Rob and Cheri

"Watching you with other men never did a thing for me Cheri; what turned me on was the way you behaved when it was over."

"I didn't know that Rob and the way you acted when I did the first one came as a surprise and a shock to me."

"But you still went ahead and did more."

"I did it the first time because I thought it would please you, but the problem was that while it didn't please you it lit me up big time. After that first time it was almost all I thought about - doing something with a stranger. I had some large orgasms using nothing but my fingers when I thought about it."

"So, since the night of the pretend blow job you have been doing strangers for real?"

"No. I didn't start until after you got promoted. About a month after you started traveling I went out one night with Robin because I was tired of sitting home alone. We had a few drinks and danced with guys and had a good time. One of the guys I danced with was really nice and so when he hit on me I remembered the charge I'd gotten when I did the first one. I wondered if I got the charge because I was doing it for you or if I got the charge from just doing it and I let him talk me into going out to his car. I was only going to give him a hand job, but I got so turned on that I sucked him off. Since then I've gone out maybe once every two weeks or so when you were out of town."

"Every two weeks or so? What does that make it, a dozen men you have fucked behind my back?"

"No Rob, five or six. It didn't start right away. It has only been the last three or four months and I never -- I swear to God Rob -- I never screwed any of them. It was usually hand jobs and if the guy was really nice I might blow him, but not one of them ever screwed me. After I got home I got myself off with my fingers or my dildo."

"Your dildo?"

"I had to buy one Rob. You got me used to sex damned near all the time and it kind of left me hanging when you started traveling."

"You said that it was doing it with strangers was what turned you on, but last night you went on a date with a guy so he wasn't a stranger."

"I was getting a little worried about what might happen with me being alone. When we went out and played our game I didn't have to worry because you were always there, but if I was alone what if one of them wouldn't just settle for a hand job? And Dan seemed like a really nice guy so when he asked me if he could see me again I said yes. He knew that all he would get was a hand job and he was fine with that. But I didn't get a charge out of giving him a hand job last night. He was a stranger the first time and it was great, but he wasn't a stranger anymore when I did him last night and I didn't get anything out of it. Before I even came in the house I had decided that I wouldn't see him again.

"I never screwed any of them Rob. I swear to God I never did and I was never going to. It was just something that did so much for me when you weren't around and it never hurt you. It just made me more anxious for you to get home and when you did I couldn't keep my hands off of you."

"So what are you saying Cheri? That I should just shrug this off as a minor bump in the road of life and we should just go merrily on our way?"

"Yes baby, they didn't mean anything to me. I don't even know the names of most of them and outside of Dan I never saw any of them again. I love you baby and I don't want us to lose what we have."

"We have already lost what we had Cheri. The problem is that I don't trust you any more. You are too good at lying to me. You say you never fucked any of them, but can I believe that? You told me that that first blow job was just a story and I believed you and now I find out that you lied to me about that. You told me you were going out to help Robin with her sales parties and I believed it and now I find that you lied about that also. How am I supposed to believe anything that you say any more? And I have absolutely no intension of quitting my job so every time I was away I would have to spend my time wondering what you were doing. I can't live my life like that. I'm sorry Cheri, but I just can not live like that."

"I'll never do it again Rob, I swear, I'll never do it again."

"That's what you say Cheri, but how do I know that you aren't lying to me again. Christ Cheri, how do I even know you aren't lying to me when you say you love me? No Cheri, the trust is gone and without trust we have nothing to work with."

"That's not fair Rob. I love you and you know I love you. As far as the rest of it, okay, I lied. But what else could I do after the way you took it the first time? At least give me the benefit of the doubt on that one. I honestly thought you were getting off on seeing me play and tease other men. All I did was try to make it better for you. What else could I do but lie when you reacted the way you did. I couldn't say "oops, sorry about that." I had to cover it up. As for what I did when you were out of town all I can say is that I screwed up. I never thought you would ever find out and it wasn't hurting us a bit. If you were home I would have been with you and you know it. And I honestly thought that as long as I never let them screw me nothing was being hurt and I was getting so much out of it. You did reap the benefits when you got home.

"And I didn't lie when I told you that I would be helping Robin with her Avon and Mary Kay sales parties. I just didn't say that some of the nights I spent with her were not sales party nights."

"That was the same as telling me a lie Cheri and you know it. You know I don't like that slut and you knew that I wouldn't be at all happy to know that you were out with her while she cheated on her husband."

