She knows he cheated. Paybacks are a bitch

Kyle Whitley was getting tight. He wasn’t falling down drunk yet, but he was getting there. That was why he was trying to fumble open the sliding patio door leading out to Paul and Ann’s rear deck. It was a nice one, solid as a rock. They’d only had it for a couple of weeks. After having seen it earlier in the evening, Kyle was thinking of building one to replace his back porch too. Paul said it hadn’t taken him but four weekends to do the whole thing. Kyle stumbled over the track for the sliding door.

It was February, Valentine’s Day. Even in south Texas, that made for pretty cool evenings and he thought the fresh air would help clear his head. He reckoned the party would last at least another couple of hours and that would give him just about enough time to sober up well enough to drive himself and his wife, Peggy, home.

The nearly full glass of Jack and coke he held in his right hand couldn’t be left behind. He couldn’t remember why, but he’d worked it out in his mind just a few minutes ago. He was satisfied with the knowledge an earlier version of himself had made the decision. He wasn’t of a mind to pour the Jack and coke out. Huh-uh! That would be alcohol abuse. He chuckled. He wasn’t going to abuse alcohol by pouring it out.

Still chuckling, he finally got through the big glass door and even managed to slide it shut behind him. He ambled to the far right corner and leaned over to put his elbows on the top of the railing. Kyle enjoyed the comfortable slouch for a time. When his back began to hurt after a while, he straightened, pressed his belly against the top rail, and arched his back to relieve stiff muscles. The deck was only a couple feet off the ground, just enough to give a man a feeling of being elevated over the landscape but not far enough to make falling off it something to be afraid of.

He bumped the rail with his belly again, harder this time. He surprised himself by breaking wind in an especially long and disgusting manner. But lordy, lordy,lordy, it sure felt good. Someone snorted a highly opinionated disdain. Kyle was momentarily embarrassed, but the self-consciousness didn’t last long in the whisky-induced fog in his mind. The breeze quickly took any foul odor off downwind behind him anyway. He bellied back up to the railing and stretched his arms above his head.

He vaguely felt a hand slipping between two of the vertical supports but it didn’t provoke a response. He was going to have to think about it and thinking was difficult just now.

When he felt his zipper being pulled down, he tried to get his hands down to defend that precious region of his body. He banged the heel of his palms on the top of the railing…and that hurt. He spent a few moments massaging each hand. By the time he thought to move away from the railing, his prick had been removed from the protection of his boxers and exposed to the night air. That lasted only a second or two. Almost immediately, his penis was engulfed in something wonderfully hot, wet, and velvety smooth.

He didn’t know if the moaning came from his throat or from down below. He decided it didn’t matter. What the unseen mouth was doing down there felt damn good. He knew he’d found Peggy. He’d thought she might be out here somewhere.

His wife was one hell of a good cocksucker although she’d learned it virtually from scratch since they got married. He chuckled to himself, remembering their first few uncertain attempts to perform oral sex on one another. It had been fun though…lots of breathless giggles from her and hearty guffaws from him.

Peggy’s mouth was a volcanic cavern of pleasure for him. Her tongue slathered all around the helmet-shaped head and probed into the sensitive region beneath. It felt sooooo good. Backing off slightly, Peggy adjusted her grip on Kyle’s shaft and came back with her head angled slightly to take more of him inside. Kyle hissed in appreciation as he felt his prick slide down his wife’s throat. She only did that occasionally. Usually she couldn’t get her throat relaxed enough. When she had a few drinks though…

“Oh God, Peggy,” Kyle whispered. “That feels so damn good.” The woman stopped abruptly and let Kyle’s penis slip from between her lips.

“Hmmmmmm?” she said slowly.

********

Ann was late. Not much, just ten minutes or so, but it was an eternity for Kyle. He’d been waiting inside the café where they’d agreed to get together, his fingers drumming on the table as he contemplated the possibility she wouldn’t show. They’d only been meeting for a couple of weeks. He wasn’t sure how Ann really felt about their series of secret rendezvous. If he was nervous, she probably was too. They both had a lot to lose and neither seemed to know what to do about this thing. It was dangerous to get together like this, but they just had to.

She arrived in a rush, flushed with the fast walk inside from her car and smiling happily at seeing him stand to greet her. She kissed his cheek and received a chaste peck in return. They were in public after all. They were more than good friends but public displays of affection were foreign to both of them. She chatted enthusiastically about what to eat for dinner while she spread samples of a circular over the table for him to see. They settled on one printed on light blue construction paper.

They picked over the remains of the salmon entrée and steamed vegetables. The supposed reason for their meeting having been disposed of, they became awkward with each other. Neither wanted to broach the subject that was really the reason for coming here tonight, but the light had gone out of Ann’s eyes. They couldn’t avoid the topic any longer.

“Ann,” Kyle said softly, “we gotta tell them…we can’t go on this way. They’re going to find out sooner or later, you know. If they find out by themselves, it’s not going to make things any better–it’ll just make things worse.” He looked down into his coffee cup, wishing it were a crystal ball that could tell him what to do about this thing that had come between him and his best friend’s wife. There were no solutions in the dregs of the strong brew that he could see.

“I know,” Ann said unsteadily. “I feel so guilty all the time and I know Paul can see it on my face. I can’t even bear to look him in the eyes.” Kyle nodded. It was the same with him when he was with his wife, Peggy. Then he shook his head.

“It’s not something to feel guilty about, Ann,” he said, a little more forcefully than he’d planned. “It’s not like we set out to go out and have sex one day. What happened…just happened. It’s no one’s fault.” There were tears trickling from Ann’s eyes now. She touched a tissue to the corner of each eye in a vain attempt to stem the increasing flow.

“It’s just that Paul will be so hurt,” Ann said. “I can’t face that.” Kyle caught her wrists in his hands and pressed her palms together on the tabletop.

“Honey,” he said quietly, “he’s going to be even more hurt if we don’t tell him. Sooner or later, he and Peggy are going to figure out something is going on and then we’ll look like criminals or something…you know that,” he finished in a coaxing tone. “It’s just something we have to do and hope they’ll understand. There’s no two ways about it.”

He released her wrists and patted the backs of her hands affectionately. The physical contact reassured her; it seemed to give her a little strength. She sat up straighter and nodded her acceptance. She bit her lips for a moment then took a deep breath and let it out. Her head came up, her eyes lifted to meet his and a smile grew on her lips. The color left her face in an instant, leaving her alarmingly pale.

“PAUL!” she cried. Kyle swiveled in his seat to see his friend standing nearly at his shoulder. He and Ann had been so intent on their conversation they hadn’t seen him come in the café, much less walk up to them.

Kyle looked at Paul closely. Paul didn’t look good. Dressed casually, but correctly, he still gave the impression of being slightly disheveled. He looked worried. His complexion was as pasty as Ann’s…and his own, Kyle suspected. He’d been caught with his friend’s wife, and now there could be hell to pay. He and Ann had no other option now. They had to confess to her husband what they’d done.

“Ann…please, Ann…I’ve got to know what’s going on,” Paul said raggedly, his voice breaking twice in the short entreaty. Ann’s tears poured from her eyes now. Raising her arms to her husband, she pleaded mutely for him to come to her. He did, contorting his body to slide into the bench seat beside her. He held her as she pressed her face into his shoulder and murmured soft words that had no meaning into her hair.

It was a while before Ann regained control and sat up straight. Kyle sat quietly the whole time, keeping his eyes on the table to give his friends as much privacy as he could. He occupied himself straightening the pile of sample circulars. Paul watched him with growing hostility in his eyes but the printed words on the top leaflet caught his eye before he said anything.

“My birthday?” he said in a confused tone. “That’s what this is all about? You’re setting up a surprise party?” The colored pages contained an invitation to come help celebrate Paul Anderson’s birthday. Paul’s face brightened spectacularly, then fell again when Kyle shook his head in negation.

Kyle looked at Ann forcefully, willing her to nerve herself for what was to come.

“Well…we are, but that’s only part of the reason we’ve been seeing a lot of each other,” Kyle said. “Ann, we got to do it,” he said slowly. She nodded, sighing. Kyle shifted his eyes to Paul.

“Paul,” Kyle said slowly, “we have something to tell you that is going to be hard for you to hear…and I don’t know exactly how to do it, so bear with me. Please…let Ann and me say what we have to say and then you can do whatever you want to, okay?” His eyes brimming with suspicion, Paul nodded curtly. Kyle breathed in deeply and held it. He let it out and began to speak.

********

“That’s all there is to it?” Paul demanded, his voice crackling with impatience. He looked at his wife. She nodded. “You mean to tell me you started sucking Kyle’s cock by mistake at the Valentine’s Day party? By mistake? How the hell do you do it by mistake?”

“It was dark, honey,” Ann said patiently. She was going over things she’d already explained, but this was her husband and it was important he understood.

“I heard Kyle fart; it sounded just like you do when you’ve been drinking beer and I didn’t stop to think it might be someone else. It wasn’t until he called me Peggy that I realized what had happened and I stopped right then…”

“So this sordid little affair started with a big, ol’ fart? Is that what you’re telling me?” Paul inquired sarcastically, his voice strained. Ann looked up into his eyes and found something there. She doubled up her fist and hit her husband in the ribs–hard.

“Damn you, Paul Anderson,” she said hotly. “This isn’t one bit funny.”

Paul had a small grin on his face all the same. In the relief that quickly spread around the table though, she and Kyle were soon smiling broadly and all three gave in to chuckles a moment later. It was a few minutes before they could completely stifle them.

“Uh…Paul…look, I’m really sorry this happened,” Kyle said sincerely. “I’d give the world if it hadn’t happened but we…Ann…I…” Paul waved his hand carelessly at his friend.

“I know you didn’t mean it,” Paul said. “I can see it on your faces. Besides, I’m well aware Ann has…ahhhhhh…had sex with other men,” he said, trying to be delicate about what he was saying. “She was divorced when I met her, for Pete’s sake,” he added.

“I’m not terribly upset about the “accident” as you put it, but Iam upset about what you two put me through the past two weeks.” Kyle and Ann looked at each other shamefacedly.

“If you’d just come to me right away,” Paul said, “I wouldn’t have lost so much sleep and I’d be a lot less stressed out. How come you didn’t just tell me?” he asked Kyle and Ann, his eyes traveling from one to the other. Kyle looked uncomfortable.

“Peggy,” he said quietly. “Once we told you, we’d have to tell Peggy.”

“Oh,” Paul replied. The three of them looked at each other glumly.

********

It wasn’t that Peggy Whitley wasn’t a good person. Heck, Kyle’s wife was the first one to put an arm around a neighborhood kid with a scraped knee; she’d be on your front porch with a pot of chicken noodle soup if you were ill and couldn’t get out; and she was generous to a fault with all the neighborhood charity drives. It wasn’t any of that.

It’s just…well…her mom was one of the original feminists. Kyle wondered from the day he met Peggy’s family how that philosophy coexisted with the practical realities of a long marriage to a successful businessman. They’d had five children too. Kyle didn’t know how that fit in with Denise’s agenda.

Early in his marriage, Kyle had summoned the courage to ask Dan, his new father-in-law, about it and he told Kyle quite candidly that he ignored most of what Kyle’s mother-in-law said when he heard her using the movement’s odd mantras. He said he reverted to a 19th century philosophy of allowing the woman to run matters relating to the household and let her have sway over all that virtually without comment.

Outside of that, he said they made compromises and agreements or Denise was invited to pack her bags and leave. Kyle was impressed. He also wondered if Denise appreciated the irony of her husband’s way of dealing with her political beliefs…or if she knew.

Once or twice, in her role as mother-in-law, Denise said some hurtful and antagonistic things about males in general and Kyle in particular at the dinner table. Dan jumped in and told Denise in no uncertain terms that what she was saying was highly inappropriate and that it needed to cease. Denise’s eyes got a little vacant, as if she were going over what she had said, or perhaps she was consulting a reference library that told her what was and was not appropriate commentary according to an agreement of some kind. Each time, Denise apologized to Kyle and the incident passed.

Anyway, Peggy inherited from her mother an attitude that bordered on intolerance for men’s foibles and idiosyncrasies. It persisted well into a marriage that produced two wonderful children but it caused their marriage to be a rocky one from time to time. She always came back to Kyle though–almost returning to the woman she’d been when he married her. Lately though, it had taken longer for them to work past the disagreements.

She was intensely competitive too. For instance, though she was slight of stature, it infuriated her when Kyle could easily open a pickle jar she’d wrestled with all day long. In short, she tolerated no differences between herself as a representative of the female portion of the race and Kyle as an unwilling rep for the male half. Sometimes it meant she had to watch a sporting event she really didn’t want to, and Kyle had to watch “Steel Magnolias” or something in that vein when it struck Peggy’s fancy.

The last time they’d watched that movie, Kyle hadn’t been able to fight off his boredom and lack of interest. His snoring finally made it impossible for Peggy to continue watching the movie and she woke him up. After a few sharp comments, she’d flounced off to bed. She’d suggested he sleep on the couch instead of joining her. Sleepy and quite comfortable where he was, Kyle had nodded and stretched out. He’d drifted off again before his wife got upstairs. She hadn’t given up ragging on him for that for a long while, but she hadn’t made him watch the movie again either.

At times, her attitudes caused more significant conflicts. There was the time, for instance, when Kyle caught her in a fib about where she’d been when someone dented the fender on the car. She’d actually been buying a new dress at the mall, not the supermarket like she told him. At the time, they couldn’t really afford for her to buy that dress but she was afraid it wouldn’t be there when they could. It had to be that exact dress, so she’d gone back and gotten it after telling Kyle she would not.

Kyle had had his suspicions. There was something odd about the way Peggy was acting when she told him about the supermarket parking lot, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. When the police report they had to submit with the insurance claim gave the lie to her whereabouts at the time of the accident, Kyle asked his wife some pointed questions. He was completely unprepared for the onslaught of verbal volleys that were hurled at him.

When he got mad at the undeserved treatment and fired back, Peggy refused to talk to him for two solid weeks. Just because she wasn’t talking didn’t stop Kyle though. He fell into the habit of making extemporaneous, rhetorical remarks about the incident whenever the mood struck him.

For instance, he made much of the fact that she wouldn’t have gotten into the accident if she hadn’t been doing something she’d promised she wouldn’t. He didn’t get an explanation. Peggy had sworn to herself she would not talk to him for a long time and that period was not yet up. Her self-imposed inability to even respond to her husband made her mad. That she couldn’t counter the logic of the remark infuriated her even more. When he got on to her for lying when she professed to loath people who did that, Kyle earned himself another two weeks of the silent treatment.

She’d taken the dress back, only to have Kyle put it on layaway and buy it for her when things calmed down. He ate bologna sandwiches for two months at lunchtime to be able to do it, but he thought it would be worth it. He figured it would be a peace offering, but Peggy went ballistic instead. She hadn’t wanted a man to get it for her. She’d wanted to do it herself. The dress was on a rack stuffed in the back of her closet. It had never been worn.

Though they usually got along, the antagonism reached levels Kyle wasn’t willing to overlook on several other occasions. He loved her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but there were times when he could not put up with her ways.

They separated twice, living apart for three weeks the first time and two months the second time. The second time had been particularly humiliating for Peggy. She’d had to admit she was wrong in throwing a fit about a credit card purchase and accusing him of buying a trinket for one of the floozies in the secretary pool. When the bill came in, it was plain to see it had been for a present for her sister’s birthday and the flowers that had been sent in both their names. She’d forgotten. That had been a few months after Todd was born and things had been relatively smooth since then.

No, the reluctance to talk with her about the mistake wasn’t because Peggy was a bad person exactly. It’s just that she was never inclined to give a man, particularly Kyle, much of a break. They put off telling her as long as they could.

********

“Peggy,” Kyle said as gently as he could, “Ann and I need to talk to you about something that happened at the Valentine’s Day party.” Kyle was sitting beside Peggy on the couch while Ann sat on the Lazy Boy recliner. Kyle had tried to take her hand but Peggy wouldn’t let him. She seldom did. She wasn’t a bubblegum popping schoolgirl she usually remarked when he wanted to.

“What is it, honey?” Peggy asked in a sweet voice. “It’s not about the party for Paul, is it?” Kyle shook his head and bit his cheek to keep from saying something out of irritation when Peggy turned away.

He’d already told her it was about something to do with the February party and she’d ignored it. His jaw muscles clinched tight. He was trying to be gentle about this but a number of old frustrations had been weighing on his mind over the past few weeks as he tried to find a way to tell his wife what had happened. A mistake shouldn’t be this difficult to tell her about. He should be able to trust she would have enough faith in him to believe what he needed to say. Instead…

“Would you like me to freshen your coffee?” Peggy asked Ann solicitously. Ann put her hand over her nearly full cup.

