SASG

That night I got to bed first, when Michelle crawled under the covers I rolled over to face her. I kissed her passionately – first time in nearly a week. She responded by kissing back. Most times when we made love I did the 'work.' I always worked on pleasing her, and she pretty much let me do so. Kissing me wasn't out of character, but taking hold of my cock was. She fondled firmly but gently. Two minutes later another out-of-character very rare event. Michelle climbed on top and lowered her pussy onto my cock. She was pleasing herself with her rocking and wriggling, but I got my joy from it, too.

It did not dawn on me that one the signs of a cheating spouse is doing something different in bed. Sure, she fucked from top dozens of times before, but it was always my idea, and it hadn't happened for a couple of years. I should have been suspicious, but I wasn't.

As it turns out, that was our last time as a loving couple.

***

Mark and Stacy wasted no time in becoming a couple. She and he sat together and snuggled every morning at the SASG meetings.

Paul finally said, "Mark, before you and Stacy run off and leave us high and dry, you should tell your story. Some don't know the circumstances of you becoming single again." He pointed to me. "Does Stacy know?"

"Yes, Paul. I told Stacy why I use a cane to walk. I know one of the 'rules' of SASG is that everyone tells why he/she is single. I will tell my story again, but soon we need to hear from X, too."

Mark looked at me. "Xavier, you know I use a cane to get around, right? I froze some toes off one night from running around stocking footed in subzero weather in Fargo, North Dakota."

Mark took off his baseball cap and parted some hair. "Can you see the huge scar on my scalp?"

"Yes." I replied, "I think you are leading up to an interesting story."

"True, true," he said as he showed me his left hand. "This hand doesn't open or close completely. I know you are panting to ask what these hurts have to do with my marriage."

"I might ask," I replied, "but I will let you tell me in your own way."

"One night I cooked supper for my then wife AJ. It was stir fry, and I used a huge skillet. Later that evening AJ used that skillet to crack open my skull and to destroy my left hand when I tried to defend myself."

"Mark, you are leaving out the why," interrupted Paul.

"I know. It just seems more dramatic to tell it this way. AJ got the mistaken idea that I had cheated on her. She got angry and used the first weapon she could find. I didn't have my shoes on when I escaped outside. It doesn't take long to freeze your toes in twenty or so below zero weather. I have seen AJ only twice since then. The last time was in an attorney's office for divorce discussions. By the way, I did not ever cheat on her."

***

The end of Mark's marriage was even more violent than mine, but there was violence.

It was a Friday afternoon. Business was slow. My boss at ABC Plumbing and HVAC told me to take my work van in for oil change and routine maintenance. He said to take the rest of the day off. I walked the three blocks from the garage to our shop, got in my car, and went home. I was thinking I would start dinner and have some wonderful food aromas to greet Shell. She would be home at about six. That would be plenty of time to prepare a surprise for her.

I was the one surprised though.

Shelly was already home, and she wasn't alone.

I did not expect to find anyone home so I started looking through the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator for things to cook. I must have made a bit of racket.

Suddenly I heard, "Axe, why are you home?"

I turned to see Michelle. She was holding a softball bat. Shell was wearing only a flimsy robe that was open in the front. The peek-a-boo effect of her breasts and fur covered mound should have made my little boy [it's really not so little] stand up, but the softball bat in her hands ruined the effect. I guessed that she had the bat because she heard what might have been an intruder.

The next thing I saw was a shirtless man who was pulling up his pants. It was that pompous asshole John V. Adams.

"What are you doing in my house?" I demanded.

"I was giving your wife her bonus for this month," he sneered, "or maybe it's her weekly bonus."

"I think you better leave now, Adams."

"Listen, Xavier, I will leave when I am good and ready. I was almost ready to leave before you barged in here, but now I think I will stay to give your wife another bonus. If you say 'pretty please' we might let you watch."

As I rolled my fingers into fists I said, "No way, José. You are leaving now. If you leave willingly I won't have to carry you out."

"You don't scare me. You're just an old washed up football jock. I know karate."

He attacked me then.

