For the Greater Good: Continued

I decided to pack a lunch and head for work. It would be good to think about something besides Ashley's cheating, for the first time in almost three days. Before I could leave, my phone rang. The woman sounded ill at ease, and identified herself as Mindy Beltran.

"I, ah, think our spouses worked together on a project at RCA in ways we didn't really intend," she began shyly.

"So, he told you, then." Either Beltran was a better man than I thought, or I had scared him worse than I thought.

"Yes. He told me some, well, strange things about your wife?" Mindy was clearly uncomfortable. I explained Ashley as best I could to someone who had only met her briefly. It was harder than I imagined: I knew her so well that I forgot how weird she might seem to others.

"So, as unlikely as it seemed, Chad was telling the truth," she mused.

"What are you going to do?" I asked after a brief pause.

"I don't know. I was going to kick him out, but now I guess I'll have to reconsider. What about you?"

"I don't know either. I know Ashley's convinced that she did it for the greater good, and because of that it shouldn't affect our future together, but it's more complicated than that."

"Yeah, isn't it." There was an uncomfortable silence.

"I should go. Thanks for telling me this, Kurt, it really helps." She paused. "Good luck."

"Thanks. Good luck to you, too."

As we agreed, Ashley and I talked that night. After some chatter about Tom's family, Ashley started on Topic Number One.

"I know you've been thinking; I have, too, and there's something I need to tell you. I wish we could talk about this face to face, but I understand why it's difficult for you.

"After the day I presented at RCA, I don't know why it didn't occur to me that I might get stuck, and need help to get past it. If I had thought of it, we would have talked about it, and agreed on what I would do. I promise I'll do that in the future. I'm sorry I didn't this time, especially since I know it gives you one more thing you have to get past."

I thanked her. She was right, though, it did give me one more thing I'd have to deal with.

"Kurt, how are you?" She sounded concerned. "I'm worried about you. Please don't spend all your time on this, you'll tear yourself apart."

"I'm okay, Ashley, no better than that. I did go to work for a few hours this afternoon, to think about something else for a while. How are you?"

"I'm getting better. I slept late this morning, and the kids have been with me most of the rest of the day." Her voice became almost wistful. "There's something completely wonderful in being around young children who think you hung the moon. I wish I could think I deserved it." After a bit of silence, we said I love you and good night.

I thought back to my decision to stay home and pursue my promotion instead of going to RCA with Ashley. We certainly didn't need the extra money; the recognition and validation were far more important to me. In contrast, Ashley didn't hesitate a moment: she dropped everything (eventually including her panties) and invested herself completely in saving my brother's life. It wasn't as if I hadn't helped; I'd raised and contributed quite a lot of money. Still, I could have done that just as well from Ashley's apartment at RCA. I had to face the truth: had I put my family first as Ashley had, we wouldn't be in trouble now.

When I apologized to Ashley the next night, her reaction was interesting.

"Thank you, Kurt, I appreciate that, but I hope you're not blaming yourself. There are things we both should have done differently. We'll do it right next time. I'm trying to focus on the future. Can you do that, too? I think it would be healthier for you."

"I hope the future doesn't contain another episode like this. I don't think I could take it."

"Me either," she was completely serious. "I'm doing my absolute best to make sure it won't."

We said our good nights.

Ashley went back to work the next day, probably for the same reason I had. We continued to talk each evening. She didn't push me for a decision, though she always asked if there was anything she could answer that would help me. There wasn't, really: I just couldn't seem to decide.

I couldn't doubt her motives. She had seen it as a simple choice between her fidelity and Tom's life, and she chose Tom. She was sorry the decision had come down to that, but she wasn't sorry about the decision itself. Was I? Put aside for a moment that I'd been left out of the choice. Could I really wish that she had stayed faithful to me at the price of my brother's life? Not only that, but Melinda becoming a widow, and my niece and nephew fatherless? Worse yet, I knew their financial position wasn't good. Tom's being too sick to work, and the expenses for his treatment, had drained them. Tom's death would be a financial disaster, as well as an emotional one. Could I really wish that on them, to retain my wife's faithfulness?

