Show Me A Good Loser...

A big thank you again to blackrandl1958 for encouragement as well as for her editing efforts.

Let's get right to it.

"Show me a good loser in professional sports and I'll show you an idiot."

I never played any professional sport, but Leo Durocher's quote was accurate well beyond the theater of professional sports.

"Show me a good loser... and I'll show you an idiot."

I am the idiot to which Mr. Durocher, a Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, was referring.

At that moment, this idiot was sitting in the living room of a stranger's apartment, seconds away from catching my wife coming into a home with her former and now, apparently again, current lover, for what she probably expected to be a night of steamy sex.

I was there to ruin that expectation and maybe gain back a measure of self-respect.

******

I'm Tal Rivers, the guy who fucked up a supposedly great 20-year marriage by giving his wife what he thought was a great two-decade anniversary gift: I paid for her to go back to school to get her master's degree in philosophy.

Yeah, I know. A master's in philosophy. Really? Really.

We'd been talking about it since our only child, Lydia, went off to college three years previously to purse a degree in veterinary science. I was so looking forward to the freedom of being an empty-nester for the first time in 18 years, but my wife apparently had other concerns. While I was envisioning a life of travel and more spontaneous sex, she was afraid this was the beginning of old age. Her solution was to take a year sabbatical from her job and go back to school to get an advanced degree.

Truthfully, I wasn't thrilled with the idea for the longest time as we bandied it back and forth, but she was really insistent, and as a loving husband, I eventually gave in. I figured it would be a great 20^th anniversary gift, and I was right. She cried and crushed me with a hug when I told her. That night, she almost succeeded in killing me in bed.

She was practically giddy for the first few weeks, filling me in on everything that went on during her days at our local small college. I heard about her professors, her fellow students, her classes and even what she had to eat for lunch. Gradually, though, those daily reports while we ate supper dwindled significantly, and about two months in, I practically had to rip information out of her lips like an interrogator with a crime suspect. Our communication in general got sparse, so much different than it had been throughout our marriage.

Not having been born yesterday, I knew something was amiss. I spent several days banging my head against walls trying to figure out what to do. Well, I knew what to do, but it took me several days to get my head around the fact that I had to hire a private investigator to check up on my wife.

Being the chief financial officer of a large business gave me access to a lot of professionals, and two weeks after hiring a PI, I knew I had to also hire a family law attorney to handle my divorce. Traci was fucking a 21-year-old college junior named Ambrose Langenfelter, who was in several of her classes. He and Traci had done it in his off-campus apartment several times, which was bad enough, but the two had also done it in our bed on several occasions.

Fuck! FUCK! FUUCCKK!

To say I was devastated would have been the understatement of the year. I never had a clue until she suddenly went radio silent on me, probably out of guilt. Until she started her quiet act, we were still making love three to four times a week, she was still my best friend and I would have bet the farm we were in it for the long haul. Now... I couldn't see us making it another year.

I know they give out little gold statuettes for outstanding acting performances in movies, but I think I earned one for my acting performance in real life for the next week. I held in my raging anger and even managed to have sex with Traci twice without her suspecting anything was amiss. Some of that was obviously because she was oblivious to my feelings.

We were just cleaning up the kitchen after dinner when our doorbell rang. Traci looked my way as I didn't move to answer, huffed out a sigh of exasperation and went to the door. I heard the exchange between the process server and her. What I mostly heard was her huge intake of breath as she realized the curtain was being drawn back on her play of infidelity.

I had more than enough time to pour each of us a glass of wine and set them down at the kitchen table before Traci sort of staggered into the room holding the ubiquitous manila envelope. She sat down at her spot at the table without ever looking directly at my face.

"How long have you known?" she whispered before taking a sip of her wine.

If she would have lifted her eyes, she would have seen me glaring daggers at her.

"How could you? He's barely older than our daughter," I whispered back.

We sat there in silence for 20 seconds, 30 seconds. She peeked her eyes up, but immediately dropped them again when she noticed me glaring.

"What the fuck, Traci? Time for you to stop playing mute," I growled.

