It's Not What You Think

I moved my hands around and fondled her breasts. I kneaded and stroked, and then I began with the little pinches and tugs that should get her started. Unless she was completely fucked out, I remembered. My hard on wilted a bit.

She began to breathe heavily, and reached to stroke my cock through my pants.

I went back to giving her nips the gentle treatment and suddenly grabbed them and gave her now-hard nipples a vicious twist. She gasped and had a sharp intake of breath.

"Promise me you'll always be mine," I said, pleading. I couldn't tell if I was acting or not. I really did want -- maybe need -- to have her in my life. The prospect of many lonely years loomed large in my head at that moment.

"Promise." And with my repeated demand, I twisted her breasts even harder. I thought I was going to rip her tender flesh.

"Oh... yes, James. Always. I'll be here." And she began to unzip me. I was no longer wilted. A whole week without my sex toy? I was diamond-hard.

I had a fleeting thought about the hundreds of cheating wife stories. None of them had a Cynthia in them.

Her mouth descended on my shaft and when I was in the back of her throat, I gave her breasts a savage twist again. Ever had someone gasp with pleasure while her mouth was full of cock and it was knocking on the gateway of her throat? It was beyond explaining. At least for me.

I couldn't decide if I was so pissed off at the cheating bitch on her knees in front of me, or giving pleasure to my sexy wife/partner/life-saver.

I grabbed at the back of her head. "Oh... Cyn, Cyn, Cyn." I moaned, as I tried to fuck her throat. She hadn't had any air in a while, but she paused, then attempted to swallow. That put me over the top. I came in hot ropes of lust, shooting down her throat.

Then I collapsed back into the chair. And she collapsed on top of me, naked to the waist and her head in my lap.

"Oh God, James." She put her hands over her used and abused nipples. "That was so hot. I'll feel your fingers for a week." I looked down at her. Did I see the outline of teeth marks near her right nipple? It was partially covered by her hand, and I really didn't want to know.

She rebuttoned her dress at the back of her neck. I thought at first she chose one of my favorite sexy dresses, but now I entertained the idea that she might have been covering her chest to hide a bite mark from her lover.

Fuck. It turned everything around. I was depressed again. I thought that tonight before bed might be time again for a flashback, to end any thought of continuing this. I really did want her though. But it didn't seem like there was any Cynthia to love me back, at least no Cynthia who'd take me exclusively. And I couldn't accept less.

Certainly not 25% less. Was it just the percentage? Suppose she was 'out of town' just 10% of the time. Or supposed she just wanted -- or needed -- some Mr. AssHole just once in a while.

No. That wouldn't do it. I wanted someone who wanted me 100% of the time. I could have forgiven a drunken one-night stand with somebody. But not this.

And the lies. The lies. The lies were there 100% of the time. All the time. Every day. Every minute we were together.

I tried to remember that just a moment ago I was in ecstasy. Now I was in misery.

We drove on to the restaurant, each of us acting happy and pleased to be with the other. I know it was acting on my part because, right now, I couldn't stand to be around the cheating bitch.

After dinner, it was still early when we got home: about 8 p.m. Time for my 'after dinner show.'

I pulled into the driveway, and froze up just as we were getting into the kitchen. Bear was always glad to see me. You know how dogs are. I bent down to greet him with a hug, then stopped moving and crumpled to the floor. He thought it was a great game. When Cyn came back from hanging up her shawl, she saw me on the ground, and Bear lapping at my face. It was all I could do not to respond to the only true friend I had. Bear was incapable of lying.

She pulled Bear off me, and then came to cradle my head in her lap. Bear came back, but she had him just sit near me. She made coo-ing, soothing sounds and stroked my hair. That felt nice actually: her softness, her caring.

I finally 'came around,' and asked what I was doing on the floor. I got up somewhat shakily, and said I was going to bed. I went in to the bedroom and took off my legs, then got in bed. Cynthia came in and just sat on the bedside and stroked my head softly. I feigned sleep. Eventually she left the bedroom. I set my wrist alarm for midnight and 4 a.m. then really went to sleep.

I had a nice dream of her blowjob in the van. The dream included the savage nipple abuse which let me get some of the hatred out of my system. I awoke twice that night, each time screaming and holding my face in my hands. Each time Cyn awoke shortly after me and 'shhhh'd me back to sleep, my face against her breast, my body in her arms.

