Poetic Justice

POETIC JUSTICE

By Vandemonium1

G'Day again folks. Sorry for the drought but I've been flat out like a lizard drinking at work and trying to get another one published but it was rejected twice. Oh well, it is fated only to be read on the blog I share with CTC. Recently my readership reached 10,000,000 and all I can say is Wow! If you'd told me that seven years ago I would have choked on my lower intestine. I feel thoroughly humbled and sincerely thank you all for taking this journey with me. As always, my sincerest thanks to my editor and my partner in life and crime, CreativityTakesCourage, as beautiful as she is talented.

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WENDY

To this day, I don't know if it was a sigh, a cough, a breath of air stirred up by my husband's presence, or something on a more psychic level that made me open my eyes. I do recall having an inane, endorphin spurred goofy grin on my face attesting to the success of John's recent efforts.

He'd taken longer than usual to get me into bed that afternoon; I'd been still worried. Once he overcame my objections and prised my legs apart, however, he'd been like a man possessed. Whether he was especially worked up by his efforts at seduction, or because he'd known we had less time than normal, he'd attacked me like a demon. The novelty of this approach had excited me like never before, and within what seemed like a mere minute or three, I'd had John's cum running out of me and fading contractions from my own powerful orgasm.

However, after about a minute of John's full, relaxed weight restricting my breathing, open my eyes I had.

Wendy, the happy housewife, the better than average mother, and, until recently, loyal wife, died right then and there as I looked across the room at the man standing in the doorway. Dave, my loving husband. The father of my children. Easily discernible in the mid-afternoon light slanting through the curtains of our marital bedroom.

One look at the devastated expression on his face sent my gaze inward, anywhere other than at the agony directly before me. Time slowed; my brain flitted from subject to subject. Anything was preferable to facing the realisation of the damage my actions had caused. No imagination was necessary on that front. Even if I was one of those people that struggled to recognise emotion in the demeanour of others, and I was far from one of those, the look on Dave's face was pain personified. No tears; just extreme..., well, pain. Few of my thoughts from that moment were committed to long term memory, thanks to the human reflex of burying memories of extreme trauma, so I'll recall them as best I can.

I do remember mentally kicking myself. After the incident the previous week, I knew I should have trusted my instincts and not met with John for a while, but after a week of observing Dave closely, lust convinced my logical mind that he remained clueless to my four-month affair with our next-door neighbour.

I was proud of my status as model wife and mother in our community of young families. I fully realised everyone we knew looked upon us as the perfect couple and I loved it. Unlike most of our female friends, I didn't need to work. To play up to my image, four years prior, I started putting the kids in day care once a week and volunteered at a local charity shop. Life settled into a routine after that, until that fateful party, next door, at John's house.

It was almost a perfect storm. The kids were at my Mum's, I'd had a few wines, and I was horny. Very horny. I'd just slurred into Dave's ear to take me home and have his wicked way with me when his damned phone rang. He was on call for his company that weekend, that's why he wasn't drinking. He left, leaving me swaying and dripping.

John, with whom I'd harmlessly flirted over the years, and who was also three sheets to the wind, volunteered to escort me home. His wife can't have missed him for the ten or fifteen minutes it took to walk me home, then kiss and grope me, before taking me quickly and roughly on my own bed. The newness and sheer taboo naughtiness of the act made it explosively good for two long-married spouses.

When, several days later, John came over during a workday to discuss the incident, the conversation centred on how we could continue without being caught, rather than expressing regret or swearing to never repeat it.

By comparing notes, we quickly decided that Wednesday afternoons were the safest times. It was my volunteer day and the only day John could sneak off between meetings. I told the family I'd volunteered to work longer on Wednesdays. In reality, I took off an hour earlier, at 2:00 p.m. I arranged for Karen, a neighbourhood eighth grader, to take our two kids home with her after school and entertain them at her house until 5:00 p.m., before bringing them home. That gave me two and a half hours with John every week, before he had to leave for a regularly scheduled 5:00 p.m. meeting.