She finally looked up at me, and I could tell she was trying to figure out how much I knew.

"We've been flirting for a few weeks. I knew it was wrong, but I still did it. I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Flirting? That's what you're going with? You've been fucking that Goddamn kid for at least two months. He's 21 fucking years old!" I screamed.

Traci recoiled back in her chair as if I pushed her. Now she had a better handle on how much I knew. She started to shake slightly in her seat.

"I've got video, photos," I snarled. "How many others have there been, you slut?"

I had never before yelled at my wife, let alone used language like I just did. Her eyes were huge discs of fear. Her mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out.

"I swear he's the only one, and it was a mistake. A mistake, Tal!" she yelled. "It got out of hand, but it was just..."

"Don't say it, Trace. Don't you dare. It must obviously have been good sex, because you kept going back for more.

"I know. He's 21, can go long. But he doesn't look like he's any bigger than me. Shit. Maybe you should have held out for a big-dicked kid."

She blushed deeply and put her eyes down again. She took a sip of wine, then looked directly at me. She gulped audibly.

"Do we have to get a divorce?" Traci asked timidly. "I-I don't want a divorce. Yes, it was incredibly stupid, but there was no love. It was..."

She quickly shut up before she said the magic phrase. Unshed tears filled her eyes. I was split between rage and sadness.

"You know you never apologized for the affair? You've said you were sorry for hurting me, but you're not sorry for what you did, are you? You've also never told me why, Traci? What did I do to deserve this?"

She blushed deeply, stammered, then stopped. She repeated the process twice more before she finally found words.

"It was thrilling to me when some kid started to flirt with me. A kid... flirting with me. Telling me I was pretty. It made this old lady feel... sexy. You know what I mean?"

"No, Traci, I don't know what you mean," I answered softly. "I've been telling you that you are pretty for more than 20 years. I've always told you I thought you were pretty... Apparently, what I think doesn't matter. The only thing that matters to you is what some fucking kid thinks about you."

Work was a godsend for the next two weeks. After work I spent most of my time at my favorite bar, usually walking in the door at home just in time to go to bed. Despite Traci's protests, I spent my nights in the guest room. I had absolutely zero desire to sleep with her slut ass.

Traci fought the divorce, and her lawyer convinced the judge that we should have counseling. I was not a happy camper, to say the least. As I explained to the counselor at the first session, infidelity was the hill on which I was willing to die. Traci knew this and agreed, until at least she went off the reservation.

"Yes, I know I screwed up. I know we always said infidelity was a deal-breaker," she whined. "I didn't do this on purpose. Please, I love you. I don't want a divorce."

"You've broken my heart, Traci. Hell, you ripped it out of my body. I don't see how I could ever trust you again."

I was disappointed when our daughter, Lydia, weighed in on her mother's side.

"I know you're hurt, Dad. I am, too. But you guys have been together forever, and you know you still love her. What would you do without her? You'd be a miserable bastard."

Lydia was always a straight shooter, and I respected her opinions... well, at least most of them.

"You really don't have a clue as to how badly she's hurt me, Lids. Remember how upset you were when Robbie Ray broke up with you to date Kathy Gibson? Well, multiply that by 100, at least. Would it help you if I screamed, cried and threw things, like you did? Would it be easier to understand it if I was more graphic?"

Lydia blushed, and I knew she at least got my point.

"But... she's Mom. She's not Robbie. You two have been married for more than 20 years. You're supposed to be together forever.

"It was one mistake, Dad. One mistake in more than 20 years..."

"It was a helluva mistake, Lids, and it wasn't just one mistake. It was a series of mistakes made over several months," I said.

I expected Traci's parents to be on the side of reconciliation, so they didn't disappoint me. My parents, though, surprised the hell out of me. I expected both of them to be mad at Traci, but I didn't expect them to try to talk me out of divorce. I was especially surprised at my father, who always said he would kill my mother if he ever caught her cheating.

"I'm not defending what she did, Tal, but you've got to ask yourself if your life would be better off with her in it, or without her in it," he said one night over a few beers at my parents' house.