On Saturday, I could see that I'd had a much more restful night than Cyn had. She was bleary-eyed. I walked into the kitchen and put on a tired face. This acting shit was for the birds. How was I going to keep it up for a whole month? Oh wait! It was only going to have to be three weeks, because one-fourth of our marriage was set aside for Mr. AssHole. That was much better. Not.

I know. I could move in with Mom again. I could claim that I slept better in my childhood bed. Then I'd come back here in the mornings. That idea sounded weak even to me, but it was worth a try. Anything to get out of the bedbugged house at night.

I told Cynthia I wanted to go and visit my mom in Waxahachie. Maybe I'd feel better there. Cyn agreed to try that and she'd go with me.

A weak story it might have been, but it worked. We stayed at my mom's house over night. I slept in my old single bed, Cyn in the guest room. The following morning we drove back to my home, so Cyn could get her car. She followed me back to little W. Cyn, Bear and I went to the park while mom tended to her three stores. Then we all had dinner and she drove back to the casa de bugs, so she could go to work at Carbunkle -- or wherever she worked these days. She probably had some kind of cover job at big C. They were in bed with the government agencies and were big enough that they'd cover for her, if I ever called. Cynthia, of course, was in bed with Mr. AssHole.

My 'PTSD panic attacks' were remarkably better when I was sleeping in my old bed. Actually, of course, they were better when I was away from Cynthia.

Early Monday, I went back to my office, which was also my house. I called some clients and had a legitimate visit to schedule in North Dallas. I saw them later that same morning, and then made a visit to a small Foreign Exchange business at Love Field in Dallas. (Love Field is the smaller airport in Dallas, DFW is the big boy.) I made a quick stop at the client and then got on a Southwest flight to Houston. They leave every half-hour and it was only a short hop to Houston.

Naturally, I boarded first with my service dog, and my handicap. This is one of the only times that being a crip worked to my advantage. That and cutting in line at amusement parks.

I got to Houston, grabbed a cab to the parking garage, took the elevator to the third floor, grabbed my remote recorder, took the cab back to the airport and caught the next flight to Love Field. Elapsed time: two hours forty minutes.

I immediately played the files recorded on the thumb drive in my van on the way back to mom's place. I was still playing that game at nights.

The recording was a boring accountant telling about projections in Saudi, and Japan and the North Sea. It went on and on. Must have been a real boring session. Funny thing though. I never heard Cynthia's voice on the recording. I mean, it was supposed to be her attending an all week meeting. There should have been some breaks when she would talk loud enough to get picked up on the pen/transmitter.

The guys who were doing her cover had obviously found my transmitter and dubbed in some boring lecture about the oil markets. That was smart. But it was stupid not to have some of Cyn's voice on there as well.

There goes the conspiracy theory of the CIA being responsible for the World Trade Towers. I mean if they couldn't put together a decent audio file, how could they ever manage to pull off a conspiracy for a major international terrorist attack? I didn't think the CIA would be involved anyway, but it was nice to think -- nay, to know -- they were incompetent. Might not have been the CIA either, I remembered. That was just my code name for whoever 'they' were.

I milked the 'stay at mom's house at night' scheme for the rest of the week. I went to the VA shrink and lied about the panic attacks and made up stories. That was the only thing I really didn't like -- taking up resources that somebody might have needed.

Like it says in the Good Book: And the morning and the evening were the second day. It wasn't my second day in hell, more like the second week. Or something. Chapter 05

It's pretty easy to lie, once you get in the rhythm of it. It's like watching a TV program. You get immersed in the alternate reality, you start to think of it as 'normal,' and then you can tell the next part of the story, untrue as it may be.

So I spun out the falsehood that I was better sleeping in my childhood bed. I arrived home most mornings after Cyn had gone to work and left in the evenings shortly after she got home. I kept my appointments with the VA shrink.

My sex life had disappeared. It used to be once a day and several times on weekends. Now it was zero. Surely Cynthia would have noticed. But I kept on with the panic attack story and the visits to the shrink and she seemed to be buying it. I guess liers couldn't believe that they could be lied to.

Exactly three weeks from the last 'weekend cruise' she was getting ready to go. She passed me on the road and turned around to follow me back to the house. Not 'our home' any more. When we both turned into the driveway, she jumped out of her car and waited while I got Bear out of the van.