“No…thanks, but this is plenty for me,” Ann replied. She looked at me with a question in her eyes. “Do you want to go first, Kyle?” she asked. “You went first with Paul,” she added. Peggy looked at me, then back at Ann. Suspicion began to wrinkle her forehead.

“What’s this all about?” she asked warily. “Kyle, what did you do?” she asked. The assumption and the accusation were plain to hear in her voice. Kyle shook his head at Ann’s suggestion and faced Peggy directly.

“I…Ann and I…we made a bad mistake at the Valentine’s Day party,” he said hoarsely. He took a deep breath, wet his lips with a nervous tongue, and began again.

Peggy’s eyes narrowed as he launched into a hurried explanation of how he’d strolled out on the back deck at Ann and Paul’s house while Peggy was out getting her sweater from their car, how he’d bumped into the railing, and about the gases from the chili at lunch had initiated an accidental indiscretion.

********

Peggy conveyed Ann to the front door courteously, thanking her for coming to talk about the problem. She was all smiles. They were reserved for Ann though. She refused to look at Kyle. When the door closed behind Ann, Peggy turned around and swung an open palm at the side of his face. Startled, Kyle blocked her hand with his forearm and backed up a step to watch her apprehensively. His block had hurt her hand and she rubbed at it with her other one.

“YOU SORRY BASTARD,” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “YOU THINK YOU CAN LET THAT HUSSY SUCK YOUR PRICK AND YOU BOTH JUST GET AWAY WITH IT? YOU GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING, DAMN YOU! YOU JUST WAIT!”

Kyle looked at her in amazement. His wife had been angry before, but this was something new. She’d never been so out of control. His eyes narrowed as he watched the furious woman mouth words and threats he’d never have imagined would come out of her mouth. Finally, he’d had enough.

“SHUT UP!” he bellowed. The rumbling roar from deep in his chest overwhelmed her and Peggy stuttered to a stop. Her face was flushed from rage; her eyes glared at him malevolently.

“DON’T YOU TELL ME–” she began. Kyle motioned at the doorway into the hall. Five year old Megan and three year old Todd were watching with tears in their eyes as their parents argued. Peggy turned to them and became a warm and caring mother, changing from a screaming harridan without missing a beat. She hugged her children, telling them everything was all right while glowering at Kyle over their heads.

It wasn’t all right and Kyle knew it. He felt nauseous; there was an iciness in the pit of his stomach that entrenched itself and spread. Dimly he knew something priceless had been broken here today. It had been coming for some time but he’d hoped the stress points could be reinforced if only he worked hard enough. He’d hoped it could be mended but today the marriage had splintered badly. He turned away from his wife’s scowl and walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water to ease a throat suddenly dry and constricted.

********

“I’m going to get even,” you know,” Peggy said in a serene, confiding tone to Kyle. They were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. He was having his second after-dinner cup of coffee while he read the newly arrived ESPN magazine. He’d gotten into the habit of bringing something to read to supper to fill in the time table conversation had consumed before her big blowup.

“What?” Kyle said sharply. It was the first time in three weeks Peggy had addressed any words directly to him that hadn’t been absolutely necessary. He hadn’t been prepared for Peggy breaking her silence and had no ready reply.

“I’m going to get even with you for letting Ann give you a blowjob,” she said, with a malicious gleam in her eye. “Did you think you’d get to have sex with her and I would just sit still and take it?” she asked.

“Peggy,” Kyle said wearily, “it wasn’t intentional. When Ann and I discovered we weren’t with who we thought we were, we pulled back so quick we almost hurt ourselves. I’ve told you it was a bad mistake, but it was still a mistake. Ann has told you that and Paul has too. Everyone involved except you understands that. Don’t you think it’s time to let it go?”

“No way, you sorry son of a bitch,” Peggy shot back. “You had your fun; now I’m going to have mine,” she hissed. Kyle shook his head, despairing of ever convincing his wife he had not intended to have sex of any kind with his best friend’s wife.

“That’s awfully mature of you,” he said sarcastically. Peggy’s eyes were thin slits and the fingers of both hands were twisting about each other in her lap as she gave her emotions full rein. Her flushed, mottled features showed the fury that was never very far beneath the surface these days.

“God damn you!” she whispered between tight lips. “I will get my own back…no matter what you say, I know you wanted to get a little “strange” that night. You will regret it Kyle Whitley…you will regret it. Kyle looked at his wife for a long moment before commenting.

“Peggy,” he said slowly, almost gently, “will you go with me to some couples counseling? Maybe we can work this out with a professional’s help. Would you go?” Peggy’s head was shaking before he finished the first sentence but he continued, knowing the offer had to be made.

“Screw you,” she said tersely. “There’s nothing I need to tell some counselor you’ll probably have primed to convince me I’m all wrong and you’re all right.”

“You find the counselor then,” Kyle suggested. “Find anyone you want. I’ll go with you, anywhere…anytime.” He assured her. Her head swung from side to side violently in refusal. Kyle gave up. It had been a forlorn hope at best.

“Fine!” he said forcefully. “Whatever,” he told her. “Well…maybe you can get some counseling on your own,” he said. “If you don’t find some way to control that anger, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.” Kyle went back to his magazine after a moment.

His wife, her face nearly purple with a new rush of blood, stared at him coldly before rising and stalking stiff-legged out of the room. Kyle shook his head as he lowered the magazine to watch her leave.

********

Sex between Kyle and Peggy had been non-existent since the day he and Ann had admitted their blunder to Peggy. There had been no affectionate moments, no murmured endearments in the bedroom, and precious few periods of even common courtesy between them. Kyle got used to relieving himself of his sexual energies while taking a shower every few days after everyone else was asleep. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t about to demand his conjugal rights from Peggy. He didn’t know what she did, or if she even felt anything from the lack of sex.

Inexplicably, things got better a few days later after Kyle’s suggestion about counseling. Dinner that Thursday evening was a far more cheerful event than it had been for almost a month. Peggy was bubbling over with news from her work and about Mandy and her husband Bill. They were one of the group of couples who gathered every few weeks for a nice barbeque or house party. Peggy knew Mandy from work; their desks were only a few cubicles away from each other.

Older than the rest of the crowd by twenty some years, Mandy and Bill seldom impressed their friends as being old. They had, however, just heard today that they were going to be grandparents for the third time. Peggy was going on and on about the new baby, wondering out loud if it would be a girl this time or not. Kyle watched her bustle around the kitchen, amazed at the transformation in attitude just since breakfast.

After getting the kids to bed, Kyle and Peggy sat together on the couch while they watched the latest installment of “American Idol.” Kyle didn’t know exactly what to make of the situation but he was willing to go along with the abrupt turnabout. Arguing and fighting all the time sucked the energy right out of a man; maybe it had been sapping her vigor too. He hoped.

When the show was over, Peggy smiled into his eyes and leaned in for a soft kiss.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said gently. “I’ve been an awful jerk the last few weeks and I realize how horrible I’ve been behaving.”

Kyle blinked. This was almost unprecedented.

“Well…maybe it’s a case of it taking two to tango,” he said finally. “I’m sorry too,” he added. She kissed him again. This time it was a longer, more demanding one. Kyle began to sense a stirring in his groin that he hadn’t felt in a month and more.

“I know,” she breathed, “but if I hadn’t been so unreasonable about you and Ann’s mistake, we could have been doing this all month long.” She giggled, the girlish laughter gave her a much higher degree of vulnerability than Kyle usually saw in her. It was refreshing. It gave him hope.

“Hmmmmmmm,” he murmured in her ear. “I’ve missed this,” he added. “Care to accompany me upstairs?” She giggled again and stood, taking both his hands in hers and drawing him up beside her. She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his while she kissed him lustily.

Breathlessly, they stumbled up the stairs. Kyle was unbuttoning his shirt as he climbed the steps. Peggy had her dress unzipped before they reached the landing on the second floor. By the time she reached the bed, she was nude except for a bra. Two seconds later, she was sitting on the edge of the bed without a stitch on.

Kyle had been held up locking the bedroom door. They’d been a number of times after the kids started walking when Kyle and Peggy had been surprised by a little face, or faces, appearing around the doorframe.

His clothes flung away and the door secured, Kyle dropped to his knees before his wife and spread her legs a little wider. He looked at his wife’s beautiful pussy for a long moment. He never tired of this. Peggy trimmed all her pubic hair into an inch wide strip above her slit and kept the rest of it bare. He loved that. As he told her often, he hated to comb his teeth after going down on her…and he wasn’t going to give up giving her oral sex.

Tonight, Peggy was too impatient.

“Come up here,” she whispered. “I want you in me.” Kyle scrambled to his feet and put a knee on the bed. They bumped heads in their eagerness and burst out chuckling. It felt good. Playfully, Peggy pulled him down beside her, twisting him down on his back. Without a moment’s pause, she threw a leg over his hips and crouched over his body, leaning low for a series of urgent kisses.

Scooting backwards on the bed, Peggy pulled her hips high and reached between her legs to find Kyle’s hardness. Positioning it at the entrance to her pussy, she eased herself down a bit at a time. Usually, she was so prepared by Kyle’s oral attentions at this point that she could handle his cock driving swiftly into her but she’d foregone all foreplay tonight. Still, it was only a couple of seconds before her vagina had opened up and allowed her husband to begin pushing up from the bed’s surface.

Peggy didn’t want anything fancy tonight. Once Kyle’s dick was firmly seated inside her, she began to rock her hips back and forth in a fast “Cowgirl” ride on her husband’s sex. She began breathing fast and shallow almost immediately. It had been a long time since they’d last made love and both had a lot of pent up energy.

Cupping a breast in each hand, Kyle kneaded them firmly, enjoying the yielding resilience of her sensitive mounds. He twirled the blood-engorged nipples between his thumb and forefingers, pulling carefully on them when Peggy seemed ready. He tried to urge Peggy to lower herself so he could suck on her nipples but she resisted. She wasn’t willing to slow or stop the rhythm she’d built up riding his cock in a simple back and forth motion.

She rode him hard, plunging her hips down hard and thrashing her lower body around in a tight circle to rub her pussy against Kyle’s groin. He couldn’t move very well. He tried to push his cock deeper into Peggy’s hot cunt but he didn’t have any leverage. After a while, he let Peggy do all the work. There was no style to what she was doing. It was simple animal lust. Two animals who’d gone without sex for a long time pushed and shoved at one another, each straining for a long withheld release.

It was only a few minutes. Kyle had tried to get into a better rhythm, timing Peggy’s plunges with his own thrusts, but there was no way. Before he could begin working with her, Peggy was beginning the high-pitched keening that preceded one of her better orgasms.

“UUUUUUEEEEEEIIEIEIEEEEUUNGGGH!” Peggy groaned as she slammed her pussy down on Kyle’s groin. She stopped in mid-movement, whipped into frantic motion seconds later, and pushed her head back to stare at the ceiling as she reveled in the sensations spreading through her body.

“Unnngh, unnngh, unnngh, unnngh, unnnnnngh,” she grunted, slamming herself down onto her husband. She was delirious, hardly aware of what she was doing. She was intent only on making the approaching climax as intense and long lasting as she could. Abruptly she froze at the top of her stroke, lowered herself in tiny increments until Kyle’s cock filled her completely and there she stayed. A series of tiny tremors, uncontrollable muscle contractions, swept over her…and she collapsed onto her husband’s body. It was done. She lay there gasping for air, suddenly exhausted. Kyle waited.

“Did you cum?” Peggy asked when she had enough breath to speak.

“Huh-uh,” Kyle replied cheerfully. He often refused to let himself get off in their first sex in an evening, preferring to keep the ability to give her–and himself–a second, and sometimes a third round of pleasure.

“Mmmmmmmmm,” Peggy said dreamily, still panting a little. They lay there, still coupled by virtue of his hard penis still trapped within her vagina.

Peggy pushed her hips up, disengaging her sex from his and dropped at Kyle’s side. Grinning at him in the dim light from behind the closed bathroom door, she took his cock in her left hand and began to jack him off. She worked at it hard for a few minutes, moving her fist deftly up and down the shaft. Smoothly, she shifted her body, worming her way up until she could lock her lips on his.

“Cum for me,” she whispered. “I want to watch you cum.” She worked her hands up and down smoothly, her own juices providing all the lubrication necessary. He was uncircumcised. Just the motion of her hand sliding up and down the shaft pulled his foreskin down over the glans and across that sensitive area on the underside just behind the bulbous head. Peggy was good at what she was doing. She loved to see him spray his seed into the air. Kyle had no idea why she found it so fascinating, but she was. He’d learned to live with it.

She worked faster, a little more firmly, urging his body to give up its resistance and release its sperm to her ministrations. He tried to hold off but her soft hands were irresistible. A very few minutes after she started, tightening muscles in his lower abdomen and a hot, flowing sensations deep inside told him his time was near.

“Peggy…” he warned. Her hand moved faster, sweeping up from the base of his cock to slide over and very briefly cup in her palm a glans now slickened with precum as well as her remaining vaginal juices. Up and down in a hard rhythm, she worked his cock around in small circles to increase his pleasure.

Suddenly, he could hold off no longer. He came in a long, shuddering orgasm, spouting a thick white spray that flew high before falling back to his belly. Peggy’s hand was quickly covered with slick slime. She bent to taste her husband, licking the cum from the back of her hand and the webbing between thumb and forefinger. His second eruption came quickly after the first, pumping only a few inches upward before Peggy’s enthralled eyes. A third squirt of thin semen mixture gushed out from the slit in the head of his cock, flowing rather than shooting out. Peggy knew this for a sign his spewing was nearly at an end.

Leaning closer, she worked to milk out the last few drops from his balls. She wanted to see it as it happened. When she had the final droplets, she squeegeed them off with her fingers and deposited them in her mouth. Teasingly, she stuck out her tongue to show her husband what she had collected there. It was too dark for him to really see it, but he appreciated the thought anyway. He nodded, too breathless to speak. He hardly noticed his wife’s lips never touched his cock in all the time she’d had her head in his lap.

********

“I hope you know I wouldn’t really have done anything to get even with you,” Peggy said tentatively.

Kyle mumbled something that sounded comforting. He patted her bare shoulder to add a little more to that impression. They’d taken a leisurely shower after the sex. Kyle had wanted and tried to coax Peggy into more sex in the bathtub, but she hadn’t wanted any. It had been a long day, she said. Tomorrow was the start of the weekend and they would have all the time in the world then. He’d agreed reluctantly.

“I mean…it would just be the wrong thing to do,” she continued drowsily. “I just couldn’t.” Kyle patted her shoulder and turned on his side, pressing against her as she turned also. A moment later, they were “spooning” happily in the afterglow of the sex. Kyle was at peace, pleased the bad times were over. He was happy Peggy had backed away from her position on the subject of his and Ann’s “indiscretion.” It wasn’t often Peggy would to this. He could only remember one time when she’d given in on something like this. Usually…

His eyes snapped open in the darkness. The last time Peggy had given in so abruptly without explanation had been when they’d only been married a year and a half. She’d wanted that blue dress so bad, even though they couldn’t afford to buy it. She’d told him it would be wrong for her to go ahead and buy it. It would have been the wrong thing to do, she’d said.

He closed his eyes wearily. Nothing had changed. Peggy had only changed her tactics. The rage he’d seen in her eyes a few days ago was still there, simmering just beneath the surface. She’d only banked the fire a little to put him off his guard, and maybe the strain of not having sex for more than a month had gotten to her too. He was so tired. He slept but when he woke, he did not feel rested.

********

He couldn’t let it just lay there in his mind. He wasn’t a man who liked confrontations but he always spoke his mind.

“Are you going shopping at the mall today?” Kyle asked his wife. There was some small sarcasm in his voice. Peggy had been about to open the front door. It was 7:30 and she’d just make it to work on time if the Friday morning traffic wasn’t too heavy.

“Well…no, I hadn’t planned on it,” she replied. “Why? Is there something you need?” She was looking at Kyle quizzically. He took a bite of the toaster pastry and swallowed it before replying.

“No…I was just thinking about something,” Kyle said. “The last time you told me you wouldn’t do something because it would be the wrong thing to do, you had a fender-bender in the Prairie View Mall parking lot.”

Peggy’s brow furrowed for a bit, then her jaw tightened. Her lips thinned to a stiff line. A hot anger blazed from her eyes as she realized what he was referring to. She was quiet for a long moment. She let out a long breath of air. Kyle could see in her eyes an admission all her work over the past few days had been lost.

“Payback is a bitch, Kyle Aaron Whitley,” she said quietly. The calm with which she delivered the pronouncement made her hostility all the more palpable.

“I will get you back for having that slut give you a blowjob. Mark my words, hubby dear, I will have some satisfaction before I get this behind me.”

With that, Peggy opened the door and slid through the doorway in a quick move. She shut the door firmly behind her.

