We Need to Talk Dave

It was in this happier state of mind that I decided the air between Gwen and I needed clearing.

"Everything Ok between us now honey?" I dropped into the conversation one evening.

"I guess so Dave," she grinned back at me. "It's just so nice to be back to the way we were."

"Certainly is," I agreed happily, taking her in my arms and planting a kiss on her lips. "I'm just so glad that you didn't have to carry out your threat."

My heart missed a beat as I felt her go stiff in my arms, and looked away from me.

"What's up?" I demanded.

"Nothing," came the reply, all too quickly.

""Have you ..... Are you telling me ....." I floundered, releasing her from my arms.

"I'm not telling you anything," Gwen mumbled.

"For God's sake woman," I exploded. "Have you done it? Have you been with another man?"

"I told you," she snapped back. "You wouldn't know when or who with."

"Fuck it Gwen," I screamed at her. "You can't do this to me."

"Sorry honey, but I already have," she destroyed me with.

------------------

The argument that followed that little exchange of information was short but not sweet. There were many things I wanted to say but I was so wound up that I couldn't put words to them, and I soon stormed out of the house down to the local pub, ringing Ted on the way and asking him to join me.

"Well Ted," I greeted him, handing over the pint I'd got for him. "Gwen and I had a little talk this evening, and you'll never guess what the bitch told me."

"That's she's fucked somebody else, I guess," he stunned me with.

"You know," I exclaimed, spilling my beer. "What about Kim?"

"Her too."

"And Jilly?"

"So I understand."

"And you're Ok with it; the both of you?"

"What happened, happened," he stated, matter of factly.

"And you don't mind?"

"What can I do? What can any of us do?"

"What about Nick?"

"He feels the same as me. Better just to let sleeping dogs lie and get on with life. We've got enough problems with that council contract without getting worked up about something that we can't undo."

"But Nick was so convinced he would throw Jilly out if she went through with it. What happened?"

"Changed his mind, I guess."

"And that's it?"

Ted shrugged his shoulders dismissively, and asked if I was ready for another pint.

I was.

I was more than ready for several more.

------------------

And that seemed to be that!

Gwen forgave me for coming home pissed out of my mind and life went back to normal, incredibly so, it transpired.

It was as if nothing had ever happened, as long as I didn't try to revisit the subject with Gwen, in which case I got the freeze out, and when I tried to talk to Ted and Nick or Mike for that matter, about it, they shut me down as well. It was as if everyone was trying to pretend that nothing had ever happened, and with a bit of soul searching I decided that it might be the best thing if I followed suit. Not saying that I didn't wonder who the hell my wife had slept with, and not claiming that I didn't get jealous flutterings whenever I saw her talking to some guy that I didn't know. Having figured out that it was most unlikely that the three women, or maybe all four of them, would have done it with anyone that us guys knew. It would be too risky. On the other hand I simply couldn't imagine Gwen, or Jilly for that matter would actually go and pick up strange men in a bar. Kim maybe, and Mary no problem as far as I knew, but not Jilly and certainly not my Gwen. They just wouldn't do that. The more I thought about it, the most likely scenario that I could come up with, was that Mary had introduced them to some of her younger male friends. Or maybe just one! Perhaps one lucky bastard had got to fuck all four of them.

As I said I tried to forget it but it kept eating away at me like a festering sore inside me, and after a couple of months I couldn't keep it bottled up any longer.

"What the hell is up with you Dave?" Gwen demanded one day. "You've been like a bear with a sore head all week."

"You know damn well what's up with me," I retorted, glaring at her.

"Oh not that again," she tried to dismiss my concerns. "You got what you deserved and now we're even."

"OK so maybe I deserved it, and maybe we are even, but not knowing who it was is eating me up Gwen."

"I told you honey," she explained to me for the hundredth time it seemed. "You were never going to know when or who, and I'm not changing my mind."

"But you've no idea what it's like Gwen," I pleaded, actually having to hold my tears back. "Every time I see you talking to another man at a party or whatever, then I wonder if it was him. Several times I've had to restrain myself from coming up to you and slugging whoever you were talking with."

"Oh God, you have got it bad, haven't you," she answered me sympathetically. "I'm sorry honey, but I just can't tell you. All I can say is that it was just the once and it will never happen again. If it's any help, then I promise you it was nothing special."