"Oh, James. I've missed you so much." She hugged me; I put my arms around her. "I'm so sorry about all this travel. I haven't even had a chance to talk with you this week. Carbunkle wants me to travel to Mexico to evaluate a project. It's outside the city, so I won't even know where I'm staying, yet."

"And you have to leave today? You'll be gone for the weekend?"

"Yes... it's the travel plans. It takes days to get there."

"What about coming back? When will you be back?"

"Probably on Sunday," she said with a sad voice. What an actress! She was superb.

"Wow. So two weekends and a full week," I looked stricken. So the 'away' time was stretching out. Pretty soon it would be a two week trip to ... I don't know, Cambodia or Venezuela or some such. I really was stricken. Any thoughts I had about trying to put the marriage back together were flying out the window.

"Okay. I guess if you gotta, you gotta," I tried to look up at her. The tears in my eyes were real.

"Just wanted to tell you. There's a note in the kitchen saying the same thing," she said. "Love ya." It was the last words I heard from her for a long time. Well, except for some "oh yeah baby"s that weren't directed at me.

*****

I visited Houston on Saturday morning, the same way I'd done it before. This time I didn't take Bear; I left him with mom for the day. She asked if I'd worked things out with Cynthia and I said that whole thing had gotten shelved when I started having these panic attacks. Another lie, this time to mom. I hated this.

I had a roll-on suitcase and my laptop. When I got to Houston, I unlimbered the GPS windows for the three active devices and saw it was the same setup: two in the unnamed building and suitcase in the hotel. This time I headed for the Century.

I waited in the coffee shop across the street and watched the entrance. After about an hour, I saw Cynthia come out of the hotel with a man. She was holding his arm in that very familiar way that lovers have. He was wearing jeans, a cowboy shirt and cowboy boots. She was wearing her painted on jeans, a sexy silk blouse I'd never seen before, and knee length boots. She'd tied her hair back in two little pony tails, one on each side.

The nasty thought crossed my mind that maybe he liked to have something to pull on when he fucked her mouth. I waited while a valet came around with his sports car -- it was 'please-give-me-a-ticket' red, naturally, but I didn't make out what kind it was. They got in and went off. I almost said they got off, but they probably did that some time earlier, in the room.

I crossed to the hotel with my usual limp. Hey! I had two artificial legs, I always limped on one side or the other. With my roller suitcase and laptop and sports coat, I fitted right in with the Saturday crowd at the posh Century Hotel. I walked in and headed straight for the coffee shop.

Coffee shop to coffee shop. If I didn't watch it, I'd spend most of the rest of the day in the men's room.

I opened the laptop and got a 3-D view of where the GPS safety pin was broadcasting. All the way up, apparently. Only the best for Mr. AssHole: the penthouse, my wife. Soon to be ex-wife, I expected.

I went up to the 27^th floor. The 26^th if you want to be accurate, because there wasn't any 13^th floor.

It had the normal compliment of doors. That surprised me. I expected a penthouse suite. That would have made my next job harder.

The GPS was singing to my laptop again. It turned out to be almost at the end of the corridor: 2714.

Making sure that there was no one in the hallway, I placed the narrow, stainless steel spike just about four inches off the floor and gave it a sharp push. It parted the drywall easily. Just like that I had a microphone that would pick up any sounds in 2714. I didn't have time to paint over the hole, but it was very small and close to the ground. I hoped it wouldn't be noticed.

I pulled out the remote receiver and checked it. All the telltales were green.

Next, I checked out the underground car park. Too much interference for my little receiver. So I went back up, this time to 23, and hid it behind the firehose in the emergency cabinet.

Then it was back to the taxi stand, back to the airport, back to Dallas, back to my van, back to Waxahachie to get Bear, and then back to my house. I tried not to think about anything during all that 'back to'-ing. But I couldn't.

What I couldn't decide was whether to go for a straight divorce, or a divorce based on adultery. We'd been married for only three months, now, so perhaps an annulment. Maybe the annulment was better: "it never happened" was as good a way as any to finish this.

I called a friend I'd made in the VA hospital months ago. He was a lawyer, and pointed me at somebody who could do 'marriage work,' as he said. He said, also, that he was sorry to hear about it.

