Permission

She wisely shut up and stayed silent while I watched 'apartment guy' hurriedly dress and then head for the door. Once he was gone I told Kathy that she could sleep in the bedroom since she had fouled it with 'apartment guy's' presence and I would sleep in the spare bedroom.

"Tomorrow when I'm calmer we can talk and decide where we go from here, but you might as well know now that things don't look to good and you might want to start making a list of what you want to take out of the wreckage of our marriage.'

And then I walked out of the room before she could say a word, went out and got in my car and headed for the nearest bar. It was after midnight when I got home and Kathy was waiting for me in what used to be our bedroom.

"Rob honey, we need to tal..."

"I don't need a fucking thing from you Kathy except your fucking silence. I said we would talk tomorrow."

I grabbed my pillow off the bed and went across the hall to the spare bedroom. I locked the door behind me and it wasn't more than a minute before Kathy tried the door knob. Finding the door locked she knocked and called out:

"Rob? We need to talk Rob. We need to talk now Rob, not tomorrow, but now."

I put my shoes back on, opened the door and pushed by her. I got in my car and drove to a motel. In the morning I had breakfast at an IHOP and then around ten I went home. I found a red-eyed and haggard looking Kathy waiting for me when I got there.

"Where have you been? I've been worried sick."

"You wouldn't leave me alone like I told you so I left and went to a motel."

"But why did you behave like that last night? You told me I could go and then you went all freaky on me. I don't understand."

"You should. You have had all night to think about it."

"Think about what? You told me I could do it and then you went nuts on me."

"Think back to what I said to your stud. The part about going and getting the baseball bat he was concerned about. When did he mention me being inside waiting for him with a baseball bat?"

"When we were on the porch. But I told him that he didn't have to worry because you were okay with what we were going to do."

"What else did he say?"

"I don't know Rob. We were both a little nervous and we talked, but I don't remember about what. We were talking to hide our nervousness from each other."

"Well let me tell you what I heard. I believe the exact words were, "I have to admit when you told me two months ago you could get him to go for this I thought you were nuts." Remember it now? You have been planning to fuck that asshole for over two months now. Playing me for a fool. Or have you already been fucking him, but just wanted the extra thrill of doing it in front of me? I can't believe I fell for it. I listened to your "I just want to try another man once just to see what it would be like." Leading me to believe that it didn't matter who, just as long as it was someone different. Yeah, right! Didn't matter who and all the time the two of you were setting me up."

"It wasn't that way Rob."

"Oh no? Then what was with that bullshit you fed me Thursday night. "If I can't find someone within an hour of walking into whatever bar I go to it will be a serious blow to my ego." You told me that already knowing where you were going and who you were going to bring home. You played me for a sucker Kathy. You played me and I fell for it. All I can say is that I hope that it was worth it. As far as I'm concerned all that's left is to divide our stuff and call the lawyers."

"You can't be serious Rob."

"Of course I am. I need to get away from you Kathy. I don't want to be around when you start spreading pollen. I'll get out of the way and you and apartment guy can get on with what you were planning on doing."

I shook my head in disgust and muttered, "Two months. Two fucking months. I can't believe that I was so stu..."

"That's enough Rob!"

"What?"

"I said that is enough!"

"That isn't nearly enou..."

"Shut the fuck up Rob! If you think I am going to sit here and listen to a one sided rant you are crazy. You wouldn't talk to me last night, but you are going to listen to me right now. I have never had sex with Hal. I have never had sex with anyone but you. Did I want to have sex with Hal? Yes I did. With Hal or with someone else. Or Rob, or! Did I set you up as you claim? No I did not. I involved you, not set you up. My fantasy of wanting to experience another man has been getting stronger over the years, but as bad as I wanted to do it there was no way – no way Rob – that it was ever going to happen without you being on board with it. I don't care how strong the urge it is not going to happen behind your back.

"The first step was to let you know what my urges were and see how you would respond. I asked you about your fantasies knowing that you would ask me about mine and that is just how it happened. I explained to you what I wanted to do and why and you said I could. That brings us to Hal. Two days after the traffic jam aborted our plan for Hal I went back to the bar to talk to him. I stop in there every once in a while with some of the people from work and I wanted to be able to stop without having a problem with him. I told him that I was sorry, but there was no way we could do anything because of my feelings for you. I told him that when I came out of the bathroom I saw you and so I ducked back in and waited until he got tired of waiting for me and either left or went back to his seat at the bar.