Kyle stood silent, watching the door to see if his wife would come back to deliver more warnings. He was filled with an intense feeling of foreboding. Peggy would not let this go. She wouldn’t forgive; she wouldn’t agree to a separation–she didn’t like the two they’d already had–so they could get a breathing space. She’d already refused counseling and she was intent on getting revenge for what she obviously thought of as his unfaithfulness. He didn’t know what he could do to encourage her to forgive and let this be. He just didn’t know.

Things got better, albeit very slowly. There wasn’t much sex, and there was no love making, but Kyle and Peggy found ways to be more civil to each other. They couldn’t completely disguise the tension between them though. Three-year-old Todd began wetting the bed again and both adults attributed it to the stress Todd could dimly recognize, but certainly couldn’t understand, between his parents.

Kyle and Peggy found ways to cooperate and appear cheerful in front of their children. They kept their arguments quieter and behind closed doors. The number of Todd’s “accidents” dwindled, but did not disappear. Nor did the dispute over the Valentine’s Day mistake that Peggy steadfastly referred to as Kyle’s infidelity.

Chapter 2

Megan saw a commercial on TV. She didn’t know what they were trying to sell, but she was fascinated by the little boy who heard his father say he would miss the boy’s face while he was gone on a trip. The little boy promptly loaded every picture of himself he could find into his father’s luggage for him to find when he checked into the hotel room at his destination. Megan wanted to do that too.

When Kyle found her, Megan had the two albums full of pictures of her and her little brother’s earliest days ready to put into one of her mother’s suitcases, along with a dozen framed portraits of the two children. Kyle smiled, instantly recognizing what the little girl was up to. He explained to Megan she had a great idea, but all of these photographs would be too heavy for her mother to carry.

The youngster understood “heavy.” A slender little girl, almost everything was too heavy for her. She quickly gave up on her desire that her mom take all the pictures with her. Instead, they decided on one framed 8X10 of each child. Kyle was holding the one of Todd in his hand while he reopened one of Peggy’s bags. Megan demanded hers go into the other one, the larger of the two pieces already packed and sitting on the bed, and Kyle couldn’t think of any reason why not, though he would have put both in a single case had he been doing it. He ran the dual zipper back on both bags so the photos could be included in his wife’s luggage.

He turned over several items of clothing to find a nesting place so the glass front on the picture would be cushioned. He was patting some lacy undergarments back into place when a thought struck him. He looked closer. The suitcase contained virtually every one of Peggy’s delicate, sheer nightgowns folded precisely and placed carefully in neat stacks. There was a big mound of bikini panties and her only two thong panties, one of which she hadn’t yet worn, to his knowledge. Thigh stockings, sexy bras, and a variety of small clutch purses filled the case to the brim.

Suspiciously, he unzipped and looked in the garment bag hanging on the closet door and found three evening gowns and cocktail dresses along with several business outfits. In the small overnight case, he found all of Peggy’s makeup and her jewelry case with her best necklace–the one she almost never wore for him, though he thought the string of pearls looked fantastic nestled against her tanned neck. There was a small plastic bag tucked into one corner of the jewelry case.

“Mommy, mommy…come an’ see what I did.” Megan ran downstairs calling for her mother. “I put my and Todd’s pictures in your suit…case,” she proclaimed proudly.

Kyle could hear her all the way back upstairs in the bedroom. He stood and walked to the chest of drawers. There was an easy chair against the wall just there and he sat down, waiting for his wife to appear in the doorway. He could hear her coming. Peggy was scolding Megan for messing with her luggage. Her voice sounded anxious.

When she came into the bedroom, she didn’t see Kyle at first. He was partially hidden by the bulk of the chest of drawers and he held himself still. Peggy’s voice altered, becoming more conciliatory when she didn’t see her husband beside the open luggage.

“Care to explain, Peggy?” Kyle asked quietly. Peggy flinched when he spoke, jerking around to face him while he was still in the process of standing. Her face was pinched and white. A guilty defiance began to build on her features.

“Explain what?” she said, stalling. Kyle’s lips twisted with annoyance. He saw Megan just inside the door and didn’t say anything. Only just barely avoiding shouldering his wife aside, he ostentatiously repositioned Megan’s 8X10 in the middle of Peggy’s carefully folded nightgowns and zipped the luggage closed.

“There!” he said dramatically. “Megan, yours and Todd’s pictures are going with your Mom on her trip,” he assured her. Grinning happily, Megan raced out of the room and was soon plunging down the staircase to find her brother and let him know what she’d done. She was that way. She never did anything at a slow pace.

Kyle stood back and stared at his wife. She was someone he didn’t know anymore. He wished someone would introduce them so they could get on with their lives.

“What’s going on, Peggy?” he asked.

Peggy had been taught the old axiom by her mother that the best defense is a good offense. She followed that advice as often as she could.

“Nothing’s going on,” she answered firmly. “What’s wrong? Why all these questions?”

“Peggy, you’ve got all your best evening wear all packed up and ready to go,” Kyle remarked, “along with your best jewelry, all the sexy underwear you own and two pair of dancing shoes. Every other business trip I’ve seen you go on, you’ve taken an old flannel t-shirt thing to sleep in and told me it was all you needed. You’ve got enough stuff here to go out every night of your stay and then get into your sexiest nightgowns to keep on partying. That is what you have in mind, isn’t it, Peggy?” His wife had begun shaking her head no before he was half finished.

“No, that’s not what I have in mind,” she retorted. “Look, in case you haven’t noticed it, I’m moving up in the firm. I have to be ready to attend formal…functions at a moment’s notice and I have to look good when I do. That’s part of being in management, you know.” Her voice was challenging. She figured she had a good argument to throw at him. “And I wanted to take my nightgowns…hell, I don’t know…because I just did,” she added.

Kyle didn’t bother to ask about the sexy underwear and thigh highs. He took the plastic bag from the bureau top where he had tossed it earlier and opened it slowly. He threw the pack of twelve condoms on the bed in front of his beloved wife. Her eyes followed the arc the package followed in the air. When it settled on the bed, she recognized what it was and her face flushed a brilliant crimson.

“I…I don’t know where those came from,” she said. She must have heard how lame it sounded even as she said it. Kyle took the two sheets of paper from the bag and pretended to read them.

“Well, the cash register receipt is dated yesterday, my dear…and this copy of a credit card receipt has our Visa credit card number on it,” he told her in icy tones. His wife wilted, sinking to a seat beside her two bags.

“Kyle,” she almost whispered, “you’ve got to see it with my eyes…please.” Kyle looked at her, aghast at what she was saying. She wanted him to agree she had a right to go off and fuck some guy because she still considered he had deliberately had sex with Ann.

“Kyle, I’ve to get even…that’s all I want…I just want us to be equal again so we can get beyond this, honey…okay?” she said plaintively. She was pleading for understanding. It occurred to him almost instantly that only her mother would, or could, understand Peggy’s need. He shook his head.

“Peggy, look…whatever Ann and I did was totally by accident. Neither of us had any intention of cheating on you and Paul. It…was…an…accident! Nothing more, nothing less. If you go off to Chicago with the idea in mind that you’re going to sleep with some man to “get even,” you’re doing something way…way beyond what Ann and I did.

“You would be cheating on me in such a cold-hearted, calculatingly cruel, and selfish way that it would end our marriage instantly. Is that what you want, Peggy? Do you want a divorce?” Kyle asked seriously. Peggy’s face grew pale.

“NO,” she said forcefully. “I do not want a divorce. I just want us to be equals in this marriage, Kyle Aaron. We have to be equal or there will come a day I will get a divorce, do you understand that.”

“Fine,” Kyle answered. “You had a car accident in the Prairie View parking lot way back when, doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. I had an accident on Ann and Paul’s backyard deck, doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. Guess what, dear? We’re even! We’re equal again.” His tone was sarcastic. Peggy glared at him.

“Those aren’t the same and you know it,” she said hotly.

“You’re right,” Kyle retorted. “When you were buying a dress we couldn’t afford, you lied to me. You told me you wouldn’t buy that damned dress and you got caught by having a car wreck.

“That’s the big difference. You lied. I haven’t though. I haven’t lied to you about a damn thing and Ann and I were totally up front about what happened. Actually, dear, by your standards I should have done something really nasty to you for buying that dress, getting in an accident, and making our insurance rates go up. It’s not too late though. What do you think I should do to you huh?”

“I took the dress back,” Peggy said weakly. Kyle snorted.

“The damage…to my trust in you and to the car…had already been done, Peggy,” Kyle said quietly. “I repeat…what should I do to you for lying to me and wrecking the car?”

He watched as his wife shook her head helplessly. Her eyes were wide, the rage glowing deep inside them. Kyle gave up. With the training her mother had given her, Peggy could no more answer his questions than she could sprout wings and fly.

“Yeah…well…I don’t know either, Peggy,” he said somberly. “I’ll say it again…do you want a divorce?” he asked. “I’ll pretty much understand if you do,” Kyle told her. “I won’t agree with you, but I’d understand it,” he added.

Peggy shook her head again. Her eyes were brimming with tears now. He didn’t know if they were tears of rage or whether she was distraught at the mention of a divorce.

“In that case, Peggy,” he said, “I’m not going to let you do something that would absolutely make it impossible for us to do anything but get a divorce. I will not let you go to Chicago and climb into bed with some guy so you can “get even,” do you hear me?”

It had to be said, but it was probably a mistake. Peggy recovered quickly while he spoke. She thought she could put together a good line of defense on this subject.

She ignored the evidence of the condoms, and her immediate reaction to seeing Kyle toss them on the bed. She’d come close to admitting their purpose at that moment. Now she swore she’d had no such idea in mind. What she’d said had just been an angry reaction to him badgering her and it took that path because his infidelity was always on her mind.

Actually, she said, she’d bought the condoms for Linda at work and forgotten to give them to her. Linda had a yeast infection and didn’t want to give it to her husband and she’d asked Peggy to pick up some protection from the drugstore for her. Peggy had been so rushed yesterday afternoon she didn’t remember to take the condoms out of the bag containing the makeup she’d bought for the trip. She’d meant to give them to Linda yesterday afternoon. It was all very simple and Kyle shouldn’t be getting so hyper about a silly memory lapse.

Kyle knew the medical reason was bogus. His older sister had once let it slip she’d asked a doctor once when she suffered from the same problem. There was no way a man could be infected that way. Kyle said nothing though. His wife had passed a new threshold in lying and he was having trouble getting accustomed to it.

Peggy saw the disbelieve on Kyle’s face and it infuriated her. She started in on him, bringing up Ann again but simultaneously denying she was thinking of getting revenge.

All right, she said. She took all the nightgowns and sexy undergarments from the luggage and stuffed them back into drawers in her bureau. Two of the evening gowns and the cocktail dress went back in the closet. She’d prove to Kyle she wasn’t planning anything, she said. When she was through, everything fit in the largest of the suitcases and the garment bag. She put in one additional pantsuit she hadn’t had room for before.

“You understand, don’t you, that I’ll see any purchases you make in Chicago on the credit card or bank statements?” he said quietly. Peggy’s face went dead white. He knew he’d figured out why she was surrendering so quickly and easily.

“You’re going to regret the day–”

Peggy broke off whatever she had been about to say. She crammed her flannel nightshirt into the case and viciously zipped it closed. Dodging around Kyle, she carried the heavy bag out the bedroom door and parked it on the landing close to the stairwell. She’d tumble down the staircase if she tried to carry it downstairs and she knew it. Without looking back, she continued down the stairs with her back held abnormally stiff and unforgiving.

********

“Brad! How’s it going, pardner?” Kyle asked one of his oldest friends. He had gone out to the garage to make this cell phone call. He didn’t want Peggy listening in. It would only make her angrier.

“Good…good…how ’bout you, big guy?” Brad asked jovially. He had good reason to be in a good humor. He’d built up a law practice from scratch to a firm with fourteen senior partners and scads of junior attorneys, legal assistants, interns, and what not. Kyle didn’t think Brad knew anymore how many people worked for him.

“I’m doing pretty good,” Kyle said. “Not as well as some…but better than others.” Brad chuckled. Kyle had never tried hard to accumulate a hoard of money, but he owned the Fox TV franchise in town, a radio station, and had an option on two more TV stations outside the metropolitan area. Okay…most of the money had come from the trust fund his late father had set up, but he hadn’t lost any of that seed money. In fact, he was doing quite well in a low-key sort of way.

Brad had done better, but both were happy with their accomplishments and, more importantly, they remained close friends since they’d met in elementary school. Kyle wasn’t Brad’s biggest client, but he was the most valued.

Their association had been strengthened when Kyle became the blocking fullback running interference for Brad playing running back. That had been a long time ago–back in junior high and then in high school. They’d been a good team then; they still were. Each knew secrets about the other no one else was aware of.

“We need to get together for a good feed,” Brad remarked. “What say you and Peggy come over for a little barbeque Sunday…how ’bout that, son?” Kyle hesitated

“Well…that might not be for the best,” Kyle said slowly. “I’m having to call you because there’s…well, something about Peggy that I need to discuss with you.” Brad instantly changed gears and readied himself to work through a problem with his friend.

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that,” Brad said briskly. “What can I do for you, Number 42?” That had been Kyle’s jersey number. Brad had worn 22. Brad was reminding Kyle of their many years of close friendship. It was a comfort.

“Well…it’s not to the stage where I have to hire you to represent me in divorce court…not yet,” Kyle said. “But I was hoping I ask for a favor from you, if you don’t mind.”

“Name it,” Brad answered. He said nothing else.

“You are on good terms with old Jake Bruckmeister, right?” Kyle asked. Bruckmeister and Son was the accounting firm Peggy worked for as a senior analyst.

“Sure,” Brad returned quickly. “He was one of Dad’s closest friends before he died. One of his granddaughters is a clerk in my office during summer breaks from law school.”

“Well, I was wondering if you could call him and relay a concern I have…that the morality clauses in his firm’s employee contracts are not being…uh…enforced as rigorously as they could be.” Kyle was speaking carefully. He’d rehearsed the words in his mind. He hoped they were coming out the way he wanted them to.

“If you could say, for instance, that I had some reliable information that…uh Mrs. Peggy Whitely and one of the guys going with her to the Chicago conference are thinking of hooking up…and you could say that would…mmmmmnnn…let’s say call the company’s policies into question…well, the effectiveness of those morality clauses. They really should be prohibiting such a thing…”

“Got it,” Brad said with alacrity. “When does Peggy leave?”

“Three hours,” Kyle replied.

“Plenty of time,” Brad said. “You don’t want her to go?”

“Nope,” Kyle answered. “She had a pack of condoms in her luggage and she is still bound and determined she’s going to get revenge for that thing with Ann Blakely I told you about. You remember?”

“Yeah…’nough said,” Brad remarked. “I’ll make the call when we get off the line. I’ll try to see that it doesn’t get back to her that you’re the one making this happen too…but you’re going to need to get ready for some fireworks anyway,” he said in an amused tone.

Kyle hadn’t thought of that. He’d been intent on salvaging what he could of his marriage. He hadn’t come to terms with her escalation of lying yet. It was true she usually threw a fit when things didn’t go her way. There was no denying Peggy was going to be livid whether she found out about Kyle’s part in the cancellation of the trip or not. The thought bothered him, but he was still going to work on saving the marriage. He sighed. It was loud enough for Brad to hear. Brad chuckled.

“Hey, I appreciate it, Brad,” Kyle said sincerely. It was time to end the phone call and let his friend do what he could in Kyle’s behalf.

“Not a problem,” Brad protested. “This is nothing. If we have to file for divorce…well, we’ll call it even for that time you blocked the defensive end in the Seguin game, okay?” The lineman had been about to cut Brad in two when Kyle had taken him out with a nasty little block that left the defensive end laying in a heap the field.

“I would still owe you for the linebacker on the next play though,” Brad continued. The linebacker had been intent on getting even for the humiliation of the defensive end. When Kyle took his legs out from under him, he’d swapped ends, cartwheeling in mid-air and landed, dazed, flat on his back. Brad had dodged left and raced down the sideline for a tying touchdown. Kyle laughed. It was his first since his daughter had made him chuckle earlier.

“Okay, okay,” Kyle said. “Someday you got to let those go, friend.”

“Huh-uh,” Brad replied quickly. “I view the preservation of my wonderful, if no longer perfect body, as a really great thing…and you were in charge of preserving it for many a season, big guy.”

Kyle laughed again and changed the subject to something more neutral. They talked for another few minutes. They agreed to meet for lunch somewhere in town in a week or two. They decided Kyle would call Brad when he knew what his schedule would be and then they ended the conversation. Kyle punched the off button to kill the connection. Thoughtfully, he strolled back into the house, dropping his cell phone into his right front pocket as he walked.

********

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Whitley? This is Sam Macmillan.”

“Hi, Sam. What can I do for you?” Peggy asked. Sam was her immediate supervisor, a man she disliked for being the man he was, as well as for being in a position in the company she wanted. She knew she could do a better job than Macmillan was.

