Three Sides to Every Story

Roger had never felt more alone in his life.

Yes, he was celebrating Christmas with his family, but he was still alone. His parents had each other, his three siblings had their spouses and children. But for the first time in 12 years, Roger was alone: he had divorced his wife of 11 years just two months ago, and now, during a season which had always been about family, he was alone.

God bless his mother, two sisters and brother. They tried their absolute best to make Roger feel loved and included. Everybody in the house did, except his father. The emotional thing wasn't his shtick. He tried to remain stoic, giving Roger a slap on his shoulder as his lone show of emotion. Roger knew that was his best version of fatherly love. It was every bit as effective as what the rest of the family tried.

You really can be alone in a crowd, Roger thought to himself.

The family opened the many gifts under the tree; everyone oohed and aahed, laughed and ribbed each other as only family can do. Roger tried his best to pretend he was into it; he didn't want to ruin it for anyone, especially his seven nieces and nephews. Christmas is especially for kids. Uncle Roger wasn't going to be the downer in all this fun.

Roger couldn't help but think of the one gift that wasn't under the tree: a gold necklace with 1.25 carats worth of diamonds. It wasn't under the tree because it wasn't going to be given. He got a great deal on the necklace about a month after Christmas this past January. It was for his then-wife Traci, who was the love of his life in January. He didn't find out until February that she had been cheating on him for six months, and two weeks later he hit her with divorce papers.

He thought about taking the necklace back for a full refund at that point, but he just couldn't even bare to look at it. Roger loved that woman with all his heart, all his soul and he was absolutely sure they were in it for the long haul. He guessed there really are none so blind as those that will not see. Call me Stevie Wonder, without rhythm, he thought to himself.

Roger noticed the couple's sex life had slowed down some about six months before, but he told himself it was because he and Traci had been married 10 years and that was kind of normal. What he hadn't noticed until further reflection was the secretive way she would read her texts and never had her phone off of her body. He trusted her completely, and never in his wildest dreams would he have thought she would betray his trust.

Of course never in his wildest dreams would Roger expect somebody not in his family to pronounce his last name correctly, and when it happened he just had to stop and talk with the person who just did the impossible. A tier-one supplier stopped by his shop unannounced one Thursday about lunchtime, and Roger felt he needed to impress him with a great lunch. Roger took him to the best barbecue place in the city, across town about 35 minutes away.

Roger had probably only eaten there three times in the last 11 years, but John Stayner deserved the best. When it came time to pay, Roger put his credit card with the bill, and when the waitress came back, she thanked him by name -- correctly! Like so many other Polish names, the spelling of the name isn't anything close to the pronunciation, so when she pronounced Xixuachrat as "Zickooat," Roger about fell out of his chair. John and he both looked at each other in shock.

"How did you know how to pronounce that?" he said to the waitress, who looked to be of Asian descent. "You don't look Polish at all."

"When you see that name two days in a row, you remember it," she laughed. "I apparently served a couple of your relatives yesterday at lunch, and I just had to ask how to pronounce that name. Is Traci Xixuachrat a relative? I didn't catch her husband's name, although that man is ha-a-andsome. They were quite a good-looking couple.

John knew the waitress was referring to Roger's wife, and Roger turned as red as a stop sign but held his temper in check.

"Yes, she is family," he said. "She and that handsome husband of hers can get a little carried away sometimes, can't they?"

"I'll say. Sometimes it felt like I was interrupting a couple of horny teenagers. I hope I look as good as that woman when I'm in my 30s."

Traci was, in fact, 37, but with a tight body and curves galore, along with flawless porcelain skin and long dark brown hair, she could have passed for late-20s. Roger was guessing that the "ha-a-andsome" Mr. Xixuachrat was in fact Joey Brillion, a salesman in Traci's office who was a diver in college not quite a decade ago and looked like a younger Jason Statham with a luxuriant growth of hair.

Traci had been with the same insurance agency in administration for about as long as she and Roger were married. The Statham doppelganger joined the office about a year ago, and Roger heard about him almost every night after work for about six months. Then all of a sudden Traci just stopped talking about him, like he didn't exist. Perhaps another clue that Roger -- Mr. Trusting -- missed.