I couldn't. Then, why couldn't I just call Ashley and tell her I understood, come back home, and we'll go forward together? Part of it was the images. Every time I thought of making love with Ashley, movies of her with Beltran began playing in my head. I'd gotten past the point of feeling like I would throw up every time that happened, but the punched in the gut feeling persisted. There were doubts, too. What happened when she got stuck at her normal job? She told me that Beltran was her first; could I believe her? She'd admitted that she'd hidden things from me; what else was she hiding, or would she hide in the future? What about the next major decision that involved both of us: would we do it together, or would she make it on her own and expect me to just accept the result? My trust in her was badly shaken. Fatally? Permanently? How the hell did I know?

I knew Ashley understood the problem, but neither of us had an answer for it. She hesitantly offered to quit her job, but I knew she would be miserable if she had to. I wasn't going to make that the price she had to pay for our staying together.

One night I asked her what I thought was an idle question. "What if you'd been the one who was sick? What if your cheating was to save your life, not Tom's?"

"I wouldn't have done it." Her response was immediate and decisive. "That would have been just selfish." She thought for a moment. "What if it had been the other way around?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if there were some situation where you had to cheat to save my life? Would you do it?"

"I don't know, Ashley. That's hard." I thought for a moment. "One thing I do know: I wouldn't make the decision without discussing it with you, and whatever we did, we would have to be in complete agreement beforehand."

"That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?" she responded thoughtfully. "Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, we didn't decide together. I shut you out of a crucial decision, and then I made the choice that let me be the hero and gave you the pain. I'm sorry, Kurt. That would have been wrong even if I didn't love you, and I do, so very much." I could hear her starting to lose it, then regaining control of herself.

"I don't know how I could have thought making the decision without you was acceptable, but I'll find out and make sure it doesn't happen again. Whatever becomes of us, you have my word on that."

I was pretty sure I knew why she'd done it, but I needed her to come up with it herself. My guess was, when she moved into the apartment, she put herself into 100% work mode, except weekends when I visited her. She didn't think of me because, in a real sense, I wasn't there. What I didn't have an idea about, was whether there was a way to make sure it didn't happen again. That, only Ashley could answer.

Mom called another "family dinner party" at Tom and Melinda's. There was no opposing Mom, so I came, reluctantly. Tom was improving noticeably, Melinda was over the moon happy, and the kids were their usual selves. Even Ashley was happy. By the time I'd been there for thirty minutes, so was I. I'd even forgotten why I hadn't wanted to come.

Jill reminded me, of course. That's what big sisters are for. She said Ashley had told her all about it, and she wanted me to know that she was there for both of us. I asked what she would do if she were me; she wouldn't answer. "I'm not you, and I'm not in your situation, thank goodness. I know it's a lot to get past, and Ashley knows it, too, but I hope you can do it for your sake. She's still the best thing that ever happened to you."

"I was sure of that, too, not so long ago."

"There ain't much perfection this side of heaven, lil' bro'," she repeated one of Mom's favorite sayings. "You were happier with her than you ever were before in your whole life, and I'm the one who knows it." She paused. "Whatever you decide, I'm here for you. Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes," I answered. "You can do whatever you can to keep Tom and Melinda from finding out what I paid for his cure." She nodded, we hugged, and I knew she'd do her best for me.

Mindy Beltran called again. She had decided to stay with Chad. She was having some issues: she felt that she wasn't nearly as smart or as beautiful as Ashley, and felt she couldn't compete with her. I pointed out that there were only a few dozen people in the country as smart as Ashley was, and I wasn't one of them. She told me that John Paxton had referred them to a counselor, and she thought they were making progress; he said he would do the same for us, at company expense. I thanked her and wished her well.

I wasn't impressed by John's offer: the delivery system Ashley had designed would make his company tons of money, at the possible cost of her marriage. Besides, I didn't think a counselor would help me much until I reached some sort of decision on what I wanted.

