What Were You Thinking?

Her eyes widened as she stared at the image. "You were SPYING on me!" Jan shouted when she looked back at me, and I could see the anger in her eyes. "How dare you! That's invasion of my privacy! You're suffocating me with your constant monitoring!"

Jan's attempt to turn this around to try blaming me failed. I let her angry shouts just passed through me, as if I weren't there.

"No. It's not spying, but exploiting ignorance," I replied calmly. "There's a difference. We have security cameras on the doors for a reason. I'm concerned about your safety when you're alone at that remote house." Then before she could interrupt, I continued "... And remember last year when you said you wanted me to set up the wildlife camera? I told you I installed four of them in the trees around the house, and that I could remotely access them. I even showed you a video of the bear climbing up onto our deck, remember? Every time you go there without me, I check the camera recordings to ensure there's no one already there. When I was checking the cameras about fifteen minutes before you arrived, I saw his car pull in, and I remembered it after seeing him drive away from that house party."

"Do you have a camera set up in the living room or our bedroom to record me, too?" she asked with an accusatory snarl.

I preferred my wife's smile, and not that snarling look. It made her appear mean and ugly. But we needed to get this out in the open, and her responses were inevitable.

"Of course not," I said again in a calm tone. "But one of them has the back of the house and deck in view, including the hot tub. At that distance, I can't see people's faces. But it does show enough to tell when someone is sitting on the edge of the tub with another head bobbing in their lap. And it occasionally catches images of people moving inside the house near the bedroom window, when an animal happens to activate a recording. So, when you and I are standing naked near a window and kissing, it's not always recorded."

"If you weren't watching the driveway camera, you wouldn't have seen us! So, you WERE spying on me!"

"No," I said dismissively. "Even if he didn't happen to arrive early for me to see him, I would have found those videos in another two weeks when I checked to clear the cameras' memory cards. And after I saw Rodger's car pull up and you kissing him when you arrived, I just checked the cameras to make sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions. I haven't yet reviewed all of the videos since that blowjob. But, knowing you, there are probably more."

"Now you want a divorce, right?" Jan asked angrily. Then as if she knew it all and was trying to regain some control, she added with a snide tone "But you can't divorce me for infidelity, since you've fucked other women at house parties, too."

Her attempts to twist this into something she thinks she can control were failing to make a dent in my demeanor. I maintained my composure and paused before reacting.

"I never said anything about divorce," I calmly pointed out. "But now that you've brought it up, I have to wonder what YOUR plans might be. As for the accusation of monitoring you and suffocating you with my constant presence, those cameras were installed at YOUR insistence. The fact that you forgot about them isn't my fault. And for my constant presence making you feel like you're suffocating, remember that YOU control our social calendar and I go where and when you want us to go together."

"Huh!" she said in a huff, apparently just delaying as she collected her thoughts for her next argument.

I merely sighed as I paused, then went on. "When you said you wanted a weekend alone, I had no problem with that. Take time away from me anytime you want. But if you want me to be around for the things YOU spontaneously want to do, then I deserve some advance notice of your plans. When you said you wanted to go alone to the mountain house, I knew you'd be away long enough for me to play golf for five hours. But even then, you might come home early. So, if you wanted to spend the weekend with Rodger, I wouldn't have a problem with that either. I would be assured you'd have a distraction, and I would have the whole weekend to myself, to do whatever I wanted to do."

"So, we're okay then, right?" she naively asked. "You said you wouldn't have a problem if I spent a weekend with Rodger."

"You still don't get it!" I said, replying somewhat astonished that she didn't see anything wrong yet. "It's not that you went away without me to suck and fuck Rodger. ... We had our pact which YOU made even before we were married: 'Don't lie to me. And give me two weeks' notice if you ever want to leave.' And for all the controlling rules you've made and broken when we've been with others, I've insisted on only one. Do you remember what my unbreakable rule is?"

After a pause she quietly said "... No double standards."