True, it had been a half dozen years since I was an offensive lineman, but I still remembered the moves. He charged at me and tried to do some sort of fancy kick. I ignored his foot and moved right into him. I used the simple move of just grabbing behind the head and pulling him down. Asshole Adams found himself on the floor within seconds. He got up and charged again. Again I took him down.

"Stop it. Stop it." I heard Michelle say.

Adams attacked me a third time. Just as I was starting to smash him down to the floor Michelle hit me with the bat.

Michelle hit ME. Michelle hit her very own husband. Michelle hit the man who loved her. Michelle hit me while I was busy defending myself from a so-called karate attack.

"OK, Uncle!" I shouted. "I give up. You can have her."

I rushed out of the room, ran to the garage, started the Alero, and drove off.

***

The crew of SASG, Paul, Mark, Stacy, and George, listened quietly and nodded their heads once in awhile as I related my narrative in late August. Samuel wasn't there yet.

"Well guys and gal, that was ten months ago. I have been on the move every since. Until I met up with you I didn't stay anywhere more than three weeks. Except for my car I left everything behind. I used credit cards until one day they quit working. So, I would travel until I got low on cash and then would get some low-paying temporary job for awhile."

"Did you ever contact your wife?" asked Stacy.

"No. And I don't plan on it."

"Maybe she has an explanation for what happened," suggested Stacy.

"Maybe so, but I think it would be something along the lines of feeling the need to experience other men – like she forewarned me a couple or so months before I caught her. George here knows how that was."

George nodded.

"Even if I could get over the infidelity there's no way I can ever excuse taking HIS side instead of mine. She hit me with a bat!"

Mark opined, "That's gotta hurt as much as a frying pan."

"Actually, she didn't use enough force to hurt me. Physically, that is, but the emotional hurt was severe. I, like you, decided I couldn't live with a woman who would do such a thing. That's why I left and why I have traveled. I am getting as far away from her as I can."

***

The softball bat was a gift from Michelle. It was given, of course, in happier times. Two summers after we got married I played on a softball team with a bunch of other guys from our high school. Michelle and some of the other wives sat on the bleachers to cheer us on. One day I admired a bat that a player on the opposing team was using. Believe it or not, the guy let me borrow it. I hit a homerun against them!

My birthday was a couple of weeks later. Michelle presented me with an identical bat.

I thanked her later with one of my favorite Shell pleasing activities: a toe, foot, calf, thigh, and so on massage.

***

Mark must have been doing some massages or other wonderful things with Stacy. She came to the SASG meeting all happy and cheerful. She made a point of waving her left hand in our faces. Duh, are guys blind to those things?

"Come on guys, take a look!" She demanded.

Her father, Paul, just sat there shaking from trying to suppress his laughter. "Stacy, you need to be more blunt with these blockheads," he said.

"Guys, what's that little thing on Stacy's left hand ring finger."

Now it hit us. Mark and Stacy were engaged. That little thing wasn't so little when you talk diamond sizes.

***

Michelle never did get a diamond from me. When we had the shotgun wedding neither of us was working and couldn't afford a diamond. My dad 'loaned' me enough to buy a wedding band though.

She never said she missed having a diamond.

Come to think of it, in the nearly seven years of our marriage she never complained about missing anything – except for the time she talked about not ever experiencing other men.

***

The next day you would have thought Samuel was a girl who just got a huge diamond engagement ring. He was practically dancing on his way to our usual booth at McDonalds.

"Hey, guys, you are looking at a hardware store owner!"

"What happened, Sam," asked Paul.

"Ta da! Yesterday the bank that held the mortgage on the family hardware store called."
Samuel quit dancing and prancing long enough to tell us that his ex-wife and her lover mismanaged the store, didn't make payments, and the bank foreclosed on it.

"The guy at the bank – an old friend of mine – said they'd give me a super sweet deal if I would buy the hardware store from them," Samuel crowed. "Of course, I said 'YES.'"

"Wow, that's great news, Sam," Paul said.

We all congratulated him and learned he would be moving west river in two weeks. He felt the need to give notice at Ace or he would already be gone.

Mark got engaged. Samuel got his hardware store back. George already had his new loving wife. Paul is reunited with his daughter.

Where's my happy ever after?

