136 comments/  247894 views/  39 favorites

Brisket

By: ohio



I had to drive across town one Friday to deliver some high-priority files from my precinct to Police Headquarters. For the past two weeks I'd been stuck at a desk, because of a shooting my partner and I had been involved in. It was a totally legitimate shoot—we stopped the perp coming out of a crackhouse and he aimed his gun at us—and it wasn't even me who shot him, it was Jim. Nonetheless, we were both on a desk until IAD finished the investigation, and I was bored stiff.

Since there wasn't much for me to do, I decided to stop by my house on the way over. Helen had cooked a fantastic brisket for dinner the night before, and I figured I'd make some of the leftovers into a sandwich for lunch. It was only a couple of blocks out of my way, and I knew no one at the precinct would care how long I took on my errand.

Driving slowly up my street, I pulled over opposite Mrs. Ferguson's house to admire her flower garden. She worked at it eight months of the year, and it was always spectacular. As I was about to drive the last 50 yards to my house, I glanced up and saw to my surprise a man coming out of my front door. It was Mark Malchek, a guy who lived around the corner—some sort of computer whiz who worked from home.

What the hell was he doing coming out of my house at 11:30 in the morning? I watched as he sauntered around the corner and out of sight, and then I pulled up in front of my house and went inside.

The house was quiet, but I thought I heard the shower upstairs. Climbing the stairs and walking into my bedroom I got a nasty shock. A very nasty shock.

The bed was totally destroyed, with pillows and sheets and blankets everywhere, and there was a big wet spot in the middle. And the room smelled like sex. It was all too obvious what Mark Malchek had been doing in my house.

The shower was running in the bathroom, and I could hear Helen singing to herself, as she usually did when she was feeling good.

Son of a bitch! I could feel the anger rising, and threatening to overwhelm my utter and complete amazement. My wife was fucking somebody else, some asshole neighbor, behind my back?

***************

Helen and I had been married for 24 years, and I thought we were pretty happy. We met when I was still at the Police Academy. She was one of the assistant caterers at my cousin's wedding, and the cutest girl I had ever seen. Short, kind of pretty, not a knockout, but with a fantastic figure. I managed to flirt with her enough to get a phone number, and we dated for about a year before we got married.

In almost every way our marriage had been terrific. I worked for the Department and she stayed in the catering business, doing a lot of free-lance work for a company run by a friend of hers from high school. It left her schedule very flexible, so that she could be an involved mother to our two daughters, Linda and Veronica. Linda was now out of college and working in Chicago; Veronica was a junior at Kenyon. They were terrific kids, and Helen had been a wonderful mother to them.

Helen and I were devoted to one another; we had the same values, we cared about family in the same way, and we enjoyed each other's company. When we met other married couples who were obviously bored with one another, we smiled smugly at each other—after two decades together we still had fun together, and never ran out of things to talk about. I felt pretty damn lucky, except for one thing.

That one thing was sex. Helen was stacked and very sexy—I'll never forget my excitement the first time I got to see her naked, after several months of dating—but she just wasn't a very sexual person. After our courtship and the first few months of marriage, I quickly found to my dismay that sex about every 10 days or two weeks was plenty for her. It was a far cry from the 3-4 times a week that we had begun our marriage with, and I wasn't slow to complain about it.

Over the years we'd struggled with this issue more than any other. We even saw a marriage counselor for a while, when the girls were little. After many years of frustration and unhappiness, I eventually came to understand that my wife really did love me. Her lack of interest in sex with me wasn't personal—she just didn't have much libido. The counselor helped me learn not to get so angry, and helped Helen see that she needed to make more of an effort.

So once every ten days became perhaps once a week, sometimes twice if I could talk her into it. I had high hopes that once the girls left for college and we had more free time—no driving them to voice lessons or tennis practice or dances or friends' houses—things might get better, but they never did.

What made it even harder to take was that when we did have sex, it was often a frustrating 'quickie'. I longed to take my time, to kiss and caress Helen, to lavish attention on her beautiful breasts, to touch and kiss her all over. But most of the time she simply wouldn't let me! She'd cross her arms over her breasts protectively, and say, "not tonight, honey—can't we just do it?"

And so, with a sigh, I'd get out the KY jelly, she'd slather it all over my cock, and we'd fuck. Not that I don't like fucking! But it seemed like not more than once every other month that we'd take our time and she'd let me touch her. Aren't women supposed to be the ones who want more foreplay? Time after time, we had sex without my ever getting my hands on her tits, or down between her legs—at all! Imagine how it feels to go three months at a time without getting to touch your wife's breasts.

And forget oral sex. I was happy to go down on her, and I did from time to time, despite her lack of enthusiasm for it. But in 25 years she'd only taken my cock in her mouth three times—for about 30 seconds each time.

You may be thinking, "what a cold-hearted bitch—why don't you dump her?" But the fact is, Helen loves me; and I love her. She makes it clear every day, in a million little ways, how much I mean to her and how much she values me. We look forward to growing old together. She just isn't into sex. And over the years (with the help of my trusty right hand) I've learned how to deal with it.

***************

Which is why, as I stumbled down the stairs and back out the front door, I was as stunned as I was furious. Not only did I know Helen loved me, and not only did I have total confidence in her faithfulness—she just wasn't interested enough in sex to ever have an affair! So what the fuck was going on?

It took me no more than three minutes to get to Mark Malchek's house and ring his doorbell. When the door opened a few inches and he peered out at me uncertainly, saying, "hi Rob, what are you...?" I slammed the door hard into him, knocking him to the floor.

Closing the door behind me, I picked him up and kneed him hard in the balls, sending him to the floor again, gasping and wheezing. I pulled him to his feet once more, relishing the sight of his face, pale and terrified. He couldn't even get a word out.

Holding him by the shirt collar with my left hand, I smacked him repeatedly in the face, being careful to inflict plenty of pain without breaking my hand. I topped it off with a final punch straight to the center of his nose, and relished the spurting blood and the crunching sound. 

I tossed Mark onto his living room sofa, watching him gasp for breath, and put my hand gently around his neck.

"Listen carefully, you little cocksucker. I know just where you've been and what you've been up to this morning, and I'm about an inch from just shooting you and burying your body in the backyard."

He didn't speak; he just looked at me with terror in his eyes.

"Now you're going to tell me everything I want to know, answer every question I ask you. Then you're going to clean yourself up and go on with your life. And you are never, ever, going to talk to Helen again. Am I speaking clearly enough for you?"

I tightened my grip on his neck just a little, to make sure I had his attention, and he nodded frantically. "Yes, yes Rob! I get it!" he said in a quavering voice.

He was totally cowed. I let go of him and got him started talking. I made clear that he damn well better tell me all of it, no leaving things out or minimizing what they did—and he spilled it all.

He and Helen had been fucking for more than two months. To my astonishment, he said that she had come on to him. At a July 4th neighborhood party, she flirted with him heavily whenever other people weren't in sight. Three days later, she called in mid-morning and asked him if he could come over to help her move a filing cabinet.

When he arrived she was wearing nothing but a short bathrobe. She greeted him at the door with words of thanks and a big kiss. While kissing him, she wrapped herself around him, and slid her hand down to caress his cock through his pants. Before he had time to say much more than, "are you sure we should be doing this?" they were in our bedroom, her robe was off and he was staring at her gorgeous tits. 

She yanked his clothes off and fucked him for the better part of two hours. I made him tell me all about what they did, that first time and after that. I was flabbergasted. She was loud and vocal, and she came at least once every time they fucked. She eagerly sucked him up for a second and then a third go-round, and asked him to do her doggie-style the last time.

Mark said he asked her several times, "are you sure this is all right? What about Rob?" I have no idea if that was true, but he insisted that she said she could keep it a secret from me.

Since that first time they'd been getting together a couple of times a week, either in my bedroom or at Mark's house. She did everything but anal with him: 69, all sorts of positions, and lots of blowjobs. She even had him tie her to his bedposts once, and he said she went just about crazy when he ate her while she couldn't move.

"This morning," he said, "when I got to the house she opened the door wearing just a lacy black bra and some pearls, nothing else. We went upstairs and she had me eat her first, for about twenty minutes—she must have come five times, she was moaning and yelling. Then we did it with her on her hands and knees, and after that she sucked me until I was hard again and we fucked a second time with her riding me."

When I'd heard it all, I just sat back in utter disbelief. The woman I thought I'd been married to for 24 years bore no relation whatsoever to the slut who'd been fucking Mark so enthusiastically ever since the summer.

"One final question, dipshit, and then you can go clean yourself up. I can't believe you've been the first guy she's whored around with like this—did she tell you anything about anyone else?"

He didn't even hesitate—by now he was thoroughly broken. "She made it sound like there had been a few guys before me, but she only mentioned one of them. Joe something, Oberman or Olderman; he's a fireman. She said he broke it off because his wife was starting to get suspicious."

Joe Olderman! He and Stephanie had been our good friends ever since their girls and ours had been five years old. That cocksucking son-of-a-bitch! 

***************

Both Helen and I were probably lucky that I had the afternoon to calm down a little and get myself under control. Helen was lucky because I might have killed her; I was lucky because I would have gone to jail for a very long time.

By the time I got home for dinner, I had my fury under wraps. Helen was as cheerful and affectionate as ever; we had a delicious dinner, chatting about the usual things—how the kids were doing, what catering gigs she had coming up, how boring my desk job was. Amazingly enough, I was able to put on a normal face and hide my simmering rage.

She was in bed watching a re-run of CSI when I slid in next to her. (Of course the bedroom had been totally put back together—clean sheets and all.) I leaned over to kiss her cheek, and I reached my hand up under her nightie to stroke her thigh.

She looked at me warily, and said, "not tonight, sweetie, OK? I'm kinda tired. How about if we just watch a little TV together?"

Usually that was enough to get me to back off, perhaps with a disappointed sigh. Not tonight! I kept moving my hand up, and said, "no, I really need you tonight, babe. C'mon, you'll like it."

"Rob..." she said, in an annoyed tone.

"I want to, Helen. And it's only 9:30, you can't be that tired."

She looked me in the face, as if trying to gauge how determined I was. She knew me pretty well, and she must have realized that I wasn't going to give up.

"All right, Rob—if you insist." She said this in her most put-upon tone, trying to play the guilt card, but I ignored it. She pulled off her nightie and reached into the drawer for the KY.

"How about if we just touch and hug a little first?" I asked.

"No baby, let's just do it." As I pushed my boxers off, she grabbed my dick—none too lovingly!—and covered it with the greasy lube. When she'd stroked me long enough to produce a workable erection, she wiped her fingers on a Kleenex and lay back with her legs spread.

"How about doggie tonight?" I asked, and with a displeased look she replied, "no honey, you know I don't like that. Come on, just take me."

With no further words I climbed aboard and slid gently into her. Despite everything—all my rage and hurt—she felt good. I stroked smoothly in and out of her, enjoying the sensations, feeling her arms resting lightly on my back. She was unresisting but passive, apparently determined to be a boring partner.

I stopped worrying about her and simply used her pussy for my pleasure. I didn't bother trying to kiss her or stroke her breasts, knowing that she'd fight me. Instead I took my time and worked up slowly to a very strong, very satisfying climax. I finished with a minute of hard, intense thrusting and fired my cum as deep inside her as I could. (She'd had her tubes tied when Veronica was born, so any worries about pregnancy were a thing of the past.)

I lay on top of Helen for a couple of minutes, holding my weight off her with my elbows, until she tried to wriggle out from beneath me. "C'mon, baby, let me go clean up."

"Not yet, Helen." I raised up to look at her face, and spoke in my friendliest voice. "How about if you use your mouth on me, and when I'm ready we can go again?"

Her face took on a look of intense distaste. "No Rob! You know I don't like that! How could you ask me to do that?"

Still looking right at her, I said gently, "how about if you just pretend I'm Mark Malchek?"

Her whole body jerked a little in shock, she gave out an involuntary "oh!", and she stared at me, wide-eyed. I'd never seen her face look like that in all our years together.

Without another word I slid up her body until I was kneeling over her breasts, and I presented my limp cock to her mouth. Helen was still staring at me, not moving, her face frozen.

I moved my cock towards her lips, at the same time lifting her head with one hand until her mouth was pressed against it. Then I held still and waited.

A few more seconds passed. Finally, still looking terrified, Helen opened her mouth and let my cock slip inside. I let her head fall back to the pillow, and she slowly began to suck my greasy dick, which was covered with KY and with my juices and hers.

She watched my face and I stared at hers as she worked on me. Not a word was said. Gradually the pleasure of her tongue and lips did their magic, and my cock stiffened and lengthened in her mouth. She started to pull away, but I held her head again and kept my dick in her mouth until it was fully erect. Then I pulled back and said, "turn over".

Giving me another frightened look, she turned onto her hands and knees. I kneeled behind her, used my fingers to find the way, and slid my dick back inside her. It had probably been two years or more since I'd fucked her in this position, and I was going to enjoy every moment of it!

As before I took my time. I wasn't making love with the wife I loved—I was fucking a cunt for the pure selfish pleasure of it. I held her hips and thrust in and out, pulling her ass hard against me at the bottom of each stroke, sinking in as deep as I could reach. I sped up and slowed down, changing the angle as I felt like it.

After a few minutes I leaned forward and grabbed her breasts, which I squeezed gently in rhythm with each stroke. I stopped, buried all the way inside her, and pinched her nipples, feeling a spasm as her cunt tightened around me.

Helen had pressed her face into a pillow, and I could hear her crying, but I ignored it. I gradually sped up until I was pounding her rhythmically and forcefully, and it took several minutes of hard fucking until the cum jetted out of me into her pussy. I wondered idly if she'd be sore the next day, but I didn't much care.

I pushed her forward until she fell flat and lay there on top of her, my cock slowly shrinking until it fell out of her. She was still sobbing quietly, her eyes closed. When I started to feel a little cold, I got up off the bed. Without a word to Helen or even a backward glance, I headed for the shower.

When I came out fifteen minutes later, drying my hair with a towel, Helen was once again sitting up in bed. She'd straightened up the bed, put her nightie back on, and brushed her hair. I could tell she'd been crying. She looked at me sorrowfully.

"Rob, I'm so...." she began in a faltering voice, but I cut her off.

"Me first, Helen." I was silent for a few seconds, just looking at her coldly.

"I stopped by the house today before lunch time, and I saw Mark Malchek walk out the door. Then I came upstairs and heard you in the shower—and I saw the bedroom. So I hope you won't insult my intelligence with any bullshit about how I misunderstood the situation, all right?"

Her head was down, and I could see she was blushing. She nodded without speaking.

"I don't know if there's any chance of our marriage surviving this." She gasped and her head jerked up as she stared at me in horror.

