him talking occasionally.

"Shit, I'm hungry," he said. It was as if he'd stabbed me again. Rence had hurt me on two fronts without a thought. First, if he was so fucking hungry, why couldn't he sit down and eat the dinner I made for him? It was his favorite fucking meal. It was made the same fucking way that he'd fucking liked it for the last twenty fucking years. Did he hate me so much that his taste buds had changed? Or was it something even worse. I was sure that Rence was training himself to do without me. He was doing all of the little things that I normally did for him, like getting his meals or doing his laundry, for himself.

Secondly, I know that I'm no spring chicken and realistically, I don't want to be. If I had the chance to go back to being a twenty year old, I'd probably turn it down. Sure I'd love to have my boobs that springy again and my ass that firm, but all the rest of it I wouldn't take on a bet.

Why would I want to go back to being alone most of the time and going out to clubs trying to meet someone? Why would I want to go back to dating loser after loser hoping that one day I'd find the man who'd love me and treat me the way I wanted to be treated? Or my God what about sex? Do I really want to go back to the awkwardness of trying to decide whether or not to sleep with a certain guy or how many dates to make him wait through? Then there are all of the little fronts that people put on. Who needs any of that shit? It is so much better to be in a relationship with a person who loves you.

When I get horny, I just roll over and my man is right there. If I want to eat cake all day and watch my ass get fatter, Rence will hand me the plate and the fork. And to make things even better he'll tell me that he loves my ass even as it's getting wider.

Most married women are far more secure in our beauty even as it fades because we have our man. We have that guy next to us who has gone through everything we could put him through to get to us and loves us anyway. When you turn forty and teenaged or twenty year old guys no longer see you, it doesn't matter because you have your man already. You already have someone who sees you as a goddess even as you age and widen and wrinkle.

As I'd put on the dirtiest lingerie I had that afternoon, I'd been worried about Rence not even waiting until we could get into our bedroom. My biggest worry had been carpet burns, but I now realized that the man I planned to spend the rest of my life with could see me at my sexiest and walk right by me without a thought. It took a lot out of my self-esteem level. Every woman no matter how old or fat, likes to feel that someone wants her.

As I finally moved into a chair, I didn't feel sexy and wild any more, I just felt old, foolish and uncomfortable. Why the hell was I sitting around in a chair with my hoo-hah showing and a piece of string up my ass? Just as I decided to go change, Rence came back down the stairs. He skipped lightly over the stairs the way he always did. I often marveled at his energy level. If it had been me running all of those miles, I'd have been in bed for a week let alone going back out afterward.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to me. My heart started to flutter. I was half hoping he'd say something like, "You look really hot in that. I wish things were going better between us so I could take advantage of it," or "Manda, do you want to come with me?" But he didn't. He paused and looked at me. "I think something's burning," he said, and then he was out the door without a backwards look.

"He can't really think that you have guys coming over to fuck you," said Marge over the phone. I'd called her about an hour after Rence left. I needed someone to help make me less miserable. "But he knows that you didn't enjoy it the first time," she continued. "What makes him think you'd do it again?"

I don't think he knows that I didn't like it," I sobbed. "He hasn't spoken to me very much since then. The conversation we had tonight where he told me he was going to spend the evening with that fucking car so I could be with my fuck buddies was the longest one we've had since before it happened."

"I have an idea," said Marge. "If he loves that car so much, why not ask him to take you out for a ride in it?"

"I tried that the first day," I told her. "He practically told me that he didn't allow whores in it."

"Well, let's hope tomorrow goes better," she said. "We're going to kill two birds with one stone. We're going to do the get together and I'm going to talk to him for you at the same time. If things go well maybe you'll have him back and we can start working on my problem. Darrell still won't accept my calls and he doesn't respond to my texts."

I wrote a note and left it on the bathroom door and went to sleep. The note asked Rence to wake me up when he got home because I needed to talk to him about something that was not related to the problems between us.

It was after midnight when he knocked on the bedroom door, waking me.

"Whether you believe it or not, this is still your bedroom, Honey. You don't have to knock," I said.

"What do you want?" he asked. I noticed that he was holding his stomach slightly.

"Did you actually eat while you were out," I asked. "Or were you so busy jetting around in your little car that you skipped dinner after running all of those miles?"

"That's not your concern," he snapped. "What do you want?"

"Rence, I don't know what's going on with us. I want us to be back the way we used to be..." I began. He turned to leave. "Where are you going?" I asked.

"Your note said that this had nothing to do with our situation," he said coldly. "You apparently lied again so I'm leaving."

"Wait, I'll stick to the subject, I promise," I whined. He turned back to look at me. "Before all of this stuff started, I invited my boss and his wife over for a barbecue. I figured we'd grill some steaks and some chicken and sit back and watch the sunset. There's another couple coming too. It's too late to cancel without looking stupid, so I was wondering if for one evening we could be civil," I said.