"I'm sorry you don't like her Rob; she is a very good person when you get to know her. And she doesn't cheat on Jerry. He got hurt in a construction accident a year ago and he can't get it up. He has given her permission to go out and get herself taken care of sexually. She does it and she always goes home to him.

"In all of our marriage Rob, whenever I told you I would do something I always did it. I'm telling you now that you can trust me to never do it again. I promise."

"You can just turn your back on what you have said was such a hot turn on for you?"

"It doesn't matter what it did for me Rob. As exciting as it was and as hot a turn on as it was for me, it could never take the place of you and what you do for me. I promised you Rob and I mean it. I will never do it again."

I sat there and looked at her and thought about the ten years we had been together and I admitted to myself that I did love her. But, and it was a very big 'but,' I was telling the truth when I said the trust was gone and a marriage without trust in it was not a strong marriage. Could we put things back together? I didn't know.

She sat there waiting for me to say something and finally I said, "I don't know what I'm going to do Cheri, but for the time being nothing has changed. I'll probably talk to a lawyer sometime this week. I have a lot on my mind right now and a lot of it isn't good so please just stay out of my way for a while."

I got up and went up to bed. I didn't sleep much that night and I spent a good deal of time staring up at the ceiling and thinking, but when I got up the next morning I had an idea of what I was going to do. The big question was could I forgive Cheri for what she had done and the only answer I could come up with was "maybe." She said she would never do it again, but with the trust gone could I believe her? There was only one way to find out.

That night when I came home from work I told Cheri that I had talked to a lawyer and that I had someone coming over to appraise the house. I led her to believe that the marriage was over and divorce was in the cards. I had a friend who was an electronics whiz and with his help I wired the house with recording devices while Cheri was at work.

Things settled out at work and I left on my next trip -- a three day, two night trip to Denver -- and I spent both nights that I was away wondering what Cheri was doing. When I got home the first thing I did was go down to my basement workshop and review the tapes from the tap on our phone. There was a lot junk on the tape; calls to and from her mother and sisters and a cousin she was close to. Half a dozen telemarketing calls and a call to an apartment find service. That call told me that Cheri did believe that I was done with her and I thought that believing that if she was going to do anything she would feel free to do it.

I found one of her talks with her mother to be very interesting. She told her mother that we were probably headed for divorce and when her mother asked why Cheri told her the entire story. She didn't sugar coat it one bit.

The first call of interest took place on my first night gone.

"Hello?"

"Hi good-looking, this is Dan."

"Oh, hi Dan."

"Look sweetie, it goes without saying that I had a great time last night and I was hoping we could get together again."

"Sorry Dan, but I don't think so."

"Oh come on sweetie; I know you were as turned on as I was. I'm okay with it that you won't give up your pussy, but I like dancing with you and you are a lot of fun to spend time with."

"I had fun too Dan, but I can't see you again. Sorry" and she hung up on him.

The next call of interest was the next evening.

"Hello?"

"Hi there sweetie, this is Dan. I know your old man is out of town again so I thought I'd try again."

"How do you know my husband is out of town?"

"Robin told me."

"You know Robin?"

"Who do you think put me onto you?"

"Robin told you that you could score with me?"

"Hey, she's a friend. She saw to it that we both got what we wanted."

"If she told you that you could get lucky with me then she isn't any friend of mine."

"Don't be that way sweetie. You liked it. When can we do it again?"

"Never Dan."

"I don't think so sweetie. We will get together again and the next time you will spread those pretty legs wide for me because if you don't a little birdie might drop a word to your hubby. And how would you like your family, friends and neighbors knowing that you pick up guys in bars and give them hand jobs?"

"For your information you fucking dirt bag I don't care who the fuck you tell. Tell the whole fucking world, just don't call me again or I'll call the cops and turn you in as a stalker" and then she hung up on him.

The next call was the surprise. Not the call itself, but what was said.

"Hello?"

"It's me Robin."

"What's up girlfriend?"

"I just had a disturbing phone call from a guy who said you pointed me out to him and told him he could score."

"That would be Dan I'd guess."

"Did you do that? Tell him he could score with me?"

"I told him if he played his cards right he might be able to. That's all I said, "might."

"Why would you do something like that?"