"But if there is, it's going to begin with your telling me everything. The complete truth, do you understand me?"

Helen nodded again, and started to cry. "I'm so sorry, Rob! I can't believe I've done such an awful thing..." She stopped for a minute, as her sobs got the better of her.

"All I want is for you to give me another chance. I'll tell you anything, everything, but please promise you won't hate me!"

"Okay, then: the whole story, you and that asshole. What, where, when, how, how long, how often—and WHY!"

She cried a little longer, then wiped her face. "I'd never even paid attention to him until the July 4th picnic. Then it seemed like he was always around me, getting me another drink or a hot dog, being friendly. A couple of times when you weren't around he got kind of flirty, leering at my boobs and even stroking my back.

"But that was a couple of months ago, and I forgot all about it until last week. He called and asked if he could come over and get help with some recipe, he was making a special dinner for his new girlfriend.

"So he came over and we went through the recipe. I explained some things to him, and he was very grateful! We had a cup of coffee, and then I started to feel funny. Before I knew it, he'd carried me upstairs, taken my clothes off, and started to...to fuck me!" She stopped, as a fresh bout of tears interrupted her.

"I was feeling all foggy, and I couldn't tell why this was happening, or why he didn't stop when I said 'no'. He...did it two or three times, and even made me...suck him.

"When he was done with me and getting dressed he told me that he'd put something in the coffee—I think it was Ecstasy—and he showed me his digital camera. He took pictures of him and me, Rob! Of us...doing it!

"And he said I had to keep seeing him, or he'd make sure that you and all your friends at the precinct got a copy of those pictures. Rob, I didn't know what to do!"


Brisket Ch. 02



[Author's Note: I regard "Brisket" as a complete story, and I never planned to do a sequel to it. But I know that many readers were interested in how Helen could have behaved the way she did, and I began to have ideas about how to tell that part of the story—so here it is. This won't make any sense unless you have read "Brisket" first.]

*

I had to laugh, when I thought about it. Life without Helen was almost the opposite of life with Helen: I was unhappy and lonely, instead of basically happy and contented. I mostly had to cook for myself and ate pretty badly, instead of enjoying Helen's wonderful meals. And I got laid a lot—whenever I wanted, in fact—instead of having to beg for it. The sex was usually damn good, too.

The last part of this perhaps calls for an explanation, though I suppose the rest of it is pretty obvious. Matilda Jacobson had a civilian job in the precinct I worked in. She was 38 and divorced, and she'd always flirted with me.

I was happy to flirt back, though it never meant anything. Matilda was tall and stacked, with platinum blonde hair, obviously dyed, and she showed plenty of that body off with her short skirts and tight sweaters. She wasn't actually very pretty—her face was rather plain—but she did have a great body. Most of the guys in the precinct, married or not, would have fucked her in a minute, but for some reason I was the guy she was interested in. When a couple of the other officers asked her out she always said, "sorry, you're a great guy but I don't date cops."

The day after I tossed Helen out on her ass my partner, Jim, asked me why I was so down in the dumps. We've been in a squad car together for almost ten years and we know each other very well, so I told him the story. Well, the outlines at least—all the details of how extensively that bitch had cuckolded me I kept to myself.

I knew the rest of the squadroom would know about it in no time—and sure enough, by the end of the week guys were patting me on the back with a somber look in their eyes, saying "sorry to hear about your bad break," and making sure I was joining them for a beer or two after every shift.

What I didn't expect was the doorbell to ring on Sunday afternoon two weeks later and to find Matilda standing on the front step. She had a casserole in her hands; and she was wearing white short-shorts, a tight pink top that showed off her fabulous tits, and a very determined look on her face.

"I thought you might need something," she said with a grin, not specifying what the something was that she had in mind. She followed me into the kitchen, put down the casserole, and gave me the hottest kiss I'd had in years, pulling my body tightly up against hers.

After about a minute I gently broke the kiss, holding her away from me, and said, "that was a nice surprise, Matilda, but what exactly is going on here?"

"Do you have to ask?" she said, smiling, gently stroking my cock through my pants.

I pulled away and sat down at the table. "Okay," I laughed, "I can see what you have in mind. But I'm not sure about why. I thought you didn't date cops."

I don't date cops," she said, "at least most of 'em. But I'm ready to date you any time, Rob. All that flirting all these years wasn't for nothing. But you've been a happily married guy, and I don't get in the middle of people's marriages.

"Now, however, it seems that Helen is gone and the marriage is over. So..." she licked her lips and blew me a very sexy kiss. "I thought it was time to get to know you better!"

Between her outfit, her kiss, and her words, I was developing a major hard-on. But that still didn't make me a total idiot. I said, "Matilda, not that I'm not flattered—and interested—but I'm hardly a good bet.

"I've just gotten done with throwing my cheating wife out of my life; there's no way I'm ready for any sort of new romance."

She smiled and kissed me again, this time gently. "I know that, Rob. This is not about romance. This is about no-strings fucking with a woman who has been attracted to you for years. Are you going to put the casserole back in my car and send me away?" 

We spent nearly three hours in bed, and she fucked me four times. Well, actually three-and-a-half, as I just couldn't finish the last time. But every minute of it was a pleasure, and after the first little while I wasn't thinking about Helen any more.

Matilda had sex the way I had always wished Helen would: wildly, energetically, freely. She had big tits and she loved me stroking and licking and sucking them. The lips of her pussy were small and tight, and she went crazy when I ate her out and sucked on her clit. Her lips around my cock felt unbelievable, and she was perfectly happy to leave them there. And she fucked like a porn star—or at least close enough to wear me out.

Our first fuck must have barely lasted three minutes, but that was time enough for Matilda to come so hard she left teeth marks in my shoulder. The second time we did it doggie, my absolute favorite, and she purred and moaned and twisted around beneath me while I pumped in and out of her. We did a 69 with her on top, and I couldn't get enough of her—her hot mouth on my dick, her squeals as I licked her pussy, the feeling of her great big tits rubbing all over my chest. You get the picture—it was great.

After a shower, we dragged ourselves down to the kitchen and ate Matilda's casserole (edible, but not much better than that—a far cry from the great dinners that Helen always made), and then she kissed me and said she had to get home and feed her cats.

"Matilda," I said, hugging and kissing her, "that was unbelievable. You are the sexiest woman I've ever seen." (A polite exaggeration, but I thought it was the right thing to say under the circumstances.)

She smiled and said, "that was everything I dreamed it'd be, Rob. I'll be looking forward to a repeat performance."

Then she saw the hesitant look on my face.

"Don't worry, honey," she said. "I'm not making any promises and I'm not asking you for any. I know you just dumped Helen, and you must feel like you don't even know which way is up right now.

"So all I'm asking is that the next time you feel like bouncing around on the bed, you give me a call—okay?"

And with that she stuck her tongue down my throat one more time, grinned at me, and left.

****************

Since then I've been fucking Matilda pretty steady, at least a couple of times a week. It's been more than a year now and I haven't gotten tired of it in the least. To know that I can get laid whenever I want, and that the lady in bed with me wants to be there and loves what I'm doing—it's just fantastic.

She'll do me any way I like, though she likes riding me the best. I like it too, with those great tits bouncing around for me to squeeze. But she'll give me head when I want it, and do it doggie-style or try some crazy all-twisted-up thing if I want to get exotic. She just loves sex, and is ready to go whenever I feel like it.

You might think that that's all a guy needs to be happy—but those of you who have ever been happily married will know it's not true. Matilda was a terrific fuck, but we didn't have much to say to each other. She wasn't as bright as Helen, and not nearly as funny. When we went out to a movie or something, she didn't have the interesting things to say about it that Helen had always had--so our conversations got rather boring, to tell the truth. And, of course, she and I didn't have years of being together, with memories of raising two great kids and vacations and family adventures.

Above all, we simply weren't in love with each other. From time to time I'd hint at the fact that I didn't think we were destined to be soulmates, and she always reassured me.

"Listen, Rob—I have a great time with you, but you're not the man of my dreams either. You're a guy I like a lot, who treats me nice and who really knows what to do with this" (giving my dick a squeeze).

"I'm having fun and I'm pretty sure you're having fun too. After 12 years as a divorced lady, I'm not looking for more than that. Until George Clooney shows up on my doorstep, in any case."

****************

So, that was the good part of my life: screwing Matilda. And the one extra benefit that came with it: not having to chase women, hang out in bars or go out on dates in order to get laid. The sex was right there for me, one quick phone call away.

The rest of it pretty much sucked. I can't tell you how much I missed my life with Helen, back before I knew what a cheating cunt she was. Her great cooking, and her company. Just being around her, sharing all the smiles and the inside jokes that develop in a marriage over 25 years.

That doesn't mean I wanted her back. Even after my rage cooled down a little, I was constantly angry at her; and constantly curious, chewing on it incessantly, trying to figure out how a happily-married, basically undersexed woman could turn into an adulterous whore. Was it me, was there something about me? I never did get anywhere in trying to understand it.

Linda and Ronnie were great. Both of them were obviously devastated, and I'm sure they were furious with their mother, but they managed to be loving and attentive daughters to both of us. In fact, Ronnie was the one who saved Helen's life, though I only heard about it that later.

It happened on the Saturday after the Monday I threw Helen out. That Thursday my lawyer's process server found Helen at work and served her with divorce papers, charging her with adultery. I wasn't in the least interested in fucking around with any "irreconcilable differences."

In any event, sometime Saturday night Helen swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills; then she changed her mind and called Ronnie, terrified, and Ronnie hung up and called 911. They took Helen to the hospital and pumped her stomach and she pulled through, after a scary day or so in ICU with the girls asleep in chairs next to her bed.

A couple of weeks after Helen was out of the hospital my daughters came to see me for the weekend; and on Sunday before they left they sat me down for a little talk, which they'd obviously planned in advance.

"Daddy, Ronnie and I have a big favor to ask you," Linda began.

"As long as it doesn't have to do with ... with your mom, you know I'll do anything I can for you," I replied.

They glanced at each other. "Well, Dad, actually it does have to do with mom. She, uh, tried to kill herself three weeks ago."

"What?!" I shouted.

Linda told me the whole story, and then she said, "here's the thing. Until you divorce mom she's still on your health insurance. She's started seeing a therapist, to understand why she tried to commit suicide and why she, uh, did what she did with those other men.

"But if you divorce her, she'll lose her health insurance and won't be able to see the therapist. So Dad--would you be willing to wait on the divorce?"

I sighed to myself. Clearly I wasn't going to be able to win this one, not with both my daughters pleading for their mother's welfare. And I could see they were right.

So my lawyer drew up a legal separation agreement instead, and Helen got to keep her insurance and see the therapist. I didn't really give a shit--it wasn't my money, it was the insurance company's. And as much as I hated her, I didn't want Helen to try again and actually kill herself.

****************

The holidays were brutal--how could they not be? Nothing like Thanksgiving or Christmas to rub your nose in how your family has been torn apart.

For Thanksgiving, the girls and I agreed to have our meal with Stephanie Olderman and her kids--she'd thrown Joe out and he was living in an apartment in town. Their daughter Ariel and son Peter had been friends with our girls for years, so we were a family-like group of six at dinner in Stephanie's dining room.

But, needless to say, it wasn't the same. For one thing, neither Stephanie or any of the kids could cook like Helen did. And more important, all of us were so aware of who was missing and why. We tried to be thankful for what we had, and some of the evening was fun, but when Linda and Ronnie and I drove back to the house we were all silent and morose.

And Christmas was worse, at least for me. The girls felt they should be with Helen, since she hadn't had them at Thanksgiving, so I drove down to my brother's place and had the holiday with him and his family. I love my brother and his wife, and their kids are cute (they're all ten years younger than mine)--but again, I couldn't help thinking of what this holiday should have been like, and would have been, if not for my whore of a wife.

But when New Year's Day had come and gone, I began to feel a little bit better. It had been more than three months; I was still alive, I was getting laid, I still had my job and my wonderful daughters and my friends. I would be okay.

My partner Jim and his wife Patty were great. They had me to dinner at least once a month, laughed and joked with me, even teased me out of feeling too sorry for myself. I know they were both furious at Helen--and just as shocked as I had been--but we didn't talk about her much.

Stephanie Olderman and I had lunch or dinner quite regularly, and in April we fucked a couple of times. Unlike me, she didn't have a regular bed partner and she was horny as hell, in addition to feeling insecure and unattractive.

We talked about it for a while beforehand--did we really want to do this, messing around with a friendship that meant a lot to both of us? But in the end it felt right, so we spent a weekend in bed at her house, and again a couple of weeks later at my house.

And you know what? It wasn't so great. Stephanie was certainly attractive--less busty than Helen (let alone Matilda) but still shapely--but the complicated situation kept both of us from really relaxing and enjoying it. It felt just a little bit too much like sleeping with your sister (or your brother, in her case).

After the second weekend Steph said to me, "you know, I'm glad we did this, Rob--even grateful. Because having a guy in bed with me poking me with a big fat hard-on at least let me feel that I'm not an old, over-the-hill housewife.

"But at the same time, I don't think I want to do it again. I really want us to be friends, and I think it will work better if we drop the 'benefits' part."

I had to agree, and so we went back to being buddies and a mutual-support group, as she finished divorcing Joe and I kept trying to figure out the single life.

****************

The second time around--a year later, that is--the holidays without Helen were a lot easier. Linda and Ronnie had to divide their time between her and me, and the girls and I couldn't help thinking about what used to be, but we still had fun and it felt more like a family. 

I guess I was finally getting used to the idea of being a single guy, at least for the foreseeable future. I was even thinking a little about starting to date. It was clear to me that Matilda and I had no real long-term future, as delightful as it was to have all the sex I could handle, so I wondered about whether I could find another real romance at my advanced age (I was less than two years away from turning 50). 

And then Linda and Ronnie came for a weekend again, in the spring of that second year, and I knew something was up. Something I probably wouldn't like.

I was right--and it was Helen, of course. "Dad, she's starting to get her life back together a little and she wants to see you."

"What the hell for? She can't be in any possible doubt about how I feel about her!"

Ronnie sighed, and came over to sit next to me on the sofa, her shoulder pressed against me. "It's her therapy. It's going really well, she says, and Dr. Oliva says it's time for her to come talk with you--to explain, and apologize."

That made me snort. "Explain? Like I give a rat's ass what possessed that bitch to--

"Sorry, girls. I shouldn't have said that. But why should I care why your mother did what she did? She did it, she destroyed our family--end of story. I don't need to hear her apologies, and I don't need to listen to any lame-ass explanations either." 