"All I have to do is be civil, right?" he asked. I nodded. "I can do civil," he said.

"Rence, please don't embarrass me in front of my boss," I said. He looked at me coldly.

"You can embarrass me in front of the whole world but I can't embarrass you in front of one guy," he said. "I can be civil to anyone. Make sure you remember to be civil yourself. Don't start calling me Honey or any of that shit and don't touch me."

"I remember times when you loved to have me touch you," I said quietly.

"I remember a time when you were mine," he said. "I'm not good at sharing."

It was all I could do to avoid slapping him. "Who the fuck do you have to share me with?" I snapped. "I'm an almost fifty year old woman, Rence. Besides you, who else even looks at me twice?"

"Well, I saw you fuck two guys last week," he said. "One of whom used to be my best friend at work. I'm sure eventually he'll get around to telling everyone there that he fucked the cowboy shit out of you in front of me and you loved it."

I gave in to my rage. I jumped up and slapped him. Immediately afterward I was sorry and started telling him how sorry I was. I was crying and my hand hurt at the same time but he barely even moved.

"One God damned time, Rence. I did it one time in twenty years and I asked you first. I've already told you it was a mistake and I didn't like it. I'm still the same woman you married. I still love you so much I'd die for you, you asshole," I said.

"Amanda, that was one time too many," he snapped. "I wish you'd just understand this yourself. We're broken. We can't go back. You aren't the same woman I married. My Amanda, loved me, she didn't need anyone else. I was enough for her and she was more than enough for me. Just looking at her got me hotter than I can ever describe. But if you love me so much that you'd die for me, I wish you would... so I didn't have to try to figure out a way to get out of this marriage without going into poverty."

"I'll play your little game though for your boss, but just remember that you owe me a favor. Before we can get away from each other, while we're living in the same house, we'll probably have to exchange favors from time to time. So you'll owe me one."

The next evening he did everything I could have asked for. He came home early and got the grill set up and cleaned up the deck area. Then he went out for his run early so he'd be back in time. He was very cordial to my boss whom he'd met before. They spent a lot of time talking about Rence's Mustang and he even took my boss out for a spin in it. My boss came back talking about buying one. Just before they'd gotten back, Marge and her husband had arrived. Rence knew Marge and from the way he looked at her, I could tell that he blamed her in part for what had happened to us. He was still very polite if guarded to her and her husband as well.

With the next day being a normal working day, my boss and his wife pulled the plug early. They told us how nice a time they'd had and how the view from our deck was spectacular and they could have stayed there forever. It had been a perfect evening but it was only getting started. When Marge's husband finished his beer I offered to show him the variety of imported beers we had so maybe he could pick one to top off the evening. He leaped up immediately. That gave Marge time to work on Rence for me.

I gather though that it didn't work well, because when I came back from the kitchen she just shrugged her shoulders and told me she was going inside. Rence went back out to the deck to sit with Marge's husband who'd picked two beers and had me hoping that Marge would be driving.

"Did you get a chance to fuck him?" Rence whispered to me as I passed him. I had to fight to keep the tears out of my eyes. I didn't understand why he enjoyed hurting me so much.

Marge and I went into the kitchen to discuss what had happened between her and Rence. "He's serious," she said. "And he's hurt really bad. It's just like you said only worse. For that man it's like his entire world has just blown up in his face. He just wants to start all over from scratch. We have to find another way to do this. He doesn't even see you as the same woman. It's like the woman he loves just vanished and in her place is some whore who looks like her. He doesn't like me at all either so no matter what I wanted to say he wouldn't even listen and..." We both stopped and turned towards the deck as we heard the sounds of two men yelling at each other.

We ran outside to see what was going on. Marge's husband Bryan was yelling and he appeared to so angry that he was about to explode.

"What's going on?" I asked as Marge and I got there.

"This guy is full of shit," yelled Bryan. "I told him I liked his fucking deck and he said that meant that he should tear it down and rebuild it differently because my opinion didn't mean shit. He blamed me for fucking up his marriage. He claims that I'm okay with you fucking around on me Margie. He said that if I had any balls and had stopped you he'd still be married. What the fuck is he talking about?"

"Uhm, we need to go," said Marge. She was as white as a sheet. "He's drunk, Bryan."

"I haven't had anything to drink today," said Rence calmly. "I think I owe you an apology, Bryan. You really didn't know she was fucking around on you, did you?"

Marge was pulling Bryan's arm and trying to get him to leave. But it was too late. He wheeled and looked at Rence.

"Are you serious?" he asked. Rence nodded. He told Bryan everything I'd told him that Marge had told me.

