You Think That's a Slut Story?

No-sex alert warning. Also, if you're looking for a feel-good ending, move on down the line. Life isn't always pretty. It's just life.

*****

"You think that's a slut story?" asked Helena Bonham as a group of Perriman Financial execs sat around a Logan International Airport bar in Boston waiting out a snow delay. "How about this: I know this woman who was such a sneaky whore that she used to fly to Norway once a year for annual company meetings and spend much of the week on her back with the CEO's son between her legs. She did this for like 20 years, and her old man never suspected a thing.

"I mean in the office she was prim and proper and for 51 weeks of the year you would have thought she was just the nicest, most conservative, quiet woman you'd ever met. But she'd go over to Norway for corporate meetings once a year and turn into a slut. She didn't think the rest of us knew what was going on, but come on, woman, when you leave the hotel every night with the same hunk, and don't sneak back into your hotel room until time to shower and change clothes for the next day's meetings ... Nobody's stupid, well ... except maybe her husband. But I guess you really can't fault him. Why would he think his practically "Goody Two-Shoes" wife would be whoring around him for one week a year?

"I worked with that woman for like 15 years. I left there about two years ago. I wonder if she's still fucking him over ... What was her name ... Traci ... Traci Shondell. Yeah, that's it. I bet that poor bastard's going to go to his grave never knowing that his wife was cuckolding him."

"Hey, wait a minute, we've got a guy in our group named Shondell," Claude Whisenhunt whispered to me. "You don't think she's talking about Shondy's wife, do you Herb? You've met her. She does kind of come off like an ice queen, but she is one hot MILF."

"That's the story, Bryan, as close as I can remember it," Herb Mangold said to me over the phone. "They went on to talk about somebody else hooking up after that, but I knew I had to call you as soon as I heard it. I hope it's not your Traci, Bryan, Jesus, I really do, but if it was my wife I'd want to be told."

"Thanks, Herb. Really, I mean it. I hope it's not her, too," I said to my co-worker. "Hey, could you do me one favor and not mention this to anyone else. If Claude brings it up again, just douse the story as quietly as you can, and I'll tell Claude myself if I have to ... but only if I have to."

I have worked with Herb for 15 years at Perriman, and I'd trust the man with the lives of my children, so I knew he could be trusted to keep this quiet. I also trusted the fact that he got the story straight, which means I had a world-flipping problem.

My wife, Traci, is in management at Johannsen Ltd., a financial services firm based out of Norway. And yes, for the last 23 years now, she has been flying to Norway as part of the management crew for one week of corporate meetings. And yes, she is conservative and prim and proper, in addition to being one hot MILF. But my Traci would never cheat on me, could never cheat on me. Could she?

Helena Bonham's words came back to haunt me.

"I bet that poor bastard's going to go to his grave never knowing that his wife was cuckolding him."

Sitting around wishing it wasn't so was not an option. This "poor bastard" was going to know the truth.

Traci and I have been married for 25 years. We met in college and dated for three years before getting married. We both work in the financial services field, and are both in management and have done quite well for ourselves financially. We have three beautiful children, one who has graduated college, one a college junior and the baby is a college freshman. So we've become empty-nesters this year, and although it took some getting used to at first, being alone together again has rekindled an already-good marriage ... or so I thought until a few minutes ago.

I sat at my office desk and pondered the situation for a while. I truthfully didn't know where to start.

Traci had started at Johannsen right out of college, about a year before we got married. It took her three years to earn her way to Norway for the corporate meetings, and she's been going every year since. Doesn't usually have much to say about them before or after; they just seem to be a necessary evil. Thinking back, she did seem a little perturbed about going while pregnant with our first child, but I assumed that was because she was five months along and starting to get uncomfortable. Now, of course, I'm wondering if she was perturbed because she was pregnant while seeing her lover.