“Well, Junior asked me to call and let you know you won’t be representing Bruckmeister and Son in Chicago, so…that’s what I’m doing,” Sam said succinctly.

“Junior” was Jake Bruckmeister, Jr. He had been working his way up through the various offices within the firm, obviously being groomed to take over when his father finally agreed to retirement. At the moment, Junior was running the corporate analysis group where Peggy worked. Generally speaking, whatever Junior said needed doing got done very quickly. No one wanted to irritate the future CEO and president. On the other hand, he rarely bothered himself with such mundane tasks as determining the selection of attendees at minor training conferences and seminars. Peggy was incensed; her anger flared immediately at the interference from the man.

“Are you there, Mrs. Whitely?” Macmillan asked.

“You’re taking me off the trip?” Peggy asked in a strangled voice. “Why? Is there something I don’t know about?” This last was delivered with suspicion.

“No, not that I know of,” Sam replied. “No one’s told me anything,” he added. “But I will need for you to come into the office tomorrow morning as usual since you aren’t going…or would you like to take some annual vacation time?” Peggy heard it now. She could hear the amusement in his voice.

Sam wasn’t a bit dismayed one of his people wasn’t going to the training. She could picture him chuckling quietly to himself at her misfortune. It enraged her even more than she already was.

In his office on the fourth floor of the downtown office building, Sam Macmillan was indeed smiling into space. He was more than a little pleased Peggy Whitely wasn’t going on the trip. Peggy had no idea the word had gotten around she wanted Sam’s job. With the lack of training this conference would have provided, he would be fully justified in downgrading her quarterly performance report due next Thursday.

“Okay…I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning,” Peggy trilled into the phone. She wasn’t about to let this Macmillan creep see how dismayed she was. She pressed the disconnect button on her cell phone and stared out the kitchen window.

This meant she and Roger, the only unmarried guy of the four who were going to Chicago, weren’t going to find any time alone in a hotel room so she could finally get even with her husband. Roger hadn’t known anything about it, of course, but he would have gotten lucky the second night in the hotel. Peggy doubted he would have turned down the opportunity. Tough luck; he wouldn’t be getting any now. Then her eyes narrowed as she thought of her career. She’d been scheduled for, and needed, this training for her next step increase in salary. That was going to be delayed now, and it wouldn’t look good in her personnel file. It pissed her off.

It took a week for the rumors to filter down from the front office that Peggy’s trip to Chicago had been canceled because she had been planning a little diversion with one of the men going with her. The Bruckmeisters, Senior and Junior, hadn’t seen the file clerk bent low beside the massive file cabinets to replace a folder in the bottom drawer. Junior had been in the process of getting an explanation of why Peggy Whitley had to be pulled out of the training conference.

The clerk had stayed quiet about what he’d heard for as long as he could stand it, but he’d eventually told the new secretary up on the fifth floor. She’d spread the word almost immediately. The clerk didn’t get the date with her that he’d wanted, but at least she’d actually spoken to him this time.

Peggy didn’t hear at first. Most everyone on her floor knew before she did. She’d wondered why people were smiling a little more oddly than they usually did but she didn’t wonder very long. Few of her coworkers were worth her attention.

It wasn’t until Roger Compton stopped by her desk that she knew anything about the rumors. Roger came by to tell her he wasn’t interested in her and that he had no intention of ever getting together with her. Furthermore, he said he and his girlfriend had agreed to be exclusive and that meant everything to him. Peggy could just back off.

Peggy listened with a gaping mouth to the man’s tirade until he was done. Then she went off on him for presuming she was interested in him at all and how dare he imply she was. Roger had sniffed and swung away without bothering to answer. That had made Peggy even more furious.

Linda, she of the undelivered condoms, brought Peggy up to date at lunch concerning the stories flying around the office. The three men originally scheduled for the travel had gotten together when they heard the first gossip and compared notes. Roger was the only one of the trio that Peggy had even smiled at and the obvious conclusion had been quickly reached. Only Peggy could confirm their assumptions, and she never would, but workers on all three floors leased by Bruckmeister and Son believed the gossip implicitly.

When Peggy got home, the anger that had been simmering all afternoon long broke free and she let Kyle have it with both barrels.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, greeting him at the door. He’d picked up the kids at the daycare center and he’d come in grinning and chuckling at something Todd said on the way in. The smile on his face dropped away as if it had never been. Mandy and Todd looked at their mother in shock.

“What the hell is your problem?” Kyle snapped.

“You did something to make sure I didn’t go to Chicago!” Peggy said hotly. Kyle’s face was impassive. He stared at Peggy without answering for a long moment.

“I sure did,” he said calmly. “I knew what you were planning and I did what I had to do to keep this marriage alive.”

Peggy’s eyes widened in shock at the admission. She’d expected a protest of innocence. Nonplussed, she couldn’t continue for a bit.

“I talked to Roger this afternoon,” Kyle said before she found the words she wanted to throw at him. “He called me. He wanted to assure me he had no intention of doing anything with you and he never would.”

The revelation took her breath away. She began to tremble with rage. The two men had no business talking behind her back.

“You had no right to talk to him,” she said furiously. “Who do you think you are? You think you can figure out between the two of you how to make me come to you when you snap your fingers? You think you can control me like some kind of chattel slave?”

Kyle shook his head. He was tired and it showed. He had very little patience left in reserve after the long workday.

“Control had nothing to do with it, Peggy. What it was, was two men deciding they weren’t going to be manipulated by you–that’s all.” He straightened and massaged sore muscles in his lower back. “Besides, I told you…he called me,” Kyle added. “Don’t be yelling at me because of something he did.”

“I don’t believe you,” Peggy shot back. “You got me canceled from the training somehow and you had no right to do that, damn you!” Peggy advanced a little toward the doorway. She didn’t realize her fingers were spread, ready to thrust out as claws. Kyle’s eyes narrowed as she stepped closer. Abruptly he turned away from his wife.

“Come on kids,” he said enthusiastically. “Who wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese huh?” Both children cheered noisily and whirled around to race back to Kyle’s pickup.

Kyle leaned back in the screen door and spoke loud enough only for Peggy to hear.

“You better get a grip on yourself, Peggy,” he said soberly. “If you EVER talk to me that way again in front of the kids, I will walk out for good and I’ll take them with me…I will not have you screaming and yelling and acting like a damned shrew all the damn time, particularly in front of them.

“I’m warning you, and you better listen good. This has to stop or I will leave you, period!” Without another word, he pulled the door closed, making it thump against the doorframe. He let the screen door slam; he didn’t even try to shut it as carefully as he usually did.

********

When Kyle and the kids returned, it was to a transformed Peggy. She met them at the door, smiling and gracious. She had changed from her work clothes into a long-sleeved, floor-length housecoat that buttoned all the way up to the throat. She smelled of her favorite lavender scented bath beads. She looked fresh and alert, eager to be with her husband and children.

She sat with Mandy and Todd as they told her of all the games they’d played and showed her the cheap, black-and-white photos of them clowning around with the plastic Chuck E. Cheese mannequin. Peggy oohed and aahed at everything they said as the youngsters explained how all of the games had worked. Kyle, after watching for a long while, took the opportunity to go upstairs for a hot shower. It had been a long day.

Kyle read a story to the little boy and his sister; he kissed them, and gently tucked them in. He paused a moment after settling them both in their beds for the night. He loved watching his children sleep.

When he got to his and Peggy’s bedroom, he didn’t see her. The smooth arms sliding over his shoulders from behind told him she’d waited behind the door until he came in. Her palms covered his eyes.

“Guess who,” Peggy said softly. She didn’t wait for an answer. She slid around in front of him and embraced him eagerly. Peggy was dressed in thigh high stockings and high heels–nothing else. She eased back a space to let him drink in the sight of her almost naked body. She wore the stockings and heels to emphasize her nakedness. Peggy knew her man and what he liked.

Kyle’s penis grew hard as a steel rod almost instantly. Peggy giggled when she saw. It had taken only seconds to build into an impressive bulge in his pants.

“Come here, lover,” she whispered.

She led him to the big easy chair against the outside wall and pushed him gently down into it. Falling to her knees, she unbelted his trousers and slid them and his boxers down while he lifted himself off the surface of the chair. His socks and t-shirt followed the rest of his clothing into the corner of the room.

Naked, he pulled Peggy up into his arms and they kissed. Their tongues dueled wildly, curling and twisting about each other hungrily. His hand slipped between their feverishly hot bodies to seek out her pussy. Letting his fingers glide along her narrow “landing strip” above her slit, he let his middle finger slide into the very top of her pussy. Pressing deeper, he found his wife was already soaked. Her vagina was already blossoming open; her pussy juices were flowing.

He pressed the base of his fingers and palm against her clit while two fingertips probed for that small, raised area on the front wall of her vagina that was her G-spot. When he touched it, Peggy sucked in a deep breath. She hunched her pussy into his hand, joyful at his knowledge of how and where to touch her for her maximum pleasure.

After a few minutes of intense stimulation, Peggy tugged his hand away. Smiling down at him, holding his eyes with hers, she straddled Kyle’s hips and began to lower herself onto his manhood. She sighed as the bulbous head of his cock pierced through her inner pussy lips and began to stretch apart her vagina. Holding herself up with her hands on the chair arms, she resettled her knees on either side of her husband and continued to slide down the hard, fleshy tube she loved to have inside her.

Kyle echoed her sigh with a groan as his wife’s hot cunt enveloped his cock and sucked him deeper into her. He gently thrust his dick into Peggy’s pussy, lifting his body off the chair and driving smoothly into her steaming pussy. The breath hissed between Peggy’s lips at the unexpected invasion. She almost lost her grip on the arms of the chair, chancing a plunge of his cock even deeper. At the last moment, she caught herself and held steady while her husband fucked her from beneath.

Her head thrown back, Peggy breathed deep, glorifying in her husband’s sex play. While he pushed up inside her, he was also kneading and squeezing her breasts, pulling at her nipples and pinching them delicately. He was a fantastic lover. She knew this from lunchtime chats with the women who worked with her. She’d seen the envy in their eyes when she spoke of the time he took loving her, the patience he showed in making sure her needs were met before he sought his own satisfaction.

On the other hand, she knew everything he was going to do before he did it. He knew where to touch her, he knew how to make her body respond in exactly the fashion he desired…and she knew him as well. Suddenly discontented, she grew impatient. Kyle was being too slow.

She dropped her body down on him suddenly. Her knees took her weight as her husband filled her completely. She moaned, half-regretting her impetuous plunge, but soon her body accustomed itself to his bulk. Her body accepted him even as she tensed barely controllable cunt muscles to massage his shaft deep inside her.

Peggy began raising and lowering her body on him, varying the motion by thrashing her groin around to grind herself against his body. Her hands found the points of his shoulders and she steadied herself by clamping her fingers tight there. Peggy’s breath whistled between clinched teeth while she rocked back and forth on Kyle’s hard cock. She increased the pace, whipping her hips in faster and faster rhythms. There was no plan, no design to what she was doing now. Peggy was fucking her man as any female animal used her mate.

In seconds she felt the familiar warm flowing sensation emanating from her vagina lips and spreading quickly throughout her lower abdomen. She eased a hand down to massage the flesh over her clitoris. Plunging up and down as fast as her knees could flex, she worked her orgasm higher with her fingers. She squeezed gently at her prepuce, letting the pressure be transmitted on to the sensitive nub underneath.

She felt the delicate pain but the line between pain and pleasure had been blurred. Peggy knew only the gratification of physical contact now. She mashed her pussy lips against her husband’s hard crotch and moved her lower body even faster.

Her pleasure built higher. She was taken by surprise when her excitement flashed from a low-grade stirring deep inside her to a burning need. She lost control of her body. Her fingers twitched erratically as they sought to stroke the place over her clit, sending random sensations up through overloaded nerve endings. The heat spread up her belly to envelope her breasts and beyond. In seconds, her mind could not take anything more. Her body convulsed, jerking in unpredictable little jolts that had her dancing on her knees over Kyle’s lap. The hand still on his shoulder clamped down violently; her fingernails made deep impressions into his skin, barely short of cutting into the flesh.

She stopped all movement. Both eyes were nearly shut but she couldn’t see anything anyway. Her eyes were unfocused, watching a thing no one can view. Peggy felt the sensations welling up from her clit and the sensitive places around the entrance to her vagina soar higher. They intensified; the feelings swarmed together, mixing, swirling ever higher and becoming more powerful until the lip of something outstanding was reached.

Her body rocked twice more, seeking the smallest of stimulations to send her over the top. Peggy reached for it. She glorified in the total loss of herself in the sensations that flooded over her. She collapsed on top of Kyle, breathing hoarsely. She had no strength, no control of her body. She surrendered, allowing her upper body to slide down on top of her husband’s. She heard Kyle chuckle.

“A good one, baby?” he asked gently. He knew the answer already, but he wanted her to tell him. Peggy nodded into the hollow of his shoulder. She couldn’t speak yet. She was concentrating too much on sucking more air into oxygen-starved lungs. She was surprised when Kyle braced his hands on the chair arms and shoved hard against them. He rose, getting to his feet by using the brute strength of the muscles in his legs and back.

“What?” Peggy murmured. She was confused. Her body was still connected to Kyle’s with his cock shoved deep inside her. Her legs had thrown themselves around her husband’s waist and tightened. Her arms wound around his neck for more stability. She feared she would fall.

Kyle laughed. He walked slowly, taking small steps toward the bed he shared with his wife. When he got there, he bent forward. Peggy’s weight pulled her backward; her arms loosened and her upper body slumped down to the bed’s surface. Kyle put his knees on the edge of the mattress and followed Peggy’s body down. By the time her butt cheeks met the top of the bed, Kyle was supporting himself on one hand and both knees. He chuckled again, his gentle amusement showing.

“Now we do something I want,” Kyle said softly. Their bodies had remained coupled; his cock was buried in Peggy’s cunt. Her vagina had barely begun to relax after the strong contractions of her orgasm. Kyle withdrew, leaving only the tip of his cock inside her inner lips. He thrust back into her, gliding deep inside his wife’s pussy in a strong, smooth push. Peggy groaned as her husband took her, taking charge of the loving.

“Honey…wait…I’ll…” she moaned. Her hands pushed at his chest but she had no chance of shoving him off her. In a very few moments, she had no desire to.

Kyle set up a slow tempo that substituted lengthy swings of his hips for speed and aggressive plunges. Gradually, he added a corkscrew motion to his thrusts, pushing his cock slightly off center to rub the head against different sections of Peggy’s labia and cunt. Peggy felt the new stimulation and sighed her appreciation. Kyle reversed himself, pressing his cock to the other side and Peggy groaned aloud. Her hands clutched at his waist, pulling him more strongly inside her sloshing cunt.

Kyle felt the heat of her inner vagina envelop the head of his penis. A minute later, he felt the tip bump against her cervix. His wife whimpered, pushing her groin up into his even as he tried to lessen the contact. For once, touching the entrance to her womb wasn’t uncomfortable. Tonight it was pleasurable, a celebration of the sheer joy of sexual love. He rammed his cock into her harder and faster, making Peggy grunt as his strength drove air from her lungs in tiny expulsions. Peggy locked her ankles behind Kyle’s waist and pulled him down into her, adding more force to his down thrusts.

It didn’t take long. Peggy had not recovered from her first orgasm and Kyle was too ready to attain his. He’d been thoroughly aroused by the vision of his nearly naked wife and further excited by the sex play in the chair. He’d been able to pull back from a climax there, but he’d had the stimulus of playing with his wife’s luscious breasts dangling in front of him. Just seeing her hard-tipped titties dancing there was a tremendous turn on and he couldn’t help but respond. Now they’d been fucking for several minutes on his terms.

The sensations built. They expanded until he had trouble concentrating on keeping a coherent rhythm. He began to push his cock even faster into his wife’s pussy. There was a feeling of something flowing; lava began rising at a glacial pace from his scrotum. Kyle fought hard to hold it off, trying to find a way to focus on something else, anything besides than the coming eruption.

He abandoned all the finesse he’d used before. All the subtle changes of pace, the repositioning of his body to slide at a different angle inside his woman’s slick muscled cunt, the alterations in the depth of his plunging…all that went by the wayside now. He thrust harder, faster, redoubling the pace every few seconds.

Peggy responded beneath him. She could feel her husband’s cock begin to swell and lengthen as he propelled himself forward and withdrew. Each time he shoved his manhood inside her, she bucked up to meet him. His driving force was met by her own urgency. She banged her feet into his ass cheeks to kick him ever more strongly into her body. Her womb pulled up into her body, making way for the male organ to expand and conquer more of her cunt. She could feel her own climax, her second tonight beginning to squeeze and twist her insides.

