Shock & Awe

It was one of those dreary, rainy mid April days common in northern Pennsylvania. I was sitting on the couch, nursing a beer, and watching my favorite hockey team lose another important game. I remember thinking that if this trend continued, there would be no post season this year. It was at that time that my wife entered the room. She stood for a moment, looking at me, and then picked up the remote, and turned off the television.

She looked at me, and then took a seat opposite where I sat, and then the silence began. Over our ten years of marriage, I knew her tells by now, and knew that something was bothering her, and she was trying to figure out how to tell me what it was. I also knew that she wasn't mad, because if that was the case, she would have had no problem starting in on me the minute she entered the room. I also knew not to try and pry it out of her, and just wait for whatever she had to say.

After a long moment of silence, she looked at me, and timidly said, "I want to start seeing other men."

Not being completely certain that I heard her correctly, I said, "What?"

After more silence, she said in a firmer voice, "I want to start seeing other men, and when I say seeing, I mean sex, and I don't want to do it behind your back."

This time I heard her clearly, and my genius of a brain could only spit out, "Huh?"

"Why are you making this so difficult?" she asked.

"Difficult? Me? I'm not making anything difficult. I'm just trying to process what you're telling me dear." I said.

"Oh... I'm sorry. I'm just very nervous about talking to you about this."

She was nervous! What about me? Hearing something like that coming from my wife had me filled with a mixture of emotions. Most of which I didn't have time to understand or make sense of. I just looked at her with that deer in the headlights look. She must have thought I was an idiot. Before I could say another word, she continued.

"I know this is a shock and a surprise to you, and I know you must be upset, but please let me try to explain." She said.

"I don't know what there is to explain. You just waltzed in here and told me you don't love me and you're going to have an affair." My anger was starting to rise, which was not a good thing.

"I didn't say that I don't love you, and I'm not going to have an affair!" She replied. "Well... not right away anyway. And stop putting words in my mouth! You do that all the time! I don't want this to be an argument. I want us to discuss this like reasonable adults! Can't we please do that?"

"Sure, sure." I said sarcastically. "Let's reasonably discuss my wife fucking another man, and making me a cuckold. Or, is it different if I know you are doing it?"

"This doesn't have to go this way. If you would just let me explain my reasons, then we could come to an agreement, and move forward." She said.

I took another long drink of my beer, and took a deep breath and waved my hand, as if giving her the floor.

She looked a little more confident as she spoke. "I've felt that we have been growing apart these past months, and I'm not saying that's your fault. I don't believe it's mine either... I guess it's just something that happens between married couples after awhile."

"I have felt the distance too, but I assure you, an affair is not the answer." I calmly said.

"Will you please let me finish? If you keep interrupting, I'll never get this out. It's not easy for me you know." She said.

"Ok, I'm sorry. Please continue." I said knowing the sarcasm was coming through again.

"The drifting apart is not the only thing that's been bothering me, but it has added to what I'm feeling. It goes back to when we got married. I was a virgin and you were not. Remember?" she said.

"Yes, I remember, but what's that got to do with anything?" I asked.

"You had the chance to be with other women. I have never been with anyone but you, and before you say anything, I'm not blaming you for that. It was my choice to be a virgin on our wedding day, and it doesn't matter that you had women you were intimate with before we knew each other. That's not what this is about. It's just that, now, I've been thinking and wondering what it would be like to have a different lover, and it's something that I want to experience." She said.

"I don't know what to tell you. I would've married you if you were a virgin or not dear, so I don't see what relevance that has now. You're a married woman. Do you want a divorce?" I replied.

"No. I do not want a divorce." She emphatically said. "I love you and want to grow old with you. You're the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. You're not understanding what I'm saying to you. This is not something that you can fix and just forget about. I am going to do this, and I am begging you to please understand and eventually be OK with it."

"Well, if you love me like you say you do, and you don't want a divorce, then what else is there to talk about? I'm not going to be OK with my wife screwing other men for any reason." And with that, I chugged the rest of my beer, and walked out of the house.

I got in my car, and tore off down the road, going nowhere in particular in a hurry. I just had to get out of there, before things got worse. That's a hot one! Got worse! How could it get any worse? After driving for an hour or so, I realized I'd be walking soon if I didn't put some gas in the car, so I found a convenience station, and stopped.

I couldn't stop the images of my lovely wife with another man from filling my brain. Seeing this faceless man run his fingers through her long blond hair... Seeing her part her lips, and allowing his tongue to enter her warm mouth... The movement of his fingers under her blouse and fondling her D cup breasts... Kissing, and sucking her sensitive nipples... Hearing her moan as he slipped inside her. Fuck! This was driving me insane!

The whole time I was fueling up, I tried to make sense of what just happened. I pulled into a parking spot and started to arrange my thoughts, and plan my next move, although, any moves I made seemed out of my hands. I felt completely at my wife's mercy and her stated intentions. Everything seemed to be in her hands, but I did have some options.

For one, there was divorce if she actually screwed someone else. That wasn't appealing at all. I would be damned if I would give up half of everything I worked so hard for in the last ten years! I was not about to pay someone for things I already paid for, not to mention give up half of the pension I had earned.

Another option was to pack up and move out, but what good would that do me? I would be out of the way, and she could just bring her new friends home to fuck in the bed I paid for! That certainly wasn't going to happen. I could always try to throw her ass out, but her name was on the house, so she had as much right to be there as I did. It was beginning to look like I was fucked, and not in the good way.