We spent a lot of time during our evening conversations discussing her need to compartmentalize. She was reluctant to give it up, partly afraid she would lose her ability to focus, but also because she was afraid work would slip into her time with me. We talked about her previous hardest project, her dissertation. Even when I wasn't living with her, I was the only one she called for mind-clearing duty.

"That was different because it was just me," she said. "At RCA, I had a team."

"I thought we were a team when you were doing the dissertation."

"Well, we were, but it wasn't the same. Let me think about that a bit."

She was contrite the next night. "I was wrong. The truth is, you have been on the team, ever since that first date for coffee when you actually tried to figure out what I was talking about, instead of sitting there ogling my tits and wondering when you were going to get your hands on them."

"I thought you were thinking what an idiot I was."

Ashley laughed. "No, I've never thought that. I knew you wouldn't understand half of what I was telling you. In spite of that, you hung in there while I threw all those words at you. That's when I knew I could count on you. You've been a crucial part of every success I've had since then. For this project, I let myself think of the team as just the RCA people. I'm very sorry about that, Kurt. That will never happen again, I promise you."

"What about your focus and concentration?"

"When I'm at work, you become a resource: not actually there, but available. I tried that out at work today, and it worked pretty well. I'll get better with practice."

I knew that Ashley assumed we would get back together. That's what she dedicated herself to achieve, and I don't think she can even spell 'failure.' I was certainly considering it, maybe even leaning that way, but I still had too many questions. Besides, I had never been as decisive as Ashley. I could probably have dithered for months, while Ashley waited with inevitably decreasing patience. It didn't work out that way, though.

When Ashley called me at work early one afternoon, my first thought was that something was wrong with Tom. She never called during work hours; this must be a real emergency. After she reassured me about Tom, she got to the real reason for her call.

"Kurt, I'm stuck. Someone else worked on this project while I was gone, and I can't shake free of the mistakes they left in the equations. I know you probably don't want to, but could you please come over here and clear my mind?"

Ashley mistook my shock for hesitation. "I'm not trying to trick you or get you to take me back. I mean, I do want that, but that's not why I'm asking this. I really am stuck, and I don't want to find someone here. I want my stud, who has always done it for me better than anyone else."

"Sorry, Ashley, you caught me completely off guard. You mean you want me to go to the lab?" I'd never been there: another aspect of her compartmentalizing everything.

"Yes please, if you can. I could go to the house, but I'd rather not, because then I'd have to drive back here to get started again. There's a place here we can use. I won't cling afterward, I promise."

What could it hurt, I thought? I was thirty-two, I hadn't had sex in a month, and Ashley was still the hottest woman I'd ever fucked. Yeah, I know I was thinking with the little head. So sue me.

"Where should I meet you?"

"Oh, thank God! The lab entrance is off Fourth Street, go in the main door, and ask the receptionist to page me. Thank you, Kurt."

It didn't occur to me until I was in my car to worry that with me on a hair trigger, as it were, from not having sex in so long, I might not be able last long enough to give her what she needed. Well, I thought, if Beltran can do the job and I can't, we're probably through anyway and it's only a matter of time until she finds someone else.

I needn't have worried. Ashley was waiting for me at the receptionist's station, looking desperately happy to see me, and pulled me by main force to a small lounging room. Five minutes after I left my car I was balls deep in Ashley's clinging warmth, and five minutes after that she was making the noises I remembered so well, assuring me that her mind was being effectively cleared. With that out of the way, I settled in to enjoy, squeezing those fabulous boobs as they dangled and swayed beneath her. She was on her third good one when I filled her with a month's worth of cum.

It took Ashley a few moments to catch her breath, but then she was out from under me, quickly pulling her clothes back into place. She noted the amount of cum dripping out of her and grinned at me. "Been a while, has it?"

I thought, "Longer for me than for you," but didn't say it. She must have seen it written on my face, though, because her eyes dampened, she pulled my face to hers and gave me a long, loving kiss.

"You are exactly what I need," she said, looking seriously at me. "You, and no one else. I love you, Kurt." One more long, loving look, and she was gone, with her lab coat billowing out behind her as she buttoned it on the run.

