40 comments/ 166193 views/ 10 favorites Death of a Marriage By: ukresearcher My thanks to Techsan for editing this to a better story. * Twelve years ago I worked on the shop floor of a clothing factory and Shelley was the managing director's personal secretary. All the lads swore blind that he must be poking her because she was really too young to be in that position. Shelley was a really beautiful girl and that facial perfection extended to the rest of her. She habitually wore short revealing clothes and as someone aptly put it - 'looked like a wet dream come to life'. One day a mate and I were drooling, watching her walk away from us down the length of the work room on very high heels. "You can tell that she was well shafted last night by the way she is walking," he declared with authority. "I don't know who the lucky bastard is but I'd give ten years of my life to stick my dick into her." In a male only environment coarseness is endemic and the MD's secretary was the constant subject under discussion - 'I'm sure she's not wearing knickers - can you see a pantie line?', 'Her nipples wouldn't show so much if she was wearing a bra'. There was also much general speculation of the sort - 'She is bound to have had more cock than you've had hot dinners', 'She only opens her legs for the guys in the office', and in contradiction, 'I know for a fact that a guy from delivery is shagging her'. At twenty-three I was far from shy, the notches on my belt proved that, but when it came to Shelley, I could only worship her from afar. The guys I worked with had no such inhibitions. She frequently had to walk through the workroom. Whenever this happened the younger guys all crowded round her but with a ready smile, Shelley evaded both crude comments and groping hands with consummate ease. As mentioned, I never pushed myself forward but she always seemed to meet my eyes and when there were fewer people around, seemed to favour me with a kind of special smile." One day after a year, I had to go upstairs to hand in a sick-note. Shelley was walking towards me down the corridor, so taking my chance; I clumsily blocked her way and muttered, "I don't suppose you'll go out with me." "Of course I will," she said. I tried to hide this involvement from my work mates as long as possible but when they found out I was teased unmercifully. 'She'll burn you out inside six months" was one common comment and 'Make the most of it while you can - she's far too good for you' another. And from a guy who earlier had fancied his chances, 'Just don't expect to keep her to yourself - a girl like that belongs to every man'. All of the many other remarks were far more basic in nature. The ribbing gradually died down but reactivated just under a year later when Shelley and I announced that we were getting married. A couple of days before the ceremony the lads presented me with a very realistic chastity belt they had made and I was regaled with many lurid tales of the promiscuity of married woman. Later that day when I was sitting alone with this guy who had a reputation for womanising, he said, "Seriously, Frank, it's a whole new ball game. When I want to get my leg over, I go for the married ones every time. They're a dead cert and for a very simple reason - if they do cop for an illicit kid, it's so much easier to pass it off." This was all water off a duck's back to me. I was in love and full of trust so I put it down to pure jealousy. Everybody is meant to go at it hammer and tongs on their honeymoon but Shelley and I never stopped and we were still unable to keep hands off each other more than two years later. It is easy to see why I kept lusting after her so much but I never quite understood why she remained besotted with me. In the workshop I was given some peace. The guys no longer crowded round my wife or made remarks. They still looked and I sometimes suspected that my marriage had taken a lot of pleasure from their lives. Occasionally new workers joined the firm. Twice on different occasions when Shelley had passed through, a newcomer whistled appreciatively and in identical words said, "Christ, I could shag that." They were both drowned out immediately by many voices crying, "Shut up, you berk. That's Frank's missus." One of these came to me later to say, "Sorry, mate, I didn't know." Even after I had told him to forget it, he continued to stare at me and then said with envious incredulity, "Are you really MARRIED to HER?" Shelley and I went out a lot of nights with her continuing to wear the same very revealing clothes. I didn't mind a bit - in fact I got a big kick out of seeing the envy in other men's eyes. For the first two years and more after the wedding, life was just about as perfect as it can be but then Shelley got pregnant. It was part planned part accident. We had talked about starting a family but a cock-up with her pills started the ball rolling some three months earlier than intended. Once more the predictable smut and innuendo was rife in the workshop and then some wit said loudly, "Shelley can't have come supplied with an instruction manual - Frank has obviously just worked out how to do it." The whole place was convulsed with laughter and the merriment did not subside for several minutes. There was some trauma in the hours before Shelley was rushed into the maternity hospital that I will not go into. Suffice to say that, both mother and daughter were okay but the doctors decided to keep them in for two weeks to be on the