"Every time I did stop he was there and he kept trying and I kept saying no, that I couldn't cheat on you and one day when I said I couldn't cheat on you, that there was no way I would go behind your back he said:

"Then don't go behind his back. Ask him if it is okay."

I told him that he was out of his mind and he said that he had heard of men who let their wives play around and that I'd never know if I didn't ask. That gave me the idea of bring you into my fantasy. I asked him if he could perform while being watched and he said that it wouldn't be a problem. So yes Rob, I did line him up as my partner two months ago and there was a reason for it. Did you think I was silly enough to walk into a bar, pick up some stranger and bring him home and take a chance on picking up a disease and passing it on to you? I told Hal he could be the one if I could talk you into it but he would have to bring me a letter from his doctor stating that he was disease free. That takes a little time. He got the letter for me two days before you gave me the go ahead.

"Was I trying to be sneaky? Not one bit. I knew you would recognize Hal as soon as you saw him and don't give me any of that crap that you would never see him. You might not stay in the room and watch, but I know you Rob and there was no way – no fucking way – that you weren't going to take a quick peek and see who it was."

"What about the charade of going out Friday and all that shit about your ego?"

"Would you have let me go if I had said, "Okay, I'll go pick up Hal and be right back?" I was gambling that once we were here you would accept it as a done deal and let it happen."

"Even if what you say is true I still feel like I've been tricked. When I asked you if you had someone already picked out you lied to me and said you didn't. You played me Kathy and I'm not the least bit happy about it. You know how reluctant I was to let you do it to begin with so you should have made damned sure that everything you did was out in the open and completely above board. You should have told me about Hal. Would I have been happy about it? Probably not, but I wasn't happy about the whole thing anyway. Would I have understood why if you had explained it before hand like you did just now? Yes I would have and I probably would have accepted it as a sign of clearheaded thinking, but the way you did it smacks of dishonesty.

"You said it yourself. You were afraid that I wouldn't let you do it if you told me you were leaving to go get Hal. That means that you knew what you were doing was wrong. I told you up front that if I said yes and it didn't go right we could be done and even knowing that you tried to hide things. And after all the years we have been together you don't know me well enough to know what I would think when I saw you with Hal? Given your sexual nature and all the games you like to play didn't you know that my first thought was going to be, "I wonder how long this has been going on?" You didn't think I wouldn't wonder how many times you had been to that apartment that you really, really wanted to see?"

"That's not fair Rob. I have never cheated on you."

"I only have your word for that Kathy and right now, with the seeds of doubt and mistrust you have planted in my mind your word isn't worth all that much."

"You can't seriously believe that I would have done that."

"Right now I don't know what to believe Kathy. It has been over six months since the night I was supposed to stop you from going to his apartment. That means that you have been seeing him and talking to him for six months and since you have always been home on time that means that you had to have left work early to meet with him. How early did you leave work? Early enough to go over to his apartment? You have opened a can of worms Kathy and they all crawled out and wiggled away. You are going to play hell trying to get them all back in the can."

"You aren't making sense Rob. Think about it. If I was already doing Hal why would I need to bring him here? Why wouldn't I just keep my mouth shut? And besides, if you heard the thing about the baseball bat and the two months then you also heard him ask if it was going to be worth the wait. Okay, I went about it the wrong way, but I wanted it and you had said yes and it was just so close to happening that I didn't want anything to stop it once it got started.

"I'll say it again Rob; I have never been unfaithful to you and I would never do anything that you were not aware of."

There were several very long moments of silence and then Kathy said: "What now?"

"I don't know Kathy. I have a lot on my mind right now and a lot to think about. For the time being and as long as you leave me alone I'm going to be staying in the spare bedroom. If you keep bothering me like you did last night I'll move out and do my thinking somewhere else."

"That's not fair Rob. You are treating me like I've cheated on you and I haven't."

"You haven't been honest and aboveboard with me either Kathy and that is just as bad."

I got up, went up to our bedroom and started moving my things over to the other bedroom while Kathy sat in the living room and cried.

++++++++++++++

And that is where things are now. I've been two weeks in the spare bedroom and Kathy and I are stepping gingerly around each other. I still don't know what I'm going to do.