He couldn’t hold back any longer. The magma deep inside him had swept through tight canals to his prostate and beyond. Now he could feel it welling up through the long tube toward the slit at the end of his prick. He clamped down with groin muscles he normally had no control over, willing his body to stave off the eruption for just a few seconds more. He could not.

Abruptly, almost painfully, a jet of white-hot cum exploded from the end of his cock and splashed against his wife’s cervix ring and the walls of her vagina. He felt a contraction inside him, another upsurge, and another geyser of hot semen jetted into his wife’s body. He strained to jam himself even deeper inside her so he could send his seed almost directly into her womb. A third upwelling, a weaker one this time, spurted into Peggy’s cunt. Kyle was losing control now.

He shuddered. A fourth gushing of a thin mixture of grayish-white seminal fluids surged forth, spewing into Peggy. Spent and breathing hard, he half-collapsed on top of her, breathing hard and straining to hold himself on his elbows to keep from crushing his wife beneath him.

Peggy felt the first spewing of sperm-filled liquid inside her. The sensation of feeling her husband cum in her cunt put her over the top. His maleness demanded an answer from her. She was powerless to hold off any longer. Her vagina spasmed. It tried to massage his penis with rhythmic contractions and milk every droplet of cum from his body. She felt each new eruption from her husband’s hard shaft as a new affirmation of her womanhood. The muscles in her abdomen rippled, spreading the intensity of her response beyond the place where they were coupled. A hot flush swept up her belly to engulf her breasts. Her rock-hard nipples raked against his chest, increasing the pleasure for both of them.

She subsided, slowly relaxing her body and settling back to the bed. Her legs fell to the side, releasing her husband’s lower body from their grasp for the first time in many minutes. Kyle pulled his softening penis from her pussy. The wet, sucking sound it made caused Peggy and him to chuckle with a lewd amusement. Kyle collapsed at Peggy’s side. He was still breathing heavily; his muscles hovered just this side of trembling after the intense strain they’d undergone for a lengthy period.

They rested together, reaching out to caress each other’s body from time to time. They luxuriated in the heat of their bodies as they pressed against each other. The sweat from their bodies mixed and became a single watery sheen that covered them both. After a while, their bodies moved together and they made love side by side. They moved slowly now, unhurried. Their orgasms were muted the third time, but they were no less satisfying.

********

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” she said tenderly. She was trying to hold off sleep for the time being but gradually succumbing anyway. Peggy’s head was on his shoulder, her body close against his body after the lovemaking. Her fingers stroked his chest gently. Her warm breath stirred the hairs on his chest.

“I know I act like a bitch sometimes, but I don’t mean to,” she said wistfully. She was more comfortable and relaxed with him in this moment than she’d been in a long time.

“Peggy,” he murmured, “we’ve got to get on with things…the kids…our life…we’ve been stuck on this one, small thing for way too long, baby.” He kept his voice deliberately soft and conciliatory.

“I know,” she said unhappily, her voice as low as Kyle’s had been. She stirred restlessly for a moment before subsiding and settling her entire body length back against his. “I just can’t get the picture of you enjoying Ann out of my mind…and it hurts, Kyle. It makes me crazy to think of you and her doing that.”

Her voice was plaintive now. She was begging for understanding. Kyle tried to give it to her.

“Honey,” he said, “I can see that…it would kill me if you were to go do that to Paul the next party we go to. But I didn’t mean to do it, baby…I couldn’t deliberately do something like that to you. I never will.”

He couldn’t tell if what he’d told her had had the desired effect. She didn’t move away; they slept that way the rest of the night. On the other hand, she gave no sign she was willing to forgive and forget either. What they had, he decided the next morning, was a truce, not a peace.

Chapter 3

In a quiet moment late one Saturday morning at the end of August, Kyle resolved to do everything he could to disrupt anything and everything that might lead to intentional adultery on Peggy’s part. He made the decision, after deliberating on the alternatives, because he knew he could never forgive a deliberate, cold-blooded act of deceit of that magnitude.

He’d already taken action to throw up a roadblock when she’d been planning on an out of town tryst. He’d kept her from going to a training conference in Chicago by pulling some strings, but he hadn’t consciously adopted a policy of trying to convince her she had no need to stray from her wedding vows. Not until now, he hadn’t.

It was only while he watched Mandy and Todd playing in a sandbox at the park that he realized he would do almost anything to keep his family together. If it took a lot more work than he should have to put into it, that was okay. There was no guideline he knew of saying Peggy had to meet him halfway. If he had to go farther than usual, so be it. He would work as hard as he could, and as long as he could to keep him, Peggy, Mandy, and Todd together as a family. He’d been trying before. Now he would redouble his efforts.

Peggy wasn’t with them at the park. She was working overtime in her office downtown to get a high profile account audited and the report written. He was certain that was where she was and that was what she was doing. It was the third Saturday in a row she’d had to work though. It was becoming tiresome. He had an idea.

“KIDS! Hey, come here a minute.” The pair in the sandbox jumped up and rushed to their father at the park bench from where he’d been sitting and watching them. They’d been playing a long while and, if the truth were told, they were a little tired of doing what they were doing. They were ready for something new. Kyle bent over to put his face on a level with theirs and spoke loud enough only for them to hear, as if he were speaking to them in confidence about something others should not know about. They crowed closer. Kyle put his arms around them.

“What do you say…we get all cleaned up,” he began, “and go get a big ol’ pizza…” He was interrupted by two toddlers squealing with delight. “AND…we take our pizza and go see mommy?” There was more cheering and gleeful dancing. The proposal was accepted, passed, and acted upon in moments.

When the three marched into Peggy’s office at lunchtime, they were greeted with tired smiles from an office full of disenchanted accountants. Kyle had expanded on his earlier idea and brought enough pizza and soft drinks for everyone. When it became clear what he had done, the entire staff enthusiastically gathered round and companionably bumped shoulders with each other as they playfully struggled for the their share of the pies.

The morale in the office rose dramatically in a very few seconds. Expressions on their faces softened even more and a warm, happy mood filled the room when the little boy and girl presented their mother with Hallmark cards saying how much they missed her. When Kyle gathered them up half an hour later, each child had been hugged dozens of times and had sat on several laps while they happily tapped keys on keyboards to see the what would change on the monitor screens. The Windows solitaire game especially fascinated Mandy for some reason.

When they left, the smiles in the office lasted into late evening. They put on a big push to finish the project. Everyone complimented Peggy on having such a fine husband and family. Some of the unmarried girls wanted to know if Kyle had a brother who was available.

Already sensitive to such things, Kyle redoubled his efforts to ensure Peggy had no opportunity to find a lover to get her revenge. It had been ten months. He’d thought she’d have let it slide into the background of her mind by now but it had not. He pictured it as a festering sore in her mind and he was doing all he could to apply a salve to the wound, hoping a healing crust would form and then fade away.

He took to dropping in to her office at odd times. Occasionally it was to take her out to lunch. A couple of times he brought in “brown bag” lunches and sat with her at her desk laughing and chatting with her and everyone who passed by. At other times, he surprised her by picking her up from work and taking her to a show or something before going home. Every so often, a floral basket or a dozen roses would be delivered to her at work along with a heart-tugging card. On her birthday, a florist filled her cubicle with flowers, streamers, potted plants, and fruit baskets. An office lothario, recently transferred in from the office in the southeast suburb, took note and immediately aborted his initial interest in Peggy as a target. There were easier pickings up on the third floor.

The married women in the office began holding Kyle up as the standard by which they judged their own husbands. They demanded their men show them the same attention. All of the girls smiled when his name came up and they said how lucky Peggy was to have such a good man.

Few noticed how pinched her features got when they said that. Not many saw the look of irritation that came over her sometimes when Kyle appeared unexpectedly in her office.

They didn’t understand, but quite a few noticed she was less enthusiastic as time went on whenever flowers or candy were delivered out of the blue. They wondered why this would be. None knew of Kyle’s mistake so many months ago. Peggy never told anyone how she felt. She didn’t think anyone was willing to appreciate her side of the issue.

********

“Hi, Mom,” Peggy said. It was her regular Thursday evening call to her mother to check in.

“Hi, Hon,” her mom replied. “What’s up? Have you gotten Kyle to understand yet what he did to you?”

“No,” Peggy muttered, “I don’t think he ever will.”

Busty neighbor aunty

“Horse manure!” Denise shot back. “You have to stand up to him, Peggy. It’s just not an option and you know it.”

“But, Mom, I never get a chance to find some guy out there to have a little…a little fling with. Kyle is always popping up wherever I am–at work, the tennis club. Any day now, I expect to find him in the shower at the gym. I just can’t get any distance from him to make things happen.” Her mother made sympathetic noises for a bit.

“There’s nobody at work?” she asked in a skeptical tone. Peggy snorted.

“He’s got every woman in that place wrapped around his little finger,” Peggy complained. If I even smile at another man, one of them will be on the phone calling my dear husband so fast…heck, he’ll probably be standing behind me before I could say hello to the guy.”

Denise made sympathetic noises for a time about her daughter being smothered by her husband. She lamented the fact he had managed to get everyone in the office on his side, but she couldn’t suggest any way to change what had already happened.

“Well, honey…let’s see,” Denise said, tapping the mouthpiece with a long fingernail. It was something her mother did that irritated Peggy no end but she didn’t say anything. She never did.

“I guess you’re going to have to give up on the idea of a…little fling then,” Denise said dispiritedly.

“No way!” Peggy returned vigorously. “Kyle let that slut suck his cock and I’m going to pay him back for that if it’s the last thing I ever do. I am going to have a short little fling, period.”

Neither Peggy nor her mother cared to explore the fact that the euphemism they kept using stood for an intensely intimate sex act with some faceless man. Denise’s mind shied away from visualizing what she was actually encouraging her daughter to do. Neither woman thought of it as sex…not deep in their hearts. They knew it intellectually but they didn’t feel it. It was just a way to get some retribution for the nasty business Kyle had so far gotten away with.

“That’s my girl!” Denise replied happily. “You can’t let him lord it over you like he has been. He’s the one who should be unhappy, not you. He needs to feel a little bit of what you’ve been feeling.”

The big fire truck’s approach was announced by a shrieking siren that got louder and louder. Doppler effect made the noise rise in pitch to a shrill scream that penetrated the walls of the house and even into the bodies of the people inside. For a long eternity of a few seconds, the siren’s wail was their universe. The truck passed, followed by the lesser sirens on an ambulance and a rescue wagon. The down Doppler made the noise drop in pitch and volume immediately after the emergency vehicles started moving down the street.

“Wow,” Denise exclaimed. “For a second there, I thought that truck was in your bedroom.” She chuckled a moment.

“Yeah…heck, I was wondering if it was coming in the window or something,” Peggy laughed. “It was loud, I’m here to tell you,” she told her mother.

“So where were we?” Denise asked.

“We were talking about me needing to find a way to get a little of my own back at my dear husband,” Peggy reminded her mother.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Denise answered. “Listen, honey, if you want, I’m sure there are any number of men at your father’s and my country club…at Hidden Hills. If you were to come with me for a little visit out there one afternoon, I could introduce you…?

“No, Mom,” Peggy said resentfully. “I told Kyle years ago how much I hated that place with all the stuffed shirts and stuff. He’d know something was up if I suddenly told him I was going to go out there.

“Yeah,” Denise said dejectedly. “I understand.” She was quiet for a small space.

“You know, I just do not understand why Kyle can’t admit he was wrong to let that Ann woman do what she did and see that you need to get a little payback. It’s the most natural thing in the world and he should realize that. It just doesn’t make sense,” she said in an irritated voice.

“I know,” Peggy replied. “But he acts like he owns my body or something and he isn’t about to let me find any peace.”

“You can have all the peace you want,” said the husky masculine voice. “You just can’t go fucking around like some cock happy slut so you can tell yourself you got back at me.”

Kyle had picked up on the extension in the den to make a phone call during the height of the racket from the now departed fire truck. In all the clamor, neither woman had heard the click on the line.

Peggy and Denise were both shocked into momentary silence.

“KYLE!” Peggy shrieked into the phone. She was almost hysterical. A blazing fury had ignited instantaneously. “Get off the phone! You can’t listen in when I talk to mother, damn you! You don’t have any damned right to spy on me. I’m not going to take this shit from you, you bastard!

“I wasn’t spying on you, Peggy,” Kyle said calmly. I picked up the phone to call Fred to see if he wanted to golf tomorrow. It was when the fire truck was passing by and then I heard what you and your mother were planning. But I have to say, dear, some people need to be spied on because their husbands can’t trust them anymore.”

Peggy slammed the phone down and screamed unintelligibly for a long moment. Kyle could hear it all the way downstairs and Denise heard it faintly over the phone line.

“You son of a…” Denise said viciously. “Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t talk to us that way. You have no right to talk to me and my daughter like that…” Kyle interrupted her.

“I will speak to my wife any way I damned well please, Denise,” Kyle said with a hard edge in his voice. “It’s no business of yours how I talk to her and I’d appreciate it if you butted out of our problems. You don’t have any right to be putting yourself between me and my wife and it’s time for you to stop.”

“You listen to me, you pig…” Denise spat at her son-in-law. She was so mad she had to stop and take a deep breath to relax. Her hands were trembling with anger.

“No…you listen to me, Denise,” Kyle shot back. “If your daughter does what she’s been trying to do for the last eight or nine months, she will lose everything she loves. She will lose me, she’ll lost her children, her friends…she’ll lose the respect of her employers and coworkers…she will lose everything, Denise. I promise you that. She will lose it all and if I find out you helped her in any way, I will sue you for every dime you and Dan have…is that clear? I don’t know for what. I’m not that smart about suing people, but I bet Brad Carson will find something…do you hear me? BUTT…OUT, DENISE!”

His voice rose as he spoke. His anger had been mounting the longer he thought about what he’d heard his mother-in-law propose to his wife. He didn’t wait to hear an answer. He slammed the phone down hard before she could get a word out.

Twenty minutes later, while he was still walking around the block in an effort to cool off before he went back home to confront Peggy, his cell phone rang. He’d walked out the front door while Peggy was still trying to get herself together enough to come downstairs. He’d thought the first call would be from her but the screen said it was his father-in-law. His first impulse was to refuse the call; then he punched the accept button. There wouldn’t be any better time to talk to Dan. He might just as well get it over with.

“Kyle?” Dan barked when Kyle didn’t say anything. “Just what the hell do you mean threatening my wife and shouting at her? What the Sam Hill is going on here anyway?” He sounded a little bewildered at the end.

“Dan, I’ll lay it out for you…here it is,” Kyle said coolly. “I picked up on the phone downstairs when Peggy and Denise didn’t know about it and I heard your wife offering to find some stud at your country club to service Peggy so she can get back at me for that Goddamned mistake I made last Valentine’s Day.”

“What?” Dan said weakly, trying to take in what Kyle was telling him.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, Dan,” Kyle told him bitterly. “Imagine listening to your mother-in-law suggesting she would be glad to pimp her own daughter to the men at your country club…can you imagine that? What a fucked up thing to do.”

“Now, I don’t think there’s a call to talk like that, Kyle,” Dan said slowly. “Pimping out her daughter is a harsh thing to accuse my wife of doing, man.” It was a feeble comeback and both men knew it. Kyle didn’t know what was happening at the other end of the line. He would have been encouraged if he had.

In fact, his father-in-law had just turned around to glare at his wife. For a long moment, Denise returned glare for glare but she couldn’t sustain it. She hadn’t realized until Dan whirled around that what she’d said to her daughter could, or would, be interpreted that way. Denise was stunned at the anger in her husband’s eyes.

Abruptly, she knew she’d gone over the line. The comment had been a casual one in her mind…a simple offer. She hadn’t thought before she’d said anything about the men at the club. She saw now she’d well and truly stepped in it.

“Well, it’s actually a little worse than that…Dad,” Kyle said unhappily. “I think you need to consider the implications in what she said.”

“Like what?” Dan returned quickly. His anger, directed at first at Kyle had changed direction.

“Well…look at it this way, Dan. Your wife was encouraging Peggy to commit adultery,” Kyle said. “That implies Denise is of the opinion that cheating on one’s husband is a correct response in at least some circumstances, Dan. I think that would make me a little uneasy if I were you.”

His father-in-law was silent for a long space while he digested Kyle’s words. The glowering frown on his features changed into something colder and far more implacable as he continued to look at his wife’s white face.

“Yeah, I see what you mean, son,” Dan said in a controlled voice. “My daughter takes after her mother too much sometimes, Kyle,” he said quietly, staring at the woman he’d married.

“I blame myself for some of that,” he mused. “She was the baby of the family and she was born at one of the busiest times in my life and I just didn’t have enough hours in a day to make sure her mom didn’t indoctrinate her with some of the most screwball ideas you ever heard,” Dan said.

Kyle heard an indignant yelp from Denise. He almost smiled. It was the first humorous thing he’d heard in a while.