John and Roger were very quiet as they drove back to the office.

Roger wasted no time hiring a private investigator. The investigator had incriminating evidence within two weeks, including video of the lovers having sex in Traci and Roger's bed on a Wednesday morning within an hour after Roger left for work. The investigator warned Roger the video was rough, but Roger certainly wasn't even remotely prepared for that disrespect.

"That fucking skank," Roger shouted at the computer screen when he viewed the event in the privacy of his office after hours.

Roger didn't waste any time instructing his attorney to draw up divorce papers. A week later Traci was served at work. After watching the video of his wife and lover performing in his marital bed, Roger didn't have any problem embarrassing Traci in front of her co-workers.

Roger was home early that night as Traci pulled her car into the garage. She practically ran into the house and started to scream at her husband.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, embarrassing me like that in front of my friends and co-workers... and my boss, for God sakes!" she screeched.

Roger was leaning back in his La-Z-Boy sipping a shot of Larceny bourbon, with the bottle on the table next to his chair. He calmly finished his sip and put the shot glass down.

"Because I wanted you to have just the smallest taste of what I felt like when I watched you and Joey Brillion fucking in our marital bed, you slut! At the very least, you could have told me the marriage was over. You didn't have to defile our marital bed!

"And just for the hell of it, don't you think I at least deserve some sort of apology."

Roger refilled his shot glass while Traci stared at him. It had just occurred to her to wonder how long Roger knew and how he found out.

"At least have the decency to tell me what I did wrong, and how long this has been going on," he said. "Oh, and is this guy the only one you're fucking?"

"You don't have to be so crude about it, Roger," Traci huffed. "We've been having sex for about six months now, and Joey's the only one. It just kind of happened. You didn't do anything wrong. It just kind of happened."

Traci's eyes started welling up with tears. Why the fuck is she crying? Roger thought to himself. She's the one who cheated; not the one who got cheated on.

"So you're telling me that just out of the blue one day, Joey was walking past you in the office, slipped on a banana peel and his dick wound up falling into your cunt? Okay, sounds believable. Good talk."

Traci stared at her husband open-mouthed as he poured yet another shot and quietly sipped it down. For some reason, she hadn't ever considered that her husband would discover her affair, and if he did, how would he react. It just occurred to her that she was awfully cavalier about taking advantage of her husband's love for her.

Roger's family was as devastated as he was when they learned of Traci's betrayal. After all, the pair had been together for a dozen years, married for 11 and practically seemed like the perfect couple. The only thing missing from this perfect marriage was children. Although the pair had decided to have two children when they were first planning their lives, Traci kept delaying on starting a family until one day Roger came right out and asked her if she was reneging on their agreement. Traci tearfully admitted she was, and no amount of arguing by Roger could get her to change her mind. It was a tense few months for the couple, until Roger finally told Traci he would let her have her way.

******

Marie Hewson looked over at her husband of 33 years with sadness in her eyes. Last Christmas with its warmth and fun seemed so long ago, she thought. This Christmas, with the recent divorce of the couple's older daughter, Traci, seemed almost haunted. Yes, the house was full with her second daughter's family of six, but Traci without Roger seemed to be walking around in a bad dream. Plus Roger was always the life of the party when the families got together. Although he and Traci didn't have any children, he loved his four nieces and nephews and was always into some kind of mischief with them.

For their own parts, Marie and George Hewson absolutely adored their ex-son-in-law, and Traci's meager attempts to explain the marriage's undoing never felt adequate enough for them. Roger told his in-laws that the decision to divorce was Traci's, and he would discuss it no further.

Traci could feel the tension from the rest of her family as they spent the few days before and after Christmas together. She had thought that being together with family would help her past the malaise she was feeling inside, but it turned out that being around her family was having the opposite effect. It seemed like everyone was waiting for a better explanation as to why she and Roger divorced. And it seemed like her sister and brother-in-law's children blamed her specifically for Uncle Roger not being around.

