Second Rate Love

I made a nice dinner for Friday evening, not his favourite, that would be too obvious. I dressed nice but not sexy, also too obvious. But just in case I had the STD all clear letter close to hand. I didn't think I'd need it tonight.

As usual we had a silent dinner and as it was a Friday, I got him a beer. I sat across the table from him and said. "Sweetheart, this is all my fault. I know I screwed up, but what can I do to make this right? I don't know what to do? Can I give you a free pass to have sex with another woman? Would that work? I need to make this right, because I cocked up. I know it's not just the sex, that's painful enough. It's the betrayal, the trust and the pain you felt. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about the betrayal that is going to be there forever. I can work on the trust. I know it won't be easy. I will do everything I can in my power for you to see you can trust me, that might take years.

"But the pain. Why was I was playing with somebody else, was I coming home, were you not good enough, what had you done wrong, and you sat there and couldn't think of a thing you had done wrong? Because you haven't. I can't take that pain away from you, but I can let you put me in that situation to feel the pain that you felt."

He wasn't looking at me, his face was blank. There was no emotion there. I took a deep breath. "You need to get your own back on me, you need to go out and have an affair of your own."

"I don't want one. You are the only woman for me. Obviously, I wasn't the only man for you." Shit that hurt, but I had to carry on.

"I'm not talking about a one night stand. Would it help if I gave you a free ticket to have sex with other woman between now and Christmas?" I took a large drink of my tea. "Please think about it and can we have a chat tomorrow."

I've known him for a while now and I could see him mulling it over in his head. He lifted his head and looked at me. "Yes, we can't carry on like this. You have given me something to think about. But I don't know. I've never loved anybody but you, so why would I want anybody else?"

Then he twisted the knife that was already in my heart. "Obviously you can't say the same thing."

That hurt. I deserved it. There was a risk here, but I wanted to keep him talking.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"You told me you had a loose tooth, or was that a lie too?"

I just shook my head. "It doesn't hurt so they said leave it for now." It didn't seem important.

"Well, I wanted to know how you got on, so I phoned you like I normally do. You didn't answer, so as you were in town, I was going to take the afternoon off and spend it with you, in case you were uncomfortable. And maybe take you out to dinner if everything was okay. I gave you a call, but it went to answerphone."

Shit, I looked at him. He had done that before. He was such a loving, caring man.

"So, I tracked your phone so I could find you in town and surprise you. But I saw you weren't in town. I had already found your car in the main town car park. So, I went to where your phone was, I saw it was Jason and Carrie's house. I didn't know what to do. Was it all innocent? Several things ran through my mind, why are you here and your car in the town car park? Was it a work thing, why haven't you told me you were visiting Jason in his house, was he ill?

"But when you're sitting alone in the car and your wife is in another man's house your mind goes to dark places. It did cross my mind that you were having an affair with Jason. I pushed that away. You wouldn't do that to us. Then I saw you leave by the back gate and give him a kiss, then it all came together. Why was your car in the main car park in town and you're using the back door? If it was innocent, you'd be in your car and not using a taxi and you'd use their front door."

He was repeating himself, he must be really upset.

"So, it must have been something you wanted to keep hidden from everyone, and the only thing I could think of was that you were having an affair. I had given you the benefit of the doubt. I wish to fuck now I hadn't. And I was right. Wasn't I?"

"It wasn't an affair, it was just the once."

He snorted at me. "Once, twice, 20 times you had sex with a man that wasn't me. You can't imagine the pain I felt sat outside his house and how bad it got as I saw you kiss him as you left his back gate"

"I only kissed him on the cheek." I was trying to defend myself, and not doing a very good job.

He was getting angry. "So, there, you've now made me re live all the fucking pain all over again for your gratification. Do you want me to suffer even more humiliation. You can fuck right off."

He stood up rapidly and his chair flew backwards across the kitchen. He stormed out the front door. Shit I had poured salt into an open wound. Tomorrow will not be good. I went and sat on the sofa. I have to wait until he comes home and try to do some sort of damage control.

He came in the front door about an hour later, I stood up but didn't rush to him like I wanted to. "Sweetheart please, I just wanted to talk. I didn't mean to cause you any more pain. I'm really sorry."