"You didn't enjoy it?"

"I didn't say I didn't enjoy it Dave, and I wouldn't lie to you. The most exciting bit was messing about beforehand and then letting him undress me. After that, the actual sex was a bit ordinary."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" I grunted.

"Probably not straight away, but you telling me how quickly it was over with that redhead helped me a bit when I thought about it later, so maybe what I've told you might help you."

"So you're telling me it didn't last long," I sought some relief.

"I didn't say that honey," she answered almost reluctantly. "I just said it was pretty ordinary. Nothing special. Not as good as when we do it on a good day."

"On a good day?"

"Yes --- sorry."

"Thanks a damn lot!"

-----------------

I couldn't leave it there, even though I wished I could have. I simply knew that if I kept it bottled up inside me that eventually I'd explode and it would wreck our marriage. I even tried to explain that to Gwen, about how serious it was, but she still wouldn't relent, and wouldn't even confirm that it hadn't been someone we knew, however vaguely. The only other bit of information that I managed to squeeze from her was that it hadn't been the same guy that had fucked all three of them, and that in the end, Mary had taken off, and hadn't taken part. Her and Mike had split up, so I guess there was little point in her doing so.

I questioned Ted and Nick to the point where the pair of them ended up arguing with me, and told me to shut up and get on with my life and to stop trying to wreck theirs.

They had a point.

Maybe.

But the thing eating away inside me wouldn't go away. I was Ok most of the time, but then someone would say something on the TV, or one of our customers would mention about some goings on over the road or whatever, and it would all come flooding back.

I thought about divorce.

I thought about finding another woman to fuck, so that I could have my secret.

I thought about all sorts of things, but all to no avail.

Eventually in my obsession, I started to put two and two together, reckoning on the fact that Gwen had never actually lied to me. From what she had said, I thought I'd picked up that he, or indeed they, were men that we had at least met at some stage. Also that Mary, Mike's girlfriend, hadn't taken part.

Then it clicked!

Or at least a strong possibility did.

Mike was the youngest of us bunch, and Mary had been a good four or five years younger than him. She hung around with a younger set, and yes, we'd met quite a few of them at parties and bumped into others at pubs. Certainly some of them had been men, and damn it, six months or so ago, Nick and me had teased our wives for flirting with a couple of younger guys one night, who seemed to be rather taken with them.

What were their names?

Mick? Rick? Nick? Dick? Something like that, but I couldn't remember, but I was convinced I was onto something, even though I didn't know where to take it.

But then I did.

Without mentioning it to the others, I made some excuse to go out for the evening, and found myself up town searching in the pubs and occasional club for someone who I hoped would be there. No, not those guys, but Mary herself, who I hadn't seen sight of since a week or so before that disastrous fishing trip. It was a long shot, but I struck lucky, finding her at a bar with a couple of other girls. I waited patiently till the other two were pulled up to dance by some guys, and I made my move.

"Hi Mary," I greeted her, sitting down, uninvited, in the chair just vacated by one of her friends. "Long time, no see."

Simply the look she gave me confirmed in my mind that I was on the right track. It was a mixture of surprise and that 'Oh hell, what is he doing here'.

"Hello Mary," I repeated. "How are you?"

"Hi," she said, failing to meet my eyes.

"I need to talk to you Mary," I told her gently, not wishing to frighten her off.

"No fucking way," she screamed at me, shocking me with her intensity. "Piss off."

"Mary, settle down," I pleaded, astonished at her reaction. "I just want to talk."

"Like hell you do, you bastard," she yelled at me, attracting attention from all the people around us. "There's no bloody way I'm going to fuck you."

"What?"

What else would I say?

"Fuck off and leave me alone."

What would you do?

What would you do when three extremely large friends of hers, somewhat younger and a lot more bulky than me, arrived to back up her opinion.

I left.

I left of my own volition and extremely quickly.

In reality, I left with my tail between my legs.

------------------

So where did that leave me?

You guess, because at that point I had no idea whatsoever.

My wife refused to talk to me, my partners, my friends, avoided my questions to the point of telling me to fuck off, and now some girl who I hardly knew had virtually set the heavies on me.

What was I to do?

