Very Different Valentine's Days

It was Valentine's Day and I was sitting in the left hand corner of the tavern thirty minutes early nursing a Lynchburg Lemonade. The way the room was configured I could see the front door and most of the bar with its waist high top rail and the stools in front of it for the customers. My best friend since we were both three and our moms began hanging out together, Daniel "Danny Boy" O'Shea, had allowed me to unscrew the bulbs in the fixture above my table so that it was dim with only the light from a wall sconce five feet away preventing it from being totally dark. The person I was waiting for would not be able to tell who was sitting in the corner which was my objective all along.

I saw someone approach the front door five minutes past our arranged meeting time and recognized the parka and knew she had arrived. When she paused and took one last drag off the cigarette she was smoking before flicking it away out into the street; I thought to myself: "When did she pick up that filthy habit again?"

She entered the tavern and hung her coat on the coat tree beside the door then proceeded to a stool dead center of the bar. She had lost a lot of weight since the last time I had seen her which was exactly one year ago on this day, but my wife Chelsea was still a sexy lady even in the loose fitting, long sleeved, ankle length dress she was wearing. I watched as the bar tender sat a white wine down in front of her which confirmed that she was a regular at the bar. I knew from Danny Boy she'd been trying to get him to tell her how she could get in contact with me for the past year, but he was more loyal to me than she'd proven to be.

"Why had I avoided contact for a whole year from the woman I had loved for the last twelve years?" You're asking. For the answer to that question I need to introduce us and go into a little of our lives together.

I am Dale Stringer and I met Chelsea Chambers a month after returning home from graduating college. My best friend, Danny Boy, and his wife, Irene, had set us up on a blind date and I had been smitten by Chels the very first time I saw her. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever dated and I wanted to make her mine. The fact that she had already been married and divorced once despite her being only twenty three and a year older than me; didn't bother me. She was almost as tall as my 5'9" at 5'8", was a brunette with shoulder length hair, had green eyes perfectly spaced over a button nose with full kissable lips, and a voluptuous body.

We fell in love, got married, lived in a small apartment while I began the climb up the corporate ladder and Chels began working as a receptionist at a realty company and eventually earned a realtor's license. Everything in our lives seemed perfect for the next seven years then things began to change.

Our sex life had been great from the first time we had sex up to the seven year mark. Sure it had declined from our newly wed years, but we still had sex three or four times a week and had tried different things to keep it fresh and exciting in the past. The problem in our sex life was my fault entirely or to be more accurate, my shift in priorities from happy home life to workaholic, nothing's more important than the next promotion dumb ass. Between the late hours at work and being too tired to perform when I was at home, our sex life shrank to once a week and I rushed through that most of the time so I could either get some sleep or get back to working on whatever I'd brought home to finish. Chels finally got fed up and confronted me.

"Dale, I need to talk to you and you need to listen so get your ass into the kitchen right now." She said firmly to me the night our marriage began to change.

"I love you and I'm proud of you, Dale, but you've changed over the last six months and I don't like it." Chels started saying to me. "You've been so wrapped up in work that you've neglected me both as a husband and a lover. I need more sex than you've been giving me so you need to decide how we fix that. I won't cheat on you, but unless you start fulfilling my needs again, I will find someone who will. I would much rather be getting regularly fucked by the man that I love and I hope still loves me, but I am going to get fucked more than once or twice a week from now on.

"If you can't or won't do that, then it will be another man. If you can't live with that, then we'll have to divorce. I love you and want to grow old with you so you need to get on board with this or get out of my life."

I was dumb struck to say the least by what my loving wife had unloaded on me at that moment. I had known she wasn't happy, but I never thought she was that unhappy.

"I don't know what to say, Chels. I'm sorry that you're so unhappy that you've even thought about having sex with another man and I promise I'll cut back at work and give you what you need." I told her with every intention of doing what I'd promised.

I managed to keep that promise for the next three months, but after that I gradually began to slip back into the work consumed idiot I'd been before so it was no surprise when Chels hit me with her ultimatum again.

"Dale, you know I love you and wouldn't do anything to hurt you." She said to me as she sat in my lap one Saturday afternoon after we'd finished making love to each other. "And I love the way you make love to me when you put in the effort."

"But?" I interjected before she could.

"You've reverted back to that workaholic you were before and haven't been putting in the effort like you promised. Yes, you tried and I love you for that, but we're back to where we were six months ago and it looks like I'm going to have to change our situation because you haven't.

"I will be enjoying sex with other people and it won't be cheating." She told me matter-of-factly.

"How can you say it won't be cheating? I don't want you to be with other people." I said angrily as I tried to push her off me.

Chels hung on to me with all her strength and short of hurting her; I couldn't get her off of me.

"It won't be cheating because you will know. I won't keep secrets from you and will tell you as much as you want to know. I won't become emotionally attached to anybody else, male or female, and will always come home to you. I'll never deny you sex even if I've been with someone else that day and I swear you'll never get sloppy seconds. Please Dale, agree to let me do this or we're going to end up divorced and neither of us want that, do we?"

I don't know which part of her little speech shocked me more, the sex outside of our marriage or the male or female statement.