I went to my Firefox favorites and clicked on Johannsen's website. It was a beautiful, fast-loading site befitting one of the world's top financial firms. Since it was Traci's company I would occasionally peruse it, but until today the only corporate officer I knew about was the CEO, Gunnar Marquist. Marquist had brought three of his family into the company - two sons and a daughter - and I found their photos and biographies on the website along with several other top officers. I read the kids' bios in chronological order, so I didn't get to Henrik Marquist's until last. When I opened the bio, however, and got a photo bigger than a postage stamp, I almost gave up my lunch: I was looking at the faces of my two youngest children, Jason and Marilyn. Holy shit!

Traci is of Norwegian descent herself, with long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, so I never gave it a second thought that the last two kids were blonde and blue-eyed, the same way I never gave it a second thought when Amy came out with brown hair and eyes like me. But after looking at Henrik Marquist's photo, there was no way those kids could be mine. I quickly did the math, too. The corporate meet's usually in August, and both of their birthdays are in May. Fuckshit!

I desperately needed to talk to someone, but who could I really trust with a secret this delicate, and who would have the strength of character to advise me well. Next to Traci, my go-to in situations like this was my father-in-law, Alf Schlagel. He had been my closest trusted adviser since my dad died when I was in my late 20s. He was just a solid guy, never forced himself into any situation, and because of this he became my life consigliere on the few times I needed to talk to someone other than my wife.

But I couldn't go to Alf. How do you hit a guy with, "Gee, sorry, sir, but I think your daughter is a cheating whore and has been fucking somebody behind my back for more than 20 years."

It quickly became obvious to me that I don't have a lot of close, personal friends when I took stock of the situation. My next closest advisor was my favorite bartender, the night manager at a small bar near my house named simply, "My Place." It was an old-fashioned type pub that I occasionally dropped into for a quick drink or two on some nights or took Traci with me for a quick dinner on other nights. Through the years I had become somewhat close friends with January "Don't ever call me Jan" Sparnakle, the feisty but level-headed daughter of the owner. She was a few years younger than me, but had been working at the pub her entire working life, and as such had developed a real feel for people. She had given me her thoughts and advice on a number of subjects through the years, but never anything of this magnitude. I hoped she was up to this challenge, although I wasn't sure I really was.

I took a couple of personal hours off work and headed over to My Place. I got there about an hour before January came on. I sat at the bar just shooting the breeze with her father, "Slats" O'Koren, while I put down a pair of JD over ice. Since I rarely got to the bar this early, I hadn't spoken to Slats in a while, because he usually headed home as soon as possible after his shift was up. "That's how you stay married to the same woman for 50 years," he would often brag.

"How's that pretty wife of yours, Bryan?" Slats inquired.

Being lost in deep thought, I guess I didn't hear the question, so Slats repeated it from just a few feet away, at a louder volume this time. I heard him that time, as did most of the bar, I think. I stammered, honestly not sure how to answer what should have been a simple question.

"She's fine, Dad. Sheesh!" January answered for me, coming up behind me from my left, having just entered through the employee entrance.

"Hey, Babe, how are you?" I asked as I locked her up in a friendly bear hug. She hugged me back hard, and while doing so, whispered in my ear, "I'm fine, but I'm sensing all is not well in Bryan-Land, is it?"

I pulled back from the hug with a shocked look on my face. "How could she possibly know," I thought to myself.

Seeing the look on my face, January sat down on the stool next to me and quietly asked, "It's Traci, isn't it? What's going on, Shondy?"

"I haven't confirmed anything yet, and it's going to take a while to do that, but I've got it from a very good source that she's been fucking around on me behind my back for more than 20 years."

"What?! How the hell could you not know something like this has been happening for all these years," she said in shock.

"Because she only does it one week a year, when she goes to Norway for her company's corporate meetings. Apparently she's been fucking the boss's son for the last 25 years, one week a year!"

"Ooohhh!!" she replied back.

"Exactly," I answered.

"Well, you can't just do nothing, unless you're one of those perverts who likes his wife to fuck around on him," she said matter-of-factly as she looked for a reaction.

I gave her a pissed look which should have told her everything she needed to know, and she continued on.

