What the Dog Didn't Hear

I waited. For what? Even though I was obviously paranoid, I would still say I was 99 percent sure that Reggie wouldn't be going swimming this morning. And if pretty boy showed up by himself, again, what would I do? I suspected that seeing the lump in his little racing suit would make me even more likely to punt between his goalposts. Still, I waited. Until a random glance at the dashboard clock told me I was going to be a least a half-hour late for our morning work meeting.

No one was coming, but there was no sense of relief. I'd heard him say he still had early classes a couple of days a week. This could be one of those days, so him not being here today meant nothing. And if Reggie knew his schedule, then her not being here today didn't prove anything either. No matter how many times I told myself to believe and trust my wife, I knew that this not really knowing was going to keep eating at me like acid.

Then I registered something that made the acid bubble up from my stomach and into my throat.

I was staring at the pool house door. The very loud and squeaky door. Finally, a gnawing something that had been lurking at the back of mind, came lurching to the front.

Reggie had been on the edge of climax. If it hadn't been for that squeaky hinge, she would have gone over that edge. She hadn't come to her senses on her own and stopped herself, she'd been fully committed to sharing orgasms with her new E&V playmate. If that hinge hadn't squeaked, would one of our neighbors have been eyewitness to Mrs. McGillicuddy rubbing herself to orgasm right in front of the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whatevertheirnameswere?

These were the thoughts that were tormenting me as I drove toward the company compound in an industrial park on the edge of the city. I was self-flagellating myself with the events of the weekend and wishing for some way to prove things one way or the other. I sounded like Jim Carrey's character in Bruce Almighty, when he's driving along, yelling out for God to send him some kind of sign. God does, warnings about the path he's on, but Bruce is too self-centered to see them, and ends up driving straight into a light pole.

Even though I was pretty damned self-absorbed myself as I drove to work that Monday morning, I did manage to see Morgan 'God' Freeman's subtle messages to me along the side of the road. Two of them: 12-foot-high answers to the two big questions of what I should do about her, and him.

First was a billboard advertising a new Gentleman's Club opening up near the airport. As if we needed another one. I had to admit that the model they'd used was nice. Her hair was blonde, and her tan was dark, and no tan-lines showed on the 38DD's that were up front and center in a bikini that made me think 'pasties' before 'swimsuit'. Her mouth had one of those come-hither smiles, telling you how badly she wanted to show you her body. What I heard coming from her sensuous mouth was one word: hypocrite. The tanned 38DD's had triggered a flashback to the last time I had frequented such an establishment myself.

It was more than a decade back; Reggie and I were living in Wichita Falls and I was still a journeyman, working for Lawson Construction. A big twister had passed south of Oklahoma City and since Jim Lawson had the company licensed in Oklahoma as well as Texas, he was able to join the state's emergency clean up contract. He sent half his gang up there to help people dig out from the mess and either tear down or shore up what was left of their houses. It was my first big job as site foreman.

We rented a couple of large RVs in Wichita Falls and drove them up there to be our sleeping quarters for the next couple of months of clean up and construction. As you'd expect, a bunch of roughnecks living on top of each other led to a quick devolution of our social graces. We worked our butts off during the day, but naturally got damned bored at night. Eventually we started making our way up to Norman, home of the University of Oklahoma, looking for distraction.

One place we found it was called, Oh, You! It was a strip club that catered to the college boys. But they were more than happy to host a group of blue-collar Texans who were there to support our Okie cousins. The fact that we used the same currency as the OU students, and spent it more freely, was likely another reason for our warm welcome.

Long story, short, I never did go into a backroom for a private dance, or setup an even more private rendezvous away from the club with any of the dancers, like some of my crew did. But as one month stretched into two, I did go from cheering from a table, to standing stage-side and stuffing dollar bills into waistbands, to allowing a dancer hustling drinks in between sets to sit on my lap and face slap me with some lovely big titties that reminded me oh so much of Reggie's.