“Kyle, I apologize for getting angry at you,” Dan said quietly, “and I apologize on behalf of my interfering, smart-ass wife.” Kyle clearly heard another gasp in the background.

“Son, I can promise you there will be no more interference from my wife in yours and Peggy’s problems…as long as she is my wife, that is,” Dan said. “I have to go now. There are some things I need to get straight in my house, Kyle. Good luck to you, okay?”

“Sure, Dad,” Kyle replied. “Good luck to you too, hear?” The phone went dead.

Across town, Dan treated his wife to a baleful look.

“Denise,” he said in a barely controlled voice. “How long have we been married?”

“Thirty-four years,” Denise said in a hesitant tone.

“Do you want us to make it to thirty-five?” Dan growled.

********

When Kyle got back to the house, Peggy was strangely quiet. She had called her mother back when the phone wasn’t busy and got a condensed version of what Dan and Kyle had discussed. Denise told Peggy her father was madder than she’d ever seen him. He’d left to go for a drive, telling his wife that she’d better be home when he got back.

He’d told Denise when he returned she’d damned well better be ready to come to a better agreement with him about her views on the interaction between women and men, her relationship with her daughter and Kyle, and especially on the concept of marriage and how theirs should proceed from this point onward.

After dinner, with their house more like an armed camp than a happy home, Kyle and Peggy sat in the living room, pretending affection they didn’t feel while they played with the children. The television was turned low; neither adult was watching and couldn’t have said what was on. After the kids were sent unwillingly to bed the phone rang.

It was Denise to apologize to Peggy for even thinking of getting her daughter together with one of the men at the Hidden Hills club. That was wrong, she said, and she was very sorry she’d done it. It was very bad advice, Denise said, and she hoped Peggy realized that and would never do any of those things she’d talked about.

Thunderstruck, Peggy was silent for most of the conversation. She spoke in monosyllables for the most part. When her mother asked Peggy to give the phone to Kyle, she did without a word.

Kyle said only a few words. He accepted Denise’s admissions of wrongdoing without comment beyond a simple acknowledgement. He hung up without giving the phone back to his wife. His mother-in-law had sounded contrite and seemed to truly regret what she’d said to her daughter. Denise had been subdued and a little emotional. She’d obviously had to force words out in through a lump in her throat a couple of times. She’d made a choice though. That much was plain. Kyle wished them all the luck in the world.

“That’s the last time,” Kyle observed quietly. Peggy started.

She was still trying to absorb her mother’s warnings. She’d never heard her mother sob just that way before. Her mom said she couldn’t live without her husband and she advised Peggy to work things out with Kyle before it was too late. Peggy didn’t know what to do about the abrupt change in her mother’s advice. Was this a permanent change in her mom’s philosophy or something that would pass once the firestorm had passed?

“What?” Peggy asked distractedly.

“That’s the last time I’m going to try to keep you from making the biggest mistake in your life,” Kyle said. “I’ve had it. I’m full up to here–his hand measured a point on his neck–with you sneaking around, your plans and your damned arguments that you are entitled to fuck some guy because of thirty seconds of oral sex I accidentally got almost a year ago, Peggy.”

He watched her for a long moment. Neither said anything. Kyle stared intently at his wife, as if at a stranger he would need to describe at some later date.

“I’m not going to make a mistake,” Peggy said at last. The defiance was muted, but still there. “All that’s in your mind.”

Kyle snorted. He recognized spin control when he heard it.

“That’s good, Peggy,” he said sarcastically. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to force her to listen closely.

“Because if you ever do, we…are…through. You understand that? We are finished if you ever deliberately go out and have sex with another man!” Peggy looked at him resentfully.

“You mean like you did with Ann?” she asked challengingly. Kyle shook his head.

“Don’t even start. You know it’s not true. What Ann and I did was unintentional. Neither of us knew the other person wasn’t who we thought it was and we stopped the second we found out.

“That’s all there was to it; it was a bad, very regrettable error but it was a mistake. What you’re trying to do is a whole different ballgame and you know it!” he said harshly. They’d been over this so many times and he was so tired of it.

Peggy shook her head. He saw, she would not–perhaps she could not–accept the idea of Kyle and Ann’s innocence.

“Well, you better find some way to live with it then,” Kyle told her, knowing what the stubborn expression on Peggy’s face meant. “I mean it. If you cheat on me, I’ll kick your ass out so fast your head will spin, woman.”

The look in her eyes told her husband she did not believe it. The rebelliousness was there in the set of her jaw. He sighed and went to bed. It seemed there was nothing he could do to avoid the train wreck he saw coming.

Chapter 4

The coldness lasted for months. Their sex life, which had been improving, plummeted to almost nothing. Kyle had to get used to having sex only once every two or three weeks. To compensate, he frequented the bathroom late at night and masturbated when the pressure became too great.

He put all his excess energy into making sure his children saw none of the strife he and Peggy were going through. Sometimes he was less successful than others. Already distant, he and Peggy acted like they were accidental roomers in the same boarding house. He became closer to his little girl and boy, seeking refuge in their affection from the hostility radiating from his wife.

He taught Todd to tie his shoelaces and worked on improving Todd’s table manners and social skills. Somewhere, at daycare probably, Toddy had picked up the idea that belching at odd moments was hysterically funny. It was hard work convincing him otherwise.

Mandy was undergoing another growth spurt. The chubby legs of a toddler were giving way to the more slender limbs of young girlhood. She was in grade school now. He had worked with Mandy over the winter and early spring, patiently teaching her to read material far beyond a normal six year-old’s comprehension. She spent many an hour on his lap sounding out words and joyfully hugging her father when she found she understood what the pages were saying to her.

Todd had little concept of what they were doing but he joined in his sister and father’s little celebrations, enjoying the warmth of his sibling and Dad’s embrace. There came the day when he was standing at his father’s shoulder as Kyle sat on the couch while Mandy went through a new reader. Todd began pointing out words he recognized and the trio’s bonding intensified.

Peggy watched resentfully, but she was unwilling to become closer with her husband in order to renew an intimacy with her babies. She grew more distant, less willing to compromise, and even more secure in the knowledge she would have a reckoning with Kyle’s infidelity someday, someway.

********

Inexplicably, fifteen months after the party where he and Ann inadvertently had a brief encounter, Peggy’s attitude thawed by several magnitudes. The sex picked up, though there was markedly less making love than before, it was better than what he’d been getting. Baby steps, he told himself. Be happy with what you get and work for even more warmth and loving.

A few weeks later, Peggy let him know the training she’d been scheduled for last year was “on” again. She’d be going to Orlando…by herself, she added almost negligently…to get the training that would prepare her for a pay increase and a better job eventually. It would be for a week toward the end of July, she said. She was all innocence and enthusiasm. She worked hard to project the impression that this was a good thing…nothing for him to be concerned about. Kyle knew it was the end.

“How long have you know?” he asked suspiciously. Peggy pulled back. Her attitude became marginally colder.

“The announcement came down from the personnel office two days ago,” she said. She watched his eyes, trying to determine how he would react to the news. What she told him was not a lie. The paperwork had indeed been sent to her when she said. She’d been working with the folks who scheduled the training for a month though. It had been no surprise to her.

“And you’re going at the end of next month?” Kyle asked. Peggy nodded.

“Well…sounds like the powers that be have given you plenty of notice this time,” he concluded.

He didn’t ask why she’d waited two days to tell him. It might have been because of the way he’d stopped her previous trip. She could still be sensitive about that. Maybe…

The spark deep in her hooded eyes told him it was something else though. Kyle watched her skip happily up the stairs. She was going to start getting ready now; she was planning the wardrobe she’d take with her. She was so excited. Kyle shook his head wearily. He hadn’t asked Peggy about the delay in letting him know because he didn’t care anymore.

********

She came to him, hot and steamy from the shower. She’d begun thinking of what she was going to do when she got to Orlando and how the future would be. The visions had swiftly progressed to fantasies of her and Kyle renewing the excitement of their marriage after she returned from the trip. In just moments, she could no longer deny a building sexual excitement. Her fingers had lingered at the opening of her sex for an instant longer than she intended, and she was lost. In minutes, she had worked herself up to an orgasm, but it was a small one. She needed more.

Wrapped in a huge towel that covered her from armpit to mid-thigh, she sought him out in the bedroom, taking the book he was reading from his fingers and dropping it beside the lamp on the end table. Swinging her body gracefully onto his lap, she wound her arms around his neck and planted a lusty kiss on his surprised lips.

“I want you,” she said seductively. Kyle’s features registered an instinctive distrust of her intentions. If he’d read her right, she was still planning to get her revenge for the perceived wrongdoing he’d done so long ago. He had no idea why she was suddenly so passionate a few days before her trip to the training site. But there was no reason to deny her…or himself. She was ready for sex and he would go along with it.

Reading his eyes, and seeing he was responding, Peggy giggled delightedly. She stood and reached for his hand. With hers, she untucked the towel where it was folded beneath itself between the tops of her breasts and let it fall to the floor. The kids were asleep and had been for hours. They had all the rest of Friday night to themselves.

She pulled him toward the bed and sat on the edge. Smiling mischievously up at him, she winked.

“Do me?” she asked invitingly.

Her legs spread as if on their on volition to show Kyle the flushed red lips of her outer labia. She lay back on her elbows, bending her knees and pressing the outside of her thighs to the bed to further expose her sex.

Kyle shed his pajama bottoms quickly, kicking them aside in his hurry to disrobe. He fell to his knees and began to kiss the inner parts of her legs from ankles to crotch and back again. Caressing her inner thighs, he pressed his mouth to her slit and slathered his tongue all over her opening. Peggy sucked in a quick breath of air as her husband’s eager touches and kisses began to overwhelm her.

In moments, Kyle had moved from a steady licking of her inner and outer lips to steady tonguing at the prepuce to coax her clitoris into coming out to play. It retreated from the too intense contact, but he manipulated the fleshy hood into retracting from around the little nubbin and slid his tongue lightly across the top of it. A finger slid inside her slippery opening to her pussy and explored the front wall, reaching for the small, textured place of maximum stimulation. A second finger joined the first and he began to press them deeper inside her body, working them in under his chin and setting up a slow-paced thrust and withdrawal.

Peggy gave herself up to the sensations sweeping over her body. Her husband knew just where to touch her to make her respond. She had a stray thought about Orlando but suppressed it immediately. There were things she had do there, almost distasteful things, that were vitally necessary, but they had nothing to do with her love for Kyle. In minutes, she was bucking her hips off the bed, grinding her pussy into Kyle’s face. He drank the thin syrup of her cum, loving the knowledge he could give his wife such an intense orgasm even after eight years of marriage.

When she was finished, Peggy stared up at the man she loved. She wanted to give him something…but the time was not right. When she got home…that would be better. Then they would be a man and woman who gave each other precious little gifts such as the one she was considering now. Yes, when she came home she would be whole again. There would be time enough for everything when she came back home to him.

Kyle straightened up and stood in front of his wife. He saw her eyes glow hotter as she watched him lick each finger dry of the fluids she’d gushed over them in her climax. He used his forefinger as a squeegee to rake more juices off his face and licked the fingers clean again. He came a step closer to the bed as she came up on her elbows to look at his hardon. It thrust out from his body at forty-five degrees upward. It was right there, close to her lips as she sat up.

He waited for her to take his manhood inside the hot, wet cavern of her mouth. It was a thing she hadn’t done for a long time. He craved the attention, the reaffirmation of their love for each other. He needed it as a sign they could still do the most intimate of things for each other.

Peggy squeezed his cock with her right hand and bent forward to plant kisses from his bellybutton downward. Her hand swept up and down his shaft, stimulating Kyle to greater sexual excitement and anticipation. When Peggy twisted her body around to scramble to the middle of the bed, he was astounded. Then he was angry.

Kyle caught his wife’s hips in his hands and kept her from moving farther onto the bed. Keeping her at the edge on all fours, he bent to kiss and lick at her pussy from behind while he bit gently at several places on her beautifully rounded ass cheeks. He stood, leaving his hand wrapped around her hips to play with her still sensitive clitoris.

Pulling his hand back, he put it on her hip to hold her steady while he took his cock in the other. He shuffled a half-step closer and guided his penis into her sopping cunt.

“No! Kyle…stop. I don’t want it this way…stop,” Peggy demanded.

Kyle ignored her. He shoved his cock into her with a strong, fast plunge that pushed the breath out of her lungs. She protested weakly, trying to get away from the invading presence of her husband’s penis but he wouldn’t let her go. His hands clamped tight to her hipbones and smothered her attempts to scoot away from him. After a while, the swift fucking motion captured her. Her body was still extremely sensitive. She hadn’t come down very far from the oral sex he’d given her and she couldn’t help but respond.

There was no art to what he was doing. It was enough for him to possess her. He was taking her from position she wouldn’t usually allow and it felt damn good. She hadn’t let him do this for the past three or four years. Tonight was his though. He found he cared little for her feelings on the matter at this moment.

Peggy let her upper body slump to the surface of the bed; her head rested on her forearms while she pushed her ass higher into the air. Kyle recognized her surrender and released his grip on her hips. He slipped one hand underneath her body and searched for an opening to slide a finger into the top of her slit. When she realized what he was doing, Peggy eased her body to one side, sliding her knee back a bit so Kyle could get to her clitty.

They went on this way for a time, Kyle ramming strongly into his wife’s cunt while she lay quiescent. Early in their marriage, Peggy would have stayed on all fours so she could thrust back at her husband as strongly as he drove into her. Kyle waited for her to get into the sex; he wanted her to whip her hips around in the tight circles he remembered so well. He wanted her to push back at him as hard as he was ramming his cock into her.

After a while, he saw that she would not. She lay there, accepting but not participating. He pounded into her, retrieving his hand and using it to steady his wife’s ass.

After a while, he was beginning to cum hard inside her pussy. He could feel her cunt clamping down on him; he knew she was cumming too. He fucked her faster. He could feel his climax building but his body seemed to be slow to embrace it, almost reluctant to allow it to come to completion.

He worked harder; he panted as he shoved his cock into his wife faster and faster, almost desperate to get off. He feared his erection wouldn’t last but he had no idea where that thought had come from. He ruthlessly suppressed it. It was a self-fulfilling menace and he did not want to deal with it tonight.

Finally, he felt the hot upwelling of cum from his scrotum. Seconds later, he felt the relief of his semen spewing from the head of his cock inside the woman he was fucking. He pumped another jet inside her; his hips jerked spasmodically but there was no discharge. A final probing of his cock deeper inside her…and he was done.

Gasping for air, he pulled out of Peggy’s gaping pussy and fell to a seat beside her. She had come too, not as intense an orgasm as Kyle usually brought to her but still a pleasant enough experience. She rolled over on her back and half-resentfully watched her husband sit on the edge of the bed while they both recovered.

“You sure had to work hard for that one,” she remarked. She saw her husband stiffen. He started to speak, but held back. He struggled with himself for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said at length, “it helps if there are two people having sex, you know. It’s not so easy when there’s only one.” Peggy was instantly irate.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” she demanded.

Kyle wasn’t listening. He bent forward to pick up his pajama bottoms and walked into the connecting bathroom. A milestone in their marriage had been passed and, while he was also angry, he felt the sadness of having lost something that could never return.

********

“Peggy?” he said, watching his wife swallow the last of her coffee.

“Yeah, hon?” she asked as she took the cup to the sink and rinsed it out. Peggy was unfailingly tidy. The cup took its place on the top shelf of the dishwasher beside the others.

“You remember the time right after I caught your mother and you on the phone and she was talking about the men at the Hidden Hills club?” Peggy tensed. This was not where she wanted Kyle’s mind to be this morning.

“I remember, Kyle…but that’s ancient history now, honey…Mom apologized and everything. It’s over and done with.” She hoped this conversation would be also, and quickly.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Kyle said quietly. “When that happened, I told you I’d never try again to prevent you from carrying out your…revenge.”

Peggy turned around to face him, wondering what was coming. Her conscience was clear. She’d been careful to do nothing to arouse Kyle’s suspicions over the months since that incident. Her jaws tightened. This time she hadn’t done anything wrong. She waited for her husband to go on.

“Well…I lied,” Kyle said softly. Peggy blinked. That was among the last things in the world she’d thought to hear.

“What?” she said in a confused voice.

“I lied. I am going to try one last time, Peggy,” he told her. “I know what you are planning, honey. I know what you’re going to do in Orlando,” he said gently.

Peggy put the countertop at her back and leaned heavily against it. She quickly reviewed everything she’d told anyone, every conversation she’d had on a phone, every letter or email she’d sent or received about the Orlando trip. The truth was, there was nothing she’d said or done that even hinted at an intent to do anything unfaithful. Abruptly she was indignant.

“Dammit, Kyle,” she said hotly, “I am not planning anything. I gave up on that…I told you so months ago.”