I decided I'd had enough?

Really, I was pissed off to the point where I didn't care a fuck what the outcome was. I was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what it took.

"Gwen," I virtually screamed at her, when I got back to the house. "What's going on? If you don't tell me then I'm out of here. I swear that I'll pack my bags and you'll never see me again."

I stared down at her, my anger genuine, my fists clenched and my teeth gnashing. I meant it. I was on the point of striking out at her, and one way or another, I was going to get to the bottom of this.

Then everything went black!

I mean, really black, as in totally out of it.

-------------------

"Is he OK?"

"Damn it Mike, you didn't have to hit him that hard."

"Piss off Kim, this is your fault as much as anyone's."

"Piss off yourself. If you three guys had come clean with him, then we wouldn't be here."

"Settle down all of you. He hasn't a clue. We can still get away with this."

"Easy for you to say. You're not married to him. You don't have to look him in the eye every bloody morning and pretend that everything is normal."

"We agreed Gwen. All six of us agreed."

"So where's fucking Mary? Why didn't she play her part?"

"Don't blame her. Mike buggered up their relationship. He should have kept his trousers done up."

"Don't try to pass the blame on me, you hypocrite. If you'd stopped when we should have done, then he would have been none the wiser."

"Shut up the lot of you what we've got to do is ....."

At which point, I must have slipped back into oblivion, which considering what I'd just heard, even though I didn't realise it at the time, was probably the best place for me to be.

----------------

"Hello mister Rogers. How are you feeling?"

I blinked my eyes and glanced around me.

Where was I?

Pretty girl.

Very pretty girl, all dressed in white.

"Mr Rogers. Everything's Ok. How do you feel?"

Pretty girl. Same pretty girl and the same white dress. Everything must be fine. Pretty girl was smiling at me!

"Mr Rogers," pretty girl spoke softly. "How's your head? Do you have any pain?"

"I think I love you," I gasped, and then went back into oblivion, I suspect quite happily.

----------------------

Well, yes, Ok, seems obvious, but not to me at the time, even though I should have guessed. Pretty girl was a nurse, albeit a very pretty one, and I was in a hospital of some sort, though I had no idea how I'd got there.

I had a vague memory of a heated discussion going on around me. Something about Mike's trousers and hypocrites and Mary not being there. Didn't make sense, and my head hurt and didn't want to deal with it.

"Hello Dave."

It registered that someone was talking to me so I looked up, hopefully.

"Gwen?"

"Yes honey," this person, another pretty girl responded. "Are you back with us?"

"Think so. Hope so," I smiled back at her, sort of recognising my wife. "What the hell am I doing here?"

"You fell down some stairs Dave," this pretty woman, who I was still trying to register in my brain, told me. "Got a bump on the head, but you're Ok now. We'll be able to take you home as soon as the doctor releases you."

"Home?"

"Yes, sweetheart. Then you've got nothing to worry about."

"Good," I responded aloud.

"Fucking liar," I mumbled silently, under my breath, so the bitch couldn't hear, as the conversation that had taken place around me some time earlier flooded back into my mind.

Trousers. Hypocrite. Hit him so hard. Mary. Hasn't a clue?

I haven't got anything to worry about she'd said?

You must be bloody joking!

-----------------

It might seem pretty obvious to you lot out there reading this drivel, but to me at the time it took some while to put two and two together. The four girls, yes all four of them, had come up with a revenge plan for each of them to bed another man to make things even and for that they needed four willing men. Ok one guy might have done, but that wouldn't have fitted in their plan, would it?

So where were they going to find four willing guys at short notice who they could trust to keep their mouths shut. That, or maybe to know when they were onto a good thing.

I knew my wife had always had a bit of a fancy for Mike, though their flirting had always been pretty innocent, and I'd seen Kim giving Nick the come on when she'd had a few glasses of wine inside her, but was pretty sure that it had never amounted to anything more than that.

Ted and Jilly? No idea but anything was possible, so where did that leave me?

Mary?

The whole thing seemed so preposterous, that I could hardly believe it, but equally all the bits seemed to fit together so well.

Either way I had no idea what to do about it, not sure that I wanted my marriage to end, but at that point maybe more worried this conflict would bring our flourishing business tumbling down just when things looked so good.