I didn't say anything and gave her time to think about it without interrupting. After a brief pause, she meekly added "So, you deserve a weekend away to fuck another woman without me there. Do you want me to see if I can get Maggie to spend some time alone with you?"

I just shook my head in disbelief that she thought she could control and manipulate me so easily.

"Maggie's husband, Dan, would never want her doing something like that, and I wouldn't be comfortable asking them," I said dismissing her idea. Then I realized she was desperately trying to soften the impact by offering me one weekend under her control of who I would sleep with.

"You're smart enough to know what this means," I said a little more harshly. "It's about your lack of honesty and attempting to deceive me, thinking you could keep me clueless. It's about you going off for a date without discussion or notice, then not even being honest about it when I gave you the chance. It's about trusting that when you said you wanted a weekend alone that you intended to be alone."

"I never said I wanted to be alone," she said defensively, again trying to assert her control by deflecting. She was trying to create a doubt in my mind about my understanding of her weekend.

"Don't treat me like I'm stupid," I replied. "You said you wanted to go to the mountain house so you could read and watch your chick-flix without me hovering nearby. That implies you wanted to be alone. And Rodger doesn't live anywhere near that mountain house to just drop by for a friendly visit." As I thought about that, I asked "Could I see your cellphone?"

"Why?" she asked with a look of concern when she reached for her purse and hesitated.

"Again, responding to my question with a question," I casually pointed out. "We've never denied each other access to our phones. Are you starting now?"

Jan finally pulled the phone out of her purse and somewhat reluctantly handed it to me, and I opened the messages to begin scrolling down through them. At least she didn't try deleting them.

"I see you began texting Rodger before you told me you wanted your weekend away. Unless I'm mistaken, and you know I'm not, your first text to him was soon after you sent me downstairs for that sci-fi night you insisted on last Sunday. That's apparently when you started this. It looks like you two had a back-and-forth exchange, where he asked if you were going to meet him again at the airport bar."

Jan was now very quiet and looking a little sheepish. But she was turning her head and not making eye contact with me. So, I looked back at her phone and scrolled quickly through a few more messages.

"But you didn't have a business trip planned last week." I looked up again at her and she still wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were darting around, but not looking down. That was a telling body language sign that she's thinking and looking for a way out of the mess, after she was caught in the lie. But the fact she wasn't looking down indicated she hadn't given up in defeat.

"You knew you wouldn't be able to convince me your company was suddenly sending you there on such short notice. ... And I see in the texts that you then asked if he could spend the weekend at the mountain house. At least he had the decency to ask if you wanted him to find a date for me, or if I would be there for a threesome. But you told him I decided to stay home and give you both some privacy." I paused and looked at her until she stopped looking around and locked eyes with me. "That wasn't true, was it?"

"No, it wasn't. ... So, I misled you AND Rodger to get some private time for a weekend, ... and you found out. Now what? Divorce? Tie me up and beat me?" She was getting angrier, then almost shouted " ... WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?"

"I just wanted the truth, without having to pry it out of you," I answered with a steady calm.

"If you think I betrayed you," she said "why are you acting so calm about it? What does it TAKE to make you mad?" she asked in a demanding tone.

Never taking my eyes off her, when she said that, a memory leaped out and my stone-faced expression dissipated. Her question stirred up that darkness from long ago.

Taking a deep breath, I began "There were no kids my age in my neighborhood when I was growing up, so I tried hanging around the older boys. When I was ten years old, that's when I learned a tough life lesson: 'teenage humans are the most vicious animals on the planet.' One of them beat me up, pounding his fist into my face, over, and over, to teach me to stay away from them."

Jan's expression softened in sympathy, as she patiently waited for me to continue.

"You know my dad was never around, working two jobs all the time or sleeping when he could. And mom wasn't to be bothered with our problems outside the house. So, I was alone to get EXTREMELY angry." I realized my eyes flared with the details of that memory surfacing, and I briefly clenched my teeth.

"What did you do?" she asked quietly, possibly seeing the darkness in my eyes as the anger returned. My wife is actually rather intelligent, and she was smart enough to realize there was now something else she didn't consider.