The Hewsons didn't invite Joey to their family Christmas, and Traci didn't fight for his inclusion at the event. She would miss his lean, muscular body next to hers in bed at night, but this way she wouldn't have to deal with the awkwardness of him being an outsider. Realizing it was just two months since the divorce was official, Joey didn't put up much fight when Traci told him she was going to her parents for the holiday without him.

Traci was stunned when she was served divorce papers at her place of employment one afternoon in late February. She had no idea that Roger wasn't clueless about her affair. She was so absorbed with her love life that she didn't have any contingencies when she was served. The embarrassment was terrible, and she was pretty sure she caught Joey smirking in the background when she was served.

She had driven home in a rage, but that anger turned to confusion when she confronted Roger. He was quiet and calm and seemed more interested in his bourbon than arguing with her. Plus she knew that she really didn't have any good answers to his questions. He seemed to know an awful lot about the affair, including the fact that she and Joey had a tryst right in their bedroom. It even sounded tawdry to her when Roger mentioned it.

She told Roger the truth when she said she hadn't meant for the affair to happen.

Virtually all of the women in her office practically swooned when Joey joined the staff. His looks and charm quickly won over most of them. Traci noted the younger man was very adept at flirting and seemed to be very good at the seduction game.

She didn't seem overly concerned when Joey started chatting her up, fully believing she was impervious to Joey's advances as she completely loved her husband.

The occasional lunch turned into the occasional dinner as Traci told her husband she had to work late several times. She admitted to herself that she enjoyed Joey's company, and the man certainly was a hunk. On their fifth dinner, the pair wound up in a hotel room, with Traci only hesitating for a minute before she found herself underneath Joey, his dick sliding easily into her soaking pussy. The young man slow stroked Traci for a few minutes before turning her around and remounting her doggy style. His strong arms held her hips firmly before he started brushing her distended clitoris with the fingers of his right hand. The flutters in Traci's lower stomach turned into a buzzing feeling in her wet pussy, and within minutes she was shuddering in orgasm. She had a second orgasm five minutes later, and then Joey flipped her onto her back, lifted her ankles to his shoulders and drove in yet a little deeper.

"Aaiiee!!!" Traci screamed as she was hit with her best orgasm of the session. She stiffened, then spasmed on Joey's cock, causing the young man to squirt an almost literal bucket of cum inside her vagina. Traci knew then that this wasn't going to be the only pairing for the two.

Traci was somewhat surprised she wasn't filled with guilt as the two cleaned up and got dressed. She felt great physically, and didn't spend too much time worrying about her husband.

Completely happy with her young stud, Traci backed off on sex with Roger. Joey's youthful exuberance, his overall strength and his sexual stamina, combined with the illicit nature of what they were doing, kept Traci hot and ready to go for as long as the young man wished. Then the two would spend some time cuddling, talking and laughing together. It might not have been intentional, but Traci was moving closer to Joey the longer they were together.

As Roger had always trusted Traci and gave her space, she felt no pressure in her relationship with Joey. The two were never blatant publicly with the relationship and were always careful with their trysts, except for when they occasionally used Traci's marital bed -- at Joey's request. The young man found it exceptionally exciting to do Traci in her marital bed, and secure that they weren't going to be caught, Traci had to admit she found it a turn-on as well.

Once Traci came to grips with being served, she and Joey began to spend more time together, and not just in sexual congress. She found security and comfort in his strong arms the way she once found that in Roger's arms. She had to admit she was surprised it was that easy to get over her husband.

******

Joey Brillion missed Traci while she was gone at her parents' for Christmas. The pair had started their affair more than a year ago, and gotten closer when Traci's husband, Roger, filed for divorce in February. The divorce became official in October, and Joey and Traci had considered moving in together.

The two had talked about Joey accompanying Traci to her parents', but Traci made the decision to go to her parents' alone after her mother told her that her lover was not invited nor welcome. That was actually fine with Joey, because he wanted to spend some time partying with his friends, and that probably wouldn't happen with Traci around.