safe side. I was on compassionate leave but I did pop into work to pass on the goods news. I was swamped with heart felt good wishes and the only sour note was the bad taste item that someone had stuck to my locker. It was the address and telephone number of a DNA paternity testing service, upon which had been scribbled, 'In case you're worried'. On a happier note, as I was leaving I was handed a carrier-bag and told that it was 'From the lads to compensate for what you are missing'. The bag contained half a dozen very raunchy 'Amsterdam' videos. I watched a couple that night and two more the following night after visiting Shelley and Sarah. The do-gooders claim that pornography is wrong. I think they are right but for the completely wrong reason. I do know that those videos completely demoralised me. The penis sizes being shown on screen completely staggered me. I never thought they could be that big. Over the years I had never given the size of my prick any real thought. It felt good, it did the business and I had never had any complaints. Suddenly I had a considerable inferiority complex - some of the cocks being shown engaged in carnal activity were at least twice the size of mine. I might have regained a sense of perspective, had not I noticed an item about ducks in that morning's newspaper. It seems that a certain red headed duck has a penis eight inches long, equivalent to the ostrich, a bird one hundred times its size. The article said that a breed of white ducks was dying out for one simple reason - the white males could not get a look in because the white females were all busy shagging the red headed ducks. The conclusion was that, at least with ducks, size really did matter. I could not see any reason why what applied to female ducks should not equally apply to women. Uninvited, a snippet of conversation popped into my mind from the day I was given the joke chastity belt. Someone had said that Shelley must have 'been around' and how did I feel about it. I pointed out that I had my own track record and that neither of us wanted to know about the other's past. A listener butted in at that point to say, "Frank has the right attitude. Anyway, it's not the men in the past but the ones still to come that he should worry about." At the time, the import of those words had passed me by but now they returned to haunt me. Suddenly the world seemed filled with unfaithful women. My own mother had run away with a lover when I was fifteen - they had both been killed in a car crash a year later but it had taken my dad three years to die from a broken heart. Compared to Shelley, my work mate Robbie's wife is an ugly slob but he still returned home unexpectedly to find her being fucked silly by a double glazing salesman. I remembered notorious tales of soldiers wives, of sailors wives in the big ports and anybody's wife with GI's in the last war. Then there was all the publicised bragging of milkmen, window cleaners and such, all claiming that they are offered far more cunt than they can handle. If all women were at it, what chance did I have, married to a woman that all men desired? Thinking back over my marriage, instead of drawing consolation from the continued level of passion, I found it to be suspicious - if other couples started to wane, might not Shelley be left supercharged by having a lover or lovers on the side. This was really the start of the sickness. That insidious sticker on my locker door now started to do its work. Every month Shelley had to stay away one night accompanying her boss to a sales conference and once a year for a full weekend at the annual general meeting of the company. At the time I had thought nothing of this but now it reeked of opportunity and deceit. With a pounding heart I tried to recall everything that had occurred nine months before - even my wife's excuse for forgetting her pill now seemed suspect. Unable to remember and spurred by an insatiable need to know, I committed the unforgivable sin of rifling through Shelley's personal papers and digging out her last years work desk diary. Of course it was in short hand and no bloody good to me but I still tried to derive what information I could. On two separate dates a fortnight apart I read 'Gary 2pm' followed by a squiggle. A male forename by itself seemed highly significant, so with gritted teeth I flicked back through previous months to find out how long the 'affair' had been going on. The name appeared every month on roughly the same two days but not always followed by the same squiggle. I had just began to think that this did not really have the 'feel' of an affair when, at the start of January I saw the entry 'Gary 2pm Talbot Hotel' and realised what the squiggle signified. That definitely confirmed it - the bitch. But still, it seemed an odd sort of relationship - surely she couldn't be a call-girl. By then I half believed that there just might be an innocent explanation for Gary so I looked for anything else that might be suspicious. In the target month there was the name Ian Rollinson followed by a large asterisk. I quickly flicked through the diary looking for a reoccurrence of the name without finding one but every month there was a different name, always asterisked or surrounded by brackets. It was so bloody obvious - these had got to be the one night stands who had fucked her on those so-called sales conferences. At this point I was so agitated that I had to break off and pour myself a stiff drink. I returned to