He'd been unfaithful before, you know, very often. I always suspected, but I never knew for sure. Women were always coming on to him. Why not? He's a gorgeous hunk, and hot, and horny. That's why I married him, he couldn't stay out of my pants, and he kept coming back for more, and I got to like him that way. So did other women, I suppose. They'd leave tracks sometimes, makeup or perfume on his clothes, or a woman's voice unerased on the answerer asking where is he, why is he late. I'd ask casually, and he'd always have an innocent explanation.
I wondered sometimes if there was some kind of Don Juan streak in him -- you know, that idea that a man who's compulsive about bedding women might be trying to drown out some homosexual urge -- that he really wants to bed down with a man, or maybe even to be a woman? I suppose it happens, though with Jerry it seemed so unlikely. He's such a man's man, working out at the club all the time, and all. But you never really know! Anyhow, what could I do? Marriage is based on trust. I had to try to trust him until he went too far.
Well, finally he went too far. I wouldn't have known except for you, Carol. You and I were out shopping a couple of months ago, remember? And you made an odd remark. Out of nowhere you said that you didn't understand how I keep my figure, eating all those rich foods the way I do.
Well, I'm slim overall, curved where it matters, always have been, you know that. I love looking the way I do, too, so I never over eat, and when I'm even an ounce too heavy I burn it off with Jazzercise or Modern Dance or something. You know that too. I know you tend toward plump when you're not careful -- you once told me you gain weight just from biting your nails. So I figured you were just having one of your "I hate my body" moods, so I didn't pay much attention. I just asked, "Whattaya mean?" At that moment, I spotted a very pretty blouse, and I asked you if you thought it would go with that purple shantung skirt I wore to the Arts Festival, you remember? The one I got at Elaine's Close-Out Sale? I just love it.
Well, I remember what you said. "Its perfect," you said. "The texture and the look are perfect. But that's not a Fall color, so you'd have to wait till next year to wear it." I remember you said that because the whole time you weren't even looking at it, you were looking at me. Then you said, "Anne, what I mean is, you've been dining out fancy I hear, for two weeks now. Practically every night this week. Places like the Versailles, with all those cream and butter sauces, and the King George, with those huge portions they think people can eat."
I just said "Oh?" I didn't understand a word of what you were saying.
You said, "Other places too, I hear." You went on about Tim's partner had been entertaining out-of-town buyers, that wherever he went he kept running into my Jerry with a beautiful woman who had to have been me, the two of us very lovey dovey, dining and dancing everywhere. Restaurants, cocktail lounges, night clubs, all over. He envied Jerry that I'm such a knockout, and still we feel so romantic about each other. Like when he saw us having drinks at the Starlight Roof, then holding hands all the way back down to our hotel room. And on a weekday! So naturally you were wondering how I was able to eat all those meals and yet stay thin.
Well, Carol, I got the message, and I may not have been very nice to you at first. But my mind was racing. "I get lots of exercise," I told you. "You know that. I work out, I jog." All the while I was thinking, every night this week Jerry phoned me to say he had to work late at the office, while I've been home with the TV and the washing machine. "I beat up on Jerry sometimes," I told you, and then I got nasty. "Sometimes we make love, that uses up calories. You should try it with Tim for a change!" I'm sorry I said that, Carol, I really am. But you forgave me right away, I could tell.
Here they are. Another round after these? Then we'll order.
Well, we both knew that Jerry sat in on Tim's poker game now and then, so Tim's partner knew him, but he'd never met me. Jerry'd been getting home way past midnight, trying to get ahead of his work, he told me, so his secretary could burrow in from the moment she got in, he said. I remember I told you "When you get hot under the collar, really steamed up, that burns lots of calories."
Well, was I steamed? You bet! The previous week Jerry'd been working late too, had to get in the figures for the Third Quarter he said. One night he didn't come home at all. I was frantic when I saw he wasn't there, till he called around daybreak to say he was still at his desk, he'd fallen asleep. But what you told me made me really furious! That shit! I was thinking. That fucking, two-timing son of a bitch! That snake! All you said was "You and Jerry, still behaving like newlyweds. Don't know how you do it!" Then you held up a maroon scarf I remember, and said "Here's a strong Fall color that really picks up on your complexion." Were you ever right!