“I didn’t believe you when you said it, Peggy, and I don’t believe it now,” Kyle said bluntly. “You don’t have it in you to forgive me and let things go…I know you too well,” he added. Peggy’s lips thinned to a straight line.

“Peggy, I’m begging you, please don’t do this thing, baby,” Kyle said. “Just don’t do it. That’s all you have to do. I’ll live without sex. I’ll get along without the loving. You don’t have to even be nice to me…just don’t break up the family…please, Peggy! For Mandy and Todd?”

Peggy looked at him for a long moment. There was a faint expression of indecision on her face. Her lips parted.

Whatever she might have wanted to say went unsaid when a stentorian blast sounded from the street outside. Her taxi was here. She never replied to Kyle’s distressed plea and he didn’t repeat it.

She kissed him at the door, patting his chest in affection and followed the driver out to the big yellow sedan. She waved through the side window as the cabby pulled away from the curb. Kyle watched the vehicle make a left turn at the corner and drive slowly out of sight. Closing the door, he sighed heavily to himself. He pulled his cell phone from the leather case on his belt.

“Brad?” he said when the connection was made.

“Hey, pardner,” Brad replied. He wasn’t using his attorney-client voice. His friend, Kyle, was hurting and there was little anyone could do.

“She just left,” Kyle said.

“Okay, Number 42,” Brad said in a resigned tone. “Jimmy is already at the airport. I’ll call him and get the ball rolling and then we…shall see what we shall see, okay?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said dejectedly. “Thanks, Brad. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye,” Brad said shortly.

There was nothing else to say. The important things had been covered in a half dozen face-to-face meetings over the past few weeks…ever since Peggy had let drop the information she had been rescheduled for the training seminar.

********

The nondescript little man was ordinary in every way. His clothing was plain, neither too hip nor so unfashionable it would attract notice. Nothing about his features, his body, or posture would catch anyone’s eye. He walked about the luggage carousel almost unnoticed. He seemed to be looking in vain for a suitcase; he held a baggage claim ticket in his hand as his anxious eyes watched for the next bag to appear from the conveyor belt.

He seemed to be a man mired in an office job that promised nothing beyond a gold-plated watch at the end of a long series of dreary days and years. He had accepted it though. He no longer fought the tedium. He’d long ago surrendered and embraced it.

That was not who he was though. His name was Jimmy. He was a private investigator and a good one. He’d just come to Orlando on the American Airlines flight. Brad Carson, Kyle’s attorney, had used him in the past for discrete projects. He’d thought first of Jimmy when Kyle talked about getting enough evidence on Peggy to give him a reasonable likelihood of winning custody of the children in a divorce settlement.

Brad knew there was little chance of that but he thought if there was enough embarrassing photographic evidence, Peggy might not contest the divorce to avoid letting those photos and videos out. He and Kyle talked long and hard about that–one friend to another. Brad knew it was unethical but some things transcended ethics. Number 42 was the closest friend he had in the world and Brad would go to hell and back for him.

Jimmy had been surveilling Peggy Whitley from the time she got to the airport at home and he was still covertly studying her as she collected her luggage here in Orlando. It was easy to do. Mrs. Whitley showed no sign she’d even considered there might be anyone watching her. Jimmy might as well have been one of the wheeled luggage carriers in the rack for all the attention the woman gave him.

When the tall, middle-aged man burst in the outside door, he created enough of a stir for everyone to glance his way. Since 9/11, people don’t ignore noisy disturbances. When they saw he was not a young middle-eastern male with a bulky vest on and didn’t have an automatic weapon in his hands, most lost interest. Some continued to stare at him though, wondering why he’d created the initial commotion. Jimmy kept track of him; he had a hunch about the new arrival.

The man had looked around frantically until he found Peggy Whitley and then made a beeline for her. The pair embraced…a little awkwardly, Jimmy thought, as if they weren’t used to it and hadn’t yet found where all their parts fit against the other person.

Still, it was close contact with a man who was not her husband…a touching of bodies Peggy was not supposed to be engaging in. That much had been made clear in the briefing the attorney had given him. Retrieving his cell phone from his sport coat pocket, he made the call.

While he pretended to search for his luggage, he took snapshots of the man and Peggy as they chatted in a friendly way. Over the next ten minutes, the distance between the two gradually closed. They began an ancient dance of tentative caresses, hip and thigh touches, and cautious strokes that would eventually lead to only one possible ending.

Jimmy followed them out to the parking garage, apparently struggling with the two heavy suitcases, laptop, and one garment bag. The two he was following never noticed the perfectly ordinary man who stumbled along behind them.

He quit tailing them once they reached a dark blue Lincoln parked on the fourth level. Passing by, he snapped a picture from the expensive, but oh-so-tiny camera hidden in the palm of his hand. The high-resolution digital pictures stored in the miniature camera could be downloaded to the laptop and transmitted home to the lawyer who was his contact over any broadband connection. He got two good shots of Mrs. Whitley kissing the unknown man in an increasingly friendly fashion. The three pics of the automobile license plate would ensure the man didn’t remain unknown for very much longer.

********

Mr. Whitley had provided Peggy’s reservation information and it was not difficult for Jimmy to book the room next to hers. The corner of a hundred dollar bill protruding from the pages of a Sports Illustrated magazine was all that was required. The magazine stayed on the counter at the reservation desk when Jimmy turned to go to the elevators.

He unpacked his gear and had time for a nap before a friend of a friend who knew someone knocked at his door. His backup had arrived. Jimmy could have worked the case alone but he anticipated a need for some specialized equipment he couldn’t have carried on the plane without attracting attention and making any number of explanations.

Jimmy was surprised to see his assistant was a woman, a nicely attractive one too. Her name was Cassie; she’d been working as an investigator for three years. She and Jimmy chatted companionably as they went down to a side exit and retrieved a sturdy pole broken down into sections from Cassie’s car.

When it was assembled, he and Cassie could extend a small digital camcorder or a microphone mounted on the end as much as eighteen feet over a gap between…well, for example, between two balconies in a high-rise hotel so the camera would have a better angle. It was a thing for nighttime surveillance only. The room’s occupants would notice in the daytime.

Cassie brought with her the information one of her friends had obtained from a thoroughly unofficial license plate check. Peggy’s “friend” was a Mr. Harold Lowery. He worked as a mid-level executive for the firm hosting the training seminar. There was no information yet as to when he’d first met Peggy but a few days work would unearth that data. Jimmy was sure of that. Everything one did these days left a paper trail behind. In a day or two, they’d know everything there was to know about Mr. Lowery.

Jimmy and Cassie knew Peggy would be busy at the training site until dinnertime from information provided by the target’s husband. They planned to pick up the surveillance on her when she came back to the hotel for a change of clothing.

Comfortable with each other almost immediately, the two private investigators spelled each other. One listened for Peggy’s return while the other napped. They would be ready for a long evening when it came, an evening that had every sign of being a distasteful one. Neither of them liked cheating spouse cases but they paid the bills. The two agents would give the client what he asked for.

Chapter 5

Peggy Whitley was mildly irritated that Kyle wasn’t at the airport to meet her when her flight came in from Orlando. When she thought about it riding home in the taxi though, she decided it was probably all for the better. Odd moments from the week just past kept coming back to her and she couldn’t help but smile with remembered pleasure. It was best that Kyle not see those smiles. He would be suspicious.

Peggy was at peace with herself for the first time in…goodness…something like a year and a half. Ever since she’d heard from her Kyle and Ann about their encounter at that party, she’d needed to get even with her husband. She had briefly considered getting some revenge on Ann, but she hadn’t been able to figure out a way to do that yet. Peggy hadn’t discarded the idea; it was on the back burner awaiting an opportunity. But she’d finally gotten her revenge on Kyle. Whooeeee! Did she ever!

Peggy grinned to herself. Oooops. She wasn’t grinning just to herself. The taxi driver was smiling back at her. Okay, lesson learned. Peggy knew she was going to have to watch herself more closely. It was going to be more difficult than she thought to keep this wonderful little ball of happy satisfaction bundled up inside her. It was best she find out how easy it was to let something slip now so she’d know and could correct her behavior.

She’d gotten him. She’d gotten Kyle…real…good. She reveled in that knowledge. It had taken so very long, but now it was done. Kyle had had sex outside the marriage. Now Peggy had too.

A disquieting thought came to her. Something inside her wondered how a week of sexual abandon equaled to a few seconds of illicit oral sex enjoyed by her husband. That was probably just an echo though…perhaps of something her husband had badgered her with for all those months? No, she wouldn’t give in to that. She was secure in the knowledge she’d gotten even and…okay…she’d also collected a little interest on the debt in the process. So what? She was entitled. It had been a long time coming. The anxiety settled, she was happy again.

Peggy had been smart about what she was going to do this time. She hadn’t made any plans that anyone could possibly know about. Harold, the man she’d met in Orlando, worked there in his company’s regional center and contact with him had been something she would have done naturally in the course of arranging the training. They’d only met a few times while conducting their portions of the business relationships between their two firms. All but one of those had been before the trouble with Ann and Kyle even happened. She’d called him from a pay phone just a couple of times after the training had been scheduled…just often enough to give Harold a hint she wanted to get together with him when she came down.

She thought calling Harold from the plane was a masterful stroke. It had worked. Harold arrived at the airport practically panting with eagerness. The cost of the call, of course, was charged to the credit card Kyle didn’t know about. She’d arranged for that after he’d told her so hatefully that he would see any charges she made to the couple’s credit cards. She smiled to herself again. Face it. She was good! She had everything covered this time. She almost laughed out loud. Damn, she was really going to have to watch it.

It had felt so wonderful. Harold wasn’t much of a lover, not nearly as good as Kyle in fact, and he didn’t have Kyle’s stamina…but that was okay. It had been soooo excitingly nasty just taking his dick in her mouth and making him cum. She hadn’t done that with Kyle since…well, she didn’t need to think of that anymore. The accounts were balanced on that little thing now. She could enjoy Kyle’s cock in her mouth again.

Naughty. God, she’d felt so naughty all week long. Her blood had raced in her veins. She hadn’t felt so alert and bright…so alive in years. Goodness, there were so many times in the last week she would treasure…such as the excitement she’d felt all day long in the seminars, watching the men and women around her and wondering how many were enjoying a little secret sex like she was.

Just seeing Harold every so often during the day was a little added spice. There was the thrill of tossing him kisses across the room when no one was looking and the anticipation of not-so-casual touches when they met for lunch. She giggled at the memory of the astonished, delighted look in his eyes in the nightclub when he saw she hadn’t worn any panties. Those were wonderful little memories she could hold to herself and enjoy when she was alone.

All that was in addition to some moderately satisfactory sex back in her hotel room too. She let a small gurgle of laughter escape her lips. The driver smiled at her again. Peggy grinned back this time.

She remembered Thursday night. Mmmmmmm…Thursday night was a special memory. Harold had coaxed her out on the balcony and both of them had been naked as the day they were born. It had made her feel deliciously wicked. Harold had bent her over the railing, her tits dangling off into space while he fucked her from behind. She’d gotten off really hard that time. It had been one of the few times Harold actually made her orgasm with fireworks and bombshells and stuff. Kyle usually managed that once or twice every time they had sex. Harold had a problem with patience…yeah, that and stamina.

She regretted Harold hadn’t been better in bed. She thought now she could have made a better choice of the instrument for her revenge. There was that guy in the same training seminar as she, for instance. He’d been from Arizona…Randy! That was his name, Randy. Now there was a man. He’d looked just scrumptious in his tailored business suit. She wondered what Randy would have looked like standing naked beside her bed. She wondered how big he was. That bulge in his pants when that Terri woman had smiled up at him in the first night’s smoker…that had been something to see.

Suddenly Peggy knew this wasn’t going to be the last time for her. She examined the idea for a moment. Kyle would never know–she’d see to that–and if he didn’t know, it wouldn’t hurt him. How could it? She thought about it for a while longer.

She’d be very, very careful. She would never make intricate plans to get together with a man. It would always have to be someone like Randy…someone she met by accident out and away from home. Yeah, that was the way to go–random encounters–at places where Kyle would never, ever be. He never suspect anything either, because he’d never see any signs of cheating that would give her away. She’d never have a long-term affair, she decided. They were too entangling, too complicated, and she didn’t need to be involved with another man. Kyle was plenty, more than enough.

Peggy moved her lower body around in a tiny circle on the hot seat in the backseat of the taxi. It felt good. Some of the friction transferred to her pussy’s outer lips. She did it again. It felt even better. It was another thing she shouldn’t be doing. The driver might see her and know what she was doing. It was so naughty. She loved it.

Suddenly she wondered when her next trip out of town would be. She wondered who she would meet…who she would find there to…play with. Yeah, that’s what she would call it–how she’d think of it. It was playing. It wasn’t serious. She wondered what the man would look like, what he would smell like, how he would taste…

Her cell phone rang.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully.

“Mrs. Whitely? This is Sam Macmillan”

“Hi, Sam, how’re you today?” Peggy didn’t like her boss, but she could put up with him today.

“Pretty good,” Mr. Macmillan answered. He didn’t ask how she was doing. “I’m going to get right to the point, Mrs. Whitely,” he said. There was amusement in his voice…only a trace, but it was there. She could hear it.

“Okay,” Peggy replied wonderingly.

“Yes, well…here it is, Mrs. Whitely,” he said. “I’ve been asked to tell you that your employment with Bruckmeister and Son is being terminated for cause. Mr. Bruckmeister Junior wants me to inform you that you will be allowed to come into the business offices Monday morning to collect your severance check and clear out your desk anytime between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00 noon. Mr. Bruckmeister also said to tell you any questions you have would be answered at that time.”

Thunderstruck, Peggy let a long silence build. The taxi driver watched the stricken expression spread over Peggy’s attractive face. The woman’s manner had changed so abruptly the driver kept a close watch for a while. He’d had several bad experiences with people whose attitude changed so abruptly in his back seat. Then he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get a good tip from this fare. Glumly, he returned his attention to the street ahead.

“I…I don’t understand,” Peggy finally choked out. “Why…?” That was all that came into her mind.

“I don’t know, Mrs. Whitely,” Mr. Macmillan said.

There was a ring of truth in his tone. He probably didn’t know, Peggy decided, but he wasn’t a bit upset about losing her from his section. She let her hand drop away from her mouth while she took a deep breath. When she was ready, she brought the phone back up.

“All right,” she told her ex-supervisor. “I’ll just have to wait until Monday then. Thank you for calling,” she said. She touched the button to break the connection without waiting for his reply. She had that tiny satisfaction, that final bit of control over him.

********

Kyle’s big pickup wasn’t in the driveway when the taxi drew up at the curb. Peggy was irritated. Her husband should be here. He was her only solace now. He wouldn’t care why she’d been discharged. He would comfort her and love her.

When she walked in the front door, she immediately knew something else was wrong with her day. The grandfather’s clock that had stood against the long wall in the foyer since they’d bought the house was gone. The umbrella stand in the corner was missing too. When she walked into the living room, it was empty save for a few scraps of brown wrapping paper scattered here and there. The house was silent. A chill worked its way down her spine. The house felt abandoned…empty.

Her cell phone rang again. She looked at the display. It was Kyle.

“Kyle!” she said sharply. “Where are you? Where’s all the furniture? What’s going on, damn it?” Her voice rose the longer she spoke. She was angry, hurt…and a little scared. She didn’t understand what was happening.

“I won’t tell you where I am, Peggy,” Kyle said calmly. He sounded tired, almost too fatigued to speak.

He was, in fact, laboring under a tremendous sense of weariness. It was partly physical. Getting a house full of furniture and personal possessions packed and loaded into a big U-Haul truck had been exhausting. Dealing with telling the kids had been accomplished surprisingly easy, but his own internal turmoil had been emotionally draining. He had been dreading this conversation, but he had it to do.

He’d hardly slept since Brad brought him the early pictures of Peggy’s escapades the first night of her stay in Orlando. He hadn’t been able to even close his eyes after viewing the DVD of her energetic fucking on the balcony. That had come in Friday, yesterday, morning. Brad’s private investigator had access to a laptop that converted a digital camcorder’s raw input into DVD-quality movies. The investigator had dumped the videos and a multitude of still photos into Brad’s office server via a broadband connection. It was all in Kyle’s briefcase now, locked away so Peggy’s children wouldn’t see it by accident.

Kyle and the kids had already been packed. The first pictures and video had been more than enough for Kyle. Thursday night’s romp had just provided him and Brad with evidence that could be used in court. The night vision feature on the camcorder had captured the adulterous pair in a setting where they had no right to expect privacy. The other pictures and movies couldn’t be used in any legal action since Peggy and Harold had been in Peggy’s room. He had other uses for those photos and movies though.

When another of Brad’s investigators had called to let him know Peggy had arrived at home, he simply dialed her cell number. He hadn’t waited for procrastination to set in. He needed to get this over with. Maybe he could sleep tonight if he got everything off his chest.