the diary knowing that I had to tie these illicit liaisons to the sales conference dates before I could confront my cheating wife with the 'evidence'. After some further digging, it was able to positively identify the sales conference trips but almost disappointed to find that they were on completely different dates. I think that this discovery brought some sanity back to my mind because I conceded that all the entries could be purely concerned with her work and retired to bed in a reasonably peaceful frame of mind. Next day, holding Sarah in my arms at visiting time I asked casually, "Who is Gary?" Shelley at first denied that she knew a 'Gary' but then said, "Unless you mean Gary Fletcher the salesman from Aztec." When I just nodded uncertainly she went on, "A small plump chap in his forties who wears glasses - you must have seen him around with Mr Slater at work. Every month he treats us to lunch at his hotel." The description didn't ring a bell - in fact the only salesman I had noticed was a young flash bloke in a designer suit. All the same I felt extremely foolish and disinclined to mention the name 'Ian Rollinson'. When I made no response to her answer, Shelley wanted to know why I had asked. This put me on the spot but I pretended that she had said the name while delirious just before being rushed into hospital. "And you immediately assumed that I must be having an affair," she laughed. I had to concede to myself that Gary was legitimate but the speed with which my wife's mind had leaped to the word 'affair' seemed to be sign of a guilty conscience. Once I had mother and child at home my mind stabilised. Sarah was not an easy child, Shelley just slummed about the house constantly on demand and both of us seemed to be permanently tired. For eighteen months, I was lulled by this situation with help from the growing certainty that Sarah was my child. It was only when Shelley abandoned the exclusively 'mother' role and started making herself look sexy again that my old unease resurfaced. We moved to a seaside town 100 miles away and there were valid reasons for doing so. Without my wife's wages our savings had gone, I was offered a far better paid supervisory position there and property prices were far lower. In addition it would be a nicer place to bring up our daughter. My secret ulterior motivation was that there would be little chance of Shelley's old flames, male acquaintances or even my work-mates, knocking on the door while I was at work. We bought a two bedroomed terrace house only 200 yards from the beach. Fairly quickly we made friends with the woman next door and she offered to baby-sit for us. In the middle of our first evening out for nearly two years, I noticed that Shelley was staring intently past me. "Who are you looking at," I asked in a far from pleasant way. "I thought I recognised a woman I knew back in Preston but I was mistaken," she said. Spinning round in my seat I saw no familiar female face but in that same direction was a strapping youth standing well over six feet. The following incidents took place scattered over the next five years but tending to cluster towards the end of the period. I must also correct the impression that it was completely a time of strain because we were mostly quite happy and it was only when I got a 'bee in my bonnet' that things got fraught between us. In general I went in for preventative action rather than confrontation unless provoked by some imagined incident or clue. I stopped the window cleaner, arranged for gas and electricity meters only to be read on Saturdays and I paid the milkman by post. In addition I pinned a metal plate to the door saying 'No Salesmen'. I also toned down my wife's flamboyant style of dress. One evening when she appeared dressed to go out but displaying a slight hint of cleavage, I scrapped the evening bellowing that we were not going anywhere with her tits hanging out. On another occasion when she went upstairs to prepare for an evening, I warned, "And don't come down here looking like a tart as you usually do." Shelley looked at me helplessly. "What more can I do, Frank?" she said. "My skirts are two inches longer than other women, I cover myself up to the neck, wear flat shoes and hardly any makeup. I don't know what you want from me." "I want you to stop attracting men - they still look at you because you want them to," I snarled. "I think you send out vibrations - you're like a fucking bitch in heat. Men are after you because they know you are available." "But I'm not available. I love you and I don't know why you can't realise that." "Loving one man doesn't stop women opening their legs to another." "Maybe some women but not me," she said softly. I embarrassed my wife many times on evenings out, with my sulks and accusations but the following incident was the final straw. In a packed pub a large man carrying a pint of beer was easing himself slowly sideways through the crush. In edging past Shelley, he let his free hand rest briefly on her shoulder and it acted like a red rag to a bull. Barging after him I bellowed, "Where do you get off mauling my wife you bastard? I'm having you outside." Fortunately, Shelley dived after me, hung onto my arm and called to the target of my wrath that I was drunk. I was not actually drunk but even less in control of my mind than if I had been. When the red haze faded, I realised that my wife had possibly saved me from a severe beating. Anyway, we didn't have any more evenings out