"I went home and took out a rifle," I began, and her eyes grew a little wider. "A twenty-two is a small bullet, but one I was very comfortable using. That night, I laid in wait in the dark for over an hour, waiting for the animals to walk down the street, so I could shoot the bully in the head."

"You didn't!?" she exclaimed quietly, almost asking a question and hoping for the right answer.

"I was an excellent marksman with that rifle," I said with a cold confidence. "I had a lot of practice shooting rats on the garbage pile a hundred feet away from our dining room window. But no, ... I didn't," and I managed to return the darkness to that cloudy void in my mind, burying it as I calmly continued "... As I laid there, silently waiting, my mind started racing, as it always does now: thinking and framing the next steps of a plan. And I looked at my finger on the trigger and realized 'After I pull this trigger, what's next?'

I took another deep breath and sighed. "... So, I thought about it for another minute, unloaded the gun, and went home, resolving to never get that angry again. It wouldn't solve the problem. That's when I decided the best thing to do was to stay away and let those animals prey on each other. ... After that, I spent my days and evenings alone wandering the mountains. ... That's why I didn't associate with anybody in high school. I grew to be one of the biggest kids in our high school, so I no longer needed a rifle. I could eliminate a bully with my bare hands. So, I avoided that temptation to finish off one of those animals who were trying their best to torment me."

Jan stood there almost speechless for a few seconds before asking "What ever happened to that bully and his friends?"

"The last I heard, he died of a drug overdose a few years later. Two of the others wound up in prison after they were out of high school. Only one seemed to turn into a decent person and got married to settle down."

"But you see other people as animals?" she asked, with an incredulous tone as if she could hardly believe it.

"Mostly," I admitted calmly, "That's why I don't like dealing with people. Most appear to go through life as thoughtless animals, causing problems around them. I don't kill black snakes at the mountain house, so they can get rid of the other vermin. So, I try not to get angry at people, to avoid the temptation of ending the root cause of the problems. I let the other vermin sort themselves out."

"What about me?" she asked with a hint of concern.

"I feel concerns and empathy for those who demonstrate some higher intelligence. That's why I always considered YOU a peer. I thought you were smarter than the others. But what was going through your head to make you want to do THIS to us?"

"I don't know!" she said with exasperation, like she was giving up in defeat, recognizing she underestimated everything with her poorly planned fun. "I've just been feeling, ... oh, I don't know how to describe it. Maybe I'm just TIRED lately."

"Tired of me?"

"No. Tired of life. My life. Tired of THINKING. ... I don't know! ... I just felt like I needed a change of some kind."

"That sounds like you were bored, not tired."

"Yeah, that's probably a better way to describe it: I was bored!" she said as if now acknowledging that this is all on her. "I just felt like I needed something different."

"I feel that way too sometimes," I admitted. "That's why we got into the lifestyle, ... for something different. But that wasn't enough?"

"Yes, ... No, ... Oh I don't know!" she said in frustration. "I guess I just started thinking of Dan and Maggie's next party and ... it just seemed like it might be another house party with flirting and fucking ... and... I felt like I needed a different kind of WEEKEND distraction!" and she added that last with emphasis. "I wanted a vacation, ... some time away from always being ME."

I could tell now that she was coming clean and getting back to her talkative self. So, I let her continue.

"I wanted to be a really bad girl for a change, going back into my work routines tomorrow feeling like a different person. ... I didn't want to ask you, tell you, or somehow seek your permission. It wouldn't be the same. And I certainly didn't want YOU doing the same thing!"

"You wanted to continue controlling me. ... Well, from what I can tell in the texts, at least Rodger wasn't laughing at me," and I felt that darkness flare briefly again with some doubt, but I quickly pushed it back. "It was just YOU who made the unilateral decision to make me a cuckold. Now I'll always carry that label," I added a little despondently.

I almost amazed myself at how calmly I was able to make that assertion. Now I am a cuckold, by any definition of the word, since she fucked another guy secretly, trying to keep me clueless about it! And the way my mind works, it's a fact, an event in the past which can never be undone. It happened!