The girls patiently explained that the conversation wouldn't be for me, it would be for Helen. "She needs a chance to own up to what she did, Dad. I guess it's kind of a way of closing the door on it. Dr. Oliva told her that whether or not you forgive her is up to you--but that whether she takes responsibility for her mistakes is up to her. And she wants to do it."

"So I'm supposed to sit and listen while she gets all teary-eyed and tells me she never meant to hurt me? Fuck that!" I got off the sofa and walked out of the room.

But they wore me down in the end, of course. You have daughters? Then you know what I mean. I love them, and they still love their mother (which is as it should be, despite everything), and it's hard to say No to them when it's something they really want.

On the second Saturday in May, at 2 in the afternoon, Helen's beat-up old Volvo station wagon pulled into the driveway. I hadn't spoken to her or laid eyes on her in more than 17 months. 

****************

I stood in the open front door and watched her as she looked around at the house and the yard, reminding herself of the place she'd lived for nearly 20 years. As she came up the walk she stopped, seeing me standing there. I could tell she was afraid to come any closer.

"Hello, Rob," she said quietly.

"Hello, Helen. Why don't you come sit in the back yard." For some reason I had decided I didn't want to let her see the inside of the house. So without a word I walked around the side of the garage to the back, assuming she would follow me. 

We sat at the old wrought-iron table with chairs on the back patio. I'd gotten a couple of sodas and now I poured one for Helen, reaching over to put it in front of her. She looked thinner and older, a bit more worn than I remembered. But she was still a very attractive woman, something that pissed me off as soon as I noticed it.

"Thank you for letting me come, Rob," she said after a couple of silent minutes. "I'm sure that you weren't very enthusiastic about the idea, and I appreciate it."

"Just don't give me a lot of bullshit, all right? I'm willing to let you get things off your chest, like the girls said you needed to do. Just do me the fucking courtesy of not lying to me. Tell me the truth or shut up and get the hell out of here."

She nodded. "I will--no lies, no bullshit. And Rob? I'm sorry--more sorry than I can ever find a way to say. For everything I did."

"Yeah? Well, that's great. Everything's just peachy now, you know, Helen?" I realized I was getting angry--more upset than I had anticipated. I took a deep breath and said, "sorry. I'll be quiet--just go ahead."

Afte a few moments she said, "you need to know that what I did wasn't about you, Rob, or about our marriage. I'm sure you must have wondered about that--wondered what you did wrong.

"But it was me. A door got opened by mistake and I fell through it, and I wound up living in two worlds at once; the one with you and the girls, and another, crazy twisted-up one where I acted like a whore."

I snorted, but kept my mouth shut. Let her tell her goddam story, however ridiculous it sounded.

"You remember seven years, ago, the summer my mom and dad died?"

Of course I remembered. Her father had a sudden stroke and dropped dead in his back yard on a beautiful June afternoon. Her mother was beside herself with grief; she stopped wanting to live, and less than three months later she passed away in her sleep. It had been devastating to all of us, but especially to Helen, their only child.

"And then that fall, not more than a couple of weeks after my mom's funeral, Arlene was hit by a car?"

I nodded. All three of those deaths had been in the same short period of time. Arlene and Helen had been co-workers in the catering business and very close friends.




Brisket Ch. 02



"Anyway, I just fell apart after all that, as I'm sure you remember. I felt lost, like I didn't even know what my life was for. I went through the motions--going to work, taking care of you and the girls--but I really wasn't in my right mind.

"And then in November, on a weekend you were in Tennessee hunting with Joe, I suddenly made up my mind to go out with Sandi (a divorced former neighbor of ours) and have a couple of drinks. I don't recall where the girls were, probably sleeping over at a friend's house.

"But I just had to get out, be on my own, do something different. We went to Pirozzi's and drank; and danced with some guys; and then it got late and one of the men we'd been dancing with offered to take Sandi home. I could see she wanted to sleep with the guy, and I'd driven us there, so I said okay.

"And then--" she stopped suddenly, and took a deep breath. Tears started to slide down her cheeks.

"And then a big, strong middle-aged man named Ted picked me up. Ted Archer, from Minneapolis. He chatted with me, got me to dance with him, bought me a couple more drinks--and I went to his hotel room with him.

"I can't explain it, Rob." She was looking steadily at me now, despite her tears.

"He was powerful and strong and self-assured, and somehow he brought out a submissive side of me that I didn't know I had. We went back to his room and he, he ... did whatever he wanted with me.

"Things I never agreed to with you, he just demanded--and I did them. He ... fucked me from behind until I came, and then he made me get down on my knees, suck him off and swallow him. 

"It went on all night. He tied me to the bedposts and ... and licked me, until I was nearly screaming. He fucked me over and over, including anally. I did anything he wanted--I couldn't say no.

"And in the morning when I woke up I was horrified--just sick about what I'd done. I tried to get dressed quietly and sneak out of the room but he caught me and pulled me back to bed. He fucked me twice more before he let me leave.

"When I got home again I was hysterical--thank God you and the girls were still out! I showered over and over again, I threw my clothes away, I was beside myself. I couldn't understand how I could have betrayed you like that, and how Ted could have made me do things I told you I never wanted to do. I fell down on my knees and prayed to God to forgive me, to keep my secret and give me a chance to make it up to you.

"And that night--I can't imagine that you remember it now--I was clingy and affectionate and a little scared, as though we'd had a fight and I was sorry. I told you I didn't want to make love--because I was afraid you'd be able to tell what I'd been doing--but I clung to you and asked you to snuggle with me all night.

"And when I saw after a few days that my secret was safe, that you didn't realize what I'd done, I cried with relief and dedicated myself to making it up to you--to being the best, most perfect wife in the world. We even had more sex than usual for about a month, and I let you do it with me in a couple of positions you wanted to try, instead of refusing like I usually did."

She took a drink of her soda, looking at me with sorrow in her eyes. Her crying had stopped but she looked very sad--almost empty.

That's how it had started, she said. That one night with the guy from out of town. But the episode kept bothering her, it grew inside her mind until she was thinking about it all the time--wondering why she had let it happen, why that man's dominance had worked on her, and above all why the experience had been so exciting.

The desire for more of the same--more degrading, semi-forced sex--grew in her, a bit at a time. She fought it off for nearly two years, though she said she thought about it constantly; and then, when I was away visiting colleges with Linda and Ronnie, she did it again. She found a bar about half an hour out of town, got herself picked up, and spent the night with a truck driver being vigorously and repeatedly fucked.

"I can't begin to describe the shame to you Rob--or the excitement that went with it. I was horrified by what I was doing, truly horrified, I felt like a monster. And at the same time the sex was so exciting and the feelings were so powerful, so overwhelming, I just lost myself in them.

"I can see now, since I've been seeing Dr. Oliva, that the shame and the excitement fit together for me--almost like it HAD to be shameful and degrading for me to get pleasure like that out of sex.

"And also that my ... my sexual outbursts were a completely separate, completely compartmentalized part of my life. After the first couple of times, I started to build a little box in my head that held all the feelings about my ... my behavior.

"I still felt ashamed, even sickened, but the shame went into the box somehow, and it stayed apart from my everyday life."

She looked at you. "This must sound nuts to you. Or maybe just like a ridiculous self-justification, but it's not. I know that there is no justification for what I did, Rob.

"But it really did live in a little separate part of my brain, after a while. And with the rest of my brain I could go on loving you and the girls, and being a caterer and a housewife--and even continue being the repressed, resentful sexual partner who frustrated you so much."

After Helen's second one-night stand she stopped fighting her impulses so hard, and her hook-ups occurred more frequently, whenever the girls and I were away. "I think there were six of them altogether, or maybe seven, over two or three years. I've tried hard to remember but I'm not sure."

And then one of her customers at the catering business came on to her--forcefully, the way Ted Archer had--and she began an affair with him.

"It was like my night with Ted, except that it went on for nearly six months. We met once or sometimes twice a week, in the afternoons, and he just used me. He didn't beat me or hurt me, but he did whatever he wanted with me--anal, bondage, lots of blowjobs, sex in whatever position he wanted.

"And after that ended, I guess ... something changed. Maybe I should say something broke inside me, I don't know. But after that ... I went on to find another partner. And another after that."

Between the customer and her most recent playmate, Mark Malchek, there had been three other men over a couple of years, one of them our old friend Joe Olderman. And Helen found that she didn't need to be submissive; in fact she increasingly took the lead with each man in having sex the way she wanted to.

But it was always unbridled, unrestrained sex, just the kind I had wanted with her and that she had always denied me.

"I've thought about this a lot, Rob, and that must be the worst of all the ways I betrayed you. I am so sorry. Finding out that I'd ... been such a whore with Mark and Joe and the others, while I continued to be such an uptight bitch in bed with you....

"It can't possibly make sense to you, I guess, but the two worlds were totally separate in my head. There was Helen the wife--loving, devoted, responsible; and there was Helen the filthy slut, degrading herself and loving it.

"Because I never stopped feeling the shame; I always knew how inexcusable and destructive my behavior was. That was all part of its attraction, I guess, the whole reason for having that secret life in the first place."

*******************************

Helen stopped talking. She looked exhausted, drained. The day had clouded over and it was getting windy. She'd been speaking for nearly an hour and a half.

"Okay," I said after a bit. "Now what?" I didn't know what I was feeling. I was enraged, and saddened, and even a little bit sorry for her. How about that? But not as sorry for her as I was for me.

It was almost like she read my thoughts. She said, "I don't know, Rob. I can't even imagine how awful this is to you, and how angry I have made you."

She gave me a crooked sort of half-smile. "You're a really good man, you know that? Lots of guys would have simply killed me when they found out, not just thrown my ass out of the house."

She looked away, across the back yard, and said, "I sometimes almost wish you had. Except I wouldn't have wanted you to go to jail--not for what I had driven you to."

Turning back to me, she said, "the thing is, I know it's worse for you. I'm alone in a little apartment, without the only man I've ever loved, and I'm lonely and sad--but at least I deserve it. I look in the mirror and know that I brought this on myself.

"But you, Rob--I took our happy marriage and broke it into a million pieces, just like you did with that vase. And it's not your fault, there's nothing you did, and and nothing I can do to give it back to you.

"I would do anything--anything to atone for what I've done... But I know there's nothing I can do that would begin to make it up to you. I'm so sorry, honey."

Her head was down and she was crying steadily. I wanted to yell at her that she didn't have the right to call me "honey" anymore, but I didn't. I knew she knew that.

Helen cried for a few minutes, occasionally blowing her nose, and I watched her. I wondered why I didn't have a million questions for her--but I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to know. God knows I didn't need to hear any of the details of her adventures. What she had just told me and what I'd heard from Mark and Joe was more than enough.

"Why on earth did you pick Joe and Mark?" I suddenly burst out. "Two guys we know--one of them one of our oldest friends, for Christ's sake? What the fuck was that about?"

"I'm not sure," she said through her tears. "I've talked about that with Dr. Oliva. I guess it means I was getting even more out of control--so I wasn't being so careful any more about trying to keep my other life a safe distance from you and me.

"Maybe I was subconsciously trying to get found out--like I was so ashamed and so desperate about what I was doing, I knew the only way it would ever stop is if you caught me. So I ... I started fucking Joe, and when you didn't discover that I picked a guy who lived right around the corner.

"Pretty stupid, huh? It doesn't make much sense even to me." She kept crying, and I just sat there and watched her.

Finally she grew calm, and looked at me, managing a little smile. "Is there anything else you want to ask me, Rob? Or say to me? It's not too late to yell at me, to let me know what a disgusting whore I was, and how angry you are for everything I destroyed."

I got up and started to pace around the patio. "I don't really see the point, Helen. There's nothing I can say or do that will change anything. You took a fucking hand-grenade and threw it right into the middle of our marriage and blew it up. End of story.

"And now it's a year and a half later. Obviously I'm not angry the way I was at the time--just sad. And bitter, I guess.

"I hope that telling me the story was helpful to you--with your therapy. Frankly, it didn't do much for me. And I have to tell you that all that shit about two separate lives, and keeping one of them in a box--well, it sounds like elaborate psychological horseshit, to be honest."

She smiled. "I don't blame you. Dr. Oliva told me a lot about it--it's called 'schizoid sexuality', can you believe it actually has a name? But if it sounds like horseshit to you, that's fine. 

"I wasn't trying to make excuses for what I did, Rob--there are no excuses. But I needed to own up to what I did--to you above all, the man I love, the person I hurt the most."

"Actually I do have another question," I said. "Why did you try to kill yourself?"

"After I got the divorce papers I just fell apart. I started drinking, and you know I don't hold my liquor very well. That Saturday night I went out to a bar, figuring to pick up a guy and--well, you can imagine. Let him use me.

"But the guy I went to a motel room with was so rough I got scared, and I tried to back out. He hit me and told me he was going to strangle me while he fucked me, and I started screaming. That made him back off for a minute and I ran out of the room.

"I got back to my car, jumped in it and drove away, the whole time just sobbing, scared out of my mind. And when I got back to the apartment I felt so ashamed--so horrified by what I had done. That night, and all the years before, with all those men....

"So I just swallowed the pills. At least I could make the pain stop, I thought. But after I'd done it I suddenly thought about the girls--I just couldn't do that to them. What I'd done to you was bad enough, but I couldn't deprive them of their mother. So I called Ronnie, and thank God she called 911 and--"

She shrugged. "They got me to hospital in time. I felt like such an awful person, lying there, while the nurses were all so nice to me. As if I weren't a selfish, cheating whore."

Helen sat there, just staring at the ground. Then she pulled herself together and stood up, looking at me seriously. "Thanks for letting me come talk to you--that was very generous of you."

She smiled again. "I guess the girls probably worked on you pretty hard, didn't they?" I nodded, and couldn't help but smile back.

"I will do anything I can to make amends, Rob, even though there's nothing in the world that can make up to you for what I've done. But I mean it--please--if there is ever anything, just let me know."

She headed around the garage towards her car; and when I started to follow she said, "no, don't come with me, okay? Just let me drive away." I could see that she was crying again. I let her go, just standing there in the back yard, and watched her disappear around the corner of the garage.

*******************************

I didn't know what I felt. I was angry and a little, I don't know, shaken up. Listening to Helen had brought back all the horrors of when I first found out about her and Mark--the rumpled bed, the smell of sex in our bedroom. All those visions I'd had of her being ridden by another man came back into my mind, and I couldn't chase them away.

I went inside and picked up the phone.

"Hey, Matilda? It's me. Listen, I know I was going to pick you up at 6:30 for the movie, but are you free right now?

"Great. Could you come over? I really need you.

"Terrific--see you in ten."

When Matilda arrived she could see I was upset; she gave me a big hug and looked at me carefully. "Conversation with Helen didn't go so well?"

