One, Fifty or One Hundred 2.3

Swingerjoe recently wrote an alternate ending to One, Fifty or One Hundred. And it probably upset me as much as the original story upset swingerjoe if the speed at which he put out another story is any indication.

I have, on occasion written an alternative, but now I am writing an alternative to an alternative. Something to fill in the blanks.

Why? Well, let me say that swingerjoe is one hell of a writer to make something so well written in such a short span. However, I feel there were a few bits missing from comparing his story to the original.

I wrote, re-read and posted this in an hour and a half, including research. It is NOT as well written as swingerjoe's missive, but it is more about putting out the ideas.

Hopefully some of you enjoy it.

*****

"What's it going to be, Bob?" she asked. "Zero, fifty, or one hundred?" Sharon, my wife of eight years asked.

I have a tendency to mull out problems, which probably lead to this by a lack of action, so I quietly walked past her to the kitchen and got myself a beer to sip. She had laid a series of bombshells which made me doubt everything I thought I knew about Vickie, our marriage, and me as a person. She told me to get out, totally disrespect one of her close friends, or become a good house husband for daring to question her fidelity.

Granted, she raised a few good points. Maybe I had been a tad aggressive in how I laid it out to her. But by the same token the evidence...the evidence...I took a few moments to think.

"Give me your phone." I asked her.

Sharon's eyes narrowed. "How dare you! You are acting like a total ass and you are asking me for my phone? You should be apologizing to me. Why don't you move your pillow to the sofa, because that is where you are sleeping tonight, Mister!"

"If I move my pillow, it will be a lot farther than the sofa if you don't give me your phone RIGHT NOW!" I raised my voice loud enough to possibly wake the kids but at this point I was hot.

Her good friend Vickie was very happily married. She begged me to go to a marriage counselor. And my wife accused HER of being a flirt, of wanting to cheat? The woman who begged me not to do anything dramatic?

But it seemed like now was the time for some drama.

Very reluctantly, she handed me her cell phone. She was talking a good game and her body language said she was totally closed off...but she was a thoughtful woman and brinksmanship was not her usual attitude. So her current reaction seemed very out of place with me.

I took a few minutes scrolling through it. "Vicki read me the riot act today about our lunch breaks. I was pissed but she has a good point. I don't want people to get the wrong idea about us." I quoted directly from her text message. I looked at her. "You mean like the wrong ideaI had about you today? And yet you were worried..wait a second. 'She asked if Bob would be okay with how we were acting and that made me think that we are maybe sending out the wrong vibe. Besides I don't need to be sharing all my problems with another guy. I am gonna try to talk to Bob.' This is the woman you say wants to jump in my bed?"

I lowered the cell phone. "What wrong vibe was that? You just admitted you were sending the wrong vibe and that Vickie and the others might catch it...but God forbid ifI bring it up? And I don't recall that conversation you wanted to have. I am sure Luke was a GREAT audience."

I lifted the phone to continue reading " 'You need to give those back today... My friends are so pissed at me right now and I don't blame them.'" I paused. "Why in the hell were you giving panties away to a GAY man?" I reraised the phone, which she was now looking at in horror.

" ' If Bob finds out how much of a slut..." I paused and swallowed, "how much of a SLUT I was acting like he may leave me.' So tell me...exactly big a slut was that? These areyour words, my dear." I said with a mildness which was deceptive.

"That is...I can't believe you invaded my priva..."

"Save it!" I snapped. "I invaded your privacy to try to save my marriage from my wife 'acting like a slut' with an unknown man whom afamily friend warned me was a predator. And I am supposed to ignore that? You admit yourfriends got the exact same impression I had. So don't try to change the subject on inconsequentials."

Sharon sat opposite me at the Formica kitchen table and put both her hands against her forehead. "Bob...why are we still on this subject? Why? You know they are gay! You know they aren't a threat! They have as much a chance of wanting me as I do of wanting Mrs. Pollentz down the road." Mrs. Pollentz was a 80 year old babushka type in our neighborhood. "And no...I didn't expect you to ignore it, but I would have liked a bit of courtesy! Maybe aconversation instead of an Inquisition."

I took a sip of my beer to muster my arguments. Even though it still fizzed it tasted flat to me "What are you wearing?"

She looked down at her dress. "It's my black dress. You are getting on me for my DRESS?"

"It is a sexually alluring dress. I asked you Wednesday where you were going. I gave you a chance to come clean. A chance to have a 'conversation'. You lied. He said in his text that heinsisted you go to a place with a hotel...and you come downstairs in your 'date' dress. THAT is why we didn't have a 'conversation'."

Sharon rolled her eyes. "Yes and I said that it was JUST a dinner between friends."

"That is not a dress you wear for 'just friends'. That dress is a message. You have never worn that dress except on a date. And every time you wore it with me...well...we got lucky that night. So choosing that is sending ME a message too."

"I wanted to look nice! So sue me!" She was obviously getting angry again. "They are GAY! How many times do I have to spell this out for you! He is not a threat! Are you so insecure that you need to worry about how things look?"