With our respective spouses still at work until after six, it was most convenient for John to hide his car up the street, sneak through our backyard fence, and meet me in my bedroom. That way, there were no motel bills to hide, or possibilities of our cars being seen somewhere they shouldn't be.

The arrangement had worked flawlessly for months. So well, in fact, that the affair was getting a little routine and boring. I felt it, John felt it, and we both knew it was almost time to call it quits. The natural time to do that would have been after the terrifying events of the previous week.

That week, John and I had sex, talked, had sex again, then stupidly fell asleep. The sounds of children downstairs roused me. It was 4:45 and Karen had brought the kids home a little early. I woke John and told him I'd distract them, so he could sneak out the back door. He mumbled something incomprehensible back in his torpid state. Slipping on a dressing gown, I walked down the stairs, said hello to Karen and the kids and gently tried to steer them toward the kitchen. Karen was in a chatty mood and just wouldn't co-operate. I had her in the entrance to the kitchen when she looked over my shoulder and abruptly stopped talking. Glancing the same way, my blood froze, then boiled. There was John, doing up the buttons on his jacket, walking down the stairs. He muttered something about being late for an important meeting and disappeared out the back door.

I looked at Karen and immediately experienced the deepest sense of shame I'd ever felt. My immediate thought was the harm it would do to my reputation, followed quite a while later by the devastation it could wreak within my marriage. I guess that tells you better than anything what an entitled bitch I'd become. I separated Karen from my kids and went into damage control. Karen was old enough to know exactly what John and I had been up to but also old enough to have seen the damage divorce did to other families in the neighbourhood. I had yet to extract a promise of silence from her when Dave also came home a little early, at 5:05 p.m. Before I could stop him, he'd offered to run Karen home as it was raining. I sweated the whole fifteen minutes he was gone, especially as it should have been a five-minute round trip.

I was mainly mollified when he returned acting as normal as ever. That didn't stop me from observing and analysing his every word, action, and look for the next week. The lingering memory of that terrifying quarter hour was the reason I'd tried to cancel John's visit that fateful week and why, when I finally allowed him to spread my legs, he'd been in such a hurry.

I'd just gone through many minutes of reminiscing, but logically only seconds could have passed since I'd opened my eyes. All I could think was, wow, is that what they mean by the prospect of imminent death slowing time down. Over John's still heaving shoulder, I stared into Dave's eyes and the look of utter devastation they portrayed.

The next few seconds were busy. I sucked in a huge breath. What I was going to use it for remains a mystery. Perhaps it's an autonomous response connected to the flight-or-fight response. Regardless, it alerted John to something being wrong. He pulled his head up from the crook of my neck to look at my face, saw me staring over his shoulder, turned his head and followed my gaze, saw Dave's face just as a single tear escaped his left eye, and croaked a heartfelt, "Fuck!"

That broke the spell.

With a shake of his head, Dave turned and disappeared from the bedroom doorway. With John's weight still on me, all I could do was listen to Dave storm down the stairs and slam the front door behind himself.

In the months that followed, no amount of justification could assuage my conscience. I eventually, reluctantly, faced the fact I was quite a shallow person. Not surprising, really, after a childhood spent being spoiled by wealthy, doting parents plus the early attainment of puberty, which got me lots of attention when I was mentally ill-equipped to cope. I finished school as one of the best-looking girls in my year and the word 'no' was not one I heard often. In my limited experience of the world, I had already learned I could have any guy I liked, when I liked, and once caught I could manipulate him pretty much on demand.

I easily captured the heart of Dave in Year 12 after subtly pursuing him. Dave would say he chased me, but he was wrong. I just made him think he was doing all the work. I manipulated this big, handsome, ambitious, and talented guy until he proposed. Life continued to hand me gift after gift - a better than average house, zappy cars, two beautiful children, all the best people wanting to be in our group. All this fed my sense of entitlement. The world was my oyster and I had only to ask in order to receive. Funny, when I'd never worked a day in my life.