He just grunted at me and went upstairs to our bedroom. I just sat on the sofa and cried.

Please let me stop causing this man more pain. I wasn't very confident that tomorrow was going to go well.

When he came downstairs in the morning, I had the tea, toast and marmalade ready. There was more confidence in the way he came down the stairs. Bollocks he'd made a decision, but what was it? He sat down at the kitchen table, he poured my tea out first. He hadn't done that since last Friday.

I didn't get the chance to say anything. He started straight in. He had obviously been thinking about what I said yesterday. "I love you, and I probably always will. But I need you to feel the pain that I felt sat outside Jason's house. I need you to worry if I'm coming home to you. You need to worry that she'll do things for me that you won't. You need to worry that she loves me more than you do, and she won't want to go and find another man. I will be enough for her. You need to worry that I might fall in love with her. I need you to worry about what you've done wrong all these years that I've got to go and sleep with another woman. But of course, you will know what you've done wrong. You fucked another man. My only saving grace is I didn't do anything wrong. I need you to sit here alone at one o'clock in the morning wondering if I'm going to come home. And guess what, sometimes I might not. When you have felt the pain, you will see how much you hurt me. We might, and I say just might have a future in this marriage. There are no promises."

That was almost better than I could have wished for. Yes, If Angela was correct, I could give him every opportunity to punish me and if Sarah was on board, and my last chat with Angela seemed she might be, my marriage could be saved.

There would have to be rules. I suppose now is the best time to talk about them.

"Sweetheart I'm afraid there are going to have to be rules. Do you want to talk about them now or leave it till later?"

"Let's start now, that will give us time to sort out any disagreements. Because there are going to be some and I've been thinking and I've got a feeling what you're thinking about me doing isn't the same as what I'm thinking about me doing." That worried me a bit, but never mind. It's too late now.

"I would like this over and done with by Christmas Day."

"No." He said, the first disagreement on the first rule, shit. "It's over and done with by the 30th of November so we can enjoy Christmas if we come out the other side of this okay."

I agreed. I really couldn't disagree with that one. I started. "You can't go out with the same person twice"

"I'm afraid that doesn't work for me. Do you know how hard it is for a man to get fucked. It's easy for you. You just dress up sexy, get hit on by lots of randy blokes, open your legs and get shagged. Wham Bam thank you ma'am and Bob's your uncle. Job done. Unless you want a slapper like you, you have to woo, impress, take dancing, get dinners. pay court. Casual sex doesn't happen unless you want a slapper with all the risks that involves. Either that or pay for it."

"It wasn't that difficult for you with me." I knew as soon as I said it, I had fucked up.

He leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. "No, because love was involved." He stopped. This was going to hurt. And it did. "Nor were you difficult for Jason Wright." That hurt because it was true.

I pulled myself together, "Okay then you can't have sex with a person more than once."

"So I have to put all that effort in, or just one night. That doesn't work for me either, I've had to spend money on dinner, dancing I want more than one night. So come up with something else. I don't mind having a limit. Be it a number or a length of time."

"They're all good points, can I have time to think about them.?"

My plan to limit him to one night stands so they couldn't form a romantic attachment just fell to pieces. I wanted that in place in case Sarah didn't work out. Bugger.

I started on my next one. "Condoms?"

"Did you and Jason use them?" Fuck, this was not going well. I just shook my head.

"Then guess what, that's another thing you'll have to worry about. Will I bring something home? Will I get the girl pregnant?" This really was not going well.

We had to come up with a number or length of time. "Sweetheart, we've got stuff to do. Can we talk about this after dinner? But as far as I can see we need to come up with a limit, a number or a time. But it's agreed, 30th of November and no condoms if you wish."

He agreed so at least we had a way forward. I had housework and shopping to do. Simon said he had to fix the front door. It was just replacing a piece of wood and the door lock. He muttered something about a new UPVC door.

As soon as I could I phoned Angela, I told her Simon had agreed to the suggestion of him having an affair. But I did explain that it didn't go exactly according to plan, but it was things I could live with. In fact, I had no choice. Angela told me she would see Sarah over the weekend and see what they could come up with.