I shook my head. "It was okay. A lot of fucking psychobabble, but nothing much I didn't expect. It's just ... I don't know, actually. I just don't feel very good."

She smiled and kissed me. "Poor baby--I have a couple of ideas about how to make you feel better."

She led me up to the bedroom, got our clothes off, and in no time we were kissing and stroking one another. I buried my face between her big tits and closed my eyes--it was like I needed to lose myself there.

When we were ready to fuck I pulled her up on her hands and knees and got behind her. I slid smoothly into her wet pussy and paused, as we both groaned. I started to stroke into her, slowly at first, and then I started to speed up.

"Baby?" I said. "I don't want to hurt you, but is it okay if ... if I fuck you really hard? I don't know why, but--"

"Sure, Rob," she said, smiling over her shoulder at me. "Just give it to me, hold onto my hips and give me a good ride. Really pound me!" 

She put her shoulders down on the bed and braced herself, and I started fucking harder. Soon I was really slamming her, going as hard and as deep as I could. I felt angry and confused. I fucked her and fucked her, pulling her hips backwards to slam against me, aware of her moans, and then I was shouting and coming like crazy, shooting into her.

We collapsed together onto the bed, and Matilda turned over to hold me in her arms.

"Okay?" she asked, and suddenly I was crying, unable to stop--and she was holding my head on her shoulder, stroking my hair, whispering, "okay, baby, it's okay." She held me tenderly and I just kept crying.

Finally I was calm again, and I sat up against the headboard, still holding Matilda close.

"Shit," I said, looking at her. She smiled at me. "I have no idea what that was about."

"Doesn't matter," she said. "How do you feel now? Any chance we could do it again and still make the movie?"

I grinned at her. "Give me a few minutes of your fantastic mouth and I'll be ready to go."

"It's a deal!" she said. "And this time I'm gonna ride you until you beg for mercy."

*******************************

On Tuesday, three days later, there was a box by the front door when I came home from work. It had a note on it in Helen's handwriting. I just stared at it for a minute, then picked it up and took it inside, putting it on the kitchen table.

The box had a homemade apple pie in it. The note said

"Dear Rob:

Thank you for listening to me the other day. It was very generous of you--more than I deserved.

I know you always liked my apple pies, and I hope you'll enjoy this one.

Love, Helen"

I made myself some dinner and ate it, reading the paper, occasionally glancing at the pie. For some reason I wasn't sure I wanted to eat it. Finally I decided I was being ridiculous.

I went into the living room and turned the ballgame on. Then I went back into the kitchen, cut myself a piece of pie, got a glass of milk, and took them back to the living room.

The game was a snoozer, and I turned it off after a couple of innings; but the pie was fantastic. I had three pieces.

*******************************

Helen's apple pie left me even more mixed-up than I'd been on Saturday. I wanted to thank her, but I knew I didn't want to speak to her. So I waited until early afternoon when she'd be at work and then I called her apartment. It was the first time I'd ever called there; I didn't even have the number until Linda and Ronnie gave it to me ("just in case," they said).

When the machine picked up I said, "Helen? Hi, it's Rob. I, uh, wanted to thank you for the pie--it was delicious.

"So, uh, that's it I guess--thanks. Bye."

****************

It was lucky for me that, just at this time when seeing Helen got my head all twisted-up, I met a woman I wanted to date. At least I thought it was going to be lucky--turns out it wasn't so lucky after all.

Her name was Leanne, and I actually met her while working on a domestic violence case. Jim and I had hauled some jerkoff out of his house; he'd gotten drunk and slugged his wife a couple of times. The neighbors called the cops and when we got there she was locked in the bathroom--when she came out we could see the bruises on her face.

So the guy got to sleep it off in the cell at the station house, and the next day an attractive woman of about 40 showed up to bail him out. She was his sister and her name was Leanne. Tall and slim, dark hair, and divorced (as I learned later).

She didn't have much good to say about her brother--"but he's family," she said with a sigh. I nodded and said I knew what that was about. We chatted while she waited for the bail paperwork to go through; and then on a whim I asked her if I could buy her a cup of coffee.

She looked at me in surprise, then said, "I don't have time today--but I wouldn't mind having lunch sometime, if you like." We made a date for the next day, at a diner two blocks from the precinct. It turned out she worked in an office not far away.

Sounds great, right? We had lunch and we really hit it off. Leanne was cute, I liked her sense of humor, and she seemed interested in me. So I asked her out to the movies that Saturday.

Only when I told Matilda on Friday that I was busy the next night, and asked if we could get together on Sunday instead, she practically took my head off.

"You son of a bitch!" She hissed at me. We were in a quiet corner of the station house, so at least she kept her voice down. "I've been fucking your eyes out for nearly a year and a half, and now you've got a fuckin' DATE?"




Brisket Ch. 02



I looked at her, utterly confused. "But Matilda, you were the one who--"

She rode right over me. "I was the one who picked you up off the floor when that whore knocked you down and drove a truck over you. I was the one who got you back in the game and gave you more good sex than you'd had in your whole miserable life--you said so yourself!"

She went on in like that for a few more minutes, and I just waited until she started to run out of steam. Then I said, "Matilda, I'm sorry, but you told me at the beginning you weren't the romance type--unless George Clooney came along, and I ain't him. You said exactly what you wanted was to be friends with benefits, some no-commitment fucking."

A little less furious, she said, "can't a girl change her mind? For Christ's sakes, Rob, we've been keeping company a long time now--didn't you ever notice I'm kinda fond of you?"

Alarm bells were ringing loud and clear in my head now. I said, "honestly, Matilda, you're a terrific person. You're a great lady, and the sexiest woman I've ever known--but I always thought we'd be, you know, fuckbuddies like we've been."

I couldn't imagine a real romance, let alone marriage, with Matilda in my wildest dreams, but I wasn't about to put it that way. Still, even the gentle way I did put it left her steaming.

"I get the picture, you prick! Matilda's good for some nice fuck-and-suck, but nothing more than that. Well listen up, buddy--you're cut off! No more of me in your bed, you can bet on that!" And she turned on her heel and stormed away from me.

That was no fun, but at least I knew where I stood. I was going to miss the screwing, at least until I had another woman in my life; but I wasn't going to miss the pretty awful cooking, and to tell the truth I wasn't going to miss Matilda's company all that much.

So I went out with Leanne on Saturday, feeling like a free-agent ready to start something new. And after a couple of weeks of dating I could see that "lucky" wasn't exactly the word to describe my situation.

Leanne was a prude. She made it clear that we wouldn't be going any further than some brief goodnight kisses until she had a ring on her finger. What's more, she was also a control freak. Her idea of fun was sitting in my kitchen telling me which cabinet the dishes should be moved to, instead of leaving them where I was happy with them. Or why my car was too old and needed replacing. Or which six other restaurants were better than the one I'd picked for us to have dinner.

So after four dates Leanne was history. And I never looked back, despite a handful of calls from her, the last one pretty angry. The mystery to me is not how she wound up divorced, but who would have been enough of a sap to marry her in the first place. 

The next weekend Jim and Patty had me over to dinner, as they did from time to time; and to my surprise we were joined by Patty's younger sister Barbara, whom I had never met before. I suspected a set-up, but I played it straight, and we all had a relaxed, pleasant evening.

On Monday morning, though, I sure gave Jim a hard time about it. He kept trying to look apologetic but blowing it by breaking out in laughter.

"Not my fault, Rob," he said, chuckling. "What Patty wants, Patty gets. She knows you're dating again--finally--and she wants you to give Barb a shot."

Barb was pretty, actually, and I could easily imagine being interested. But I was also very wary. "And what happens if she and I don't hit it off--if she decides I'm an asshole or something? Then I end up looking like the bad guy to Patty. I don't want to be in that position."

Still smiling, Jim said, "Patty and I talked about that. She was very clear: all she wants is for you to go out with Barb once, if you're willing. After that, whatever happens happens. And she swore to me that if the two of you didn't click she would never hold it against you."

What the hell, I thought. So I called Barb and took her to dinner that Saturday. We had a perfectly nice time, kind of low-key, and when I dropped her off I thought I'd get a nice kiss and that would be it. But she took my hand and said, "will you come in for coffee, Rob? It's still early."

I'm no idiot. She made some coffee, excused herself to change, and came back wearing a see-through black lace nightie that got my complete attention. Then she kneeled down in front of me, pulled my pants down and blew me right there on the living room couch. It wasn't a world-class blowjob like Matilda's, but I certainly enjoyed it.

After that I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, and we fucked enthusiastically. Three times, in fact. We fell asleep after the first, but she woke me up with her mouth in the middle of the night, then climbed on and rode me in the dark for a while. And the last time was first thing in the morning--after which she made us bacon and eggs and sat naked on my lap feeding them to me.

I drove away tired, dazed, and happy. The sex had been lots of fun, and there was clearly the prospect of more--as much as I wanted. Barb was lively and attractive, and while I hardly knew her I certainly didn't object to the idea of getting to know her better, while getting a lot of sex in the bargain.

But it wasn't long before I figured out why Barb was still single at 44, despite how pretty she was. On our second date we went to the movies, then back to my house--where we spent the night doing what we'd done on our previous date.

The next morning, over breakfast, Barb began hinting pretty obviously that she was ready to move in with me. She could see "how a woman's touch would really improve this place," she asked me what kinds of things I liked to eat for dinner, she complained about how small her apartment was and how high the rent was.

I was too shocked to respond, so I wisely kept my mouth shut (for once). But by our third date she was talking about marriage. She asked when I was going to introduce her to my daughters, saying it was important that she develop a good relationship with them.

Needless to say, this was about 90 mph faster than I was prepared to go. Marriage? For Christ's sakes, I'd spent three nights with this woman! But when I tried to point that out to her, carefully, things got worse.

First, she ignored or misunderstood all my gentle hints. So I finally said something more direct. "Barb, I feel like things are moving awful fast for us. I like you, but I am not anywhere near being ready to think about marrying again."

She looked at me coldly and said, "why buy the cow when the milk is free, eh Rob?"

"No, Barb, I--"

"If you weren't ready for marriage, then why the HELL have you been screwing me each time we get together? What is that about?"

"Barb, I guess we're both--"

"No, you son of a bitch," she said, icily. "You're just another jerk who's led around by his dick. Do anything to get a girl into bed, get another notch on his belt. Never mind how she feels, how lonely she is..." and at this point Barb suddenly dissolved into tears, sobbing at my kitchen table, her face buried in her hands.

I tried my best to comfort her but she stayed angry and tearful, refusing to talk to me. In the end I drove her back to her place, where she slammed the car door in my face and went into her apartment.

A bit mystified, I went home and called Jim. "Is your sister fuckin' nuts or is something wrong with me?"

He laughed. "Let me guess," he said. "You had a good time for a couple of dates and all of a sudden she's talking engagement rings and china patterns and where should we go on our honeymoon. Am I close?"

"On the nose, partner. I take it this has happened before?"

"I'm afraid so. Patty and I wondered if we should have warned you about it, but we decided just to let it play out. Barb gets overeager, to say the least. She's probably scared away a dozen guys or more.

"It's a shame, too, because she's a nice person. But based on past experience, Rob, she won't even talk to you now. You're history."

"Well," I said, "that's probably okay with me. That was one scary conversation we had! She was fun, but saying she jumped the gun a little doesn't begin to cover it.

"So are we okay? I mean, is Patty gonna hate my guts now?"

"Not at all, Rob. You gave it a shot, that's all she could have asked you to do."

*******************************

As the weeks went by my dating luck didn't improve any. I went out with a few other women--the cousin of a cop I knew, a really cute waitress at a diner I liked to have lunch in--but nothing ever went anywhere. Sometimes I got laid, mostly I didn't. I wasn't sure I was completely over Helen and ready to get serious, but it didn't matter anyway because I didn't click with any of the people I was dating.

In the meantime, Helen was bringing me food once a week. After the apple pie had come a peach pie--really good. And as before I left her a phone message to say thanks.

Then it turned into a regular thing. A roast chicken, a meat loaf, a big pasta salad. Suddenly I was eating well again, at least a couple of times a week, but without Matilda I was back to living a pretty sexless existence.

On a Saturday afternoon I was driving back from the hardware store when I saw Helen. She was in the parking lot at the Acme, loading her bags of groceries into the Volvo. I was sitting at a red light so I watched her, aware of all her familiar little mannerisms.

I drove home and went back to work on the bathroom tile I was re-grouting, but my mind was wandering. About an hour later I stood up, washed my face and hands and changed into clean clothes. I got into the car and somehow, without allowing myself to think about it, found myself in front of Helen's apartment building.

When she opened the door she was shocked to see me, but after a moment she gave me a smile--a kind of hesitant one. "Hi, Rob--please come in. This is a nice surprise."

She was wearing shorts and a green knit top. She looked good. Less upset than when she'd come to the house. Still shapely, the way she'd always been, though she was thinner than when we'd been together.

"Hi Helen." I walked in and sat down on the couch in her small living/dining room, still wondering what the hell I was doing there.

"I wanted to thank you for all the great food you've been bringing over. You're still the best cook I've ever known--it's been delicious."

She gave me a big smile, obviously very pleased. "I'm glad, Rob. I hoped that--well, I hoped you'd like it. I still like to cook for you."

We sat in silence for a minute. Her smile faded and she looked a bit uncertain. She must have been wondering what the hell I was doing there. I wondered that myself.

"Helen," I said suddenly. "I want you to suck me off." Until I said it I hadn't realized that was why I had driven over there.

She looked completely stunned for a moment. And then she smiled, shyly, and said, "okay, Rob."

She came over and kneeled in front of me, looking up at me very seriously. And she undid my belt and my zipper, and then slid my pants and boxers down around my ankles. Then, without any hesitation, she leaned forward and began kissing and licking all around my cock--my pubic hair, my thighs, and then, holding my soft penis out of the way, my balls.

I just sat back and let her do it--kind of amazed by what I'd just said, and her reaction. She lifted my cock and gently sucked all of it into her mouth--easily, since I didn't have an erection yet. But it grew quickly. Her mouth felt so hot and wet, and she swirled her tongue around my cock deliciously.

Within a minute or two I was hard and stiff, and then she began really working on me. She used her lips and lots of tongue, keeping her teeth well away from me, and she blew me slowly and lovingly--and skillfully, I had to admit. I couldn't help thinking how experienced she obviously was, and none of it with me. And rage mingled with my pleasure and excitement.

For a while Helen kept her eyes on my dick as she sucked it, then pulled back to lick up and down it like an ice-cream cone. When it was slick she stroked it gently while sucking on my balls--God that felt incredible! Then she went back to blowing me, sliding smoothly up and down my cock with her soft wet lips.