after that Despite the many rows caused by my jealousy the sex continued to be good and seemed even more intense after a quarrel. As well as Sarah, I think that sex was glue that kept us together for so long. During the hours that I spent brooding, visions of Shelley with other men seemed to be always before my eyes. Strangely, sometimes this got me terribly aroused but at others my head seemed about to explode and I felt as if two hands plunged deep in my gut were slowly tearing me apart. When Sarah started school, my wife naturally wanted to get a part time job and I had to admit the extra money would be helpful. I was however very particular what I would allow her to do. Any job working with men was vetoed as was any contact with the public where she could be chatted up. By the time I had also ruled out male employers in general there was very little left. Shelley finally found employment in a hospice helping middle aged female care staff. Even this did not save her from my verbal abuse. One day she had hurried home immediately after helping to turn a heavy patient in bed but I was not prepared to accept this as the reason the middle button on her blouse had come undone. All that I needed was to catch her in the act once and she would be unable to deny it. The day I got home to find two dirty coffee mugs in the kitchen, I was convinced that Shelley had finally slipped. They might just conceivable have been there since the morning so I searched for corroborating evidence. The bedroom was clean but in an ashtray I found a stubbed cigarette of a brand neither my wife nor I smoked. When confronted she said, "It belongs to Mavis from the next street. She called to ask if I would pop in and feet her cat all next week while she is on holiday." "Very clever," I sneered. "And which man are you planning to meet while you are alone in this house?" "Frank, even if there was a man there, I'm only going to be in the house for less than ten minutes." "More than enough time to suck him off," I said, totally unable to see reason. Shelley drank a lot of coffee at her job so, on returning home she preferred a glass of wine to help her unwind. The day I found two used glasses seem as conclusive as if I had caught her in bed with a lover. Her explanation that a fly had landed in her wine causing her to tip it away and then use a clean glass, seemed to me to be a pretty feeble excuse. The saga finally came to crisis on a Saturday morning. Sarah had gone to a friend's house for the morning so Shelley and I went into town shopping. I had popped into a tobacconist for cigarettes, and when I emerged it was to find her talking to a tall good looking black man. I immediately accused her of chatting him up, dismissing out of hand her story that he had only wanted directions to the library. I had soon promoted the stranger to being her lover and by the time we reached home, I fully believed that a succession of enormous black cocks had been stuck up her while I was at work. "Frank, why are you so desperate to believe that I'm a whore?" Shelley asked with tears in her eyes. "I have never once given you any reason to doubt me." "You've just been too clever for me and I've been too trusting." I think that the total irony of my remark following years of suspicion was too much for my wife because she raised her hand ineffectually against me in sheer frustration. I easily blocked her arm and retaliated with a full-blooded open handed slap to the side of her face. Already unbalanced, this sent her flying to bang her head hard against the wall and collapse. This was the first time that I ever actually struck her. I was immediately full of contrition, apologising and bathing her head. Death of a Marriage Shelley spent the rest of the day lying on the settee while I cleaned and prepared an evening meal to make amends. That night, unusually we did not make love. Sunday was a day of icy silence and that night she turned her back to me as soon as I got in bed. On Monday morning, Shelley told me that she was keeping Sarah off school even though there seemed little wrong with the child and that night when I returned home from work, both of them had gone. The note said simply, 'Sorry, Frank, I just can't stand it any more. I need some time away from you to get sorted out so I have taken Sarah to my mother's. Please don't come after me.' I rang her mother's number but the number was engaged all night. The next day I booked myself in for counselling and also something that dealt with anger management. I did not ring again for three days and when I did Shelley spoke to me briefly. "I have been completely innocent since we married and yet all I get is constant suspicion from you. I don't know what else to do. Frank, I need time. Please don't start ringing me all the time. It won't help." I suggested I ring once a week if only to speak to Sarah and this she reluctantly agreed to. After three weeks, Sarah started ringing me on other than the agreed night and her mother generally also came on the line afterwards. I promised to change, told her about the corrective courses I was on and mentioned some of the techniques I was being taught. By the end of six weeks separation, we were chatting more easily and I could detect warmth back in her voice. At the end of a call early one evening, we both hung on without speaking after having said goodbye. In a rush, she suddenly said, "I do still love you," and then quickly broke the connection. About an hour later the