Thus, when John offered effortless great sex to augment sex with Dave, which, frankly, needed effort to keep exciting after years of marriage, the entitled bitch in me hesitated for not nearly long enough for rational thought.

I don't want you to get the impression I'm a brainless bimbo. My parents passed on more than their superior genes in the looks department. Of course, I'd considered the effects on my marriage if my affair came out. There was also a certain level of guilt, sure. Admittedly, it was mostly when Dave would do something sweet and loving like bring home some flowers or surprise me with an impromptu date night. Guilt was pushed into the background, with everything else that threatened my perfect world.

With guilt buried, the fear of getting caught was only relevant if I was discovered, wasn't it? I never thought I'd be caught, so had no more than vague thoughts of the effect on Dave. It embarrasses me now, how I, as an intelligent woman, never for a moment thought about other ramifications Like the effect on my kids and my reputation; the friendship I shared with John's wife, and the damage to his marriage. How I'd be viewed by other women in our large social group. Maybe I am a bimbo after all.

Perhaps, that is why, to distract myself from the pain on Dave's face, my mind flitted through all those hitherto unthought thoughts and I caught a glimpse, just an instant's view, of my future world. That glimpse was unacceptable. Damage control had to commence immediately. I remember the words, 'RIGHT NOW' screaming into my head. Anything to avoid facing the pain I could still see on Dave's face, even when I closed my eyes.

JOHN

To my shame, the first thought that I remember going through my mind, when I saw Dave looking at us, was the effect it would have on my marriage. Sure, Jenny and I weren't the perfect couple, like Dave and Wendy, but I loved her in my own way and the thought of losing access to my kids was mentally crippling. No, don't go there, John.

I mentally kicked myself for not taking more care when Wendy told me about our close call after our stupid actions of the previous week. I'd still been half asleep when I walked down the stairs and thought a 14-year-old was no threat to me. It was now fairly obvious that Wendy's fears had been grounded in fact. That damned girl who looked after Wendy and Dave's kids on Wednesday afternoons had blabbed. My arrogance with respect to her, plus the fact that I was on shaky ground at work and couldn't afford to be late to that meeting, made me stupid and in too much of a rush to escape the house. I should have waited for Wendy to distract the kid.

In my own reflections, later, I came to believe that my justification for seducing, then continuing an affair with Wendy, was to compete with Dave, the perfect husband. I was far from that. In a nutshell, I was jealous of him. He loved his wife, his kids, and his life in a very genuine way. That was obvious to everyone that met him. It wasn't just an act, like Wendy's. Now I realised that aside from wrecking my marriage, in the social fallout to come, if this got out, I would come out of this whole deal as the villain. Second best to Dave once again. In seconds, I realised that this couldn't, under any circumstances, ever see the light of day.

That's why, when Wendy tried to push me off her, I was slow to respond. By the time we dressed and were able to go after him, Dave would be long gone, which was what I wanted. No, the best action at that moment was planning. I gently restrained her until she gave up her efforts of escape.

"Wendy, you know him best; what will he do?"

She was having trouble understanding my words, so I gave her time to process them.

"He..., he'll go somewhere quiet and get his head around this. Oh, John, what have I done?"

"Don't worry about that, Wendy. We have to stop him telling Jenny."

I saw anger flare in her eyes. So typical of the selfish bitch. She was an innocent, entitled victim in all this. It couldn't possibly be her fault. Looking around for someone to blame, she chose the closest and easiest person to lay it on.

"You selfish prick. Typical of you to only think of the effect on you alone."

I instinctively knew that the only slim chance of us getting through this with our marriages intact was if we approached the problem with a united front. I sat up, still gently but firmly holding her arms.

"Listen, Wendy, think this through. What is he going to conclude in all his soul searching? He won't shout it to the world. That would rip his family apart. You know that whatever he proves will only result in him losing his kids. Plus, there's his standing in the town to consider. Do you really think for a second that he will go nuclear and make himself the laughingstock of the town? You know how important his reputation is to him. Is he really going to tell the world he couldn't even satisfy his perfect' wife?"