That evening I made him dinner. This time it was his favourite. I did dress sexy but not overly so. We had a nice dinner, we had wine I think because we had worked out a way forward things were settling down. After dinner we went into the living room. We sat at either end of the sofa, he looked at me. "Have you come up with the number?"

"No I'm struggling, it was only one afternoon. But once is not enough, it was three hours so perhaps three will do."

"I like the way you're using factual things to set the limit, but how about this and I trust you to be completely honest, because guess what I already know some of the answers. How many times did you fuck?"

"I don't know, they all sort of rolled into one but at least twice."

"How many times did you come?"

"Three." Where was this going?

"How many times did he come?"

"Twice." Now I had an inkling what he was thinking.

"OK I'll give you the benefit of the doubt one long fuck you came three times, he came twice that makes six. I get six nights with a woman."

It seemed reasonable, but I didn't want to give in too easily. I wanted to get that number as low as possible. "How about you get to fuck her five times, that's the same number of orgasms we had?"

"Okay, five it is." Perhaps a small victory for me, but then he carried on. "But I said nights, not fucks, you know I can go more than once with a sexy woman like you, and I certainly don't intend to lower my standards just because you did."

I do wish he'd stop twisting the knife because it hurt. Shit, I deserved It. He needed to get it out of his system, and if sniping at me was helping him do it, then bring it on. I would have to take it. I did wonder how he knew if I was lying, or perhaps he was trying to worry me into being honest. It worked. Right now, we have sorted that out. I needed to get back into our bed.

I tried to put on a sheepish look. Actually, that wasn't hard. "About us? I miss you sweetheart. I miss touching you, holding you, sleeping with you and being loved by you. How can we get back there?"

He got up and walked into the kitchen. That was when I noticed he'd finished his wine. He came back, topped up my glass of wine, brought himself a beer and sat down.

"I've been thinking about that as well. I'm not a monk. I do miss loving you, I miss having you in our bed, but I need you to be clean. So when you show me a piece of paper saying you've not got any diseases from that twat, I will think about it."

I got up and rushed into the other room and found my handbag. I had that piece of paper. I took it back and showed him. "Tonight, please sweetheart, I need to make things up to you please let me start tonight."

"I'll think about it."

He picked up his book and I turned the telly on, I wasn't paying much attention to it but I noticed he wasn't turning any pages. There was something coming. He closed the book and put it on the arm of the sofa, he swung around and looked at me. "Just tell me why?"

Bugger, the one question I really didn't have any sensible answers for, those I had were shallow and meaningless.

"I'm sorry sweetheart it was a mistake. I think it was the excitement. I was selfish. It was only ever going to be the once. I thought I could get away with it. You would never know, and it would never hurt you. Please I was never going to do it again." A nagging in the back of my head was that just after I left Jason's house I was considering doing it again. But that changed when I got to my car and I realised what I'd done. I really was never going to do it again.

"You planned it, you purposely set out to have sex with another man. With no regard to my feelings, I bet you didn't even think of me. I bet I was not even a consideration."

That wasn't true. I did plan this so he wouldn't find out and hurt him. But there's absolutely no point in me talking about that. I would never change his mind. In fact it would only make me look worse. I did think about him, and I went and did it anyway. I just looked down into my lap, there were tears falling into my lap. "Jason is out of our lives now." I said quietly.

"What!" He glared at me. "He may be out of yours, but it is still in here that he fucked you." He said tapping his head. "So no, he is not out of our lives. And add to that the fact he tried to kill me, and we still have a court case to go through." Shit, I fucked up again.

Then he carried on. "And what about Carrie and the children? How is this going to affect them?" He looked down into his beer, I think he mellowed a bit. "But I suppose if it hadn't been you, it would have been somebody else."

I took the opportunity and slid across the sofa. I put my arms around him. I didn't open my mouth because every time I did, I put my foot into it. He let me hold him and he put his arms around me. It felt good.

We did sleep in the same bed that night. There was no sex, although I did feel him get a hard on.