Bryan looked like he was going to explode. "So she told you she screws other guys?" he asked.

"I've seen the two of them at it," said Rence. "That's why my marriage is over. It was great until your wife got Amanda's head screwed up."

"You fucking bitch," screamed Bryan at Marge. Marge apparently decided that the time for hiding was over.

"You've been fucking around on me with how many women over the years?" she asked. "What's good for the goose..." She never got another word out because Bryan punched her in the mouth like she was a man. In a second Rence was on him grabbing his arms and telling him to get out of our house.

"But she," screamed Bryan.

"It's still no reason to hit a woman," said Rence. "And it won't help anything."

"Nothing will help," said Marge, slurring her words through her busted lip. "I'm filing for a divorce. I want to be with someone who wants me, fuck you."

If Rence hadn't been holding on to Bryan, it might have been a lot worse. It was then that another thing became apparent to me. Rence loved me. When I did what I did, it hurt him badly but he still had never even thought about hurting me. He just started trying to figure out what to do with himself.

Bryan had always cheated on Marge and there was some doubt to whether or not he loved her. But when he found about her cheating, he tried to hurt her. It was more like his pride was hurt and he was embarrassed than it was that he felt any pain at her betrayal.

Bryan had stormed off without a thought about Marge. And Marge herself seemed relieved that the process had begun. It was as if they were glad to be rid of each other. On the other hand I was still ready to fight heaven and hell to keep my marriage together.

Marge sat there on my couch with her knees up, holding her face where Bryan had punched her. Rence looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

"I thought you said that he knew about what she was doing?" he said. "Boy was he pissed."

"Rence, I didn't purposefully lie to you," I said. "Marge told me that Bryan didn't care what she does."

"Apparently he does," said Rence. He had a shit eating grin on his face as if he'd enjoyed what had happened.

"You can't even begin to believe that what he did was right," I said. "Rence, what Marge is doing may not be the most correct thing in the world, but he's been cheating on her with multiple women for years. He ignores her, he abuses her and he just doesn't give a damn about her. Doesn't she have the right to try to find a little bit of happiness for herself?"

My husband had always been the fairest, most honest man I know. He thought about it and he looked at me. "She should have divorced him first, but I guess you're right. Everyone does deserve the right to be happy. No one should have to stay in a situation where they're unhappy. So let me ask you a couple of questions, okay?" he said. I nodded at him. I didn't care why but I was just glad that we were having a civil conversation. For us to have a calm discourse was the beginning of the healing process for us.

"You said that Marge had a right to go out and find herself another man because Bryan was abusive and he ignored her and he cheated on her, right?" I nodded. "What was your reason for it? In over twenty years, I have never shown you anything but love. I have never ignored you and never once even thought about cheating on you. In fact, now that I'm going to have to start dating again, I'm trying to divorce you first but you won't help me," he said.

"Rence, that is completely different," I snapped. "You don't understand..."

"How is it different?" he asked. "We've established that everyone has the right to seek out their own happiness. I'm not happy anymore. I need to start my life over so I can stop hurting, Amanda."

"Rence, it's different," I snapped. "I was stupid. I guess I wanted everything. I saw what Marge was doing and it seemed exciting and I felt old. I wanted to be exciting too, but at the same time I knew that I loved you and didn't want to lose you. So I asked you and you said it was fine. I found out though that it wasn't what I wanted. So now I know that kind of life isn't for me. I'm happy with what I have. Can't you see that? I just want us to be the way we used to be. I want us back, Rence. I love you."

"I can see that that's what you wanted," he said. "But that doesn't mean it's what you're going to get. You were like a child. You said it yourself, you wanted everything. You reached out and in trying to greedily grab everything; you dropped what you already had. Amanda, there are some things that when they're broken, they can't be repaired. We were like that. Our marriage was a very strong and very beautiful thing, but it was based on us both loving and respecting each other and being faithful to each other. It was very simple and set in stone. You were mine and I was yours. We were a set. Your need to try someone else out, weakened us. You fucking those guys destroyed us."

"But Rence, we're still a set. I still love you, I'm still yours," I said. "I swear with all my heart and soul that I am."

"No, you're not," he said seriously. "In order for you to be mine, I have to want you and I don't anymore. The bond between us has been broken and I don't think we'll ever be the same. The very fact that you needed to do what you did, showed a lack of respect for me, so the respect is gone. I still have to respect myself and I couldn't do that if I took you back. I also don't trust you anymore. Yeah, you did tell me that you were going to do this, I'll give you that. You also told me it was going to be on Friday. That makes me think that you wanted to do it more than once or just lie about it and say that you didn't do it. The last and most terrible part is that before you did it, I was hurt and I was praying with everything I had that you just wouldn't go through with it."