"The pussies of the world would ask you to ask yourself if you'd be better off with her or without her, but that's not how it works in the real world, Bry," she started. "If you're the man I think you are, there's no way you can live with a cheating whore who breaks her vows, even though you may not have known it for a very long time, and it only happens one week a year while she's out of the country. I don't think you could live with yourself giving her this kind of hall pass. And that's the rub. You might have loved her more than life itself ... maybe you still do ... but what kind of life will you have by throwing away your self-respect. Wrong is still wrong ...

"Then there's also the matter of the younger two kids being his as well," I interrupted.

January looked like somebody had knocked the wind out of her. She looked every bit the way I felt when Herb told me what he heard. I filled in the speechless gap while she sat there in shock.

"That's not yet been confirmed," I said. "I was thinking that I would give all three kids Ancestry DNA kits for Christmas, and I would know in about two months."

"No. No. That's the wrong way to go about this," she noted. "If you do that, everybody will see the cat out of the bag, and then you've probably ruined any chance for revenge."

The R-word. That's why I went to January. Like me, she wouldn't take this lying down. I didn't need a marriage counselor. I needed someone to consider my side of the equation.

"You need to keep this under wraps completely until you are ready to make some kind of move. But if what you're telling me is true, you still might lose those kids, and I know that would tear your heart out of your chest. So whatever you do, and I'm not sure there really is much you can do, has to be tempered somewhat by your desire to remain the father to those two kids."

She then shifted gears pretty quickly.

"How about at Christmas break you bring everybody here for a quick meal. I will personally serve drinks to everyone, and I will personally make sure I move the old glasses off of the table and into a sealed container. Then we ... you ... can take the containers to a DNA testing place I know about. We get DNA from all five of you, which in the long run is a better and more accurate way to go.

"And I at least get the price of a meal out of your sorry ass."

She smiled broadly as she stuck the needle in, but something had to be done to lighten the mood a bit. Plus, she had given me sound advice. This was going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

"What are you going to do about sex?" she next asked, again shifting gears quickly.

Was she asking me what I think she was asking me? No, because she immediately broke into a devilish smile and responded, "Ah, ah ah. Don't even think you heard that right, moron. I'm not asking you if you want to have sex, dickhead, I'm asking what are you going to do about Traci wanting to have sex like you always do. You can't just stop, because then she'll know something is wrong."

"Damn, you're good at this stuff. I hope for Roy's sake he never gets on your bad side," I shot back with a reference to her husband of about 25 years.

"I hadn't thought about that at all. Good point. I guess for appearances I'll just have to continue fucking the hell out of her three times a week. But maybe to teach her a subtle lesson I won't use my tongue anymore."

"Let me repeat, idiot," she stated flatly. "You've got to do whatever it is you normally do with her and to her until you are ready to act. She's not a stupid woman. In fact, she's pulled the wool over your eyes quite nicely for 20-some years."

"So in other words, you're telling me for the time being I need to 'Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

"Exactly. Nice 'Godfather' reference, too. Play it cool. Don't get in a big rush."

Of course, that was going to be easier said than done. You can't just unlove somebody overnight, no matter how badly they've hurt you, but this betrayal stung like hydrogen peroxide on an open wound.

++++++++++

I guess I was a little quieter at Christmas season than normal, and Traci's folks both picked up on it. Luckily for me, they didn't go to Traci for answers. Because of our great relationship, they came straight to me and asked if there was something on my mind, or if I was sick. I felt terrible having to lie to them. I'm going to miss Alf and Barb when Traci and I divorce. I wonder if I can get custody of them.

It was sad for me knowing this was going to be our last Christmas together as a family. I'd watch the kids together doing something goofy and drift back to when they were little, when I didn't know that two of them were from Traci's womb but somebody else's sperm, and I still thought I was the luckiest man alive to have a smart and beautiful woman as my wife.

I wondered if she'd run to Marquist after the divorce was final. I knew he was married, but I wondered if he would trade in his wife for my ex, or would she become his full-time mistress. What would my kids do when they found out? Would I still be DAD? Or would I just be dad? So many questions; so few answers.

Three weeks after Christmas I had my DNA answers, which confirmed what I already knew. Amy was the child of both Traci and me, and Jason and Marilyn were both the children of Traci and some as yet unnamed dickhead that I am assuming to be Henrik Marquist.