I could see Wendy pushing her emotional reactions to the back and seeing the logic of my words. I forged on while the iron was hot.

"No, Wendy, he won't do that. But he might strike out and try to hurt me. The easiest way for him to do that is to tell Jenny. Share his pain by causing me some. You know Jenny as well as anyone, you've been friends for years. Will she hesitate for a second lashing out at me and in the process, out us to the world?"

I could see I was getting through, so gave her time to think. It took half a minute before her relaxing told me she was following my thoughts.

"So, what we have to do is find him and convince him that it is in his best interest to not tell Jenny. With her removed as a threat, I'll be able to help you bring him round. I'm sure there's no limit to what he'll accept to keep his kids and his reputation."

Her next words proved she was not only understanding where I was coming from but much further along the road to rationalising her guilt than I thought.

"Maybe we've done him a favour. Women are always coming on to him. Maybe he's had his own naughty moments and will see what we've done as a way of clearing his conscience a little."

I thought back to the look I'd seen on her husband's face, minutes ago. There wasn't the slightest piece of relief in those eyes. Just pure pain. Besides, Dave just wasn't capable of something like that. That's one of the reasons I admired him so much. But, if it helped her follow my recovery plan, what could I lose by going along with her delusions?

"Very possibly. I think what we need to do is to find him before..."

"Wait, did you hear his car drive away?"

I thought back. Front door slamming but no sound of a car. Wherever he'd gone, he'd walked. To my house? God, no! That was bad. Worse was the possibility that he was still in the garage attaching a hose to his exhaust. I knew him well enough to know there was a possibility he would take it that badly. I leapt up and threw my boxers on, vaguely aware that Wendy was right behind me, unbuttoned dressing gown flapping behind her.

Reaching the back door, I mentally prepared myself for the potentially devastating emotional sight I might be faced with. Quickly thinking that if he wasn't there, then it would take several valuable minutes to go back upstairs, get dressed and reach my house. Jenny wouldn't be home but what would Dave do. Kick the door down and wreck the place? Whatever; I would be busted.

My quick mental preparation turned out to be woefully inadequate. What I saw, no amount of preparation could counter, and I knew my life would never be the same again.

One of my guesses was partly correct. Dave was in his car, but there was no life ending hose attached to the exhaust pipe. What there was, was much more devastating. Dave, the strong man, the role model for every father within ten blocks. A guy that I admired and looked up to, was sitting in his car staring straight ahead, with tears cascading down his cheeks.

As I watched this fine man behaving in such a broken way, it hit home like a rushing freight train. I caused this! Had my jealousy for this man, with talents I could never compete with, have really caused me to tear him down? Break him?

My sudden pain was briefly distracted when I heard a groan of anguish and saw Wendy sinking to her knees beside me. I knew exactly how she felt.

How many minutes the three of us stayed in this tableau is anyone's guess, but I was the first to recover. Forcing my devastation down, I reverted to my, no, our plan. I sidled to the open driver's door and began tugging on Dave's elbow. Wendy joined me. Like an automaton, Dave responded to my pulling and I eased him out of the car. His eyes were dull and staring; the tears still falling like a river. Wendy must have regained some of her composure because she helped me guide her stricken husband back through the door and seat him at the kitchen table. She and I took seats on the opposite side. I looked at her, noting the distraught look on her face that I was sure was mirrored on my own. Bizarrely, I noted how tawdry she looked with her make-up smeared by her copious tears. She gave me a tiny nod which I took to mean proceed with my plan. A plan I now knew had to include not only saving my marriage and reputation but assuaging my conscience as much as possible. I'll tell you for nothing, at that moment I would have offered him my wife if it would erase even a tiny fraction of what I was feeling.

I'm not sure of the details of what I spoke about for the next however long. Not just me, Wendy added her two-cents-worth as well. There were apologies and justifications, of course, but mainly I tried to rationalise what would be in his best interests going forward. That, of course, included advice that it was in his best interests to tell no-one. It began to frustrate the hell out of me that none of my efforts appeared to be penetrating. Dave just sat there with a dead, teary stare.