As time went on, it seemed like I was swimming upstream against a tide of "forgive her" waters. I was more than a little pissed that none of the others could see my point: after all, she cheated. SHE CHEATED.

Still, I had to admit they were all right. I did still love Traci, although I was devastated by what she had done.

Three weeks later, I did something I never thought I'd do: I caved, dropped the divorce and took Traci back. I didn't pretend everything was suddenly good, and I made it clear that I didn't trust her as far as I could throw her. Still, she sobbed like a 5-year-old with a skinned knee when I told her, and hugged me so tightly for so long I finally had to peel her off like a shirt two sizes too small.

I moved back into our bedroom, but it was more than a week until we had sex again, although not from her lack of trying. When we finally did engage, we fucked, simple as that. There was definitely no love involved, and she was at least cognizant of that fact.

"I was kind of hoping there would have been more, Tal. I mean it's been a loooong time, for both of us," she said.

"Small steps, babe," I responded. "Besides, you are apparently good with 'just sex,' by your own admission. The love part is going to take some time. You did a lot more than just kick me in the shin. This hurt is going to take a lot of healing time."

She had the decency to look guilty.

I made sure we took it slow, but about six months later I thought we were back in a pretty good place, although I was realistic enough to know that we would never get back to where we used to be. I was still wary of the fact that for some reason Traci didn't feel like I was enough for her.

"You're supposed to think I'm pretty. You're my husband," she said during one discussion we had. "Ambrose didn't have to say those things, and to think a kid thought that way about me. It's flattering and... somewhat exciting."

"I get the flattery and the excitement thing. Honestly, I do. But you broke our vows, Traci. You. Broke. Our. Vows. We made them in front of both of our families and our friends. You know how seriously I take those vows. How would you feel if I jumped into bed with a 21-year-old hottie just because she thought I was handsome?"

She looked stricken and tears started to leak from her eyes.

"You... you wouldn't do that, would you? For revenge?" she whined.

Traci made sure that we did a lot of things together, almost like she was showing me that she was there for me. She was still attending classes, and occasionally mentioned something pertaining to that. She no longer mentioned Ambrose, and while I assumed they were no longer spending any time together, I occasionally checked the GPS unit my PI had installed in her car when I first had her investigated. I never told her about the unit and saw no reason to remove it.

It was a blip on the radar, so to speak, when it showed up almost 14 months later. Among the places Traci had driven to during the week was an apartment rented by a classmate, Judy Strangland. That wouldn't have been completely out of the realm of possibility, but then it showed up once a week for the next four weeks, always on a different day. Coincidentally, she never mentioned spending time with a classmate, even when I gave her the opening.

To be truthful, I was hurt that she thought so little of me that she went right back to the well, as if that wouldn't be the first place I looked. Then I realized this wasn't about me at all. It was all about Traci. Either this kid was one helluva sex monster, or despite Traci's initial protestations when I caught her the first time, it was much more than "just sex."

My PI needed just one month to get me multiple confirmations of Traci's duplicity. She and Ambrose were using a friend's apartment during the middle of the day.

I was sitting quietly in a bean bag chair at the far end of the apartment's living room. Traci practically burst into the apartment giggling, with Ambrose hot on her heels, his right hand full of Traci's ass. They were so absorbed in each other they never noticed me. They giggled their way into a bedroom, but since they believed they were alone, they never bothered to close the door. I just sat in my seat, giving the two lovebirds a chance to get rolling.

About two minutes later, I could hear the sound of skin slapping. When I got to the door, Ambrose was covering Traci's body with his, driving into her with his back toward me. I reached my foot out and kind of slapped his hanging nutsack with the bottom of my boot, causing him to yelp out in pain and fully collapse his 200 pounds of body weight onto my 120-pound wife. She shrieked in shock before she saw me standing there, smirking malevolently. That got a strangled yell, and she tried to hide underneath Ambrose, who was by this point curled up into a fetal ball.

"Don't bother coming home, slut. You got my one and only second chance. And you, scumbag, stay out of my reach. No parent should have to bury a child, but if you ever come near me again your parents will have that unpleasant task. You can ask my soon-to-be ex-wife, I don't make idle threats.