"No. I am not that insecure. It is nice to know thatyou don't care how other people look at me though." She visibly bit her tongue. "But if it is so innocent, why not say 'Hey...honey, I am going out to dinner with this nice gay couple' I have to wonder at a few other things, Sharon. Like why you didn't INSIST on the Red Horse."

"I don't owe you an explanation! I am an independent woman. I don't have to answer to anyone. Maybe I forgot about the change in plans."

I sighed. "No. As an INDEPENDENT woman, you don't need to answer to anyone. As a MARRIED woman, you have certain inconvenient obligations."

"Preach on, fine sir! Tell me ALL about those obligations as you're eating lunch with VICKIE!"

"Vickie is married.Vickie loves her husband.Vickie as you admitted in your texts, thought something fishy was going on. And Vickie..." I paused. "Vickie tells me that Luke is some kind of office Romeo. Because this has nothing to do with JUST the fact that he's gay" though I had a sinking feeling in my stomach about that, "but what kind of image you were sending to everyone else, with that dress, with your panties...I believe you described it quite well. The word starts with an 'S' and ends in a 'T' and has a 'LU' in the middle. Your words, not mine. You can't stand that your friends get the wrong impression with a video but now you think it's 'no big deal' when I bring it up?"

"Look...Bob! This is going places, BAD places. I came home happy that we were reconnecting. Happy that this stupid fucking useless project was coming to an end. That we could start to get to normal but then you drop this load of shit on our marriage. I DIDN'T CHEAT! HE'S GAY! Let's...just let this go. I don't like how I am seeing you. This...is so not worth eight good years together." She reached out to try to take my hand.

At this point, I wasn't feeling even that intimate with her. "So...he's gay, is he? Let's put that to the test." I hit the speed dial and set it on speaker.

"Hello? Sharon? Why are you calling so late?"

"Hi Janice. This is Bob, Sharon's husband. I had a question which needs a one word answer. Which gender does Luke Jonas like?"

You could hear the wheels turning over the phone line as the silence stretched. "Shit! You heard about that stupid dancing three weeks ago. Look, Bob, you have nothing to worry about! I swear! Yah, Jonas has a good line, but your wife REALLY loves you. Just because he slept with a few office girls doesn't mean..." There was a strangled sound from across the table from me.

I cut Janice off "Office GIRLS? I heard..." I gulped, "I heard he was gay from a reliable...well, supposedly reliable source." Sharon looked like she swallowed a firecracker she was so angry but was retrained by the fact there was an audience.

Janice continued back pedaling "Um...maybe I was wrong. He did sleep with Peter in Accounts...but I also heard about Marge and Rebec...um. Maybe he's ONLY gay and people got it wrong." The tone of her voice called this into question. "I really don't want to get in the middle of all of this. You two need to talk this out yourselves. Good bye...and don't do anything stupid." There was a click.

"He's bisexual." I started to rub my head. "He's BISEXUAL! What kind of gay guy would be hitting on a WOMAN every Friday for weeks? No gay guy. A BISEXUAL guy."

"Bob...he's gay...he TOLD me he was gay! Do you think I'd open myself up to a straight...oh...oh shit! Oh Bob, you've got to believe me! I didn't know!" Her face was pale and haggard beneath her make up. Trembling, he brought her fingers to her mouth.

"Tell me...when you were dirty dancing, did you ever feel an erection?" She gave a small sound. "I guess that is a yes. And I bet you thought it was FUNNY that you were able to give a gay man a hard on. I bet it was a nice ego boost that you were SO HOT you could give a gay guy an erection. I bet you felt SOOOO SAFE. And since you were SOOOO SAFE, well, wouldn't it be fun to act like a total...what was that word? Slut. Yes Slut in front of people. And if they got the 'wrong impression' you could trot out his little 'gay' act and show them what narrow minded little twits they were so you could feel SO superior to them. But in the back of your head, you knew I wouldn't like it or approve. So this was a stupid selfish game of yours. You are getting on me about a LUNCH and you do THIS?"

"Bob, I swear to you! Yes...yes! A lot of it was exactly as you guessed. It was innocent...for me, it was innocent. He...my God he had a HARD ON! How could I be so...he said it was Sam who gave it to him but he gave me a wink and...Bob... I swear. I wasn't going to sleep with him. I wasn't! Bob...this is...I...don't know where to go. Where do we go from here?" The sad thing was I believed her but while she only lied to me once, I was stuck wondering how much she had been lying to herself.

I looked at her in her date dress, with her lies and attacking her best friend. "You told me that you didn't know me after I accused you. I feel the same way about you. You really tried to make me think I was only a narrow minded little twit but things... are a hell of a lot more complicated then you let on. Monday, you go in to work and we find out the truth about Mr. Lucas Jonas and file a harassment complaint...and then well...it seems like our marriage is starting from zero after all..."

This is not a stupid woman. She is not knowingly a cheater. But...Vickie is not the ONLY evidence that shenanigans were happening.

I happened to like some of the twists that SJ brought to the story, so I tried to meld the two stories together.

So if you find missed points or inconsistencies...well, bring out the rotten fruit and have at me!