"Hey, stud, that was phenomenal," Ashley began our call that night. "I made more progress this afternoon than I have all week. It was as if someone had taken a highlighter to every mistake in those equations, they were so obvious. If we don't get back together, can I still call you for mind clearing duty?"

I laughed. "That's not all you're hoping for, is it?"

"No, but if it's all I can get, I'll take it."

"Come on, you know Chad would come running any time you called." There was a bit of an edge to my voice.

"Chad who? Comparing him to you is like comparing Pop Warner to the NFL."

I had to admit, that felt good. I also had to admit that by calling me when she was stuck at work, rather than finding someone there, she had answered some of my questions.

I was surprised to get a call the next day from the head of research at Ashley's company. Technically, he was her boss's boss, but he was smart enough to treat her as at least his equal.

"We have some issues with your visit to our facility yesterday," he began. "First, we require a security clearance on file for anyone who enters that area. Before you do so again, could you please obtain one? The receptionist has the forms, or I can have her e-mail one to you. We don't require an especially high level clearance, but we do need one."

I felt like a third grader called in to the principal's office, and sheepishly told him that I would.

"Then there's the, ah, copulation." Copulation? Seriously? I thought that was a word Ashley had made up. Guess it wasn't.

"You were overheard by, ah, several of our staff members. It was a bit of a shock for them, particularly as they are not used to considering Dr. Bronson in such a manner."

"But I'm her husband!" Well, it was technically true.

"I realize that, Mr., ah, Bronson. I assure you that moral judgments do not enter into the matter. However, Dr. Bronson's colleagues" (there was a slight but noticeable emphasis on the "Dr.") "are accustomed to thinking of her as a pure scientist. Almost a sublimated being, as it were. Hearing her in extremis, as one might say, was disturbing for them. For the good of the laboratory, Mr. Bronson, and because of the importance of Dr. Bronson's work, I must request that any future conjugal activities be conducted where they will not be so readily observed or overheard."

I made some affirmative noise or other, he thanked me for my cooperation (in a suitably dignified manner), and we ended the call. I told Ashley about it when we talked that evening. She howled with laughter.

"Whisenant is a decent guy," she said, when she'd finished laughing. "He's smart, and a good administrator, but he's a complete stuffed shirt. Copulation, indeed!" She laughed some more. "He does have children, though I sometimes wonder how it happened."

"Oh, I can tell you that," I responded. "The guy does this, then the girl..." We were both laughing too hard to continue.

I didn't realize until after we hung up that stuffed shirt or no, Dr. Whisenant had answered one of my biggest questions. The reported reaction of Ashley's colleagues made it very unlikely that she had been using one of them for mind-clearing sex. It now seemed that when she said Beltran was the first, she was telling the truth.

Our nightly conversations were becoming fun, and I found myself looking forward to them at precisely 9:00. The hyper-scheduled Ashley had somehow forgotten to specify the time for them to end; they now stretched over an hour. We rediscovered our comfort with each other, though she was still living with Tom and Melinda.

Ashley gave me another "emergency" call late one afternoon the next week. She didn't sound nearly as tentative or desperate as she had the week before, but I went anyway. Her smile was eager as she led me to an unused executive office in another part of the complex, far away from tender ears. Once again, we tore off a quick doggy fuck to take the edge off, but this time when she rolled out from under me (goodness, that woman was flexible!) she knelt on the floor and took me in her mouth. When I was hard, she gently maneuvered us into a horizontal position on the lush carpet. We made love, slow and long and sweet, together. When we finally lay quiet, I realized that the images of her with Beltran hadn't appeared in my head since the previous week's "emergency." My last question was answered. "Chad who," indeed.

It was well past dinner time when I followed Ashley to Tom and Melinda's. She announced that she didn't think Tom needed her to stay any longer, and she was moving home. Brianna and Young Kurt were disappointed, but we figured they would survive somehow.

As we were leaving, Tom looked seriously at me. "Kurt, I can never thank you enough for what you've done for me. You and Ashley both saved my life." For a moment, I was afraid that he knew. "I don't know if I could have gone without for that long, even for you, though I love you like a brother." I sighed with relief.