Well, you were a real friend, Carol. All through the next week Jerry kept working late at the office and I confirmed that he wasn't there. Nothing to it, really. First a phone call and get only his phone mail service. Then drop by and find the place empty, but there's his secretary's day book open on the desk. And there it all was! Full day appointments with some floozy office manager from some place down south, notations repeated like "tied up with Jocelyn, Craig Assoc., all afternoon," and "flowers for Joc to her room at the Westin, charge to C.A. account." Last week a jeweled silver bracelet came for "J, of C.A." and was paid for with office funds. I saw that a ladies' gold watch was delivered to the office just yesterday, and there it was in the secretary's top drawer, not yet re-wrapped after someone had checked the engraving -- "It's been just lovely, and you were even lovelier -- your Jerry" it read. My romantic Jerry. There was one more date listed, a final dinner reservation for the next evening at the Regency, that posh supper club. A plane flight the next morning, a limousine to the airport booked for her. Farewell floozy, I was thinking, back you go down south to associate with Craig Associates for a change! You were never lovelier!
Now what should I do? I thought of breaking in on their little soiree that next night, then and there. But something held me back. It was so trite! What part was that for me to play? The long-suffering, wronged wife bursting in on their romantic love tryst, hair awry, shrieking, making a public scene, destroying their golden farewell, ruining their final fuck? Followed by divorce, as a matter of honor? No. Not me! That wasn't my Fall color! A tantrum was too good for him, and divorce was much too easy! Let him stay tied up with her all night if that's what he wanted. I decided to wait and see what else I could come up with.
Well, maybe you didn't know it, Carol, but last year when I suspected something I tried to humiliate him. I sent him to his office Halloween Party dressed up like a chorus girl. Shaved legs, Cupid bow lips, mascara slathered on for a deep, mysterious look, hot pants, net stockings, long-haired wig -- I even taught him a high kick or two for his grand entrance.
But it didn't work. He didn't behave at all like a chorus girl, and he wasn't in any way embarrassed by his clothes. He was just himself, cocky, relaxed, grinning. He wore the cute embroidered bolero I gave him to set off his titties. But he wore it as if it were a sports jacket, and when he danced with the prettier wives and associates, his hot pants and stockings looked like no more than ballet tights. And his high heels looked like dancing slippers. The secretaries all told him he looked just darling, and some crowded around to ask how his panties managed to hold everything in. Some felt free to feel up the bulges on his chest. If anything, it made him more attractive to the office cuties. No, he had much too much confidence in his own manhood.
But now Halloween was coming up again, and I was thinking real hard. How can you humiliate a man's man? One way for sure. That next night, while his floozy was being even lovelier than lovely at the Regency and then later on his cock, I waited for him at home in the fanciest night wear I own. Black lace gown, pink chiffon wrapper, hair up, face really beautiful, dripping all the sex I hadn't gotten much of lately. When I heard his car glide to a stop in the driveway about 2:00 a.m., the engine already off, I lit the candles I'd placed all around our bedroom. The bed was already made up with the black satin sheets my racy Aunt Agnes gave us for a joke when we were married. He came up the stairs shoes in hand, and when he opened the door to the conflagration of candles and saw me reclining luxuriously on the black bed, he stopped, stunned.
"You're still up?" he asked. You bet I was!
"Come here and kiss me, lover man," I said to him. "It's been too long!" Exactly three weeks, as a matter of fact, is what I was thinking!
"I'm pretty tired," he said, establishing a negotiating position right at the outset. "It's been a long day."
"I bet it has. But my day's only started!" I said, baring my teeth. "C'mon baby! Put out my fire with that hose of yours!" My God! I was thinking, he has me talking like a porn queen!
He began to fold his hand. "I can't, Hon! I've been hard at it all day," he said. "I'm exhausted, now, really! I'm not sure what I can do!"
"Kiss me, Jerry!" I told him. "You can kiss me!"