"Male or female?" I blurted out when I was able to.

"Yes, male or female. I hadn't told you before now because it never came up, but I did do some experimenting with other girls before my first marriage and I met you. I've never went all the way to actually having sex with another woman, but I remember how different it felt to be making out with another woman, feeling each other up, and how excited it made me. I want to go all the way with another woman at least once and if you agree to my being free to enjoy myself outside of our marriage; I'll be able to do that."

"If you had told me this before, we could have done that together." I managed to say when my second big shock of the day had eased and my brain was able to function again.

"I didn't want us to do that when we were fulfilling each other's sexual needs. I know how some men get addicted to that type of sex and it ruins the marriage and I was afraid you'd be one of those." She said with a pout on her face.

"And I know of women who say they can handle an open marriage without getting attached or addicted to sex with other people and end up ruining their marriages. That's what you're talking about here Chels; us having an open marriage because if you thought it'd be alright for you to have sex outside our marriage and expect me not to then you thought wrong.

"How do you know you won't become one of those women who love the lifestyle more than they love their spouse?" I asked her in a raised voice which always happened when I got angry or excited and at that moment I was a little of both.

"I could never love anything or anybody more than I love you, Dale. I promise I'll stop if you say I'm getting too involved with the "lifestyle" as you called it or if you think I'm getting too attached to another person. I love you and want us to remain a happy, loving couple, but right now I'm not happy and short of you quitting your job, which I don't want, this is the only way I see for us to both get what we want.

"I know how important your career is and how much you want to become one of the vice presidents in the company and I want to do everything I can to help you make that happen. I don't want a divorce, won't sneak around behind your back, promise to be discrete, never ever stop loving you, stop encouraging you, and will not let anyone come between us, I swear.

"As far as us having an open marriage, I hadn't thought of it like that. I hadn't ever thought of you being with another woman especially if I continued to fulfill all your needs at home, but you're right, it wouldn't be fair for me to be able to do something like this and you not be able to. I can't say I like the idea of you with other women, but I know it's only fair for me to agree to you being able to if you want to."

We talked into the wee hours of the night about opening up our marriage after we finally agreed that something had to be done or our marriage was doomed. We came to an agreement that we both could live with and that was the beginning of the next chapter of our lives together.

Chelsea began going out with other people and for my own peace of mind did it mostly without my knowing. As long as I didn't know the details, I didn't think about it too much and it worked for us. It did add some things to our own sex life that we'd not done before. Two months after she started seeing other people, we had our first threesome and with another woman instead of a man which always seemed to be the case in every other situation like the one we were in I'd heard about. To say it was the best experience I'd ever had would be the understatement of the century. I loved everything about what happened that night and Chels and I both knew we'd be doing that some more.

Our only threesome with another man happened three months after that and wasn't as enjoyable for me. I couldn't get into watching my Chels being pleasured by another man even though my loving wife did everything she could to include me in what was happening. In the end, I left them together in our guest bedroom after my one orgasm in Chels' mouth while her lover fucked her in doggie position. I was so relieved when he left before midnight and Chels joined me in our bed after showering in the guest bathroom.

She awakened me the next morning with her hot mouth on my cock and we made love to each other for most of the morning before I went to the office to do a little work.

Our new arrangement worked well for us for the next year and a half; until the Wednesday evening I came home and could tell by my first look at her that Chels had something on her mind and that it would probably not be a pleasant something for me. We had been together long enough for me to know from her actions and facial expressions that she wanted something and didn't think I'd agree to her having it.

She hadn't rushed to me and given me our customary welcoming kiss. She was also chewing on the side of her cheek which she knew annoyed me because it had always been a prelude to an unpleasant moment in our life together and us fighting about whatever it was she wanted. I did cave most of the time instead of forcing her to be the one to cave, but had been firm on enough occasions that it wasn't automatic that she would get her way.

"What do you want, Chels, and don't give me any hemming and hawing about there being nothing? You know I know you too well for me not to know you want something so tell me." I told her before I'd even set my briefcase down.

"Can I go out on a date Friday night, Dale?" She asked with a pout in her tone and anxiety in her eyes.

"No, you cannot. Our agreement is that the weekends are for us and you know that." I yelled at her getting angry.

"But Brad wants me to meet some of his friends and Friday nights are the only time they can get together." She whined.

"Who is Brad and why does he want you to meet his friends?" I asked in a calmer voice.

"He was a client who moved here and was looking for a condo or apartment to buy. There was an attraction so we had sex and have been having sex and now he wants me to meet his friends." She answered with a look of hope in her eyes.

"How long have you two been having sex? He does know you're married, doesn't he?" I had to know.

"We've been having sex for two months and no, he doesn't know I'm married." She said as that look of hope was replaced by the look of anxiety from before.

"So you've been fucking him for two months without him knowing you're married and now he thinks you're his girlfriend and wants to introduce you to all his friends. You've become emotionally attached to him, too." I yelled because I could see the way her expressions changed whenever she thought of him.

"No, I haven't." Chels said to me in as loud of a voice as she ever used.