The last option I could think of was to go home, and tell her to go ahead and do it. Right! Like that was gonna happen! For the time being, all I could do was go home, and hope that she'd come to her senses before she did something stupid. That wasn't very appealing either, but that's what I decided to do.

It was after midnight when I pulled into the driveway, and the living room light was still on. When I walked into the house, I found her sitting right where she was when I had left. "Can we please talk some more about this?" she asked.

I ignored her and went straight up the stairs to our bedroom, got undressed, and slid beneath the covers. About ten minutes later, I felt her slide in with me. She snuggled up against my back, and whispered in my ear, "I really do love you Steve."

My reaction was to shrug my shoulders, and move away, hoping she wouldn't move closer. The last thing I wanted was to be held by my soon to be cheating wife. This was going to be a very long night, and I had to go to work early the next morning, and my ass would be dragging for sure.

She had breakfast ready for me the next morning, which was not a normal thing for her to do. I do love a good breakfast, but I just looked at the bacon, eggs, and home fries, poured myself a coffee, and walked out the door. I wasn't sure, but I thought I heard her crying as I closed the door. I hated it when she cried, but this time, I felt no guilt or sympathy at all for her. This was all her doing, not mine.

Work was futile to say the least. I accomplished nothing all day long. All I could think about was the previous evening, and was dreading the end of the workday, and going home.

When I walked in the door, I smelled a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen. She called out that dinner was almost ready, and that there was a cold beer for me out by the pool. My wife was really pouring it on, I thought. She rarely cooked, let alone have a cold one waiting for me.

After changing out of my work clothes, I went out to the pool, sat down, and started drinking my beer. There was no use in wasting a good beer, I thought. Just before I finished it, my wife walked out with one of my favorite meals. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I know it sounds too simple to be elegant, but I am a man of simple tastes.

The meal was fantastic, even though we ate in silence. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. I had paid little attention to her, since I got home, and it now dawned on me that she was dressed very sexy. Way too sexy for a normal evening at home. The first thing that crossed my mind, was that she was trying to seduce me to get her way, but there was no way in hell I was game for that!

I glanced her way, and said, "You look very nice tonight Lynn. What's the occasion?" still thinking that she was dressed for me.

"Well... I have a date tonight." She quietly replied.

Ice filled my veins, and I felt like I had been gut punched. That wonderful dinner, was threatening to come out, and I'm sure what I was feeling, was written all over my face. I looked at her, and she hung her head for a moment, before looking me right in the eye, and saying, "I'm not going to let you make me feel bad about this." Then she stood up.

I looked at her more closely now, and the first thing I noticed, was her new dress, and how deeply it plunged in the front. The dress hugged her 38-24-36 figure perfectly, accentuating every luscious curve of her body. It was also shorter than anything I had ever seen her wear before, and I wondered if she wore any underwear at all underneath it. My first clue on the underwear was how proudly her erect nipples poked through the thin material.

This was a bad situation, and it was getting worse by the second. Before I could regain my composure, and muster a reply, she said, "I am not going to fight with you about this. I love you with all my heart, and you should love me just as much."

"My dear, I do love you, and that is what's so upsetting to me. How can you expect me to be OK with this?"

Her argument was the same as before, about not having had the opportunity that I had, before marriage, but this time she added, "You should love me enough to trust me, and sympathize with my needs. I'm not looking to replace you, or fall in love with another man. This will purely be physical, and nothing more than that."

"Dear, I just don't know what to say. I'm at a loss for words. I do sympathize with you, and I understand that you have this need, that I can't fix... but, I still don't see any of that as a good reason to bring this much chaos into our marriage. How can you think, I can just sit here, and wait for you to come home, from what you have already said, will be fucking another man?"

"I'm sorry... I guess I didn't think about what you would be doing, while I was out." She said. "Of course I don't expect you to sit here alone, and wonder what I may be doing, and if anything has happened yet. That would be a very cruel thing. And, I promise you that this will get easier on you, the more it happens. Please don't take that the wrong way. I'm just saying that, after awhile, it won't seem like a big deal anymore. Think of it as me going to the grocery store, or something like that. If that's any help."

"Wow!" I thought. That is the coldest thing anyone has ever said to me, and it came from my own wife! I just glared at her, too angry to form any words that wouldn't escalate this discussion. I thought I saw a tear form in her eye, and she quickly looked away, then walked towards me, and tried to kiss me. I turned my head, and walked into the house.

I never looked back. I didn't wait inside for her to pursue me either. The last thing I wanted to do was to continue this conversation. Hell... I didn't even want to look at her! I don't know if she knew it, but she was killing me. At least, that's what it felt like. I couldn't be here right now, so I picked up my car keys, and left the house.

Once again, I drove around aimlessly, trying to get a handle on this. I still hadn't decided how to handle her, and at this point any power that I did have was gone. She had ripped that from me, taking my heart with it. I pulled to the side of the road, and held my head in my hands, but no way, was I going to shed a tear over this. However, the sadness of it all was slowly replacing my anger.

When I pulled back into our driveway, I looked at my watch, and found that I had only been gone an hour. I wasn't sure what to expect, when I went inside, but I had hoped she would be there. I hoped that she would reconsider what she was doing to us, and that she would greet me with open arms, and an apology for putting me through this. That's now what happened. The house was empty. This was going to be a very long night.