I called the marriage lawyer, reaching her at the emergency number I'd gotten (it was a Saturday -- that's as 'emergency time' as could be for a lawyer), and told her that I wanted irreconcilable difference divorce papers, adultery divorce papers and annulment papers all to be ready by Thursday afternoon. She started saying she couldn't do that, and certainly couldn't do it by Thursday, and that it would be triple the cost for the extra filing.

I laughed at reply. Typical lawyer answer.

I couldn't have shot the man because I was in Phoenix. I didn't even own a gun, anyway. The gun I had was stolen last week. And if you found a gun, with my fingerprints on it, it was probably not even the gun used in the murder. If it was the same gun, I was mentally ill and was having a break down when I shot him.

Throw it all at the wall, and something will stick.

I just told her that I'd pay for the expediting and that triple the filing cost was ok. Just have them by Thursday at 3 p.m. She said okay. I was getting tired of all the extra expense of all this. I wasn't making Carbunkle money after all.

On Wednesday, I drove the van and Bear to Houston. We set up a temporary HQ at the Red Roof Inn, where they'd allow dogs. I took the wheelchair to the registration desk and put Bear into his 'service' mode. They smiled and welcomed me to Houston.

I walked in, on my fake legs, to the Century, got to the 23^rd floor and retrieved my transmitter. I left a new thumb drive in the receiver , and was in and out in ten minutes. When I got back to my room, Bear and I heard a whole bunch of 'oh baby' and 'god, you're so big' and 'I love your tight ass' and so on. It was like playing the porn channel on my home computer, when I wanted to keep the audio pick ups busy. In fact, I think I'll do that, when I get home. Just leave this recording on continuous playback, so the whole CIA can enjoy it.

I didn't hear any mention of me on the recording, but that's hardly a good thing, considering what I did hear.

I spent Thursday, driving back to Dallas, picking up the triple marriage ending papers, and changing the locks on the doors of the house. I left the papers in a plastic bag, propped between the front door and a flower pot. I didn't want to take a chance that the automatic lawn sprinkler would ruin the papers, hence the plastic. I set up the desktop to play the hotel recording on a continuous loop.

God, but I was tired of all this. Finding a cheating wife and terminating a marriage was exhausting. Plus, I was a cripple. Pity me. Boo Hoo. Fuck. At least it was going to be over soon.

I'd decided that I would make myself visible on Thursday, to see what reaction I got. If I got none, I would pay them a visit early Friday in lovenest 2714. Maybe I'd get the snot beaten out of me, but I'd at least get to meet the bastard face-to-face.

*****

Thursday morning, I got myself outfitted in an old Army jacket, my rattiest pair of jeans, that would be tucked under my amputated stumps, and got into the wheelchair. I got into the van with Bear, and drove into town. Parking at the public lot near the Century, I wheeled myself, with Bear's help, to a good spot, in sight of the valet parking pickup.

I was close enough to the hotel that I could pick up the transmission from the spike mic. So, as the morning progressed to afternoon to early evening, I heard a whole bunch of 'ooh baby' and 'suck it, take it all, slut' and 'you're so big' and sounds of a long, long shower through the laptop's pickup and my ear buds.

It was clear that they were going out to dinner, because I heard them plan their outing. They were going for high class Mexican cuisine.

Well... there was one touch. "Don't wear any panties, Cynthia my love." His voice was a rich baritone with a touch of Spanish accent. "You know I like you available to me at all times."

She answered back, with a laugh, "It shall be as you say, Don Carlos." I knew that laugh. I'd heard it many times. It meant she was doing something that she wanted to do anyway.

Fuck.

I'd taken a post near the main exit. My wheelchair and folded over jeans disguised me a bit, and an old AmVets ball cap completed my 'disguise'. I had a hand lettered sign that said "I lost my legs in Iraq. Please help." I put a tupperware bowl on the ground in front of me and had Bear under the wheelchair. I had to empty it several times during the course of my panhandling. Overall, I turned about $26 in gifts; the people of Houston were fairly generous.

They came out about 6:30 for their evening of good food and happy memories. He wore a tuxedo tonight. Very dashing. The perfect AssHole. Tall, handsome, somewhat older, a touch of white hair in his sideburns. Very shiny black loafers with tassels on them. Personally, I thought that tassel loafers were kind of effeminate, but that was just me. What did I know? I had plastic feet.