New Year's Grieve

"Me," I said. "Fred, you have two choices. The first is that I go ahead and name you in my divorce. I drag your name through the mud. You lose your job coaching the little league team and every shred of respect you've ever had in this town. Isn't your boss the mayor's brother? Ooh that won't look good for you will it?"

His eyes were filled with terror at the thought of what I suggested. "Or you do exactly what I tell you to. You keep telling Peggy and Carol that you'll be at their little party, and you'll do whatever they want. You feed me all of the information on where it will be held at and when. And then on the day that it goes down, you avoid all the problems I'm about to cause everyone there. Afterwards, I forget everything I know about you and we have a clean slate. Nevertheless, if you warn Peggy or Carol or any of the others attending this little fuckfest all bets are off."

"I'll take what's behind door number two," he said. "I'll call you as soon as they call me with further details. Gary, can I go to work? I'm already going to be late."

I just turned and walked away from him.

I caught Barney, just as he was leaving work that afternoon. My first punch didn't take Barney down. In fact, he hit me back. He caught me a glancing blow across my cheek that even further enraged me. I grabbed his arm as he tried to swing at me again and slammed him into the ground. I guess he expected me to try to dive on top of him and start punching him, like they do on TV. Fuck that. I kicked him in the ribs as hard as I could. I was sure I felt one or two of them snap. He was having trouble breathing and held his hands up.

"Gary wait," he said. "I've already had one heart attack. I'm having trouble breathing. Are you trying to kill me? Can we talk about this?"

"Talk about what," I asked.

"Come on Gary. You're a good guy. Don't treat me like I'm stupid," he said. "You and I have never uttered a harsh word to each other. The only thing that could have you coming after me like this is Carol, right?"

"You got it on the first guess," I said. "The thing I don't understand is why? Like you said, we've never been enemies. And while we're not close, you're someone I'd have considered you a friend. Why would you do something like that to me?"

"Gary, I guess it's like that old saying, "A hard dick has no conscience," he said. "Look, I know that nothing I say is going to make this right. I'll leave town. Let me finish out the work week and I'll quit work Monday morning."

"Why the hell would you do that?" I asked.

"Gary, Carol means nothing to me. It was sex. There's really no difference between her and Peggy to me. It was just a chance to get my dick wet. It was really bad judgment on my part and there's no excuse for it. I'm not married and after the thing with my heart last year, I was feeling mortal. And you married guys don't know how well you have it. You don't have to wonder when and where your next piece is coming from. Carol probably does whatever you want whenever you want it. I've never had that. So I have to take what I can get. But I swear I'll never touch another married woman."

"But why leave town?" I asked. "You were born here."

"Because every time I run into you or Carol from now on, you two will feel bad or at least weird. Me living here would put a big strain on your marriage," he said.

I was shocked. Barney was the only guy so far who had expressed any sort of concern for the marriage he had helped to destroy.

"Barney, I have something I want you to do," I said. "But it doesn't involve leaving town. You don't have to worry about Carol and me. We're done."

"What do you mean you're done," he asked.

"I'm going to divorce her," I said. He looked shocked.

"But why," he asked. He seemed to be almost as broken up over it as was.

"Gary, she loves you. It was only sex, for God's sake. She doesn't even let anyone kiss her. You guys have kids together. You can't be serious. Is this one of those male ego things? You don't want her anymore because some other man stuck his dick in her pussy. Gary this will kill her. I don't want to be even partially responsible for destroying a family."

"Barney, it's not about ego. It's about trust. It's about love," I said. "I'm never going to be able to trust her again. And I love her. This has ripped my heart out, and I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to go on. But I just can't see myself being with her anymore. Maybe, there is a little bit of ego involved. One of the things that make us people is a little bit of self-confidence or belief in ourselves. And that little bit of pride won't let me live with someone who could hurt me like this."

He just nodded and sat there with his head in his hands.