After several minutes I noticed she was watching my face, and I could see tears streaming down her cheeks. Our eyes met and we watched each other as she worked on me, getting me more and more excited. I started to grunt and push my hips at her and she got faster, sliding up and down, using one hand to cup my balls.

And suddenly I was seconds away from coming, and she sucked harder, and I shot up into her throat as she pushed her head down on me, taking my cum deep in the back of her throat. I gasped and cried out and she stayed with me; and as I relaxed, slumping back on the couch, she sucked and licked gently, cleaning me as I softened. She didn't let go until I was completely soft again.

Her eyes were red from crying, and her face was wet with her tears. I felt totally mixed-up: grateful, soothed, angry, bitter. I figured we were both thinking the same thing: all those years she did this for other men, when she could have been doing it for me!

We looked at each other, silently; and I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and handed it to her, so she could wipe her face. "Thanks, Rob," she said, very quietly. I think she wanted to say more, but she just sat back on her heels, still kneeling in front of me, and looked down at the floor.

"That ... felt really great, Helen," I said. There was a long, tense silence.

Suddenly I couldn't stand it anymore. "I gotta go," I said gruffly. I stood up, pulled up my boxers and pants, and left the apartment without looking back. I listened behind me, but Helen didn't say anything else.



Brisket Ch. 03



Driving home from Helen's apartment, I had no idea what had just happened and what it meant. Well, that's not right--I knew what had just happened: I asked her for a blowjob and she gave me one. And she seemed to get into it, too.

But what it meant, and what was going to happen next--that's where I was confused. Did I want to start having sex with her again? Did I even want to see her again?

I put it out of my mind and got on with my life, wondering idly whether the weekly food deliveries would stop. But on the following Tuesday, there was a casserole dish with Helen's chicken cacciatore in it--one of my favorites, as I'm sure she remembered. I made a big pot of rice and had it for three straight dinners.

I still didn't know what to say to her, though, so I left my thanks in a voice message as usual, during the day while she was out. The week after that she left me a pasta salad.

In the meantime I was busy with work, and with politics at work. A new desk sergeant had transferred into the precinct--he was a total pain in the ass, an arrogant jerk, and he seemed to take an instant dislike to Jim.

This was proof that the guy was an asshole; there wasn't a man or woman on earth who didn't like Jim, a gentle, cheerful and totally dependable guy. There's no one I ever knew in the department I'd rather have as a partner, and more than once other guys told me the same thing.

But this sergeant, Buster Rheedon, had it in for Jim for some reason--he even tried to get him docked a day's pay because his time-sheets were supposedly fucked-up. This crap went on for a couple of weeks, until 18 of us went to the captain and said that if Rheedon didn't transfer out, there were going to be some "Blue flu" days starting soon.

The captain was a good guy, and he'd already heard complaints about Rheedon. He gave a big sigh, pushed his cap back on his head, and said he'd take care of it. A week later we heard that Rheedon was moving to the 26th--and good riddance, was how we all felt.

Jim was genuinely touched by how all the guys stood up for him, and he arranged a big bowling night one Friday night for all of us at the local lanes--his treat, beer and all. We had a great time, bowling and drinking and just busting on each other, the usual way cops let down with other cops.

There was a cute waitress who kept bringing our beers and cleaning up our empties--in her mid-30s, with straight blonde hair and a cute figure--and it seemed like she smiled at me each time she passed by.

I wasn't too sure, though, having had a fair amount to drink by then, so I asked my buddy Simon if he noticed it. He just laughed and said, "sure, Rob, she's hot for you. In fact, most women are--you're just about God's gift, you know it?" And he laughed again. Half in the bag, just like me--he was no use.

But the next day, when I was raking leaves in the yard and trying to get over my hangover, I thought of her again, and decided she was attractive enough to be worth a shot. So I showered and cleaned myself up a little, and after dinner I went back to the bowling alley for a beer or two.

Her name was Alice, Alice Maynard. At first I couldn't tell whether her friendly manner, her willingness to laugh and joke around with me in between customers, was just a way of getting good tips. But when I was getting ready to leave and I asked whether I could take her out for dinner and a movie, she beamed at me and said she'd love to.

Was Alice going to be the one? I was a bit old to really believe in "the one," especially after what happened with Helen. But for a while it was all too good to be true. Alice was lively and fun, she loved to dance, and she certainly liked me.

And, it turned out after our second date, she liked to fuck. When I dropped her off after our first date she thanked me warmly and gave me a long kiss before slipping inside her apartment. But the next time she invited me in, and "coffee" turned into a couple of hours of wonderful screwing, and some more the next morning.

Alice had never married, but she'd had a couple of long-term relationships that she thought were going to lead to marriage. The first guy cheated on her: after four years of living together she caught him hammering away at his secretary, right on top of his desk, when she dropped in to surprise him for lunch. And the second guy bailed after she learned she couldn't have kids. (For some reason they'd decided to get pregnant before getting married; and after a year of trying they'd been tested and she turned up infertile.)

So Alice knew all about living with a man, and about pleasing one. Her preference was for a lot of foreplay, lots of touching and licking and stroking before getting down to the fucking. It was what I'd always been starved for with Helen, and I was happy to take my time. Alice loved to have her pussy licked and fingered--that first time I made her cum three straight times that way, while she groaned and cried and jerked around on the bed. And she was also a damn good cocksucker. 

Her specialty was lots of licking, up and down my cock like it was an ice-cream cone. She'd suck for a minute or two, get me really worked-up, then back away and lick me for a while, then suck some more. After about twenty minutes of that I was groaning at her, desperate to come, but she eased back off me again and then we finally fucked.

Once I got inside her she was happy to go fast--a damn good thing, as I was ready to blow my nuts. We pounded each other until I shot my cum far up inside her. It was an unbelievable relief, after all that playing around.

The next morning she woke me by spooning up against me, pushing her cute butt back against my dick. It was asleep, but it woke up in no time, and we had a gentle fuck right like that, me slipping into her from behind and quietly rocking in and out, while I held her breasts and pulled on her nipples.

For a couple of months we saw each other at least twice a week, almost always staying the night, whether at her place or mine. She told me about her life--her family and her job, her previous boyfriends--and I told her about Helen and the girls, and my life on the force.

She liked the idea of dating a cop--a man with a gun, a guy who knew how to take care of things. I was more than ten years older but that didn't seem to bother her. I expressed a little concern about that once, as we were lying in bed, and she turned playful. 

"You know what they say, right Rob? Age is just a number. You're as old as you feel. And you--" she said with a grin, fondling my half-erect cock, "feel damn good to me."

The sex those first few months was really great. With a new person there's so much excitement, so much eagerness to do everything. It made me remember how things had been when Helen and I first got married, before she turned into ... whatever she turned into.

I wanted to lick Alice everywhere, kiss and touch every part of her. We spent an afternoon stroking each other's legs and arms. I liked to kiss her armpits, run my tongue in there as she giggled. I had never found 69 all that satisfying in the past--too distracting, getting your joint sucked while you're trying to lick a pussy--but we did it often, going slow, no hurry to come or to make the other one come, just enjoying the feelings.

It wasn't just good sex, either. I'd had that with Melinda. In fact, it had probably been a little hotter with Melinda--not only because she was wild (and had those fantastic tits) but because it was only sex, no romance, just the wildest fucking we could manage.

But I liked Alice. She wasn't the cook Helen was, but she was lively and spunky and had a great, optimistic outlook on life. She'd had two broken relationships, and had to nurse her mom through more than a year of dying of cancer, and worked a pretty uninteresting job as a waitress in a bowling alley, but she was cheerful. She thought each day was going to bring something good, and I liked being around that attitude.

We used to get together with Jim and Patty every couple of weeks, and it was clear that they liked Alice too. I was in the kitchen once, helping Patty with the plates while Alice and Jim were outside, and she said, "how's it going with Alice, Rob?"

I said that we were having a good time, and she replied, "this one's a keeper, I think."

I glanced at her and she smiled. "Jim thinks so too. She's smart, cute, has a good head on her shoulders. And she seems to like you, for whatever crazy reason!"

"Thanks, Patty--I appreciate that. Your opinion and Jim's mean a lot to me."

*******************************

So things were good. Alice and I made a nice couple, the sex was good and the company was good--no complaints. For about five months.

During that time I thought about Helen less and less. She was still leaving me dinners once a week, and I was still calling her machine to thank her. We didn't see each other, though, or even talk on the phone. Linda and Ronnie kept me up to date, letting me know that Helen was doing okay, the catering business was picking up.

I wondered occasionally about the blowjob she'd given me--what made me go over there, why she agreed to do it, what it meant to her. But I didn't think about it a lot, and Alice was keeping me too busy and too satisfied to worry about it.

Until Ted came back into town.

Ted was the asshole ex-boyfriend she'd caught cheating with his secretary. That had been eight years earlier, and he'd moved away to North Carolina at some point. Now he was back, although I didn't hear about it right away.

Alice and I came back to my house on Saturday night from the movies. We'd gone out for a couple of beers afterwards, and I was feeling relaxed and horny. I put my arm around her and started for the stairs, but she stopped me and said, "babe, can we sit in the kitchen for a minute?"

Her look was serious, even concerned, and it stopped me in my tracks. We sat at the kitchen table and she said, "I've got to tell you about ... about something. I haven't said anything until now because there wasn't really anything to say, but ... but now I..."

"Alice," I said, a little impatient, "can you get to the fuckin' point? What do you want to tell me?" I was eager to get this over with and go on up to bed.

"You remember Ted, right? My ex-boyfriend?" 

I nodded.

"I've been emailing with him, a little, for a couple of weeks. He wrote to tell me he was moving back here, and would I be willing to have lunch with him.

"So I thought about it, and finally said okay. And last Wednesday we had lunch, over at the Benton Grill."

I certainly didn't like the sound of this--and I had a sinking feeling that we weren't going to be headed on up to the bedroom any time soon.

"Okay," I said, "and...?"

She ducked her head, then looked back at me. "And he ... he wants to get back together. He knows he fucked up when he cheated on me. He married that bitch, that secretary of his, but it didn't last more than a couple of years before she was playing around behind his back.

"And he's dated some other people, but he says he realized that I'm the love of his life. So he took a job downtown and asked me whether there's any way I could forgive him--any way I'd be willing to give him another chance."

Silence.

"And I'm guessing," I said finally, "that you didn't tell him to take a hike."

"No," she said, "I told him I'd think about it."

My face tightened, and she said, "Rob, look. I am very fond of you, and you've been real good to me. The last few months have been terrific.

"But it's just ... I don't know, exactly... I was in love with Ted. Completely. And he broke my heart with what he did. I hated him for it. But all these years I've ... I don't know, wondered about it. Because I really did think he was the one.

"And now he's back, and he wants me again. And it feels like the right thing to give it another try."

"With a guy who cheated on you like that?" My voice sounded gruff to me. I wasn't angry, exactly--but my throat was tight.

"That's the thing," she said, "I can tell he's changed. It's been nearly nine years. He's quieter--more thoughtful. He's grown up a lot from when he did what he did to me."

There were tears in her eyes. "Listen, Rob, I don't know if it's gonna work out. It might be crazy, what I'm doing. But the fact is, it feels to me like I still love him--in a way I've never loved anyone else."

More silence. She looked at the table, I looked at her.

"Okay," I said. "Should I give you a lift home?"

She raised her face to me, and there were tears on her cheeks. "Rob, I'm so sorry. But I would never ever do this behind your back. You've been so sweet to me, and ..." She never finished the sentence, and started to cry instead.

After a minute she said, "I know this may not work out, with Ted; it may be the dumbest thing I've ever done. But as great as things have been with you, it's not...."

"I get it, Alice. I'm not the love of your life. That's okay," I said. "I never really thought I was." I was unhappy, but what was the point of making her feel worse? Alice was a nice person, and she was being straight with me.

So I drove her to her apartment--nice and slow, because of the beers--and she hugged me for a long time, and gave me a tender kiss, and said thank you and I'm so sorry and a few other nice things, and then she went inside and I drove home again.

*******************************

I spent a couple of weeks without dating anybody, or even thinking of dating anybody. I worked my shift with Jim, and came home and ate and watched TV, or went out for a couple of beers at the bar the cops hang out in. Once each week I found my dinner on the porch waiting for me, and I left Helen a message the next day saying thanks.

My daughter Linda called to catch up a bit, and she asked how Alice was. They'd met a couple of times and my girls liked her.

"She's fine, I guess, but she's not with me," and I told her the story.

"Oh, daddy, I'm sorry! You deserve to be with someone nice."

I laughed. "I don't disagree with that, honey! But I'm not mad at her--she was honest with me about it, and this guy is her one true love, or at least that's what she thinks."

We got off the phone and I went back to the game. I was watching a car ad a couple of innings later and suddenly thought to myself, "and who's YOUR one true love, Rob?"

I knew what the answer was, but it didn't make me feel any better. 

*******************************

Helen always brought me a dinner on Tuesdays--it was waiting on the porch when I came home from work. One Monday night Jim and I had to work late for back-up on a drug arrest that got complicated, and they wanted every extra car. I didn't get home until after 3 am, so the next day I clocked out at lunch time and went home for a nap. All that middle of the night stuff gets pretty tiring for a guy approaching 50.

I woke up around 4:30, had a shower and got dressed, then went downstairs to read the paper. When I heard Helen's car stop in the driveway I opened the front door and watched her approach, carrying a big bowl covered with tin foil.

She was surprised to see me--shocked really. "Rob! I, uh--I didn't expect to see you. I was just..."

"It's fine, Helen. I was on duty late last night so I took this afternoon off. Would you like to come in for a minute?"

"I, um--thanks, Rob, that would be nice." I held the door for her as she passed by me into the kitchen. She looked nice--hair brushed, a pretty blouse--and she smelled good too.

Turning to me, she said, "it's a paella, with shrimp and chicken and sausage."

"Sounds great," I said, taking the bowl from her and putting it on the table. "Can I get you some coffee?"

Unlike me, Helen had always been able to drink coffee at any time of day. Me, it kept me up half the night if I drank it in the afternoon.

Warily, she said, "yes, thank you." I brought her a cup and got the milk and sugar, remembering how she took it. She watched me the entire time, not saying a word, just following me with her eyes.

I kind of wondered how strange this must be for her--the two of us back in our kitchen again, like we'd been thousands of times--just not in the last couple of years. Not since I'd found about her cheating and thrown her out of the house.

I began talking to her about the kids: about Linda and the latest with her boyfriend, about Ronnie's plans for after college, and she gradually relaxed. Ronnie was finishing a degree in accounting and wanted to move to a big city--either to Chicago to be near Linda, or maybe LA or San Francisco. I figured she was a big girl, she could choose. Helen didn't disagree, exactly, but she worried about Ronnie all alone out on the West coast.