phone rang again. I assumed that it was Shelley following up on the last words but I found a strange female on the phone. "Can I speak to Frank Miller," she asked in a very pleasing feminine voice. "That's me," I told her. "Frankie Miller from Bedford?" This is a confession of double standards because my mind was racing. I could only think that this had to be some old flame eager to re-establish contact. I had rather let the place go since my wife left so quickly I calculated how I could tidy up, especially the bedroom, ready to entertain. "Yeees - I'm the man you want?" I said as seductively as I could. "Do you know that your wife is shagging Mark Hyland?" the caller asked and then immediately hung up. I think that if the telephone handset had been of slightly softer plastic, my hand would have crushed it to a pulp. Mark Hyland - bloody Mark Hyland - I remembered him well. Flash git rich kid but a bloody good looking one - his dad bought him a new sports car for his seventeenth birthday. It was a pulling machine - they said that Mark had to wear three belts because he had far too many notches to fit on one. My brain pounded with rage but there was a secret satisfaction at having been proved right after all that time. I rang my wife. Shelley answered the phone saying expectantly, "Frank?" "You fucking whore," I said. "Frank, what's wrong?" she asked, startled by the vehemence. "Deny that you've been screwing Mark Hyland." "How did...?" she started to say and then stopped. Those two words confirmed that my anonymous caller's information had been the truth and not a vicious slander. "If you ever come back to this house I will kill you," I said and slammed the phone down. For three months I made no contact at all. The first of these I spent in an alcoholic blur but then I got a grip on myself and managed to get re-instated on both of the self-help programs. It was a letter written in childish writing that started 'Dear Daddy', which broke the ice. I rang that night and again the next week, both times speaking only to Sarah but the third week Shelley came on the line when we had finished talking. "Frank, you have to know that I'm divorcing you," she said speaking slowly and deliberately. "I thought that you deserved to be told personally - you won't hear officially through the post for another two weeks." She paused and when I did not speak went on, "I'm claiming 'Unreasonable behaviour' - I'm telling you early so that you can cross petition - you know, for what I did." Still I couldn't speak. There was a long long silence and then Shelley said, "I'm sorry," before quietly replacing the phone. I told my legal representative that I would not contest the divorce. I didn't want to announce to the world that my wife had opened her legs for another man. Better to let everybody think I was a complete shit. I sent what I thought was the outstanding amount of child maintenance and arranged to have future payments deducted from my salary. I continued to speak to my daughter regularly and sent birthday and Xmas presents. In return I received photographs of her. From time to time I spoke to Shelley but always in a formal way about things connected with the divorce. One of her first bits of news was to provide me with a new telephone number and address because they had left her mother's house and taken a small flat. Shelley said that she was making no claim on me for our house or for any kind of alimony but suggested that if I felt there was money owing to her, I might like to invest in a trust fund for our daughter. For that whole year I lived like a monk and went through the motions while my marriage drifted inexorably away from me. What little hope I had died. At the start of these telephone conversations, I could detect hurt in my wife's voice but by the end there was only detachment. It was to be an amicable divorce and because of this I was given leeway on access to my daughter. I was to have her with me for part of the school holidays to include a fortnight during the midsummer break. So although there were still two weeks before the divorce became final, I was allowed to have her immediately rather than miss the current year's big holiday. By the time the day came for her to arrive, the house shone like a new pin, as they say. All morning I was on tenterhooks, constantly wandering outside expectantly to look for them. On the last of these scouting trips a large car appeared slowly at the end of the street and then backed out of sight. Intuitively I knew that it contained my wife and daughter. I stepped back into the doorway, positioned so that I could still see most of the street and sure enough Shelley and Sarah appeared walking side by side. My wife was carrying a heavy suitcase and Sarah a much smaller hold-all. I continued to watch from concealment until they were nearer and then stepped into the street to stand facing their approach. Shelley continued to advance until she was about twenty paces away but then halted. She looked straight into my face but did not smile. There was a moment's pause and then Sarah began moving towards me, hesitantly at first but ending almost at a run. A detached part of my brain was reminded of the border exchanges so popular in spy films. I crouched to embrace my daughter, held her until she wanted to break free and then stood to walk forward to get the big suitcase. Close to Shelley, I looked into her beautiful blue eyes and, trying to make my voice noncommittal, asked, "Are you