To Forsake All Others Ch. 01

"And how is she doing?"

I faked a laugh. "Jessica is Jessica. You know her. As ditzy as ever."

"Mmm-hmm," Rachel responded.

I shut out the lights to further hide my expression and slipped under the covers of our bed.

"Good night, honey," I said. I turned onto my side, facing away from her, and awaited more questioning. Each and every breath passed with an increasing sense of relief. Just as I began to relax, I felt Rachel's fingernails gently stroke my bare back.

It wasn't like her to initiate sex. Stroking my back like that was a clear signal, however. I knew right away what she was thinking. In the many years we had been married, and on several of the rare occasions when she would initiate sex, I believed it was for a specific purpose. She seemed to do this whenever I was out with the guys and there were women around. She did it years ago after I returned home from a bachelor party, and on another occasion when the guys stopped by a strip club on the way home from a football game. She knew that I was a "one and done" type of guy, and I believed this was her way of testing me to see if I could get aroused enough to finish. If not, that would be proof that I had already finished with someone else.

The stroking became more intense, and was interlaced with soft kisses on my back. She was definitely making a move, and if I didn't reciprocate, she would immediately suspect that something was up. Although she often refused my sexual advances, it never worked the other way around.

Reluctantly, I turned to face her and kissed her softly. I couldn't help but wonder if I kissed her differently, as I had just been kissed by another woman. Any slight variation in my normal technique would surely tip her off. She returned my kisses with unexpected passion, and even let me taste her tongue, which was a true rarity.

I felt her hand on my cock. I wasn't aroused yet, but with great relief, I could sense that it would happen again. My thoughts returned to the front seat of my car, which carried the burden of overwhelming guilt, yet interlaced with excitement and arousal. I used as much of that excitement as I could to my advantage, and soon felt my cock expand to its full girth.

Rachel broke our kiss and began to move down the bed. In that instant, I was suddenly struck by a sensation of pure panic. I thought of the peppermints that Jessica had been devouring throughout the night. I remember distinctly feeling the sensation of cool peppermint on my cock as she went down on me. If Rachel tasted peppermint on my cock, it would be game over and marriage over.

I quickly stopped her and flipped her onto her back. I crawled on top of her and kissed her, grinding myself against her. I let my hands wander, and discovered that she was well-lubricated already, so I decided to forgo any further foreplay. She gasped when I entered her, and met each and every thrust with one of her own.

My thoughts again returned to the front seat of my car. Those warm lips wrapped around my cock. Her auburn hair bobbing up and down in my lap. It was all so naughty and taboo. Not only was it a strange new mouth on my cock, but we were out in the open, and could have been caught at any minute. It was thrilling in a way that sex hadn't thrilled me in quite some time.

I felt another surge building rapidly, and rather than suppress it and wait for Rachel to catch up, as I normally would, I let it take over me. The idea that Jessica's saliva was now mixing with Rachel's juices, and would soon be joined by my cum, was enough to push me over the edge of the cliff. I unleashed a torrent inside my wife, and she responded by thrashing and tensing beneath me, grasping me tightly by the buttocks, and holding me in position until her own orgasm subsided.

I had passed the test. I had gotten away with it, at least for a night.

***

I had a nightmare that night. I was fucking Jessica in the back seat of my car. The car somehow morphed into our bedroom, and Rachel walked in on us. She took the kids and left, and I chased her out of the house, but couldn't catch up to her. She was gone forever, and I would never see her again. I awoke in a panic, but was instantly relieved to discover that it was all a dream. For a moment, I actually convinced myself that the entire previous evening had been a dream, but that familiar heavy feeling in my chest returned.

In the days that followed that fateful night, I went out of my way to be the best husband and father I knew how to be. I played on the floor with the kids, helped out more with the household chores, and bent over backward to care for Rachel's every need. None of it helped to alleviate the guilt that perpetually gnawed at me from the inside.

I was raised to value truth, honor, honesty, and integrity. These values are incredibly difficult to earn because they must be earned through deeds and time, and can be completely stripped away in the blink of an eye with only one slight indiscretion. One brief lapse of self-restraint had obliterated a lifetime of good deeds and decimated my self-image as a man of integrity and honesty.

I had taken a vow in front of my wife, my family, and my friends. I promised to forsake all others until death do us part. What did that word, "forsake", mean, though? I hadn't given my love to another. I liked Jessica, but I certainly didn't love her. I allowed her to use one of my body parts for a short time for my pleasure only. Was I "forsaking" my wife when I did so? If allowing another person to give you physical pleasure was a violation of that vow, then Rachel broke that vow every time she went for a massage. Why was sexual pleasure different than any other type of physical pleasure?

Many times I considered telling Rachel everything that happened. What good would it have done, though, aside from possibly alleviating some of my guilt? It wasn't as if I would ever consider doing something like that ever again, and it wasn't as if she would ever learn that it happened. I never spoke to Jessica again. I avoided her at all costs, and eventually let my friendship with Phil slowly dissolve so that the opportunity to see Jessica again would never arise.