I couldn't stop looking at Helen, while we sat there calmly and talked about our daughters. How great she looked. How weird it was to be sitting here like this, as if our family hadn't been torn apart. As if she hadn't torn it apart.

"Helen, would you like to fuck?" I said it quietly, without getting up or moving towards her. Her eyes went wide and she looked at me for a long moment--a bit frightened, I thought.

"Rob, I--" She stopped. "What ... what would this mean?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing, maybe. I want to have sex with you, if you want to. If not, you're welcome to say no. I'll still thank you for the food, and enjoy it."

She looked at the table, her cheeks flushing a little.

"I'd like to have sex with you, Rob." Looking into my eyes. "But ... can I ask you to be gentle? It's been nearly two years since ... since anything has been inside me besides a vibrator."

I raised my eyebrows but said nothing. That was a surprise.

"I won't hurt you," I said. After a minute I stood up and offered her my hand. She got up and we walked together up the stairs.

*******************************

I don't know what I was expecting, but the sex wasn't all that great, or at least not at first. Maybe I was thinking that I'd get "slut Helen," the one who'd been spreading 'em for half the town all those years, rather than "wife Helen," but it didn't work out that way.

Or maybe it was just that it was too emotional, especially for her. But fucking her--I won't say "making love," because it certainly wasn't that--started off pretty disappointing. Helen was very shy; she went into the bathroom, took off her clothes, then came out and went straight for the bed, pulling the covers up over herself.

I wanted to just yank them off and make her let me look at her--but I didn't want to punish her. It was obvious she was nervous.

So I took off my clothes and got into bed, and Helen just rolled towards me and hugged me, burying her head against my neck. We held one another and kissed a little, and after a while I started caressing her back while she worked on my cock with her hands; and then after that her mouth. She absolutely knew how to blow me, though thinking about where she'd learned it still pissed me off.

When she had me nice and hard she looked up and said, almost shyly, "do you want to come on top of me, Rob? Or..."

"Why don't you ride me?" I said. I could tell she was reluctant but I didn't really care all that much. She climbed on and I held her hips as I carefully pushed into her. She was really tight, and not that wet yet, and it took her several tries, sliding partway down and then back up, before she was able to relax down on me, her ass resting against my thighs.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feelings. I tried not to think about Helen and me and everything that had happened. Instead I thought, "cunt. I'm inside a nice hot tight cunt and it feels good." I gently pushed up with my hips to get every last inch into her, groaning, and she started to move on me.

I lay back then, eyes still closed, and let Helen grind and swivel around on my cock. I liked hearing her breathing, which got faster when I slid my hands up her sides and held her big breasts. God they felt good! And I realized I hadn't seen them or felt them in something like two years.




Brisket Ch. 03



I enjoyed the feeling of Helen's pussy on my dick and her delicious tits in my hands, and we just fucked. Until I heard a whimper from her throat. I opened my eyes and saw that Helen was crying, tears running down her cheeks.

I stopped moving and just looked at her. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to...I just..."

I waited, and finally she said, "I can't stop thinking about...what I did to you, how awful I was, and what I lost...."

She fell forward onto my neck, my dick still stuck up her, her tits rubbing against my chest, and sobbed in my arms as I held her, thinking "well this is a hell of a thing." Like I said, not quite the fuck I'd expected, though I didn't really know what I had expected.

After a few minutes she calmed down, and she sat up and wiped her eyes. My cock was still inside her but it had pretty much softened by then.

"I'm sorry, Rob," she said again. "How about if I...?" And she lifted herself up off me and slid her mouth right back down over my cock, the first time she'd ever done that to me with her juices on it--though I bet she did it enough times with other guys. 

She really worked me over this time, teasing, getting me very excited, bringing me pretty close to coming. Finally I pulled out of her mouth and got her lying on her left side, with her left leg straight and her right knee pulled up. I lay on top of her and pushed my way into her so I could fuck her in this sideways position. I'd loved doing this with Matilda, but I couldn't remember if I'd ever done it with Helen--even once, in our whole marriage.

Helen seemed to like it. Maybe the crying had relaxed her, I don't know--or sucking me that second time had gotten her more aroused, but this time we both really got into it. I was hard as a rock, and Helen moved with me, her own eyes tight shut, swiveling her hips around to bang against me when I pushed into her. I held myself up with one hand while I used the other to play with her tits, and when I was ready to come I pinched one nipple gently and her cunt tightened around me.

That did it for me--I cried out as I shot into her and I think she came at the same time, moaning my name a couple of times.

We lay there for quite a while without speaking, me sort of half on top of her, my upper body pressed against her back. Then she sat up, smiled at me kind of tentatively, leaned down, and once again started licking and sucking on my cock.

"You don't have to do that," I said.

She raised her head and said, "I thought maybe you'd want to, uh, go again after a little while. God knows I owe you, Rob."

"Do YOU want to fuck again, Helen?"

She paused, seriously considering the question. "I think I do, actually. I know I'll be a little sore tomorrow, but... it's worth it.

"But actually, Rob--what I really, really want is for you to tell me we'll be doing this again after today. I don't ... I think I would feel very sad, knowing that this was the last time I'd ever be back in your bed again."

I didn't want to think about the future--it was too confusing. I pulled her head to me and kissed her hard, swirling my tongue around against hers, stroking her tits with both hands. Then I lay back, pointed to my dick and said, "more."

She grinned at me and went back to her sucking--and this time was even better. She was more relaxed, more confident. It took her longer to get me all the way back up, but I enjoyed every minute of it. And when I was ready I said, "I want you from behind," and she smiled and nodded.

For a moment as she got into position I remembered all the times, the thousands of times she'd refused me this, and the anger came roaring back. But I fought it off; I put my hands on her hips and pushed smoothly into her, bottoming out with a groan. She gasped and said, "my God, you're so deep!"

"I don't want to hurt you," I said, and she said, "no, it's wonderful--just don't push too hard."

So we fucked, slowly, steadily, with me giving her deep strokes but not pushing hard at the end. It was mindless, just pure fucking, not thinking about anything but how my dick felt inside her, how her thighs and ass felt against me, how much I loved holding and weighing her tits in my hands.

I lost myself in it, vaguely aware of Helen's gasps and sighs, and even when I knew my orgasm was coming I managed to keep my strokes steady, until suddenly the pleasure of the climax hit me and I pulled her hips back to me hard. I couldn't help it, I needed to be inside her as deep as I could, and I may have hurt her for a minute but I couldn't stop. I came and came, pushing into her forcefully, and then I pulled her gently over sideways so that we lay on our sides, relaxed, spooning, with my dick still inside her.

"That was a good fuck," I thought, and I held her, kissing her neck, as we lay quietly, catching our breath.

*******************************

"Has it really been two years?"

We'd slept for an hour or two and now we were back down in the kitchen. Helen was warming up some of the paella and making a salad, while I set the table and worked on a beer.

"Yes. That guy I picked up after you threw me out, the night I swallowed the pills? He was the last one. A pretty horrible memory to carry around--I'm glad I have a new one to replace it with." She smiled at me warmly, and I couldn't help smiling back.

"I can't believe there haven't been...opportunities," I said. "You're a very attractive lady, Helen. Haven't you been dating at all?"

"Not for the first year or so--I was just too screwed-up. Occasionally someone would ask, but I was too busy working and seeing Dr. Oliva and trying just to put my life back together.

"Since then, I briefly dated a couple of guys. But going to bed with them seemed like a very serious matter, like something I would need to be pretty committed to do, and I just wasn't.

"They were nice and all, but there wasn't any--spark. And casual sex with a guy I didn't care about much wasn't very appealing to me."

We had our dinner, chatting about the girls, and a little about work. I made Helen laugh with the story of how we'd stood up for Jim and gotten Buster Rheedon tossed out on his ass. She told me that the catering business had added a couple of steady customers--small conference centers that gave them a lot of regular work, and that she was making better money than ever before.

"I even started to think about buying a house, but...." Her voice trailed off.

"But what?"

"I realized that what I really wanted was a home, not a house. And that buying a house wouldn't make it a home, not if I was there without...by myself."

I didn't have anything to say to that, so I let it go. The whole time with Helen had been curious: mostly it was comfortable--familiar and pleasant. We knew each other so well, after all.

And then there were brief moments, a few of them, when the memory of what she had done filled me with rage, almost like electricity jolting through me. But I'd had so many of those jolts over the past couple of years that they didn't stay with me very long. You know, nothing can hurt that much after two years, not as much as when it was fresh. It doesn't matter what it is. 

I still recall my grief when my dad dropped dead of a heart attack, in the cafeteria at the factory where he worked. I was only 24. I can remember the feelings, but I don't still feel them the same anymore. I loved him and I miss him, of course--but without that blinding pain, the tears rushing to my eyes.

He's gone, that's all. And I guess it's the same with my marriage.

When Helen left we both avoided any discussion of what had happened, or consideration of what was next. The closest we came was at the door, when she hugged me.

She said, "thanks, Rob--I enjoyed that," almost in a whisper, like she was afraid to say it out loud.

I smiled and kissed her and said, "me too," and she went out to her car without looking back. I'm sure she was dying to say, "now what?" but she had the good sense not to push it.

And I grabbed a beer, went straight into the living room and turned on the ball game. I didn't want to think about "now what" either.

*******************************

I was just finishing up the dinner dishes on Friday when Ronnie called from school. This was nothing unusual, we talked every week or so, but I was instantly suspicious. My very first thought was, "shit--Helen's told her about our little get-together this week." Not the sex part, presumably, but something.

But Ronnie didn't mention a word about it--just told me about her courses, and looking forward to graduation, and sending out her resume, and all the other stuff on her mind. And she asked about Alice, was I missing her and all that.

Carefully, I said, "so, what do you hear from your mom?"

"Oh, she's okay I guess. She still really enjoys her job. I wish she'd get out more, dad, y'know? I mean, she understands she's not going to be with you, but she doesn't seem to do much dating with anybody else."

The conversation meandered on, and I was relieved. Somehow I'd assumed that Helen would tell the girls, and the very idea of it pissed me off--so I was glad to be wrong.

*******************************

Over the next few days I found myself thinking about Helen a lot, at random times when nothing else was going on. Fucking her had been nice--not great at first, but then exciting--and having her around the house had been more of a pleasure than I thought it would be.

So on Tuesday afternoon I suddenly picked up the phone and called her at work.

"Hi Helen, it's Rob."

There was a pause, and then she said, "oh, hi Rob! How are you? I didn't expect you to call." She sounded pleased.

"Yeah, well I--listen, I thought you might be dropping off food today? Well, why don't you come a little later and we can have dinner together? I can be home by about 5:30, quarter to six."

"That would be great," she said. "I've got a shepherd's pie, and I'll throw together a salad before I come over."

We talked for another minute and then got off the phone. To my surprise, I found I had a hard-on. Guess I wasn't just looking forward to Helen's cooking!

I clocked out a little early so I could get to the house before Helen, and I was able to set the table and straighten up the kitchen a little before she rang the bell. She looked nice--not wearing anything special, but her hair looked pretty and she looked glad to see me.

"I'm having a beer--you want something?" I asked as we brought the food into the kitchen.

"A diet coke, please, if you have one." I filled a glass with ice and poured the soda for her; then, smiling, we toasted each other and drank. 

A little nervously, she started telling me some story about her friend Gloria at work--something about an amusing mix-up with three-bean salad and lobster salad. I wasn't really listening, I was just watching her, seeing all the familiar gestures and expressions I knew so well.

Without saying anything I crossed the room, took the glass from her hand, and gently pulled her into my arms, kissing her. Helen look surprised but didn't resist me. I leaned her back against the counter and kept kissing, as our bodies pressed tightly against one another. My hard-on had returned.

When I pulled away from her a little, Helen's face was flushed. She started to say something but I just put a finger on her lips and she stopped, looking at me with wide eyes.

I gently cupped her breasts in my hands and began caressing them through her blouse. She looked shocked but didn't resist me. After a minute her face relaxed, and she slid her hands up into my hair to pull my head back down for more kisses.

When I felt her nipples harden through her clothing, I unbuttoned her blouse and reached around to unhook her bra; then I returned my hands to her bare breasts, caressing and teasing the nipples, still enjoying Helen's lips and our tongues dueling together.

Her breathing quickened as I lowered my head and took a nipple into my mouth, sucking gently on it while my hand played with her other one. I reached for the side zipper of her skirt, unzipped it and pushed the skirt to the floor; then I stepped back and smoothly slid her panties down her legs. All the while neither of us said a word.

She looked hot, standing there naked from the waist down, her blouse open and her bra hanging loosely on her chest. I bent down, picked her up under her thighs and lifted her up onto the counter.

It caught Helen by surprise--she gasped, then giggled. "I forgot how strong you are," she said into my ear as I set her down.

Then I stepped in between her legs and we kissed some more, my hands returning to her breasts again. She was very excited, pushing her tongue hard into my mouth and arching her breasts out towards me. 

I bent to her breasts again, taking a nipple in my mouth, and I slid a hand down into her pussy, which was already hot and wet--I could smell her arousal strongly. I wasn't thinking about anything, just doing whatever I wanted with her. The combination of my mouth on her tit and my fingers diddling her pussy had her panting.

Helen growled in her throat as I nibbled her hard nipple and slid two fingers in and out of her cunt, and she started rocking her hips back and forth to get me deeper. I pulled her hips to the edge of the counter, then bent down and stuck my face right in between her legs--suddenly I was wild to lick her pussy.

She cried out as I stabbed my tongue into her cunt, then I started licking up from there right over her clit, again and again, my hands still pulling on her breasts.

"Rob, oh--Rob, it's, ohh--" She was gasping, bucking her pussy against my face, pulling my head against her with both hands, and her cries got louder and higher as I worked on her. I wanted to make her come, and when she did I stayed at her, licking and sucking, rubbing her with my tongue, and she jerked and bounced against me, moaning.

Finally she pushed my face away from her and pulled me up to kiss her. Her eyes were wild, and she pushed her tongue into my mouth excitedly.

I stepped back, kicked my sneakers off and pulled off my pants and boxers. My cock was aimed right at her box, a loaded weapon, and I slid it straight into her, groaning at her heat.

Right away we were fucking hard, but the angle wasn't right and I couldn't go deep. I pulled out, and without a word picked her up by the thighs again, as she wrapped her legs around me and her arms around my neck. 

Leaning back a little to balance her weight, I carried her into the living room and laid her down on the rug, where I immediately fell on her and slammed my cock back inside her.

"Oooohh," she moaned, a rising note as I pushed into her, and we fucked hard. Or maybe I should say I fucked her hard, as she wrapped her legs around my waist and urged me onwards.