Traci had a girls' night out the next Thursday after I got the DNA results, so I took that opportunity to see January at My Place that night. I gave her the results to review; she gave me a file of several divorce attorneys that she had researched for me.

"You're not going to get screwed by the courts on this divorce," January told me. "Your kids are almost out of the house, you're home is now community property and will be part of the 50/50 settlement. So your only concern should be what do you want to do in terms of revenge. And whatever you do, you don't want to go so over the top that you drive the kids away."

All that factored in, it seemed the best way for me to get revenge was financial. First, I had to file for divorce. Then after that I was going to sue Johannsen for not enforcing its morals contract, resulting in my divorce. Next was my suing Marquist for child support. The last piece was contingent upon when my two younger kids found out that he was their father. Sooner or later they would, and I wanted him to pay through the nose if possible. Not that I was going to keep that money - I was actually going to divide up the settlement into three equal pieces, and start a trust fund for all my kids.

I contacted one of the attorneys January scoped out for me and got things started.

I almost blew everything out of the water a few months later. Our 26th anniversary came up March 23, and I took the whole family and Traci's folks over to one of the best restaurants in town, Pasqualone's, for a sumptuous meal. I was watching Traci accessorizing with jewelry while we were getting ready to go out, and I noticed a small velour bag tucked into the corner of the bottom layer of her jewelry box. Through the years, I've bought Traci a lot of nice jewelry, and I didn't recall anything coming in a velour bag. I absent-mindedly reached for the bag, opened the drawstring and pulled out what appeared to be two very expensive gold bracelets with a number of turquoise charms attached to them. Being a financial guy, I was able to eyeball them long enough to see that one bracelet had a dozen charms on it, the other had 11.

"Wow. When did you get these?" I asked before I could really think about it.

Traci looked over, flushed deep red, and very quickly took them from my hands.

"Th-these old things?" she stammered. "Ah, that's just some trinkets I picked up in Norway about a hundred years ago."

She didn't look me in the eyes as she said it, and quickly put them back in the bag and back in the jewelry box. That's when it hit me - those were probably gifts from Marquist, with a charm being added every year to mark their week together. She probably brings them with her to Norway and wears them for him.

That kind of set Traci on edge for the rest of the evening. I know Alf and Marge noticed it, and I think all three kids sensed something was just a little off.

++++++++++

Traci's trip to Norway was set for Aug. 14-21. She was her usual stoic self about it, and knowing what I know now, I had to marvel at the woman's acting ability. She didn't seem one bit different in the weeks leading up to the trip. If I didn't already know about the kids not being mine, I'd think maybe this whole story was made up. She even gave me our usual goodbye peck on the lips before heading off on the company limousine to the airport Sunday morning.

My flight to Oslo, Norway, was later in the day. I had booked a full week of vacation without telling Traci, my kids, or my in-laws. There are just some things you have to see for yourself, I told January when I made the plans.

I got in late Sunday night, got my rental car, and headed to my hotel, which was only a few blocks from the hotel where Johannsen was holding the corporate meetings and where the Johannsen out-of-towners were staying.

Monday afternoon I did a little sightseeing. Oslo is certainly a beautiful city. From the itinerary Traci showed me, the meetings would be breaking up at 4 each afternoon, dinner with some Johannsen locals was planned for 6, although any of the Americans that wanted could opt out and do a little sightseeing and eating out on their own. The meetings would end Friday at noon, and the Americans then had about a day and a half to tour the city.

I started hanging out near the hotel around 4, knowing that it would take a while for Traci to change into a non-work type outfit. I had on a pair of sunglasses and wore a fake beard, but beyond that I figured there was no way Traci would recognize me because I was the last person she would be looking for in Norway.

She came out of the hotel wearing a classy yet shorter-than-usual little black dress that I had not ever seen her wear before. The top of the dress was open to the middle of her 36D breasts, and her body looked wonderful. She had on three-inch CFM black heels and, I noticed, a bracelet on each wrist with the various charms that I had seen several months back in her jewelry box, that she had called old trinkets. Except I wasn't stupid. Those old trinkets were probably worth about $5,000 each.