"By the way, she's yours. You get some nice in-laws in the deal."

Ambrose was still moaning like a bitch as I turned and walked out of the apartment.

I fully intended to be gone by the time she got home, but I had another thought as I drove home. This was my house, too, and I wasn't just going to give it to her. I would, however, give her something. I sent a text with a very graphic photo of Traci and Ambrose fucking to my daughter, my parents, her parents, my attorney and her attorney. I didn't include a message. It wasn't necessary.

"Aww, Daddy, did you have to send that e-mail to the grandparents, too?" my daughter whined to me over the phone. "Wasn't that a bit over the top?"

"I don't think it was over the top at all, considering that you all leaned on me to reconcile with the stupid bitch. If anything, you are the one that pushed me over the line to reconcile with her. I only hope you didn't know she was going to continue with that piece of shit. She stammered momentarily before finding her voice and vociferously denied the last bit.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I didn't know. I didn't know," she cried.

Despite the fact that he had even fucked my wife in my bed, I knew Traci's paramour had no clue as to what I looked like. On the other hand, I knew exactly what he looked like, where he hung out and so much more.

I was actually sitting in the booth behind Ambrose and two of his buddies just a week after catching the two cheaters. I heard Ambrose bragging to his friends about fucking "this horny MILF bitch right in her own bed." His friends thought that was just hysterical... until I moved to their table and sat down next to Ambrose.

"What the f..." Ambrose started to say until I reached under the table and gave a short backhand punch to his nuts.

The three young men sat in stunned silence. I took that to mean the floor was mine.

"I'm the horny MILF bitch's husband, you schmuck. Last time I saw you, you were doubled up in a little ball crying like a girl," I growled.

He was holding his balls and leaning back away from me until I mentioned that. Then suddenly he got brave... or stupid.

"I owe you, fucker!" he rasped.

"Perfect," I said. "Why don't we discuss this like men. These two stay inside."

He gave his buddies a nod, then followed me out the door. He had me by a couple of inches and probably 40 pounds. I had him by a bucketful of rage.

Rage won... easily. I broke his nose, chipped a tooth and bloodied his mouth before he put his hands up in front of his face.

"You knew she was married, you fuckhead. You might want to reconsider where you put your dick in the future," I yelled.

"I'll have you arrested for assault!" he suddenly yelled out.

"I've got a bar full of people that saw you come outside with me of your own free will. You can try that if you really want," I said while examining the cut on my hand I got when I hit his tooth. "Besides, if I see a cop show up in the next few days, both your mother the realtor and your father the manufacturing CFO will be getting a really explicit video starring their son and somebody's idiot slut wife.

"Oh fuck. You can't do that," he whispered.

******

I stopped one foot past the entry into the bar and took a quick look around. As usual for a Thursday evening, The Unicorn had a sparse crowd. That's one of the reasons I almost always went there on Thursdays. I didn't want nor need a crowd. I hadn't wanted nor needed one for a couple of years, since my divorce from Traci was finalized.

I walked over to the far end of the bar and sat down in what I considered my seat. Not 30 seconds later, my favorite bartender/psychologist set a double shot of Eagle Rare bourbon over ice down in front of me. She stared intently into my eyes for about five seconds.

"Tough week, Tal? Want to talk about it?" she asked.

I gave the young redhead a crooked grin and a quick up and down appraisal which I knew didn't escape her. The big-boobed woman had her red hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and her tight T-shirt was tucked into skintight Levi jeans. Over the last year I had become a regular, and Molly Riley had become my confessor, of sorts. She could read me better than anyone... since Traci and I split up.

"There are days, Molly, where I question if I made the right choice... I mean, I know it was the only real choice, but that doesn't mean there aren't days when I don't miss her, or at least the her that I knew for the first 20 or so years."

"You sure you wouldn't just rather find a friend with benefits? I could help you find one of those. The other... those are much tougher to find," Molly said.

"Don't I know it, Molls. Thought I had one, but I was wrong," I replied.