"Oh--yes--baby--take me--yes," she gasped out rhythmically as I slammed into her. I wasn't angry, but it was kind of an angry fuck, very intense, no subtlety. She was hot and very wet, and I was as hard as a 50-year old guy gets. We humped and pushed at each other, me taking hard, deep strokes, and when my orgasm came I shoved myself in as deep as I could get, raising up on my toes to push, push at her, reveling in the feelings. It was the furthest thing from making love--it was pure fucking. It was great.

I collapsed on top of her, and then after a minute I rolled to my side but pulled her with me, keeping her tight against me, my shrinking dick still inside her. I lay there with my eyes closed and Helen kissed me, all over my face, gently, little kisses. I wondered if she was tasting her own pussy juices on me.

Finally she stopped, settling against me, and we rested, eyes closed, dreamily. Just relaxing. After maybe a half hour she stood up and reached down for me. "Come with me?" she said, smiling.

I got up and she led me by the hand up to the bedroom, where she unbuttoned my shirt and got it off me, then arranged me face down on the bed. "Just relax," she said quietly. 

She took off the rest of her clothes, climbed on top of me and started to massage and stroke me, all over, using her hands, her body and her breasts to rub against me. She slid up and down my arms, rubbed my shoulders and neck, dragged her breasts over my back and my ass, turned around and rubbed up and down my legs.

She took her time, and I just lay there and enjoyed it. After a while she started to concentrate on my thighs and ass, rubbing and massaging harder. She pushed my legs apart and bent over to start kissing my thighs and my ass cheeks, and soon my cock was hardening again underneath me.

Helen slid her hand under me to pull my cock down flat, so that it protruded out between my thighs. Then she did something that totally caught me by surprise: she lay on me face-down as if in 69-position, her crotch up against the back of my neck, her chest and tits rubbing against my back, and she lowered her head into the space between my legs and started licking and kissing my cock.

She kept alternating between my dick, the tops of my thighs, and my ass. She could only reach the back of my cock since the front of it was pressed against the bed, and the partial contact was teasing and exciting. After a while I was groaning and rolling my hips a little to rub my dick against the bed.

She played with me this way for a long time, and when she could tell I was getting desperate she climbed off me and gently rolled me over on my back. With a big smile, Helen gave me a quick kiss on the lips; then she climbed back on me in true 69-position, her knees on either side of my head, and took my joint in her mouth, sliding her lips several inches down it.

By then I wanted to come. I pushed my hips up at her, wanting to stroke in and out of her mouth, and I buried my face into her wet pussy. We licked and kissed and sucked each other and it got frantic pretty quickly, and then Helen sucked hard while using one hand to caress my balls and I shot a load down her throat. It was intense--I gasped and cried out and pushed myself as deep into her as I could, while she kept sucking, until I relaxed back down onto the bed, spent.

Helen turned herself around so she was cuddled up against me on her side, our arms around each other. I thought she would lay her head on my shoulder but she propped herself up on one arm so she could look down at my face.

I was wondering something that I didn't like thinking about; and as if she could read my mind she said, "what I did before? where I was massaging you, and then kissing and licking, you know, your ... dick, while you were on your stomach?

"I never did that before, Rob--I didn't learn that from anyone. I just, I don't know, thought of it and really wanted to do it." 

How had she known what I was thinking? I gave her a big smile and she smiled back at me, happy, relieved. I pulled her down to me for a long kiss, and then she relaxed against me and we dozed for a while.

*******************************

We had a couple more Tuesdays like that--Helen came over with food, we fucked, we had a nice dinner, sometimes we fucked some more, and then she went home. I didn't want to say a word about what it meant, and she seemed content not to ask.

One Saturday there was a movie I wanted to see that I thought she would like, so I called her in the afternoon and asked if she wanted to go. She was delighted, so we had a quick sandwich at a diner we used to go to, then to the movie, and then she came back to the house with me and stayed overnight.

That time we had a long session--for some reason I got it into my head I wanted to screw her for an hour, so we took our time and did it in two or three positions. I was starting to get used to the idea that Helen would do whatever I wanted, but it was a big adjustment after so many years of being turned down. We did it missionary, then she rode me for a while. 




Brisket Ch. 03



I loved holding her breasts in my hands while we fucked--it seemed like after so many years of being denied the chance, I couldn't get enough of them. And when I pinched her nipples I could feel her cunt tighten on me. Then at the end I turned her over and fucked her hard in doggie position until I came.

Helen didn't always seem to have orgasms, but she was invariably happy and relaxed after we fucked--grateful even. We snuggled and she kissed me a lot--my neck, my face--but we avoided any lovey-dovey words. I didn't know if I felt them, and I guess she was smart enough not to say them even if she was feeling them.

The next morning she woke me up with my cock in her mouth. We fucked, then cooked breakfast together, and then did it once more in the shower before she went home. That left me pretty tuckered-out for the rest of Sunday!

*******************************

It had been more than six weeks since Helen and I started seeing each other again, and I hadn't told a soul about it, not even Jim. But the next time he and Patty had me over to dinner, I decided it felt too weird keeping it a secret.

"Can I tell you something crazy?" I asked them, while we had our coffee. "You guys are the sanest friends I have, and I guess I want to know what you think."

With a serious look Jim said, "you're coming out of the closet, Rob? Patty and I have known about it for years--we just wondered when you'd face up to it."

I didn't even crack a smile--just said, "you saw right through me, Jim. The thing is, well--I'd like yours to be the first dick I suck. Would that be all right, Patty?"

Patty spit out her mouthful of coffee and started choking, while Jim and I just laughed our asses off. When she finally stopped coughing she said, "no problem with me, Rob--I'd just like to be there when you do it!"

We all laughed some more, and then I said, "actually Jim, you didn't guess right--but it does have to do with my sex life."

For some reason I was hesitant to just spit it out. "I've actually, uh, been seeing--well, seeing Helen again. She's been bringing me food once a week and leaving it for me--you guys knew about that, right?"

They nodded, looking a bit stunned, and I went on to tell them the rest of it. "I have no idea what's going on, to tell the truth. After all this time, to be getting great sex from Helen. I suppose I should still be so fucking angry at her that I want to kill her, but I'm having a good time."

Patty squeezed my hand. "Wow!" she said. "I can't say I saw that coming, Rob. I don't think about Helen that much, and every time I do I'm so pissed at her for what she did to you!

"But the thing is, you should do what will make you happy. If seeing Helen again feels good, then by all means see her."

Jim had been just sitting there, looking thoughtful. Now he nodded and said, "I think so too, Rob. My loyalty is to you, as you know. As long as you're having a good time, and she's not hurting you, I'd say go for it."

We talked a little longer, and Patty asked, "do you think you guys are going to get back together?"

"I have no idea. I can't imagine ever marrying her again, that's for sure! Been there, done that, bought the fuckin' tee-shirt.

"But on the other hand... I don't know. She cooks great, you know that. And I'm getting all the sex I want whenever she's around. And there's that ... that comfort, you know? That familiarity. We know each other so well, we work together well. All that 'good marriage' stuff that I used to appreciate, back when our sex-life was driving me crazy.

"So I guess I really have no idea. I have thought a couple of times about having her move back in--but I keep backing away from it. So I guess I'm not ready for that yet."

We talked for a while more, about this and that, and when I was leaving Patty brought the subject up again.

"Whatever you do, Rob, it should be what YOU want. You're entitled to be happy--with or without Helen. Just be careful, okay? Take your time with it."

She surprised me by giving me a big hug, and said into my ear, "we both love you, Rob."

"Thanks, Patty. I feel just the same way about you and Jim."

*******************************

I was sitting in the precinct house, doing some annoying paperwork on a burglary case, when Alice walked in. She looked great--happy, healthy. "Buy a girl a cup of coffee?" she asked.

I stood up and gave her a hug. "This is a nice surprise. I'll do better than that--I'm off to lunch in five minutes, and if you're nice to me I might even buy you a sandwich."

We had Greek salads and coffee at Angelo's (I was busy watching my weight, finding it a little harder to fit into my uniform these days) and I listened to Alice tell me how she was. My first impression was right--things were going great with the old boyfriend.

"Ted has really changed, you know?" she said. "I certainly had my doubts at first, and we've been taking it really slow. But he's thoughtful, considerate, and ... it's just been terrific, actually."

Her face changed, suddenly, from a bright cheerful smile to uncertainty. She reached over and put her hand on my arm.

"I'm so sorry, Rob--maybe I'm being a big jerk, talking about him like this. It's--"

"No, Alice, it's fine." I smiled at her. "Really. I'm happy for you. You didn't know if it would work out, but you needed to see--and it's working out. That's great!"

She looked relieved. "I'm so glad you feel that way, Rob. You have always ...you always treated me great. Can we still be friends?"

"Of course," I said, wondering what the hell that would actually mean.

"Well, then," she smiled again, "can I tell you a little secret? We're engaged!"

I did all the congratulations, and "how did he ask you?" and all that shit. I actually was happy for her--just not all that interested in every little fucking detail. But I let her tell me all about it, and I said, "really?" and "that's so terrific!" at the appropriate moments.

After we parted, with a big hug and more congratulations, I went back into Angelo's and treated myself to more coffee and a piece of cherry pie. How did I feel about Alice's news? To my surprise, I wasn't very upset. We'd been good together, but we'd never "fallen in love," at least not the way young kids do.

I imagine we could easily have wound up together, married or at least living together, and it might have been great. On the other hand, I realized I hadn't missed her much--certainly not after the first couple of weeks. I'd thought of her, and remembered our having fun together. And I'd missed the sex--until Helen and I had started up again. But I hadn't really missed Alice, and it was silly to make more out of this than was actually there.

So I finished my pie and went back to work. I can't even say it was a bad day--it was just a door getting closed, the period at the end of the sentence.



Brisket



I listened without expression. I was almost certain that she was telling me a bunch of inventive lies, but I was going to hear her out. She had no idea I'd already "spoken" to Mark.

"He called last week and said he was coming over again today at 10:30 am, and that I'd better be ready for him. I was terrified about the pictures, so I...I let him. I mean, he came over and we...did it again."

I sighed. "Helen, why on earth didn't you tell me after the first time? Don't you know we could have had your blood tested for drugs, and then had him arrested for raping you?"

She looked down. "I can see that now...I guess I wasn't thinking clearly. I was just terrified about what you would do! To me, and to him! Oh Rob, I was so afraid...and so confused!" She started to cry again. "I'm so sorry, baby!"

What a nice tale, I thought to myself. Highly unlikely, yet not completely out of the question—if you could believe that Mark Malchek would be dumb enough to drug and rape a policeman's wife! But the story he'd told me when I'd beaten the crap out of him seemed far more believable, even though it contradicted everything I thought I knew about my wife.

Then there was the most damning thing of all: the sound of Helen happily singing in the shower, only minutes after Malchek supposedly forced her to have sex with him again.

I thought some more, gazing out the window, listening to Helen as she sniffled and wiped her eyes.

"You've been really stupid, Helen. I would have thought you would trust me more than that, after 25 years together."

She looked at me meekly and said again, "I'm so sorry, Rob!"

"I'm going to think about how to handle this, and it may take me a few days. In the meantime, don't talk to Mark again, or to anyone about this, all right?"

"All right," she agreed, suddenly full of hope. "Please, Rob, don't do anything that would get you in trouble!"

I leaned forward, looking intently at her face. "Helen, please tell me the truth now. Is this the only time in our marriage you've had sex with anyone else?"

She tried to look back at me, but I saw her eyes dart briefly away from mine before returning. I'd interrogated a lot of suspects in my life, and I pretty much knew what that meant.

"There's been no one, honey. No one but you, until...until Mark..." She broke into tears again, and didn't bother to finish the sentence.

The obvious lie enraged me all over again. I got up and started pacing around the bedroom.

"In case you can't tell, my dear wife, I'm not exactly too happy with you right now. You're sleeping in the guest room tonight, so take your things and get out of here.

"Rob, I..."

"Did you not understand me?" I said, more forcefully. "I'm done talking with you tonight! Now get the hell out of here."

"But baby, I..."

"GO!"

With a little gasp, she grabbed her bathrobe and left the bedroom. I settled down in bed to watch a football game for an hour, then went to sleep.

***************

I was surprised that I actually slept well, despite not having Helen by my side as I usually did. I guess draining my balls a couple of times must have helped!

When I got downstairs I could smell the coffee brewing, and when I came into the kitchen I saw that Helen had gone all out with breakfast. There were pancakes, sausages, scrambled eggs, even freshly-squeezed orange juice.

Helen was standing at the counter, pouring my coffee. She looked wan and frightened. "Good morning, sweetie," she said timidly, handing me the cup.

"Hello, Helen," I said neutrally. "This looks like a nice breakfast."

We ate together, talking about safe subjects, and I watched as Helen gradually relaxed a little bit. When I was full I slid my chair back from the table and stood up.

There was one way to find out the truth about all this, and I wasted no time in getting to it. I told Helen I needed some time to myself, and after a quick stop in my basement workshop I drove straight over to Joe Olderman's house. He was just walking towards his front door with the mail as I pulled up.

I asked him to join me for half an hour to check out a new car I was thinking of buying, and off we went. I drove out towards Forbes Ave. where the car dealerships were; but I pulled off onto a quiet side road and into a sheltered parking lot behind a soccer field.

Joe had been gazing idly out the window. Now he turned to me in confusion, saying, "Rob, why are we....what the fuck?"

I was holding my service revolver six inches from his face.

"You motherfucking son of a bitch! We've been friends for more than fifteen years, but that didn't stop you from fucking Helen, did you?"

His face went white, and he leaned back as far from me as he could. "Rob, I...I...what are you...I never..."

"Can it, you prick! I confronted Helen and she told me the whole damn story! I'm about one inch from putting three bullets in your head and burying you where you'll never be found again!"

He caved. I could see it in his face, all in an instant. He figured, if Helen had already told me, what was the point of trying to deny it? Instead he frantically tried to cover his ass.

"Rob, I swear, it wasn't my fault! She came on to me, I swear, over and over! I kept telling her we were friends, it wasn't right, but she wouldn't leave me alone!"

I lowered the barrel a bit, away from his face, and watched him take a deep breath. He was sweating, and his eyes were terrified.

"Tell me the whole story, you cunt. Very slowly, very carefully. And don't leave out a single thing—because if it doesn't match exactly with what Helen told me, I'll shoot your cheating ass and make it look like an accident."

He was only too eager to tell, eager to do anything that would keep me from following through on my threat. And the story he told was a lot like Mark's: Helen had been the aggressor. Our two families spent a lot of time together, and about a year earlier Helen had taken the casual flirting that always went on between her and Joe up several notches. She'd even started grabbing his crotch or putting his hand on her breast when no one was looking.