"Shit, Barney if you want her that badly, you can have her. I'm out of the picture. He suddenly looked up at me as if I was crazy. "Why the hell would I want a woman who cheats?" he asked. We both suddenly burst out laughing.

I explained what I wanted him to do, and we went our separate ways.

After that, I had one more visit to make, and it was going to be a hard one. I drove to a house that was only a few blocks away from mine. I had passed the house many times, but this was the first time in a long time that I had been close to it. I noticed that the place was making that transition from home back to house.

A home is a place that is welcoming and filled with love. A house is just a box to keep your shit in.

This house was missing something. I knocked on the door, still debating whether or not I should stay. No one came to the door. I raised my fist to knock again, but decided against it. I was just about to leave when the door opened, and there she stood.

There was that awkward moment of silence where neither of us said anything. Then she just opened the door and let me in. After a few halting words, the damn burst and we both poured out our pain in a conversation that only someone who has been betrayed by the person they gave all of their love to can understand.

We talked about the emptiness. She assured me that it never goes away, at least hers hadn't. We talked about the inability to trust people. I already had that and my divorce hadn't begun yet.

Finally, we talked about the need to do something. To make a declaration of some sort that says, "God damn it I'm a person, and I loved you. And you hurt me so bad that I'll never be able to love anyone again you piece of shit!"

It happened as soon as I said that. The corners of her mouth loosened a bit. Then they turned up just a bit. And then it just exploded out of her. A full-fledged smile that lit up the room and reminded me that without that seemingly permanent severe expression on her face, she was a really pretty woman.

"Misti," I said. "You got revenge against Steve. You threw him out of his house, and he's still paying for it. You took most of his money. He's living in a pathetic little apartment downtown. However, how would you like to get back at Carol?"

"I would love to," she said. "But the terms of my divorce and my civil suit against her prohibit me telling anyone about the role she played in ruining my marriage. No offense meant, but I hate that bitch."

I explained what I had planned, and her possible part in it, and she laughed again.

"That sounds really great," she said. "But how do you know that she's going to go? She is really cautious when it comes to your marriage."

All the way home I brainstormed on just that problem. So far, all Carol had done was to express the fact that she couldn't go to Peggy's party. She was adamant that the two of us would probably spend New Year's Eve together.

And then I had it. I realized that all I needed was to let what goes around, come around. Not only would it give Carol a possible way to go to the party; it would give me a way to avoid having sex with that whore until I could get rid of her.

As soon as I got home, I slipped into the house and went straight up to bed. When Carol found me, I pretended to be fast asleep. I had one of those hand warmers and kept it under my pillow. When Carol felt my forehead, she told me I was burning up.

"You must've given me the flu," I groaned. The next day was December 30th. I made a big show of calling in to let them know that I wouldn't be coming in. I had my iPhone in the bed with me. I could access the phone recorder through an app on it. So every time that Carol got a phone call, I could listen to it.

I heard and recorded Carol's talk with Barney where he told her everything he wanted to do to her. That phone call would be great to use against her in the divorce. And Barney did a great job of heating her up. He was almost too good. However, Carol had limits. Most of what he wanted to do to her, she told him he couldn't do. But she did agree to let him fuck her first.

By lunch time that day, I knew that it was game on. Carol came into the room and handed me a couple of pills. I recognized them as the same ones she had taken for her flu. Those pills would knock a normal person out for four hours or so. I was sure that she'd be giving them to me the following evening.

I pretended to take the pills and Carol watched me like a hawk. She kept looking at her watch to see how long it took me to dose off. Once I was seemingly asleep she called Peggy back and told her she would be at the party, but it was the last time she would ever do anything like it.

Peggy was happy, but she doubted that Carol would ever quit.

* * * * * *

Carol

New Year's Eve, and my poor husband was as sick as a dog. I felt extremely guilty for what I was planning. One of the things that made my guilt so awful was realizing that as a life partner, I sucked.