If he was honest with himself, Joey hadn't planned on being with Traci this long, but he had to admit she was a beautiful woman and a hell of a good fuck. When he first pursued her at the insurance company, he knew she was married, but that had never concerned him before. He had seduced a number of married women. He just wasn't planning on anything long-term.

The plan changed when Traci's clueless husband apparently stopped being clueless after about six months and had her served for divorce. Joey couldn't believe that Roger would in effect just throw his wife away without putting up a fight. Joey just couldn't figure if Roger was stupid or gutless, but discussing it with Traci got him no closer to an answer.

The strippers were prime and the partying was good the night before Christmas Eve. Joey left his friends about 1 a.m., accompanied by a pretty blonde who had been drinking with Joey and his friends for several hours.

"Fucking guy's just so good-looking the women just can't stay away from him," said one of Joey's friends to another. "But I bet that girl is maybe half the age of his regular pussy."

Both men chuckled as they got another drink at the bar.

******

It had been almost five years since Roger had seen Marie Hewson. He had always liked Marie and George. They had been very good to him throughout the years, and they had no hand in what their daughter had done. Roger still sent birthday and Christmas cards.

Marie was already seated at a table when Roger walked in to the Italian restaurant. Although she and George lived an hour south, she asked Roger to meet her at one of his favorite restaurants near the apartment he moved into after divorcing her daughter. Thinking of the divorce brought some moisture to Marie's eyes. Roger was a great guy, and even now she couldn't understand what Traci had done.

The pair hugged when Roger got to the table.

"It's been too long, Roger," Marie said. "George and I and the rest of the family have missed you. We love you, Roger, and nothing Traci has done will ever change that."

"And I still love all you guys," Roger responded. "I'm sorry I haven't kept up..."

"We understand, Son. It's all good.

"But I have a selfish reason for wanting to see you. Do you remember Traci's cousin, Bunny, the youngest of her bridesmaids at the wedding, who went into the air force soon after the wedding? Well, she's back to being a civilian, and she just got a job at the aerospace firm in your town. I was hoping that you could maybe show her around town, introduce her to some of the right people and just maybe point her in the right direction. Honestly, I'm not asking for anything more than that."

Roger gave his ex-mother-in-law a twisted smile. She feigned surprise.

"It was asking either you or my daughter, and right now neither George nor I feel real good about Traci running her own life, let alone helping someone else get started with their new life."

Roger nodded in agreement at that statement. Enough said, he thought.

Roger called Bunny a few days later and invited her to lunch at the same restaurant where he met Marie. He didn't really know what to look for, because the last time he saw Bunny she was a skinny, blonde, freckled 19-year-old getting ready to go into the air force. She was now a 36-year-old woman. The only hint Marie gave him was that Bunny no longer had freckles, and her hair had darkened into a medium brown color.

Roger waited attentively as the wait staff accompanied three single brown-haired women to other tables. The fourth brown-haired woman turned out to be Bunny.

Roger was more than a little surprised. She was about 5-6 and well-built from top to bottom. Roger thought her time in the service had certainly filled out the woman physically, and her sparkling blue eyes would make her a favorite of single men throughout town.

Roger thought lunch went well. Bunny turned out to be very intelligent and more than held up her end of the conversation. Roger reminded himself to call Marie and thank her for putting him in touch with Bunny.

Roger enjoyed Bunny's company so much he asked her out for a repeat lunch, and then to a dinner and concert. He definitely needed to thank Marie.

******

Traci sat at a restaurant table awaiting her date. At 43, she still was a fine-looking woman with a tight, curvy body thanks to regular gym visits. Her date was a 50-year-old accountant. She was anticipating a pleasant if unspectacular evening. At this point she would gladly settle for pleasant.

Traci thought her relationship with Joey was heading in a positive direction, possibly toward marriage. Early in their relationship, the sex was amazing, Traci thought, and her emotional feelings for Joey continued to grow stronger. About a year after the divorce, though, Traci noted that both the sex and the emotional attachment with Joey had leveled off. She often questioned whether the sexual fall-off was due to the sex no longer being illicit.