Of course, when I got home from the job, I didn't tell any of that to my wife. Did I lie to her about it? If omission of the truth is a lie, then yes, I did. I told her about the other bars and clubs we'd gone to, hell, I'd even Facetimed her from two or three so she could see how me and the boys were getting along as geo-bachelors. Of course, I only did that from sports bars and one karaoke bar where I showed her a couple of our gang mangling some rock classics. Although, I must say, Beto Gonzalez did a pretty good La Bamba.

But even all these years later, I'd still never told her about ogling a parade of young hotties and spending some of my hard-earned dollars, technically our dollars, so I could run my fingers across a naked hip, thigh, or breast. Why would I? She didn't have cuckquean fantasies; it would only hurt her. And I wasn't still fantasizing about that scene, especially when fucking Reggie. Hell, I hadn't even thought about it at all in a long stretch of years.

You see where I'm going with this, right? I'd done something that would have hurt her feelings and perhaps have hurt our marriage, but I hadn't crossed a red line. At least not in my rule book. And I'd never gotten near that line again since and never wished I could. So, there was nothing good to be had from confessing my transgressions.

And why shouldn't Reggie feel the same way about Saturday morning? I believed what I'd heard by the pool and then back at our place. That she had been mesmerized into almost unconscious action, like a bird before a dancing cobra, and had taken the lesson to stay the hell away from snakes in the future. So, why offer a confession that she wouldn't see as having any positive outcomes?

Ah, but what about the snake? The young cobra slithering around our housing complex? The God of screenwriters provided guidance on that issue with a second billboard.

It was one I'd seen many times, for what I would call an ambulance-chaser, an attorney trying to turn small issues into big payouts, with him taking 30-45 percent. This one was for workplace injuries, a not insignificant danger in the construction industries, so I'd had to deal with these assholes myself in the past. Today, however, I took notice of a tagline along the bottom of the sign that I hadn't paid much attention to before.

Who will be hurt next if you don't take a stand now?

Joe Abogado will stand with you.

Who indeed? I thought. The slick little cobra, or perhaps water moccasin was a better image, had almost gotten his fangs into my wife and would certainly try again if opportunity arose. And if it didn't arise with Reggie, then he'd turn his beady little gaze onto the next prey.

Now, I could hardly fault a hunter for hunting, hell, I'd done the same as a single man. But I'd never tried to poach on private hunting grounds. Yes, something needed to be done to stop the snake from stealing the eggs, or the brood hen, from another nest. At least in my flock's area.

My workday started with me handing out all of the candy bars stashed in my desk to my guys as an apology for being late. As I checked in on and worked at the three jobs we had running, I mulled over my snake problem without coming up with any clear plan. But by the end of the day, I was thinking much more about joining my hot wife at the pool for a short workout before getting our real exercise back in our bedroom.

But when I got home, I was surprised to find Reggie sitting in the kitchen, in regular clothes, and with a cup of tea in front of her.

"Hi, Honey. I thought we were going to meet at the pool?"

"I didn't want to be there without you."

I knelt alongside her chair and put a hand on her leg and her arm. "Reggie, I thought we'd got past this yesterday? You have nothing to be embarrassed about. You saw for yourself that you were far from the biggest woman out there in a bathing suit, and not far from being the hottest."

"No, it's not that. I just didn't want to go alone."

"But you've been spending mornings alone at the pool for months now. What's changed?"

Oh, shit, I was doing it again, trying to manipulate her into confessing. I called up the image of the billboard, the beautiful young tits looming over the passing traffic. The beautiful young tits smothering my face in Norman, Oklahoma.

"Baby, will you sit down please, there's something I need to tell you," she said sadly.

I took the chair across from her and put my hands in my lap under the table so she wouldn't see them clenched into fists. I could see hers wringing together on top of the table. I understood her nervousness, but why was I so tense? This was what I'd wanted, wasn't it? For her to come clean so we could really clear the air between us? But what if her confession was that she couldn't stop thinking about the pretty boy swimmer and his young, hard cock? I consciously clenched and released my buttocks. Then my thighs. Then my calves. She still hadn't said anything.

"I'm listening," I said, keeping my throat muscles as relaxed as my legs.

"Something happened..." Her throat seized up and she took a second to clear it. "Something happened that I'm really embarrassed about, and I think will hurt your feelings, but it's eating me up inside and I have to tell you."