Telling Rachel what happened would be the honest thing to do, but it would destroy our marriage and our family for no valid reason. Having my dick sucked by another woman didn't change the fact that I loved my wife and kids more than anything in the world, and that I would do anything to ensure their happiness, even if it meant burying this terrible secret forever and living with the guilt that it caused. Telling her would be the ultimate act of selfishness.

Life returned to normal. I did my best to pretend that nothing ever happened, although I lost many hours of sleep tossing and turning at night, reliving that night over and over in my mind. When did I cross that line of infidelity? Was it when I allowed her to touch my knee in the bar? Or when I made the decision to pick her up after Phil was dropped off? Was it when we kissed, or perhaps when her hand touched my cock? At some point, I could have stopped her and lived with myself. I just wasn't sure which point that was.

I had difficulty accepting the realization that I was an immoral person, and found excuses to blame others for what had happened. I blamed Jessica for being so aggressive and caring so little about my marriage. I even blamed Rachel for denying me sex so often, and for allowing our sex life to diminish to the point where it had become a rare treat. As our marriage evolved, and our one-on-one time was interrupted by our careers and our children, it seemed that sex had become less of a priority for her. At times, it felt as though she would prefer never to have sex, and did so only from a sense of obligation. Perhaps she deserved for me to cheat on her. Hell, she practically forced me to do it.

None of my rationalizations eased my conscience. I asked myself the inevitable question: how would I feel if it were Rachel in that car with some other guy? At what point would I consider her to be cheating? It pained me to even think of it. The mere thought of her placing her hand on some guy's knee under a table felt like a knife in my gut. I couldn't bear any of it if the situations had been reversed.

I had gotten away with committing a heinous act that would bring great emotional pain to the love of my life if she ever found out about it. Deceiving her, however, almost seemed worse than the act itself. Once again, I had to ask myself how I would feel if the situation were reversed. How would I feel if Rachel had ever deceived me in such a way? Would I rather know the truth or live with the lie?

A large part of my identity was lost, and the only solution to recover at least a part of it, it seemed, was to tell the truth and suffer the consequences. Get it all out in the open, and then at least I could tell myself that I had some integrity. I have always prided myself for being an honest person. If I don't have that, then who am I?

Rachel crawled under the covers one night and snuggled up to me, placing her head on my chest and stroking my arm with her fingernails.

"Thank you for cooking tonight," she said. "You have been so sweet to me lately. You're such a great husband – and father. I don't know what I ever did to deserve you."

Each word felt like a jab to my gut. I couldn't live with that feeling any longer. I couldn't live with myself, and I couldn't live with the lie. Despite all of the screaming voices inside my head that begged me not to do it, I finally decided to come clean.

"Honey, I need to tell you something," I began. She didn't say a word in response, but simply waited for me to continue. I swallowed hard, and felt a lump forming in my throat. "It's something that has been bothering me a lot lately, and I really need to tell you because it just doesn't feel right to keep it from you any longer."

I could hear her breathing, but she didn't say a word.

"Remember a couple of weeks ago when I helped Phil move into his apartment, and then took him out for drinks afterward?" I asked.

"Mmm-hmm." Finally, a response.

"Well, afterward, Jessica wanted to go back out for more drinks, so I picked her up in front of his building. She got in the car and we drove around for a while until I parked the car – just so we could figure out where we were going, and wouldn't waste any more gas."

It was becoming difficult to speak. My voice was creaking through my constricted throat. My heart was racing, and I knew that she could sense it with her ear pressed to my chest. No matter what I said next, there was no turning back. She would know the truth regardless of which words I chose.

"She kissed me," I said. I just said the words as if I were reading them from a cue card. But those words weren't exactly truthful, were they? If I were going to go through with this, I needed to be absolutely, brutally, honest. "What I mean is, we kissed."

I waited for some kind of response. Something. Anything. But the only sound I could hear was her breathing.

"And..." I continued, "she...she went down on me."

With that last word, I felt an incredibly heavy weight lift from my chest. That sensation, however, was immediately replaced with an equally heavy weight caused by panic. My entire life now rested in her hands. Everything that was good and decent about my life could be ended within the next few seconds, I thought. I waited for her response, my pulse racing, hardly breathing, and my stomach twisted in knots.

She cleared her throat. "I know," she said.

I couldn't believe what I just heard. "What? How? How do you know?"

"Well, I didn't know, exactly. I strongly suspected that something had happened. You acted very strangely that night, and I just knew something was up. You looked panicked when you came into the bedroom, you didn't mention that Jessica was with you until I asked, and you refused a blowjob. In all the time I've known you, you've never refused a blowjob."

I almost laughed, but then thought better of it. I expected her to scream at me. I expected her to cry. I expected her to kick me out of the house at that very moment and tell me to never return. Instead, she simply lay with her head on my chest, tickling my chest hairs with her breath. After a pause, she lifted her head and looked at me. By the dim light of the moon that seeped through our bedroom curtains, I could see the expression on her face. It wasn't what I expected. She appeared frightened.

"I have something I need to tell you, too," she said.

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Author's note: I had originally planned to publish this story in one piece, but I thought it would be more fun to split it up and end the first chapter here, so that the readers can guess where this story is heading. If someone can correctly guess the outcome, I will name a character in my next story after you.