What to do?

I decided that I couldn't accuse my wife with the threads of evidence that I'd assembled, and simply didn't trust my three partners and so called friends any more. There seemed only one safe avenue to explore so I found myself heading for the Lion's den once more.

"Mary," it's me Dave," I spoke into the mouthpiece when she answered her phone. "Please don't ring off."

Silence at the other end, but at least no disengaging tone.

"Are you there Mary?" I pleaded. "You're the only one that I can think of to talk to."

"I'm not doing it Dave," she mumbled back to me. "I told them it was a stupid idea at the time and I shouldn't have agreed to it. If we hadn't all had a bit to drink, then I would have never said yes."

"Yes to what Mary?" I asked quietly.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about," she sobbed. "I can't. I won't."

"I don't know what you're talking about Mary," I replied gently. "I have my suspicions, but that's all."

"You really don't know?"

"Scout's honour," I tried to lighten the conversation with. "I'm going out of my mind trying to sort it out. Then I get bashed over the head and end up in hospital. You've got to help me Mary."

"Hospital?"

"It's a long story Mary. Can we meet up please?"

"You don't want to fuck me then Dave," she asked nervously, leaving me with a quandary. Exactly how do you answer a questioned put to you like that by a gorgeous, shapely blonde with legs to die for and tits whose' perfection defied description? Especially one that was just about on the limit of age difference to get away with it, and had put me off watching soft porn for a week, the one time I'd seen her in a bikini.

"I couldn't honestly say no to that question Mary," I answered honestly. "But that's not what this is about. All I need is to talk to you."

"OK," She murmured uncertainly. "I'm free at lunch time. Do you know the Anchor pub on Broard Street?"

"I'll find it," I assured her, and an hour later I entered the busy bar, looking for her.

---------------------

"Over here Dave," she greeted me when I spotted her and waved, sighing at what a fool Mike had been to let such a stunner escape from him. She'd obviously come straight from work to meet me, but even so the shortness of her suit skirt, half way up her thighs, and the hint of lacy bra under her thin white blouse didn't go un-noticed. Not it appeared by the group of guys alongside trying to peer down her top, and certainly not by me either.

"Shall we move over there," I suggested genteelly, realising that as she'd moved over to make room for me, the view being offered to the guys perving her had improved, something that they hadn't missed either.

"It's OK Dave, it'll make their lunchtime, and doesn't do me any harm," she grinned back at me, confirming that she was well aware of what she was revealing. "But thanks for offering. That was sweet of you and they won't try chatting me up now that you're with me."

"You don't mind?" I asked, surprised at her reaction and quite how much the thought of it turned me on as well. "You're showing quite a bit of cleavage there Mary."

"Oh come on now Dave," she chuckled. "Why do you think I dress like this? Why do you think I've left two buttons undone? Why do you think I haven't pulled my skirt back down when I know it's ridden up so high?"

"Point taken. No complaints here." I gulped, never having been aware of Mary behaving like this when we'd she'd been with Mike. Not that she didn't always dress rather sexily, but never before in my presence flaunting it quite so openly.

"So what do you want to know?" Mary asked, straight down to business. "What do you know already?"

"Only that my wife, all three wives have had sex with someone else, and I suspect that I'm the only husband not involved."

"I think you've got it in one," she confirmed. "You got left out because I picked you, but chickened out of the deal. I tried to talk the others out of it when it dawned on me a little later what a stupid idea it was. But it was too late by then, as one of them had jumped the gun."

"One of them?" I queried, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, not that it really made much difference in the long run.

"Sorry Dave, it was Gwen," Mary confirmed my fears. "Her and Mike didn't hang around, and I suspect they'd already dabbled a bit beforehand. Not suggesting that he'd bedded her, but I'd be very surprised if he hadn't already had his hand inside her bra once or twice and maybe inside her panties as well."

"Jesus," I exclaimed, genuinely astonished. "I had no idea, no bloody idea at all."

"Did you know that Ted and Jilly had an affair last year?"

"What! I can't believe it," I exclaimed, even more surprised than hearing the dirt on my own wife. "Jilly's such a straight starched woman."

"Not on the inside apparently Dave," Mary grinned at me. "I don't think Kim ever knew about it, but I'm pretty sure Nick did."