“What? Why can’t you tell me where you are?” Peggy demanded.

“I didn’t say I couldn’t, Peg,” Kyle said patiently. “I said I wouldn’t.”

“Kyle Whitely…I don’t know what you think you’re doing…but you better start telling me what’s going on or I’m going to…”

“Going to what, Peggy?” Kyle asked sharply. “Haven’t you got it yet? I told you…I’ve told you over and over if you fucked another man to get even with me because of that bullshit idea that I cheated on you…I told you I’d leave you Peggy. I told you, and I’ve done it.”

Peggy was stunned. In an afternoon of surprises, this was the most catastrophic.

“Kyle…” she replied in a broken voice. “Honey, I haven’t…”

“Save it, Peggy,” Kyle said brusquely. “You can see why I’ve left. What more is there to say?”

“What? See what? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peggy protested. She was confused.

“Have you been in the den?” Kyle asked.

“No.”

“Go there,” Kyle ordered. Resentfully, Peggy walked down the short corridor to the back of the house and into the extra bedroom they’d converted into a study. When she got there, she understood.

A huge, blown up photograph was propped up on the mantle over the fireplace. It had a greenish tinge to it, the colors were all washed out, but it clearly showed her and Harold out on the hotel balcony. They were naked, rutting like animals while she howled her ecstasy to the moon.

Peggy sank to the floor. Her legs wouldn’t support her any longer. She sat there, her legs tucked under her. The picture mesmerized her…it held her as completely enthralled as a rattlesnake about to strike would have. Something deep inside her told her the photo represented the end of everything.

“Kyle,” she said thickly. Her mouth wasn’t working right.

“Don’t bother, Peggy,” Kyle said. “Now you see? Now you know why the house is empty. Now you know why the kids and I aren’t there, don’t you?”

“Where are my babies?” she demanded. “You can’t take my babies away from me,” she screamed. Kyle heard the nearly hysterical tone in her voice.

“Calm down, Peggy,” he advised. “I already have taken them away from you…though it would be more correct to say you took them away from yourself. It’s already happened. You’re going to have to live with it, so get a grip on yourself and I’ll tell you how things are going to be.” He’d mentioned the kids, expecting to get this reaction from his soon-to-be ex-wife, so he could tell her what he had to say next.

“Mandy and Todd are fine, Peggy,” he told her. “Actually, they’re in better shape than I am,” he admitted. “They didn’t have too much trouble accepting the fact that they were going to live with me and that you weren’t going to be there anymore. You’ve done such a fine job of pushing them away for the past year that they weren’t troubled by the thought of not seeing you, Peggy. You didn’t see it coming, but I did.”

“NO!” Peggy wailed. “You can’t do that.”

“I already did,” Kyle said simply. “You already did,” he added. “Now settle down and listen to what I’m going to tell you.” He waited for a long moment.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Don’t I have anything to say about this?” Peggy said in a hurt tone.

“No, you don’t,” Kyle replied. “For the first time in your life Peggy, all you can do is deal with the consequences of what you’ve done…what you’ve done to yourself, to your husband and children, and to your marriage.” Kyle took a deep breath.

“It’s too bad, Peggy,” he said softly. “If you hadn’t been so obsessed with getting even with me, we could have worked out almost anything. I was sure as hell willing. But you wouldn’t have this any other way. You just had to have your revenge…and for what?

“Ann took my penis in her mouth on a dark night with most of my body hidden by their deck railing. She thought it was her husband’s. When she discovered different, she spit me out faster than I can say it.

“But you…you had to work for a year and a half, deliberately scheming to find a way to sneak around and find some guy you could fuck. And boy did you! I’ve got pictures and video of you fucking your buddy, Harold, every way there is to fuck, Peggy.

“You let him take you naked out on the balcony, Peggy? What in hell were you thinking of you were doing letting him bend you over on the rail and fuck you like that right out in front of anyone who happened to looking out their window? You know I’ve got a video of the whole thing? From start to finish, Peg. Jesus H. Christ! My wife, the cum slut!”

Kyle stopped. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t get angry, but the anger was too close to the surface. He’d have to control himself a little better.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know what you were going to do, Peggy?” he said softly. “My God…you were practically bubbling over with anticipation the past few weeks. I knew there was only one thing that would get you that excited. Everything you did, every smile you smiled into space told me you were finally going to have your revenge on me. It was so obvious, Peggy.

“And, Peggy, did you not know credit card companies send out advertisements and “special offers” every few weeks to their customers? You had the bills sent to the Post Office box you thought I didn’t know about…but sometimes they send things to the residence on the account too. Hell, I knew about that new credit card you got just about as soon as you got it, woman.” He was quiet for a moment.

“Kyle,” Peggy said tentatively. “Honey, I…I was wrong. It’s all come crashing down on me…I got fired this afternoon…I don’t know why…I know I’ve hurt you, baby. I’m so…I feel so stupid. I…”

“Peggy, quit calling me “baby” and “honey” and all those other things. You have no right to say those words to me…not after what you’ve done,” Kyle told her. He didn’t say anything more for a few seconds.

“I will agree with you though, you have been stupid,” he added. “I tried to tell you that you needed to let go of this fixation on revenge. I tried a hundred times to tell you…but you wouldn’t listen,” he said bitterly. “You had to have it your way…and the reason you got fired is up on the mantle, Peggy,” he added. “I sent Mr. Bruckmeister an 8×10 of that photo. It turns out he has the same opinion I do about employees who deceive their husbands and use a company trip to have sex with strangers. Oh…the termination slip will say something different, but you got canned because they don’t trust you anymore…no more than I do.”

Peggy tried to digest what Kyle was telling her. It was too much to take in all at once. She let the problem with her job go for the moment. Her marriage was far more important.

“Hon…Kyle,” she said hesitantly. “You wanted me to forgive you when you and Ann…when the mistake happened. Can’t you…can’t we work this out? I don’t care what I have to do to make it up to you…can’t you forgive me? I’m so, so sorry for what I’ve done to you.” Tears were streaking down her cheeks.

“Forgive? I don’t have anything to forgive you with, Peggy,” Kyle forthrightly. “You’ve worn me down…worn away all the love I had for you right down to the quick. There’s nothing left.”

Peggy started crying harder. There was such finality in Kyle’s weary voice. She was suddenly cold and afraid sitting in the den where she and Kyle had shared many an evening.

“Don’t you love me anymore?” she sobbed.

“Yeah, I do…a little bit, Peggy,” Kyle said truthfully. “Love isn’t something you quit doing on the spur of the moment.

“But I’ll learn,” he said defiantly. “It’s hard, but I’ll learn not to love you, Peggy. What the hell? This has been coming for a long time anyway. I’m so tired of the ways you kept trying to manipulate me and the kids…and everyone else around you…just so you would never have to give anything of yourself beyond a certain limit you set up.

“I think I see your mother in that,” Kyle said thoughtfully. “From the time Mandy was born…and even more when we had Todd…I’ve sensed something…a…oh, I don’t know.” He tried again. “Maybe it’s something like…well, it’s like you were convinced all you owed me was a child or two and when that was done, any love or respect for me as your husband…and a man…had to be pulled out of you. I don’t know why, but you sure seemed to be rationing your affections awfully tightly the past few years.”

“Kyle…that wasn’t the way I feel at all,” Peggy moaned. “I’ve loved you since the day I saw you on campus that day. I can’t live without you.”

“Well, you’re going to have to,” Kyle responded briskly. “I don’t know how you got the way you are, but ever since that dress thing, Peggy…ever since that damned dress, you’ve acted like our marriage was a war you had to win at all costs. Even the dress was a contest. You had to have it, and to get it you lied to me. Hell, you’ve been lying ever since about one thing or another.

“Like I said, I think your mother has had some influence there, Peggy,” he said. “I know she thought I was unreasonable when I got mad about the dress but it wasn’t the only thing we disagreed about. She’s taken every opportunity to stick another little barb in my hide whenever she had the chance. To her, you had to win every disagreement we had because you were the woman and I was the man.” Kyle was silent for a while.

“Well…anyway,” he said, “I’m really tired. I’m sorry for rambling on about things that don’t matter anymore,” he told her.

“Let me get back to the kids, Peggy,” he said firmly. “First of all, I’m not in Texas anymore. I’m going to be working out of state for a while and I won’t tell you where for now…maybe later. The TV stations can get along on their own for a while. I’ve got things set up pretty good with them. Brad has my power of attorney to do what needs to be done with them. Oh–and don’t bother asking down at my office because they don’t know where I’ll be either.

“The kids are fine. They’ve been having a ball sitting way up high in the cab of this big rental truck I’m driving and playing travel games. Wherever we stop, they think having a swimming pool and a room where they don’t have to make their beds and pick up after themselves is, as they said this evening, “awesome.” So don’t worry about them, Peggy.”

“I miss them,” Peggy sobbed.

“And they’ll miss you too,” Kyle said smoothly, “in spite of the coldness you’ve shown them over the past year…but some things just have to be.”

“I’ll fight you for them,” Peggy said defiantly. “You can’t keep my children away from me!”

“Well, that brings us to the next thing on the list,” Kyle said in a hard tone. He took a deep breath. Peggy could hear it over the phone.

“I’m going to tell you this one time, Peggy…and one time only. I’m filing for a no-fault divorce. I’m proposing you get half of what we’ve accumulated together except that you get nothing that derives from the trust fund my father left to me. Essentially that means the house, the cars, our checking and savings accounts…and the debts too…all that we split 50-50. That’s a pretty good deal Peggy. I could probably ask for more. Now here’s the thing.

“If you contest the divorce action in any way, I…will…personally…see that every picture taken by the private investigator down there in Orlando gets delivered to your parents, to your brothers and sisters, to every single person we know, and to every business where you apply for a new job. Do you understand, Peggy?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. This was blackmail. He knew it because Brad had spelled it out for him and then withdrawn from a discussion on what Kyle would do with the inadmissible evidence of Peggy’s adultery. That Kyle was doing it for his children wouldn’t make any difference if he was hauled into court on the charge.

Yeah, Kyle knew it was blackmail, but he no longer had any respect for his wife…she certainly had none for him…and he didn’t feel he owed her even the smallest of courtesies or consideration. He would use the pornographic images to get what he wanted and needed from her. He would live with what he was doing, legal or not.

Peggy cried until the corners of her eyes were raw from dabbing at them with a tissue.

“God, you’re a cruel man,” she hissed at last. “I never knew you could do such a thing.”

“I didn’t know you could do such a thing as fuck another man for such a petty reason, Peggy,” he shot back. “Cruel? Well, I learned that from the master…or I guess I should say the mistress. That’s just one more thing I have to thank you for huh?” He waited for a reply but there was only the sound of crying.

“Anyway…listen,” he said. “As far as visitation goes, here’s what it’s going to be, Peggy. I have no intention of keeping the kids apart from you any longer than absolutely necessary. I won’t do that to them. What I will do is demand that you get to the doctor as fast as you can and get tested for every sexually transmitted disease in the books, Peggy.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the photos of you fucking that son of a bitch without a condom. What the hell were you thinking about, Peggy? Were you going to bring HIV or something home to me and the kids as some kind of gruesome present?”

“He said he didn’t have anything,” Peggy said faintly. Beyond a momentary consideration of the risks at the time, she hadn’t thought of the possible consequences.

“Yeah, I bet he did say that,” Kyle said sarcastically. “Exactly what else was he going to say? But you know what? He also told his wife he was escorting big wigs around. She thought he was working so hard he was completely exhausted every night when he finally got home. She didn’t complain though…she didn’t like having sex with him, I hear.” Kyle laughed hollowly. There was no humor in the laughter.

“How does it feel to have wrecked two marriages, Peggy?” he asked.

“Oh, God…what did you do?”

“What do you think I did, Peggy? Did you think I’d let him get off scot-free? You were wearing your wedding band the whole week long. It shows up in just about every picture I have of you and Dipshit. He knew damned well you were a married woman and that you were off limits. Do you really think I would let an SOB like that get away with dishonoring our marriage? Huh-uh. Sorry, dear. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.

“His wife was actually pretty appreciative, Peggy. From what I’ve heard through the private investigators, she was grateful for us bringing to her attention just what he was doing while he was away from her. Get this…it seems she caught him doing a young woman from off the streets a few months ago. The girl was into some pretty heavy drugs from what Mrs. Lowery said.”

Kyle chuckled again. There was no more amusement in his voice than there had been the last time.

“Actually,” he said in a confiding tone, “she is the one who’s been making Shithead use condoms. She’s been afraid he might have picked up something.”

Peggy could say nothing. The tears stopped flowing while she contemplated what her husband was telling her about Harold. She felt an icy hole in the pit of her stomach begin to grow. She was suddenly nauseous. She might die because she had wanted to have sex with that man.

“She isn’t going to wait for her dear husband to go out and fuck someone else on her time,” Kyle added. “She’s dumping his ass and she’s going to take him for every dime he’s got,” Kyle said in a satisfied tone. Peggy couldn’t respond. There was nothing to say and the lump in her throat wouldn’t let her speak anyway.

“Well, anyway,” he said after a while, “I’m not willing to let you around the kids when you might have been exposed to HIV. I don’t care about that politically correct bullshit when we’re talking about my children. Plain and simple, Peggy…you are not going to be around them until I see a clearance from the doctor, is that clear?”

She nodded, then realized she had to say something.

“Yes,” she croaked. It was getting progressively harder to speak.

“Good,” he said, “that’s good. Well…then if you don’t fight the divorce, and when I have the lab reports in my hand, Peggy, I’ll make sure you get to see the kids as often as you want,” he told her.

“No, wait, I forgot. Let me be a little clearer. HIV can show up months after exposure to it. Doc Miles says six months maybe…so in six months, if I have a lab report that says you’re clean, then things can happen.”

“I don’t trust you, Peggy…all that is gone, along with the respect and love…so you’ll have to come to where we are to see them, and I’ll always be close by to watch you…but that’s your problem. You brought this all on yourself and I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”

“Kyle,” she whispered.

“What, Peggy?”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“Yeah, so am I,” he said. Suddenly there was nothing else to say.

“Well, okay…I guess that’s all for now,” he told her. “I’ll call back from time to time,” he said, “and you can always reach me through Brad’s office.” He was quiet for a long time.

“Goodbye,” he said quietly.

“Goodbye,” she said in a soft voice. Kyle disconnected before she could say anything more.

********

“Hello?”

“Peggy?” her mother said crossly. “Why didn’t you call me when you got home?”

“Mom, everything is all upside down,” Peggy said. Her voice was uneven but she got it all out.

“Why, baby, what’s wrong?” her mother asked in a concerned tone. “What’s Kyle done now?” she demanded.

“It’s not what Kyle did,” Peggy responded. “Well…it is, but that’s not everything.”

“What, honey? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Mom, Kyle is divorcing me,” Peggy wailed, giving in to the pain for the first time.

“What?” Denise thundered. “Who the hell does he think he is?” she wondered. “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll make sure he doesn’t get away with this,” she assured her daughter.

“Mom?” Peggy said hesitantly. She took a deep breath. It might as well be now as later, she thought. “I was having sex with a man out there…in Orlando…and Kyle has pictures of it.” Her mother was silent for a moment.

“Well,” Denise said at length, “that doesn’t matter, honey. We’ll get through this.”

“Mom,” Peggy insisted, “you don’t understand. I was getting even with Kyle for that thing at the party and now he’s left me. I’ve lost him forever…he won’t even let me see the kids until I see the doctor,” she whispered.

“Huh? He can’t do that!” Denise said loudly.

“Mom, I told you…he has pictures and videos and everything,” Peggy insisted. “If I fight him for the kids, he’ll spread those all over this town. You’ll get your own copy, Mother. Do you want to see your little girl with her tits hanging down while a stranger fucks her cunt from behind? Do you want that, Mother? No, I didn’t think so. Face it, Mom, he’s got me over a barrel and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I don’t even know where he is!”

Denise could not reply for a long while.

“I thought I was so smart,” Peggy continued bitterly. “I was going to get even with him for what he did with Ann and I wouldn’t listen to him. I never did. I was too stupid to see it really was just a mistake…and now I’ve lost him.”

“Well…” her mother said hesitantly. “I don’t think you were wrong in that, honey. Kyle should have understood you…he should have seen you couldn’t let a man do something like that to you. If he was any kind of husband, he’d have seen that,” she said with conviction. “Baby, your Dad and I will help you all you can, you know that. We’ll get back at Kyle…I promise you that,” she said.

Peggy held the cell phone away from her ear and looked at it in disbelief for a moment.

“Mom,” she said finally, “Why don’t you just shut the hell up?” She punched the off button.

The lonely woman threw the cell phone at the far wall. She sat on the carpeted floor and gazed unseeing out the patio door as she contemplated how thoroughly her world had shattered.

finis

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Young guy raj: part-07

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