Her eyes finally came up off the table and looked into mine. I could see the tears welling, and the fear, but also love, a lot of love.

"This past weekend was incredible," she said. "I'd been so afraid for so long that you were losing interest in me - that I might actually lose you."

She saw my mouth start to open in protest and put up a hand to stop me.

"I know, or at least I know now, how wrong I was. In my memory I can hear all the times you called me beautiful and tried to treat me like I was still the sexy young thing you married. But for some reason, I couldn't hear those things when you said them. I completely discounted them and let myself spiral further and further down."

Her hands were still nervous on the tabletop, only now she was twisting and twisting the gold band I'd slipped on her finger 23 years before. I twined my own fingers together to stop myself from reaching across to comfort her, it wasn't time for that yet.

"Anyway, I obviously heard you this weekend and I can't begin to tell you how happy it's made me and how mad I am at myself for letting things get the way they did." Her eyes simultaneously blazed with joy, while looking hollow with self-recrimination, and I had to hook my feet around the chair legs to keep myself from going to her.

Her mouth opened, but then closed and she looked down into her teacup. It had to have gone cold by now, but still she brought it to her lips. I could see she was having difficulty swallowing.

Wait. Was that it? Was she really going to stop there? No, she said it was eating her up inside. She wanted to tell.

"But something happened?" I prompted gently.

She put down her cup and squared her shoulders, finally ready to face the crisis head on. This was the strong woman I'd married and had been missing for far too long.

"Something...someone finally opened up my ears enough to really hear what you'd been saying all along. Someone else called me beautiful...and sexy...and I believed him."

She paused, probably expecting me to jump up screaming, "Who? Who!?" I kept my hands in my lap, nodded slightly, and said, "I'm still listening." I dropped my gaze to the table so she could speak without being distracted by the emotions flashing across my eyes like lightning ahead of a tornado.

"There was a guy, a young guy...I think just a visitor, someone's friend or nephew just here for a couple of weeks."

The last part sounded as desperate a lie as it was, but I let it go for the moment. She was clearly worried about me exploding out of our condo on the warpath looking for a young guy scalp.

"Anyway, this guy was at the pool a lot when I was there, he was a real serious swimmer, and he'd stop to chat after doing his laps and he started...complimenting me."

I could see her just enough to know that she'd raised her head to look at me, but I kept my eyes down and concentrated on keeping my shoulders and jaw muscles unclenched.

"Over time, his compliments started becoming more blatant, but not completely inappropriate. I realized he was flirting with me, but I thought it was still just harmless."

Harmless flirting, that must be why you showed him your pussy and masturbated with him! I barked out in my head. I couldn't believe how hard the anger hit me again. Clearly, I wasn't taking this as calmly and rationally as I'd thought I would.

"I should have told him to get lost, I should have told you, I should have stopped going to the pool..." Her voice was climbing, and I could tell she was on the verge of bawling. Then I heard two long, slow breaths going in and then out.

"But I didn't do any of those things. Instead, I felt flattered...and desired...and sexy. I'm so sorry, baby! You were trying to make me feel all those things all along, but I didn't believe them until I heard them from someone else." She went silent, still expecting my blow up.

I couldn't even manage another, 'I'm still listening,' but I nodded my head slowly a few times to urge her on.

Instead, the silence dragged on. Perhaps she was holding out hope that she'd confessed enough and wouldn't have to take that final step of admitting all. Finally, she let that hope go.

"Saturday morning, it just escalated out of control. When he stopped by to chat, he told me again how sexy he thought I was and he said...he said, 'Do you see what you do to me?' I could see a bulge in his Speedo and then he pulled it out and his...thing...his thing was hard and he started to stroke it."

She thrust her arms across the table, palms up and open. "I never touched it, baby, I swear. I never went anywhere near it."

You also didn't slap him, yell at him, or storm off, did you? I thought. Fuck, this forgiveness shit was hard. There was no way I could take her hands. As strong as mine were from years of hard labor, I might break some of her fingers if I couldn't stop myself from making a fist. Instead, I took in my own deep breath. As I let it slowly out, I focused my mind's eye once again on the gentlemen's club billboard I'd seen on the way to work and thought about glass houses and stones.