Only a few days ago, I was the one of us that was sick. Gary stayed with me the whole time. He even took time away from work. The only time he left my side was to go to the market to buy things to make me feel better. His good intentions almost led to my house of cards falling down around me.

If Misti had actually said anything to Gary, I could have lost him. I needed to take a look at my life. I already made my decision. I had told Peggy that no matter what happened, this New Year's Eve orgy would be the last time I ever cheated on Gary.

As I watched my poor baby, lying in our bed, I wondered again why I had ever started. I had told myself that a little bit of variety had helped to spice things up for us. After every time that I had done it, and there hadn't been all that many, I become ravenous for sex with him.

Maybe it was a mental thing on my part, but he seemed to enjoy it. On my part I believe it was fueled by the guilt. I felt so badly about doing something with someone other than my husband, that I just physically needed to give him as much pussy as my body could stand.

I think it was mathematical dilution. In other words, the more pussy I gave Gary, the less the severity of my crime. It's like if I had sex one hundred times and if sixty of those times were with other men, I didn't deserve my husband. I was the worst whore imaginable.

If the ratio was 50/50, I was still a pretty bad whore, but I wasn't as bad. How low did the ratio have to be before I could consider myself a good wife again? I could never be perfect. Mathematically the expression once a cheater, always a cheater made sense. It meant that after even one time, I could no longer be a perfect 100% faithful woman. Even if the ratio was 200 times with Gary to one time with someone else, I could never be 100%.

Looking at Gary, I wanted to cry. I was very sure that Gary had never cheated on me. Since we first met, all the idiot had ever done was to take care of me and treat me like a fucking princess. The man worshiped me. Not that I deserved it, but he truly loved me.

Over the years, as I gained weight, his love remained the same or even became more intense. I once asked him about it.

We were having breakfast together about two years ago. We had watched that awful Victoria's Secret fashion show the night before it. Well ... we watched about half of it. Part way through the show Gary started rubbing himself off on my leg. He was out of control.

It was the closest my husband had ever come to raping me. I really wasn't in the mood at first. Gary didn't care. I felt bloated and fat, watching all of those un-naturally thin ... girls, that's what they were. You couldn't call them women. Most of them either had no tits, or they had that fake ... Alien, tits on a stick look.

Anyway, watching them prancing around that stage in their underwear and those ludicrous fucking wings made me feel like an elephant. What were the fucking wings for anyway? I just didn't get it.

However, Gary apparently did. He had his hands all over me. He was rubbing me and kissing me, and I knew that he was imagining himself fucking one of those models. It was probably the blond one with the attitude problem who was always sticking her tongue out at the camera.

He actually forced my legs apart and penetrated me. Once he got inside of me, the fight was over. My pussy knew what it liked. And so did Gary. We didn't change positions; he just fucked me, over and over. He fucked me three times. And okay, I got off on it.

But that next morning, I had to know. "So Gary; was last night really that good for you?" I asked. "Which one of those sluts were you imagining that I was?" I was almost in tears.

He looked up at me and started laughing. "You're kidding right?" he asked.

"What's so God damned funny?" I whined. "I know I'm getting old and fat. You can't bounce a quarter off of my ass anymore and my tits are beginning to sag. My legs are thicker and ..."

"Carol shut up before I burst my guts laughing at you," he said. "While we were watching TV last night, the only thought going through my mind was how lucky I am. Your boobs are huge compared to those women. And most men are always going to go for bigger tits whenever we get the chance. Your boobs are even bigger than they were when we got married. It's like an investment. You're happier if it gets bigger and more valuable every year.

"And you already know I love your ass. I can barely keep my hands off of it. It's big and soft and I just love squeezing it. Honey I hate to tell you this, but you never could bounce a quarter off of your ass. You can't bounce a quarter off of anyone's ass. They proved that on one of those "Man" shows on Spike TV."

"So what got you all excited last night," I asked, wiping away my tears.

"It was watching those skeletal ... girls on TV that made me realize that I had a full bodied, real-life woman next to me," he said. "And she was mine and I could do anything I wanted with her. It just drove me crazy. I'm sorry."