I was happy for my friends, but I was depressed when I went home to my Oldsmobile Alero in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

By then I had enough money from the dishwashing job that I probably could afford to rent an apartment, but the urge to move on might strike at any moment. I looked at the little calendar that was attached to the dash by the radio. Only one day until an anniversary. It was nearly a year since I drove away from my Boston home and Michelle.

Except for that day and a handful of uneasy feelings / suspicions Michelle and I had a great life together. I loved her, and I really thought she loved me, too. I probably still love her. If only she hadn't gotten that idea about experiencing other men. I often wondered about how things would have turned out if I had just simply taken the bat away from her and used it to beat her lover senseless.

In the morning I felt like shit. OK, I don't really go around feeling shit, so I don't know what it feels like. Nevertheless, I was not feeling well.

I drove to McDonalds because I wasn't feeling up to walking.

Even though the first of September was still a hot day in the Dakotas I felt chilled. I put on my jacket before going into McDonalds. I didn't bother with ordering anything. I just sat down at our usual booth. For the first time I was the first one there.

While I waited for the others I laid my head on the table. I suddenly was shivering and could barely breathe. No matter how deep a breath I took I just couldn't get enough air.

I felt a hand on my forehead. "Hey Dad, X, is burning up," a female voice said. I assumed it was Stacy.

I probably looked like a pathetic puppy dog as I struggled to breathe. "Dad, let's get him to a doctor."

Paul and Stacy helped me to my feet and guided me to Paul's car.

Stacy got out her cell phone. "Mark, we're taking Xavier to the clinic. He's sick."

"Pneumonia," is what the doctor announced after blood test and x-ray.

She proscribed some medicine and advised "go to bed and stay there for a day or two."

Stacy, who had stayed with me the whole time, took the prescription and led me to a drug store across the street.

"Hey, that's my wife's drug store chain," I told Stacy. "I didn't know they had stores this far west."

I shivered in a chair while Stacy took care of business at the pharmacy counter.

"Axe, is that you?" I familiar voice said.

Except for Michelle no one has called me Axe since I graduated from high school six or so years ago. I looked up to a friendly face, a face that wasn't so friendly a year – exactly a year – ago.

"Shell?"

Stacy had the medicine by then. She came up to me. "Here we are, X, let's get you home. You need to take a pill and get into bed."

"Who are you?" demanded Michelle "and what are doing with my husband?"

If eye-contact could make sparks there would have been a whole room full of them!

"He's your husband?" Stacy icily asked. "Are you the slut who used a bat to chase him out of his home?"

Paul showed up again. "Ladies, let's not have a scene. Xavier needs to get home to bed."

He turned to me, "Xavier, let's go. Where's your place?"

I wasn't about to admit in front of my friends, and the woman who once was the love of my life that I was homeless, but what could I say?

"Paul, come here."

He did. I whispered into his ear.

Paul, the diplomat, said to the women, "Xavier needs to be somewhere where we can watch over him. Apparently his place isn't suitable."

"He can stay in my room at the motel," said Michelle.

"Who are you?" asked Paul.

"I am Axe's, I mean Xavier's, wife."

I was feeling too sick to react. Stacy glared at Michelle. Paul just nodded. "OK, let's get him there."

I slept, I slept, and I slept some more. The medicine must have worked because I felt much better and could breathe again. I awoke to voices. I feigned sleep just so I could listen in.

"That's not the way Xavier saw it. He thinks you were taking the other guy's side in the fight." That was Stacy's voice.

"Yes, I understand now how he would have seen it that way. I was afraid Axe would get into trouble for hurting John. Axe is much larger and stronger, you know." That was Michelle. "Axe could have hurt him bad, and maybe get arrested or something.

"That sort of makes sense, but he was defending himself in his own home."

"I didn't take time to think about that. I was too scared. I was still in shock over Axe finding me nearly naked with John. Obviously I was not thinking clearly."

Stacy responded, "X is a wonderful man. I am proud to say he's one of my fiancé's friends, and one of my friends. I cannot imagine why you would cheat on him!"

"I didn't."

"What do mean, you didn't?"

"I didn't cheat. I was going to but Xavier came home before John and I ever got as far as the couch," said Michelle. As soon as I saw Axe in the kitchen I realized how foolish I was. I thought I wanted to experience other men, but I knew in my heart that Axe was really the only one for me."