Finally she called and propositioned him; and while he refused her at first (so he said), she kept after him and he finally gave in.

"Rob," he said warily, "you wanted everything, so I'm going to tell you. Just don't shoot me, OK?" I nodded, and he went on.

"She was the hottest woman I've ever been with. She loved to go down on me, especially after we'd done it and she was trying to get me up, you know, for another round. She almost always wanted to do it doggie-style, and a few times she had me tie her up to the bed.

"And she was always so WILD—well, I guess you must know. The way she talks all the time, dirty things, and says 'fuck me harder' and all that?" He was still looking nervously at my gun.

"How long did it go on?" I growled.

"About eight months. We'd see each other once or twice a week. I was always terrified you'd find out. Then Stephanie started to get really weird, all suspicious, like somehow she got the idea in her head that I was stepping out on her. I finally convinced Helen we had to stop. That was last June."

"How did she take it?"

"She was annoyed, but she agreed with me because she didn't want Stephanie to know. She even joked to me, 'well, I guess I'll just have to find somebody to replace you, Joe'."

"Did you ever ask her why she was fucking around on me?"

"Yeah, a bunch of times. Even at the beginning, before we started, I said, 'why do you want to do this?'

"What did she say?"

"Nothing that made much sense. Just that she loved you, you were a great guy, but she needed something extra—that this was more exciting and fulfilling. I have to admit, it was the best sex I ever had."

"Do you think you were her first affair?"

"No—she mentioned a couple of other guys she'd been with. I didn't know any of them, I think one was a client she met while catering a party or something."

I sat back and looked at him. He looked away, out the window.

Finally I said, "you really are a piece of shit, you know that? I don't care how hard she came onto you—there was only one right thing to do, and you fuckin' did the opposite."

He hung his head, not looking at me. I figured he was secretly jumping for joy at the thought that I wasn't going to shoot him.

"Our friendship is over, asshole. Get out of the car."

"Here? But it's probably ten miles to..." His sentence died in his mouth when he looked at my face. Silently he climbed out of the car and walked several steps away. Without another word I turned the car around and drove back to town.

***************

I went straight back to Joe and Stephanie's house, and was lucky to find Stephanie at home.

"Hi, Rob! Uh, weren't you and Joe together just now?" she asked, peering around me to look at the empty car.

"Yeah, but something came up. Listen, can we talk for a few minutes?"

Puzzled, she led me to the kitchen and we sat down with cups of coffee.

"Steph, we've been friends a long time, and there's no good way to say this. Joe and Helen had an affair."

"What?!" She stared at me. Finally she shook her head. "Rob, I could almost believe you, if you said Joe and someone else. I had a feeling last spring that something was going on. But Helen? No way."

I pulled out the mini-recorder I'd stuck in my shirt pocket before leaving the house. Without saying another word I rewound it and pressed Play. We sat in silence, listening together to my whole conversation with Joe.

Several times I wanted to cry—and I knew the tears would come later—but I kept myself under control. I watched Steph as her face hardened, her lips drawing tight in an angry frown. I figured her and Joe's marriage was probably as dead as mine was.

When the tape was finished, we sat without speaking for a few minutes. Then I asked her whether any of this made sense to her.

"Not really, Rob. For so many years the four of us have just been friends, you know? And we've always kidded around a little—a few times I remember you pinched my butt or leered at my boobs in a bathing suit, but it was always harmless and we all knew that.

"But this.... Like I said, Joe was acting strange enough last spring that it's easy to believe he was screwing around on me. But Helen is the absolute last person on earth I would have guessed he was doing it with."

She looked at me, suddenly suspicious. "Jesus, Rob, you didn't come over here to hit on me, did you? A little 'revenge fuck' or something?"

"Christ, Steph, I thought you knew me better than that! We have been friends a long time. You know I care for you—do you really think I'm that big an asshole?"

She started to cry, and said, "I'm sorry, Rob! I guess I'm kind of a mess right now, not thinking too straight. At this moment it's hard to have a very good opinion of men, if you see what I mean."

"Please, Steph, remember that you and I are the victims here. Of course you are a beautiful woman, and you know I'm attracted to you. But that's not what this is about. I needed you to know what a scumbag you're married to.

"I'm going to throw Helen's whoring ass out of my house, and if there's any way I can help you in dealing with Joe I'll be happy to do it. I wanted you to know the truth, and to know that I'm on your side. That's the only reason I'm here, believe me."

Still crying, she came over and sat on my lap, right there in the kitchen. She put her arms around me, her head on my shoulder, and sobbed. After a few minutes we were both crying. We probably sat like that for half an hour.

***************

It was nearly six hours to Chicago, and I had plenty of time on the way to think. I simply could not imagine a more complete betrayal than what Helen had done to me. She had obviously had a series of lovers, at least some of whom she had taken the lead in seducing. Her affairs had gone on for weeks or months. 

Above all—topping everything on the old betrayal-meter—was that she had been a wildly, openly sexual partner with these other men. All the inhibitions in her sex life with me, the reluctance to try anything new, the refusals even to let me touch and caress her before we screwed—I had lived with those, suffered them and endured them for years. And at the same time she'd been an enthusiastic slut with Mark, with Joe, and obviously with some other guys as well.

I didn't know exactly how I was going to play it, but as I walked out of Stephanie's house there were two things on my mind. The first was that my marriage was over, and that Helen would be pretty damn sorry for what she did! And the second was that I had to talk to my daughters first.

I reached Linda by cell phone and she was delighted I was coming for a "surprise visit". We ate at a diner around the corner from her apartment. She chatted with me for a few minutes about her new job, and the ups and downs of life with her on-again/off-again boyfriend Chad. 

Then she said, "okay, dad, what gives? It's great to see you, but I know you didn't drive all the way up here for no particular reason. And you've been on edge ever since you got here, like you had four too many cups of coffee this morning."

I leaned forward and said, quietly, "sweetheart, you needed to hear this from me first. Your mom and I are splitting up. I found out she's been having affairs behind my back—with more than one man. It's been going on for a couple of years at least."

The next couple of hours were pretty rough. Linda absolutely didn't believe me, and I had a tough job of persuading her that I was certain about Helen's cheating while at the same time sparing my daughter the most damning details of what I knew.

When we were back in Linda's apartment, and she'd finally come to believe the truth of what I was saying, she cried and cried. I could feel her pain at having the illusion of her parents' secure relationship coming apart, and I cried with her for a long time. This seemed to be my day for tears!

I slept on Linda's couch, and when I left the next morning I asked her to do something for me.

"First, please don't talk to your mom for a couple of days, or until she calls you. I need to go see Veronica today, and then get back home and get the divorce started. After that, whatever relationship you want to have with her is between the two of you. You know your mom adores you, and I don't think she was ever less than a loving mother to you and Ronnie. What she did she did to me—not to you, sweetie."

I got to Kenyon about 9 pm on Sunday night, and my visit with Veronica was a lot like the one with Linda. Painful, full of tears, full of questions that could be asked but not answered. I left for home early on Monday morning.

***************

My cell phone had been off since I left town, and I turned it on now to let the Precinct Captain know I was taking a personal day. There were eleven messages from Helen, ranging from the tearful and apologetic to the increasingly worried, even frantic. I deleted them and kept driving, working out in my mind how to play the final scene of our marriage.

It just killed me. KILLED me. A marriage that I'd put my whole heart into, that I looked forward to enjoying right until the end of my days—gone. Destroyed. Shattered. And for what? So my wife could do some hot fucking, explore the sexual side of herself that she'd never managed to reveal to me?

I made a call to a PBA lawyer I knew and got a recommendation for someone to handle my divorce. When I reached town I went straight to the guy's office, spent an hour with him, shared Joe's tape, and got him started on the paperwork.

The girls were both out of the house, so there weren't going to be custody or support issues. I wanted the house, and if Helen fought me about it I'd do my best to publicly humiliate her. Beyond that, I didn't much care.

When I drove by the house around 4 pm, Helen's car was nowhere to be seen. Good, I thought. I put mine in the garage, went inside and called a 24 hr locksmith service. By 6 pm when Helen returned home I had made a few arrangements.

***************

I could hear her annoyance and frustration when her key didn't open the front door. I opened the door, silently, and watched her face change to an affectionate, nervous look.

"Rob, thank God you're back! Where have you been for two days? I've been worried sick—why didn't you call?"

I ignored her questions. "Come in, Helen. Please sit down in the living room," I said in a neutral voice. She tried to give me a hug, but I pulled away from her and walked into the living room. Confused, she followed.

"Rob, honey, what's going on?" Her voice was a little shaky, her eyes worried-looking. Without replying I pointed her to the couch and she sat, never taking her eyes off me.

I stood across from her, gazing at the troubled face of the woman I had loved so much for so many years of my life. I waited, letting the silence become heavy, before I spoke.

"Helen, you know that I would never hit you or hurt you physically in any way. You are a woman, and moreover I used to love you with all my heart."

She gasped. "Rob, 'used to'? I don't..."

"SHUT UP" I yelled at her. "I won't hit you, but that doesn't mean I don't want to. Now just shut your lying, cheating, cock-sucking mouth and listen to me!"

"Rob, I ..."

"Quiet, Helen," I said in a menacing voice. "I won't tell you again."

By now she was pale with fear and worry—I could see her hands trembling in her lap.

"We're going to have this conversation, nice and civilized," I went on, "and then you're going to go. I don't know where you're going to go to, and I don't particularly care. This marriage is over—our life together is over."

She gasped, then started to speak, but a look from me made her stop short.

"You have cheated on me with Mark, with Joe Olderman, and apparently with a couple of other guys as well. I don't know how many, and I don't give a shit.

"For months, if not years, you've been playing the whore with other men. Giving them everything I have begged you for, doing all the things with them that you would never do for your 'loving husband', despite all my requests.

"If having sex with someone besides your husband is a betrayal, you've managed to make yours an extra-big betrayal. Cock-sucking? Doggie-style? All sorts of foreplay? Bondage? Just fine for the asshole around the corner, and even for one of our oldest and best friends, but not for the man who has devoted himself to you alone for more than 25 years.

"I truly don't know who you are, Helen. I thought I knew, but obviously I didn't have a clue. I would have bet my LIFE on your faithfulness and your devotion to me. Good thing I didn't, huh?"

I looked at her—she was sitting frozen on the couch, tears on her cheeks. She was no longer even trying to speak. She looked mesmerized. I idly wondered what was going through her head. "Oh shit, I guess he found out"? Or, "maybe it wasn't worth it after all"?

"Here's the thing that really gets me—you love me. I know you love me. We've looked forward to growing old together, and I know you meant it.

"Well guess what? That's your punishment. You don't get to grow old with me. You don't get to live with me anymore, to see me every day and snuggle in bed with me at night. You don't even get to live in this house anymore."

I pointed to three suitcases standing in the corner. "In five minutes you'll be putting those in your car and driving away, Helen. And you're not coming back."

She cried out then, startling me. "No, Rob! No, baby, you ..."

"Yes, 'baby'!" I said savagely. "I can and I will. I am throwing you out. But first, a couple of little details."

I moved towards her until I was standing just in front of her on the couch, towering over her. She shrank back in fear, watching me. I pulled my wedding ring off and dropped it into her lap. As her eyes widened in surprise, I grabbed her left hand and pulled her wedding and engagement rings off. The wedding band I also dropped into her lap, but I put the engagement ring into my pocket.




Brisket



"The engagement ring was my grandmother's, as you know—that stays with me. The wedding rings we gave each other: you can do whatever the fuck you want to with them. Melt them down, throw them away—shove them up your ass. They stood for our love and fidelity to one another, and we both know what that's worth now, don't we?"

I moved to the coffee table and picked up a beautiful glass vase, mostly clear but shining with bright blue and green highlights. "Remember this, Helen? From Venice, the fifth anniversary gift we bought one another. It was really too expensive but we both loved it, and it kind of became a symbol of how precious we were to each other."

I raised my arms high, then threw the vase to the floor with all my strength. Helen cried out in pain as it shattered into tiny pieces.

"Not worth keeping anymore," I said coldly. I turned and picked up two photo albums, tossing them into the fireplace.

"Our wedding album and our family album. All the precious pictures, all the memories of what we meant to one another. No need for them now, right Helen?" I bent and poured lighter fluid on them, then struck a kitchen match and set them alight.

Helen lurched suddenly towards the fireplace to stop me, crying out, "No!" But I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back to the couch, where she collapsed, sobbing. We both watched the flames consume the albums, and I gently patted the pocket where I'd put the pictures of our daughters that I'd rescued from the family book. My memories of the girls were still precious to me.

In a couple of minutes both books were ashes. Helen was still sobbing, her face turned away from me.

"Okay, Helen, that's it!" I said briskly, clapping my hands. "Show's over, and it's time for you to go."

When she didn't move, I grasped her arm firmly and pulled her to her feet, leading her towards the front door.

"Wait, Rob, wait!" she said, struggling to free herself. "You can't just... throw me out of here!"

"Actually I can, Helen, and I'm going to."

Her face showed her pain and her fear. "Without a word from me? Without letting me...explain what...what happened?"

I stepped back, looking at her for a long silent moment.

"Helen—do you really believe that there's anything you can say, any possible explanation you can give, that will ease my pain and my hurt? Anything that will make your cheating, your total betrayal and humiliation of me, more bearable? Anything AT ALL that can make this better—or less awful?"

"But...I haven't even said why I ..."

"Do you think I fucking care WHY?" I shouted at her. "Will knowing WHY you did this make me feel better? 'Okay, it's all fine, now that I know what Helen's reasons are'—are you out of your mind?"

She just looked at me, haggard, frightened, distraught, without speaking. Then after another long moment she said, "but what about the girls?"

"I drove to see Linda and Ronnie over the weekend. They both know about your cheating, and that I'm divorcing you."

"Oh, NO!" she cried out, and collapsed to the floor in sobs. I watched her for a few minutes. My beloved wife; the mother of my children; my life partner; my best, most trusted friend for a quarter of a century.

Then I left her there, on the floor in the front hall, while I loaded her suitcases into the trunk of her car. When I came back inside she was sitting, hollow-eyed, looking at nothing. Without a word I pulled her to her feet and walked her outside to the car.

The key was sitting on top of the car, and I left her standing by the driver's side door. I contemplated the right parting words, but nothing came to mind. "Goodbye, Helen" seemed a bit insufficient for the situation, and "fuck you, you cheating cunt" a bit unoriginal.

So I just left her there. I went back into the house and locked the door behind me. Then I stood there, in the front hall, not moving. Not really thinking. Waiting to hear the sound of Helen's car driving away.