I took the bacon out of his hand. "You should be," I snapped. "What you did was just wrong."

"I thought that you got into it after we got started," he said sadly.

"I did," I snapped.

"Then why should I be ... sorry," he asked.

"Because you STOPPED!" I said. I grabbed his arm and dragged him back to our bedroom.

Even as the memory faded, I wondered why I was doing what I was doing. There was simply no reason for it. My life with Gary was as perfect as it could be. I was a fool to risk it, and I knew it.

However, even as the rational part of me spun out facts and figures, and math and logic, I knew that I was going to go through with it. I also realized that I might give it up for a while, but eventually I would probably do it again. Cheating, like drugs, was an addictive behavior. It wasn't the actual sex. Let's face it; Gary could get me going and give me so much bigger orgasms than I have ever experienced with anyone else.

I love the man, more than I can possibly express. He knocked me up, twice. I think what makes the cheating special isn't actually the sex. It's the fact that I'm doing something that I'm not supposed to do. That's what makes it exciting.

In our society, where everything is possible and very little is actually taboo. I'm doing something that is wrong. There is something that is just so nasty about seeing a woman who is someone's wife, or someone's mother, having sex with another man.

There's also the thrill that comes from the fact that if I get caught, I could lose everything. It's very akin to what gamblers experience. It's that thrill of betting literally everything you have, every dime you possess, on one spin of the fucking wheel. God help me; I'm a fool.

I spent the rest of the day holding Gary's hand while he slumbered. God I loved that man. He gave me his love and affection so easily and so completely. I knew that after that evening, I might be able to give it up. I could do anything for Gary.

At six o' clock, just as it started to get dark, I started to get ready. I made Gary a bowl of his favorite Chunky soup and woke him up. I had hoped that we could talk for a bit, like he had done with me when I was sick.

Was it a guilt reaction or something else? Why did I feel so bad? I had never felt this way before, and I had been doing this off and on for years. And then it came to me. Usually when I cheated it was something spur of the moment. Even with Steve, there had been times when he would call me and at the drop of the hat, I would rush off to meet him somewhere. It was never planned. We just took advantage of time and availability, which made things rather random.

But this time it was all planned out. I was knowingly going off to fuck multiple other men while my husband lay in our bed sick. What if there was a fire? What if he went into a coma from the pills? I just didn't know. However, I was going anyway. There was no stopping me. I was sick.

Gary couldn't eat his soup. And although his temperature was down, he looked like hell. Even without the pills he was barely able to remain awake.

"I feel awful," he moaned. "Sorry I'm ruining your New Year's Eve."

I started crying right then. I wasn't going to do it. I sat down beside him and turned on the TV. A few moments later, the phone rang.

"Hey, Girl, I'm at the room. Hurry up and get your ass over here. Steve, Fred, and Barney are all on their way already. I guess those three want a chance at some clean fresh pussy before we get all soaked in other men's sperm. I haven't gotten laid in a couple of days, so I don't care who it is, I just need to get fucked."

Gary was already snoring. Just to make sure I woke him up and gave him a glass of water and two more pills. He should sleep until morning. However, I had no intention of being gone for that long. I would go to the motel, stay for an hour or so and be back home with Gary before nine p.m.

I didn't change my clothes, or shower or anything. I just grabbed my purse and left. I saw no reason to shower or clean myself up for any man other than my husband. If they wanted to fuck me, they had to take me as I was. Gary got special treatment; no one else did.

I got to the motel and knocked on the door. I felt exposed standing outside of a motel room door and hoped no one saw me. My car was parked in front of the motel too. That was another risky move. But I didn't dare park it anywhere else. This was a really shitty neighborhood. I could be robbed or....? That was a stupid thought. Who'd actually believe a whore had been raped? If they did a rape kit on me, there would be so many different DNA samples that it would be thrown out of court. Shit they'd probably put ME in jail.