Stacy bit off these choice words, "Ya, right, he's your one and only, but he's the one you hit with a bat!"

"As soon as Axe left I told John to get out and I swung the bat at him. He dodged, but left anyway. I was suddenly glad that Axe interrupted the affair before it started. I was glad that I was not unfaithful. My husband was going to hear me grovel and beg for forgiveness when he cooled down and came home. Only he never came home."

As much as I wanted to ease drop some more on the conversation I couldn't hold back the need to use the restroom. I tried to make it sound like I was just waking up

One of them said to me, "Can we get you anything?"

I said, "You can give me some privacy for a bit. My mother taught me that girls are not supposed to see my underwear." They both turned around while I walked into the bathroom where I closed the door.

The girls burst out laughing. "Who do you think stripped you down to your underwear while you were out it this morning?" Stacy called through the door.

"And I've seen your underwear, and what's under it, many times," added Michelle.

My bathroom visit took a long time because I sat there thinking about what I overheard. Shell didn't really side with Asshole Adams. Shell didn't really break her marriage vows. She came close to it, but didn't really go through with it. My year of running away, my year of misery, might not have been necessary.

"Stacy, Michelle, I am coming out. Is it time for me to take another pill?" I came out. Stacy was looking the other way. Michelle looked right at me and held out a pill.

"Thanks," I said after I swallowed it down. I went back to bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night. I was dripping wet from sweat. I felt like I was in the middle of a puddle. To me that was a sign that my fever broke. I rolled over and fell to sleep without realizing I had snuggled up to the person next to me.

It's amazing what some meds and a good night's sleep on a real bed can do for a guy. I awoke feeling refreshed and healthy.

"Good morning. I love you." said Michelle who was next to me in bed.

I don't think I could count how many times I woke up to those words for the six years we lived together. Was my year of exile just a dream? Healing and reconciliation are going to happen. I wanted Michelle back into my life, and it was plain that she wanted back into mine. I might not totally trust her again, but I remember what she said to Stacy – "but I knew in my heart that Axe was really the only one for me."

"I am sorry about what happened. Will you let me explain?"

"No."

"No?" She looked hurt.

"You don't need to explain. I overheard what you told Stacy. Speaking of Stacy, where is she?"

"Some guy named Mark came to get her last evening."

"So we are alone?"

"Yup. How are you feeling?"

"I haven't felt this good for a year."

"Do you feel healthy enough to give me a toe rub? My feet hurt. Oh, and don't stop with the toes, keep working your way up."

I started massaging her bare toes and feet. She purred like she enjoyed that. I massaged and massaged for a long time, eventually moving onto her calves. She enjoyed that, too. Thighs came next. My fingers kneaded and massaged until they were starting to ache. They stayed away from Michelle's pussy until her legs opened up to a V. There before my eyes and near my fingers was a triangle of pubic hair. Gently, but firmly, I rubbed paying close attention to the sensitive spot at the entrance of the pussy crevice.

Again Michelle purred. "Axe, I need you."

Without any guidance my cock found its way into Michelle's hot and juicy love opening.

***

For the first time since arriving in South Dakota I missed the gathering of the SASG. I suppose I don't really belong to it anymore. Stacy stopped by the motel. When we answered the knock, she said, "My, my do I see some honeymooners?"

"Well, Xavier, you are looking healthy. We expect you and Michelle to show up at McDonalds tomorrow."

"We will be there," Michelle answered for me.

No, we didn't spend the rest of the day and night screwing, but some of that did happen. We talked.

I learned that John V. Adams continued with his pursuit of getting into her panties until she threatened to file sexual harassment charges. He asked for a transfer to one of the other divisions, one that had offices in another town. Michelle got promoted to John's job. Visiting the various stores was part of her job as Director of Marketing and Promotions for the drugstore chain. That's how she happened to be in South Dakota.

"Axe, I want us to be a couple again. Will you come back to Boston? You can probably get an air conditioning job. You could even be fussy about the choice. I earn more now more than both of us did last year."

"Michelle, I have friends here. I would hate to leave them, but you are more important. I love you and I want to live with you."