coming in for a few minutes?" My wife looked uneasy. "I can't Frank, my...lift is waiting," she said, indicating the end of the street where the bonnet of the big car could just be seen. "Please, Mum - I don't want to say goodbye in the street," Sarah adding her plea to mine was enough to persuade her mother to follow us into the house, however, she advanced no further than the doorway. I watched her eyes flick round the room, pausing briefly on items holding special memories. "You've kept the place nice, Frank," she said. "It has not been as nice as this since the day that you left," I admitted modestly. That was the sum of our conversation because Shelley quickly grabbed her daughter, kissed her, told her to be a good girl and then she was gone. My little girl immediately started to demand my attention in an excited manner but I managed a quick glance out of the window. The large powerful car was moving past the house but in the brief glimpse I had of the driver, only heavy horn-rimmed spectacles and short greying hair registered on my mind. Sarah spent the most of the rest of the day in her bedroom, renewing acquaintance with all the toys that she had been forced to leave behind. During the next four days I gave my daughter the time of her life as I tried to make up for over a year of separation - and all the other trauma that I had forced into her life. At the end of the fourth day we arrived back at the house with Sarah happy but tired and with a headache. I put this down to the third roller coaster ride that I had agreed to against my better judgement. My daughter was too poorly to eat so I gave her a junior aspirin and put her to bed. Very soon after that she was crying out in pain and growing significantly worse - so in a panic I got the emergency doctor. Within the hour she had been rushed into hospital with meningitis. Leaving my little girl with a team of doctors fighting for her life, I returned home and rang my wife, telling her the bad news without any frills. Shelley was equally brief. "I'll come," she said. I left the door off the latch then stood smoking and thinking as I waited. The door opened just under two hours later which was not bad going for 100 miles with no motorway. I held out my hands as she approached, she put her hands in mine and we both squeezed very hard. I think that we stood like that without speaking for a very long time. Eventually I said, "You are in our...my room. I've moved my things into Sarah's." Shelley tried to say that there was no need but I said," It's done now," putting an end to the argument. I made her a cup of tea and started doing her beans on toast then, as an afterthought made some for myself having only just realised how very hungry I was. A taxi took us to the hospital but we were not allowed to see our daughter and just sat around. A doctor did speak us to but after some kind euphemisms, when pressed admitted that it was touch and go. At ten p.m. we left and returned to the house. With both of us mentally and physically exhausted, we had a hot drink and retired to our separate rooms. Next morning we returned to the hospital at 10 a.m. During a long day of waiting we took it in turns to go outside for a cigarette or to fetch foul tasting coffee from the machine. The reward for this vigil was to get a glimpse of Sarah through a glass screen, connected to a range of machines and with people still working on her. During the next three days the routine was the same although we were allowed short periods sitting by our daughter's bedside holding her hand. The most that we were told was that she seemed to be holding her own. We gathered that even if she survived there was no guarantee that there would not be brain damage or even paralysis. Shelley and I talked endlessly about Sarah but absolutely nothing else. We went through the years, remembering everything that she had done and said from being very tiny, and exchanged the different little endearing mannerisms that made her the Sarah that we both loved. On the fourth day a smiling doctor told us that she was going to make it and, as far as they could tell, was not going to be impaired in any way. Shortly after that Sarah opened her eyes and the slight smile on her mouth told that she had recognised us. In the taxi both Shelley and I were too relieved and exhilarated to speak. The moment the house door was closed behind us we fell into each other's arms. At first we just hugged tightly but then our mouths found each other. Her lips parted and the next moment we were kissing passionately with her tongue probing as hungrily as mine. That kiss seemed endless. It might have gone on even longer but inappropriately, I got very aroused and almost automatically my hand sought out a breast through her clothes. Shelley submitted to my caress for a couple of seconds but then froze, pushed my hand away and stepped back. "I'm sorry, Frank," she said. "I've met someone else." I was not surprised. Just because I had spent the past year as a celibate recluse did not mean that she needed to do the same. We made coffee as a joint effort but with an awkward silence. I could not bring myself to ask the obvious questions following her announcement and she volunteered no further information. As we sat drinking and eating biscuits conversation did start again but it was exclusively about Sarah, the length of her recovery and prospects in the future. Afterwards we separated to our individual beds. It was impossible to sleep. The