I might have tried stopping her with a phone call that evening when I recognized Rodger's car waiting for her. But that wouldn't have stopped her having already planned it. The plan alone was her deception. The sex and cumshots were just more of the same I've seen in the past.

"I needed something different," she said almost pleadingly. "And a weekend like that just grew in my mind as the something."

"Making me a cuckold was what you needed to not be bored," I replied with a cold, stone-faced expression. "Do you know if any of our retired neighbors there saw his car come and go in our driveway, or you pull in without me? Gary and Rita have called us before when they saw strange cars coming and going there."

Jan finally looked down and meekly admitted "I didn't think about what the neighbors there might see at the end of the driveway. I just thought no one else ever sees what happens in the house or out back in the hot tub."

"They probably noticed Rodger hanging around for fifteen minutes, waiting for you. ... Well, it's too late to stop them from gossiping. I'll deal with it the next time I see one of them. And since you brought up the idea of divorce, maybe we should start keeping our finances separate. I'll change my paychecks to go to a new bank account in my name only, and you do the same for yours. We can get separate credit cards for our personal expenses."

"Your salary is over twice as much as I make," she pointed out, sounding concerned.

"So, what's your point? You can afford the expenses for your lifestyle on your salary. We'll freeze our retirement accounts and start contributing to new personal ones. Then if you want a divorce any time in the future, we can split everything from the past fifty-fifty. Now and going forward, we'll each just contribute the same amounts to our current joint accounts to cover the bills."

Jan's background with the accounting firm had her quickly understand the consequences. She earned enough each month for her own expenses and her half of our joint bills of our life together. But she'd have nothing more than that to add to her savings. And growing her retirement savings for the future was one of her top priorities in our budget. She would have enough for a comfortable retirement in ten or fifteen years, but not the outrageous amount she planned with savings from my salary. She had hoped to retire early and travel the world with no money concerns.

"I don't want a divorce!" She said it as if she were asking me to stop saying the word. "I just said that since you found out and sprung it on me this way. I thought you were mad and that you might be thinking of it."

"No. I'm not mad, just disappointed. You decided to change things between us, without consulting me. But we've talked this to death and there's nothing more to say about it. It's done. I've heard what I need to know. Now it's time for bed," I said as I finished my wine and stood. "I need some more time to think about what you did to me." Then I turned away and walked toward the master bedroom.

As I laid in bed waiting for her, Jan finally came out of the bathroom to come into bed beside me. I still enjoyed the view of her gorgeous figure as she walked out of the bathroom, her bare slit at the top of her gorgeous legs and those tits swaying as she bent over to crawl onto the bed. She paused, propped up on her right arm and meekly asked: "Could I use your shoulder tonight?"

Normally, she'd be direct, saying with confidence she WANTS my shoulder to lay her head on me until she falls asleep. But tonight, she's asking.

I stretched out my left arm and she smiled as she laid her head on me. Sliding her body close to cuddle, she put her left arm and hand on my chest before saying softly "I really do love you."

"I know," I said and paused a few seconds, then added "... and I love you, too."

She slid her hand slowly down across my stomach to my groin and began fondling my stiffening member. Then she kissed my chest, and she began kissing her way down my body ...

Aftermath

I still love my high school girlfriend and wife. Just because she had some other guy for a weekend cumming in her mouth and wherever else, doesn't mean I'm ready to throw her out. I've watched her do that before with other guys at swinger parties, and I even watched her that first time with Rodger, as I fucked another woman on the same bed beside them. If I divorced Jan over the scheming and attempts to deceive me, I'd be left trying to search among the animals for a spark of intelligence in another woman. And I'd wonder if the next one would try hiding things from me. Based on my experiences with other women, I seriously doubt I could ever find one who wouldn't lie to me about something or keep some secrets. Even Brenda, who I dated for months when I was in college, didn't think she needed to tell me about her fetish for gangbangs.