"I'm not blind Cher. I might have been a little busy with the guy trying to hustle me, but I saw you leave the bar with that guy the first night we went out together and I saw it again three weeks later when we went out again. Frankly, it surprised the hell out of me. I thought you and Rob were rock solid. He must have done something really bad to cause you to do something like run around on him. Anyway, I didn't like the looks of the guys you were hooking up with so I thought I'd see if I couldn't set you up with a nice guy."

"Well your nice guy just tried to blackmail me" and she told Robin just what Dan had said on the phone.

"That asshole! Don't you sweat him girlfriend. I know where the bodies are buried as far as he is concerned. Trust me on this; Rob will never hear from him."

"It wouldn't matter. Rob knows all about it. He caught me coming home from my date with Dan and I told him all about it."

"How did he take it?"

"Not well. He has seen an attorney and is having the house appraised so it can be sold and he hardly talks to me any more."

"I have to ask girlfriend; why did you do what you did? Why on Earth did you risk what you had with Rob?"

"Long story, but the short of it is that I thought Rob had a kinky side so I thought I would give him something I thought he would like and he hated it. Problem was that I got such a big kick out of it and I kept doing it and Rob found out."

"I want the long story girlfriend."

Cheri told Robin the same story she'd told me and then Robin said, "And he won't forgive you? He loves you for Christ's sake. Anybody can see that! And God knows you love him. There has to be something that we can do to keep a divorce from happening."

"That we can do?"

"Yes girlfriend, we! Friends help friends in time of need. We have to get the two of you back together. You belong together. I know how you feel about him and any fool who has seen the two of you together knows how he feels about you. Right now it is all about masculine pride and ego with Rob. Someone else soiled something that was his and he is bent out of shape over it. We need to get him past that. We need to give him an out; something that he can use to excuse what you did.

"How about you tell him that I was pushing you to get you to have sex with a guy I know and when you wouldn't I helped the guy slip you some date rate drug. That way you could tell him you were out of it and didn't know what was happening until it was too late."

"I already confessed Robin; he knows that I knew what I was doing."

"No, you just told him that so you wouldn't have to tell him the truth."

"The truth?"

"I took pictures of the first time and I blackmailed you into doing it again. You couldn't tell him that because you remembered what he did to Jerry and you were afraid he would come after me and hurt me and end up going to jail."

"But why would you do something like that to me?"

"Tell him it was because I always felt you were an up-tight "goody-two shoes" who looked down on me because I was always cheating on Jerry so I tried to bring you down to my level."

"But you don't cheat on Jerry."

"That's beside the point. How about we say I did because of what he did to Jerry and I was getting back at him through you?"

"Rob isn't going to believe any of that Robin."

"Sure he will. He doesn't like me and he never has so he will be only too ready to believe the worst of me. So, we give him some one else to blame and that will make it easier for him to forgive you. All he needs is a way out of the corner that his pride and ego have backed him into."

"You make it sound so tempting, but I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"I promised him no more lies and I always keep my promises to Rob."

"Not even to save your marriage?"

"A promise is a promise Robin. I gave my word and I'll keep it."

That was the last call on the recording and I sat there and stared at the device. It was true that I didn't like Robin and that I never had, but I had to give her high marks when it came to loyalty to her friends. I had no doubt that she would take the bullet for Cheri if she thought it would help. I might even have to reevaluate my feeling toward her. The other thing that came through loud and clear was the sincerity in Cheri's voice when she said, "I gave my word and I'll keep it.

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

Cheri and I are still together. I waited a week and then told Cheri that I had told the lawyer to stop work on the divorce action. She asked what that meant and I told her that I didn't know, that I had a lot to think about and that I wasn't going to rush into anything. A week later I told her that I had decided to give our marriage one more chance, but warned her that trust was still an issue and that there would be no second chance if she gave me any reason, any reason at all, to doubt that she was being honest and straight forward with me.

When it dawned on Cheri that I was saying that we were going to stay together and try to make the marriage work she threw herself at me so hard that we fell to the floor with Cheri landing on top of me. She was crying and tears were running down her cheeks and she was saying:

"I love you, Oh God I love you so."

Will it work out? It is too soon to tell. We are stepping lightly around each other as we try to get back some of what we had. The love making is satisfying even though it isn't as wild and intense as it used to be. There has been no mention of role playing and in truth I don't think I want to go there any more; it would bring back too many bad memories.

Trust is still an issue. Once you lose it it is very hard to get back. The recording devices are still in place and I have no plans to disconnect them. They give me a little peace of mind. Cheri might have been sincere when she said "I promise" but it never hurts to be able to verify.