memory of that kiss would not leave me, I could still feel the pressure of Shelley's lips on mine and my memory overflowed with other remembered embraces from the past. I had not had an erection for a matter of weeks but I now found myself sporting a lulu. The damn thing was so painful that I could not bear the pressure of bedclothes resting upon it and had to lie on my side, but this was only marginally better. As a last resort, I got out of bed to pace the room and I can honestly say that it was not planned intention that shortly afterwards found me standing naked outside my wife's door. I pushed it open quietly and stepped inside. The room was very dark but I could just make out her outline on the bed from the faint light coming in the window. I stood not moving and hardly breathing, remembering the countless other occasions when I could have strode across and got in beside her by right. It was at that moment that I fully realised for the first time exactly what I had lost. She stirred, and then I saw a white arm throw back a portion of the bedclothes in unmistakable invitation. I don't remember crossing the room. We fucked ferociously, mindlessly, with total desperation. We fucked as if our lives depended upon it and must have fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion because my memory has no record of it drawing to a close. I awoke to find Shelley lying on her elbow studying me. She was exposed to the waist and those exquisite breasts hung only inches from my face. My hand reached out to touch one of her dark pointing nipples, a spark passed between us and the next moment we were at it again. If there had been elements of love the night before there were none now - this was pure, beautiful glorious sex complete with the accompaniment of crude verbal passion. Nor were we content to just fuck for I tasted again the nectar from her cunt and my cock renewed acquaintance with her throat. It seemed impossible that she could have ever cum so much or so loudly. Later, fully satiated, I lay back and said complacently, "So the old magic is still there." "We never did have any problems in bed, Frank," Shelley told me sadly, "It was the rest of life with you that got intolerable." I could make no excuses so I said nothing. In fact neither of us said anything for some time but the silence was intimate rather than oppressive. Eventually Shelley said, "I've got to tell you about Mark Hyland." There was nothing that I wanted to hear less but I said, "Only if you want to." She gave a nod and started, "I had been at my mothers a week when she answered the door and said that there was someone to see me. It was Mark. He was always after me when I was a teenager but I thought he was a creep - he still is. He asked me to go out with him. At first I refused but Mum said, 'Go on, Shell, you're very depressed and you need something to take you out of yourself'. "He took me to a restaurant and we talked about schooldays. Nothing happened; in fact he didn't even try to kiss me when he took me home but I did agree to see him again. The next time I let him have me. I thought why not when you were convinced that I had been doing that sort of thing for years. I did it more out of defiance than desire. He wasn't very good at all but I went to bed with him another six times." Meanwhile you and I were talking on the telephone. You sounded so reasonable and I was missing you terribly. I stopped seeing Mark and started looking forward to speaking to you. The last time you rang I was ready and would have said 'Yes' if you had asked me to come home. Going with Mark helped. You see, it was your constant accusations when I was innocent that hurt so much, I thought that having something to be guilty about would let me put up with you better. Then you found out about it. I don't know how, but that was the end of us." There were no recriminations. I just said, "I've been a bloody fool." For the next four days, Shelley and I could not get enough of each other. For twelve hours out of every twenty-four we sat with our daughter watching her gradually improve and almost all of the remainder we spent in bed. We did little talking, being more concerned with doing what comes naturally. On the fifth day a doctor told us that Sarah was well enough to be moved. He said there was an air ambulance going to Preston the next day and that the much larger hospital had greater expertise and facilities for mothers to stay overnight with sick children. Shelley glanced at me and then asked if she could let him know. Back at home while we were eating, my wife remarked how much my counselling and such had helped me, saying that if I had always been so nice then she would never have left me. I think that I built too much on this remark, encouraged by our very obvious compatibility between the sheets. The next morning after another meaty sex session, I picked up on some reference to Sarah to say how nice it would be to get back together as a family. Shelley pulled back and said, "I'm sorry, Frank, I should have told you. I'm getting married in three months." This news was not completely unexpected. Although since speaking of someone else in her life Shelley had never mentioned her new attachment, despite the sex, I had always been aware of him in the background. Every night Shelley had rung her mother to keep her informed on Sarah's progress but I knew that there had always been a second phone call that she had transacted in a far lower tone of voice. