The Voice On the Phone

When I came out of the bathroom with a towel after my shower I saw the light on our phone beside the bed. I thought I was alone at home and picked up the receiver. There was a male voice I didn't recognize on the line, then I heard my wife's voice. "I can't now," she said. "I'll call you later." There was a brief exchange, then the line went dead.

Who was my wife talking to? I didn't know, and why would she call him later. For days I obsessed about the voice on the phone, who she was talking to and I could think of nothing else but who it was and what was going on between them. My wife seemed totally normal, like nothing was different. I looked for signs but could see nothing. I became very aware of 5he "in use" light on the phone, starting to obsess over it. Once when I was coming back to the house I saw her leave and I followed her to the store, the cleaners, and the drug store. I felt like a creep following my wife around town. To no avail. She was only running errands.

The next time I saw her leaving town and once again I followed her, feeling stupid for doing it but unable to stop myself. I followed her for fifty miles, then off the freeway and toward the mountains. When I saw her break lights I slowed down and watched she turned in to. Motel 6. I drove passed and came back around and pulled in. I found her car parked on the backside of the motel and parked at the other end.

What was I going to do? I could wait in the car for god knows how long, or I could drive away and try to forget it ever happened. Even though I labored over the choices, I knew I was going to stay. I got comfortable and rolled down the window. At five I had been there for three hours.

At five thirty the door to one of the rooms opened and my wife stepped outside. Just outside the door a man joined her and they kissed. It was a very long and passionate kiss, accompanied by a lot of groping and grabbing, a lot of body parts involved and a lot of heat between the two of them. When they broke the kiss they spoke for a minute and she left to go to her car.

I followed from far back, thinking about what I was going to do, what I was going to say, and what I wanted out of the marriage. Would I tell her I followed her, saw them, and knew about the affair, or would I say nothing and pretend nothing happened. I was hurt, angry, and insecure, but I didn't know what I was going to do.

When I got to our neighborhood, I pulled over and sat awhile, then I drove around and went home, parked in front of the house and went in. She greeted me like normal, with a quick peck on the cheek and a "how was your day?" I asked the same thing and she simply said, "Okay." Nothing more. No, we'll I was out fucking a lover and he came all over my blouse. No tearful confession that I would not know how to handle, nothing but a "not much" and a quick trip to the bathroom.

At work a few days later I heard a guy announcing to all that he "caught his fucking wife cheating" on him. I asked what he was going to do and he said, "I kicked her fucking ass out." That was one possibility, of course, but that wasn't my first reaction. What was my reaction. I didn't know. Hurt, of course, but I loved her, and the consequence seemed worse than what I had. I still had a marriage and a person I loved, so could I bend that over infidelity?

I talked to my dad and he said, "I forgave your mother." My mother had had an affair? I asked when that was and he said,"Years ago." I just looked at him, not believing my mother could have had an affair. "You have to decide what's important," he said. "Do you love her?" I said that I did and he just shrugged. "Got to decide for yourself," he said.

I thought about nothing else for the next few days. My mother had had an affair. They had been together for forty years. It had happen years "ago" he'd said, so they had been together years after. Would this be something like that? A blip on the screen in our early years?

When we made love I thought about nothing else but her fucking another man in a motel room. Did she love him and not me? Did she think of him while we had sex? I fretted about the whole thing everyday.

Finally I had business in Santa Barbara and I drove by the Motel 6. I even pulled into the driveway and drove around to the back. There was her car parked in front of that room she had come out of a few weeks before. Should I knock on the door and confront them. Many men would and be justified. I was not a confrontational person, but was that code-speak a wimp? Maybe!

I thought about them in bed and it certainly did not turn me on, as so many porn videos implied. Some men fantasized about their wives in bed with other men. Did not work on me. Could I, like my father had, forgive her? What if she refused to give him up? Every scenario went through my head. Some men knew their wife had a lover and were okay with it. Could I be?

One Sunday night after sex we were both reading and I asked if she loved me. "Of course I do," she said. "Do you think I don't love you?"

"Sometimes I'm not sure," I said. Finally, after a long wait I said, "What do you think about sex outside of marriage?" She was quiet for a long time.

"I... I think it's wrong," she said. I asked if she could ever do it. There was stunned silence.

"How long have you known?" she asked quietly. I said about four months. She turned to me and kissed me. It was like the dreaded "apology kiss" and I simply looked at her. I had no anger, no resentment, I only felt sad at that moment that I had made the tears flow. "It is only sex," she said. "I was lonely and began feeling ignored, unattractive, housewifely. It just happened. I hadn't planned it. Are we going to get a divorce?"

"My parents didn't," I said.

"Your dad had an affair?"

"My mother," I said.

"Martha?" I nodded. "And your dad forgave her?"

"Seems like he did," I said. "If he can I can. Do you want to be forgiven, or do you want to end things?" I asked.

"I don't want to end us," she said.

"Is the sex hot?" I asked. Finally, she nodded and smiled.

"Very," she said. I asked if ours was cold. "It just has gotten 'routine'", she said. "I wanted to feel really desired. I needed hot sex," she said. "I wanted that old time back. I know you do too," she said. "How can we get that old hot sex back?"

"We could be swingers," I said, less than serious. "You could be a Hot Wife."

"What's a hot wife?" she asked.

"It's a woman who has lovers and her husband watches."

"You want to watch me have sex?" she asked.

"No," I said. " I would turn into a raging lunatic, more than I am already."

I said I really didn't know what I wanted. I just knew what I didn't want." She asked what that was. "To lose you," I said. "I know I don't want that."

I asked if she could go without 'hot sex' and she said she didn't know.

"I have gotten to like it," she said honestly.

"What is it that makes it hot sex?" I said.

"Novelty. The excitement of it. I guess that sounds like swinging," she said. I nodded.

"Could we be swingers?" I said. She looked at me for a long time, processing it all. Then she shrugged.

"Maybe," she said. "Don't know. I didn't think I could be an unfaithful wife, actually. Sometimes I surprise myself. What about you?"

I thought about it for a long time before I answered. "I could, yes," I said. "The hard part would be seeing you with someone else. That may put me to the test. I have thought about you with this other man, whether I could tolerate it, not say anything and just let you go on."

"And what did you decide?" she asked.

"If my dad could, I could. I look at my parents as the absolute couple. I realize if he could forgive her, if he wanted her bad enough, then I could, too." She nodded. Then I said, "when we're you last with him?"

"Yesterday," she said. It took me a long time before I could say anything. "You want me to be honest?" I said I wasn't sure.

"Maybe you could just lie," I said. "Maybe say you don't recall." We laughed. "Was it good?" She simply nodded. "Okay, I guess I'm glad it was good. Will you see him again?"

"Not if you tell me not to," she said. "Do you want to meet him?"

"No. Definitely no. It is hard enough to know he gives you hot sex. Do you give him hot sex?"

"I think so. I hope so," she said shyly.

"You deserve good sex," I said. "Hot sex. I want you to have hot sex, I just wish it was from me. We have to do something to heat up our sex," I said. Let's try the swinger's route," I said. "Because I don't want to dress up and play your Spanish bullfighter boyfriend. And I don't want to make you wear a French maid's costume and act out a sexual encounter."

"Are there any swingers groups nearby?" she asked. I said I was sure there were and got the laptop and booted it up. We looked swingers groups and looked through the list. "There's one right here in this town."

"Too close," I said. "This one's in San Fernando Valley. Just far enough away. This weekend?" She grinned and then said okay. "I'll call and make a reservation," I said.

The next weekend we were on our way to San Fernando to heat up our sex. Both of us were terribly nervous about the whole thing, and talked about it the whole way there. Both of us revealed things about our sexual needs we had never shared. It seems the hot sex she had been having with Mr. X had been something she had fantasized about for years. I even learned she regularly masturbated and fantasized about scandalous scenarios.

I admitted to her that I actually masturbated regularly. "Daily, weekly, or once a month?" I told her it was usually only once a day. "Who do you fantasize about?"

"Usually about you," I said. I lowered my voice, as if that would keep it more secret. "Usually it's about you fucking someone else," I admitted timidly. She laughed as we pulled into the estate where the swinger resort was located.

"You ready for this?" she asked as we got out of the car.