Angela phoned me on Monday. She had spoken to Sarah, and she agreed to help but she wanted to meet me. That would be a difficult conversation, but I had to go through it. I agreed and Angela arranged to meet Thursday lunchtime. We all met in the usual coffee shop. Simon knew that I was meeting Angela and she was helping me. Sarah was lovely, intelligent, bright, cheerful and very pretty. When she did decide to settle down, she would have a pick of men. I was completely honest with her. I even told her the rules. I admitted it was my mistake and I was using her to get my husband back. And if she wanted to make love or have sex with my husband it is something I would have to put up with.

She seemed okay with that. Then she stunned me. "What if I fall in love with him, change my mind? And I want to take him away from you?"

That was not something I had thought about, but the answer was simple. "That is the risk, that is my punishment. That is why I agreed to do this, I'm just hoping you're a safe bet."

She reached her hand across the table and touched me. "Good answer, I'll meet with him, if we hit it off all good and fine if we don't at least we tried. But from what Angela tells me he's right up my street." She gave a little giggle. I liked her.

We chatted and worked out how Sarah could 'bump into' Simon, and make it look natural. I told them I would find out the next time he was going to the pub and let them know.

Our house started to warm up a little bit, we started having sex and I think once or twice we made love.

Simon told me he was going out for a drink with some of the blokes from work the following Friday. As soon as I could, I let Angela and Sarah know. It would be a risk. Would Simon respond to another woman coming on to him in front of his workmates knowing he was married.

As soon as Simon left the house on that Friday. I got on edge. Bloody hell if Simon sat outside of Jason's house had a quarter of the worry that I've got going through my mind at the moment, no wonder he was upset. I was reasonably sure Sarah was a safe bet. But bloody hell this was bad.

Simon got in just after 11, I was still up trying not to look worried, I asked him how his evening went, that is what I would normally do, but I was dreading the reply.

"OK, we drank beer and talked shit, it was all a bit of a laugh. I lost two quid at pool."

Simon went upstairs, he wasn't too steady on his feet. At last, he seemed to be relaxing a little bit. My phone bonged with a text message. It was Sarah. "I'm two pounds up, I like him, I think he likes me. I think we can give this a go."

I deleted the text.

I didn't know whether to feel concerned or happy. Angela got a better debrief from Sarah and she filled me in on Monday. Simon was always the perfect gentleman. But it appears he was somewhat surprised as they left the pub Sarah gave him a kiss on the cheek and put a piece of paper in his hand with a message. The message said. 'If you're unattached I would like to meet up again' with her phone number.

He wasn't wearing his wedding ring. He didn't normally wear it, it was a work thing, missing fingers and all that. But he hadn't put it back on since that Friday.

Tuesday night at dinner Simon said to me. "I played pool with a lady on Friday, she wants to meet up. And I'm going to."

That was it, the game had started. My heart broke but I looked at him and said, "Yes my sweetheart." And smiled at him. But I think he may have noticed the tear trickle from my eye. I nearly shagged him to death that night.

Even though I knew he was safe with Sarah when he went out on Saturday night, I cried my eyes out. Again, I was still up when he came in, it was just after midnight. I had to know, I had planned what to ask him. "Did you have a good night my love?"

"Yes, it was fine."

"I'm sorry my love, but I have to ask. Is this day one?"

"No, I will tell you when it is, I understand you need to know." He went upstairs to bed and I quickly joined him and hung on to him.

In the morning I woke him up with a blowjob. I need to fight for him. I would do anything. When we had finished tea that evening, he was sitting on the sofa reading his book, turning pages this time, I got on my knees in front of him and said. "Sweetheart the pain I went through last night cannot match what you went through sitting outside Jason's house. But I'm getting a sense of the hurt I caused you. I really am so very sorry." I got up, kissed him and sat back on my end of the sofa. He looked at me, smiled then moved his leg onto the sofa so that it brushed my thigh. We used to do that a lot.

I got the full debrief from Angela and Sarah in the coffee shop on Thursday. It wasn't what I was expecting. Simon had been completely honest with Sarah. He repeated almost word for word what I had told her. But he added one thing. He did not intend to sleep with Sarah. But if she was happy to go along with it, they could carry on seeing each other until the end of November. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. How fucking stupid was I to betray this man?