"Yes, you have so don't try and deny it. You promised you wouldn't let this happen, but you have and to top it off you tried to lie about. I know you too well Chels and I've always known when you've tried to lie to me and never confronted you about it until now. You need to stop seeing this guy and I mean today."

"Okay, you're right; I have developed feelings for Brad and didn't want to admit them to you. Please don't make me stop seeing him." Chels told me with tears in her eyes.

"I can't make you do anything, Chels. I can only remind you of what you promised me before we opened up our marriage. I told you that I was afraid this might happen and you assured me that it wouldn't. You promised me you'd stop of I asked you to. I'm asking you to stop seeing this guy and if you truly love me; you will. I'm not hungry now so I'm going into the den and finish up this last bit of work. I love you, Chels, but you've really hurt me tonight so I think it's best if you sleep in the guest bedroom. I hope you realize what you've done to me and think long and hard about what you want or more specifically who you want.

"I was okay with you having sex with other people as long as it was only sex, but you've given away something you promised you wouldn't. You've given another man a piece of your heart and I'm not okay with that."

"No, I will not sleep in the guest bedroom." Chels said to me.

"Fine, then I will." I yelled before stomping into the den, slamming and locking the door behind me.

I ignored Chelsea's banging on the den door and yelling at me that we weren't through talking by putting on a set of headphones and turning the volume up until I couldn't hear her anymore. I booted up my laptop and began working on the papers in my briefcase. There really wasn't any hurry for me to get them done, but they kept me from thinking about the situation my wife and I were in.

Chels had evidently gotten tired and given up trying to get me to come out of the den because when the CD I'd been listening to stopped, I didn't hear her. I don't know when I fell asleep in the comfortable leather office chair the company had allowed me to bring home when they replaced all of the old chairs with ones that were "ergonomically" better than the old ones. I did notice that it was 1:16 A.M. so I decided to go to bed. Chels was in the bed in the guest room so I went to our bed and tried to go back to sleep which was difficult with all of the emotions I was feeling right then.

I had been hurt by what Chels had told me, was angry because I hadn't seen it coming and because she'd lied to me, was scared I was going to lose her, and worried about what would happen to me if she chose him over me. I managed to go back to sleep sometime between 2 A. M. and 6:30 A.M. when my alarm clock awakened me. I showered, slipped on some sweat pants and a tee shirt before heading to the kitchen for my breakfast. I saw Chels stir as I passed the guest room but continued to the kitchen.

I was nearly finished with the half of a grapefruit I was eating when Chelsea staggered into the kitchen. Her eyes were red and her face around her eyes was slightly swollen which told me she'd had a worse night than I had.

"I'm sorry, Dale. I'm sorry for being a selfish bitch, sorry for the way I acted last night, but more than that, I'm sorry that I've hurt you like I have. You're right and I promise you it's over between Brad and me. I won't see him again and I'll tell him why; because I'm married to the most wonderful and understanding man in the world. I do love you, more than you'll ever know, and I swear I'll make it up to you, Dale." Chelsea told me before rushing to me and flinging herself into my arms. At that moment I believed her and thought we'd dodged a bullet.

The next two months were better than they had been between Chels and me for a long time. All of my hard work and long hours were beginning to pay off and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I managed to cut back on the number of hours I had to spend at work and was able to provide my dear wife with the sex she so desperately needed and thought that her days of being with other people were over. I should have said something instead of thinking it to myself; then maybe I wouldn't have been blindsided by the fact that she hadn't stop having sex with other people.

I got home earlier than normal one Thursday afternoon and discovered that Chelsea wasn't as honest with me as I'd thought. No, I didn't catch her in bed with anyone; that might have been easier to accept.

A simple postcard from the Realtors Association reminding her of the big awards show and thanking her for confirming she'd be bringing a guest for that Saturday was the instrument of her betrayal of me and our marriage. She hadn't told me about any award show, hadn't ask me to be sure and have that Saturday free, and had definitely not told me to have my tux cleaned and altered if it needed it. I didn't know what was going on, but I wasn't going to let on that I knew something wasn't right. I pocketed the postcard then left our apartment so as not to be there when she got home, remembering to return the rest of the mail to our mailbox on the way out.

Chelsea was all over me when I got home at close to my new normal time. I wasn't really in the mood for sex after what I'd found earlier in the day, but couldn't really refuse her and not rouse her suspicions so I fucked her twice that night, once with her bent over the arm of the couch when I first got home and later in our bed. I made love to her that second time while telling her how much I loved her and how much I wanted and needed her in my life after we were finished and cuddling with each other.

I asked her if there was anything new or exciting going on at work and she lay there with her head on my chest and lied to me, telling me work was the same with nothing exciting happening that she knew of. I wanted to call her on it but couldn't bring myself to do so. I knew one thing, if she was lying about nothing happening at work; she was probably lying about other things, things that I didn't know about, but was damn sure going to find out.

I went to the office early Saturday and wondered about what excuse Chels was going to come up with so she could get out of the apartment without me later that day. I suspected that it would be work related because after I thought about it, she'd been using that excuse to go out on more than one Friday or Saturday over the past two months.