"I'm still listening," I choked out. She withdrew her hands.

"I...I didn't touch it, but I couldn't stop looking at it. I should have been angry or scared or disgusted, but instead...I got excited."

Her voice dropped to almost nothing on the last and I took a quick glance up to see that her head had dropped so much that her eyes were staring down into her own lap.

"But you still didn't touch it?" I prompted. Her head came up.

"No, no, I swear. He wanted me to; he asked me to." Her cheeks blazed red. "But even as excited as I have to admit I was, I wasn't going to do that, I'd never do that to you." Her voice was pleading for me to understand.

I nodded. "And then?"

Here came the next lie. A lie of commission, not omission. But it was the kind I probably would have told myself twelve years ago if I'd had to explain what I did at the Oh, You! strip club in Norman. Yes, I went this far, but no, I didn't go that far.

"He kept stroking himself and said he wanted me to watch him...finish. I finally came to my senses and remembered where we were and how wrong this all was, and I got the hell out of there! I came straight home and I knew I would have to tell you, to explain why I was so flustered, but you were still out with the dog. So, I went ahead and took a shower. First cold, then hot," she added with a small attempt at levity.

But you didn't rush out early, I thought. You did watch him finish and it almost made you cum yourself.

When I gave no response to my wife's last words, she pressed on. "While I showered, I puzzled over why a cute young guy was hitting on a fat old lady like me. Then I realized he'd been saying the same things you always said, about how sexy my full body was. 'So much nicer than my college classmates who starve themselves into skinniness.'" She groaned and her forehead bumped on the table. "And I fell for all that bullshit. He didn't even care what I looked like; he was just hoping to dip his wick anywhere he could."

"It's not bullshit, it's true," I said.

Her eyes came up to meet mine. Confusion and concern reigned.

"He came onto you because you're a goddamned MILF."

The corner of her mouth went up in a hint of a smile. "So you've told me before."

"I meant it before, and I mean it now." Her smile grew.

"So, you had your shower and then you came downstairs and fucked my brains out." Her smile became a real smile. Wicked, but real.

"I hope I was a good enough substitute for the young, hard cock you were thinking about."

I couldn't help myself, the hurt and anger were still there, right below the surface. Her smile collapsed.

"What? Hell, no!" She came flying out of her chair and around the table and behind me. She threw one arm around my chest, the other across my neck. I wondered if she was planning on choking me into submission.

"No, no, no," she hissed into my ear. "As I stood in that shower, kicking myself for being such a stupid cow, and thinking it was a bunch of bullshit from the kid, I suddenly realized that it wasn't bullshit from you. I really did think about that time you made me flash you at the lake, and how all these years later, you still snuggle up against me in bed with a hard on; a hard on that's really for me. You weren't somehow faking it to make me feel better, you really wanted to tap my fat ass."

"Hey--" I attempted to protest her description of herself.

"Shut up," she snapped. "I know my 'big' ass has become a fat ass and that there is a difference between them." Her arm grip relaxed, and her hands moved to my pecs. Now, I have let a little volleyball start to grow in my belly, but still no moobs on this guy. I keep my hands deep enough in the manual labor of my company that up top I'm still big with muscle, rather than fat.

"I'm not going to lie to you, okay?" she said urgently. "Yes, out there by the pool I was thinking about his cock and I was getting excited by it. And even after coming to my senses, I was still excited and I wanted fucked." She pinched my nipples through my shirt. "But I wanted to be fucked by you." She moved and crouched by my side and ran her hand across my belly and into my crotch. "When I finished my shower and came downstairs, this was the only cock I was thinking about." She gripped my manhood. "And it's still the only one I want to fuck."

I turned my chair to the side, and she knelt in front of me without ever giving up her firm, but gentle squeezing through my pants. I realized we were in very much the same position we'd taken on Sunday morning, when she'd finished her breakfast by eating my 'sausage' until it revealed itself to really be a Long John, out of which she'd sucked all the cream filling. My cock was again hard under her hand, but this time I wanted to grab her by the hair and shove it down her throat until the tears ran.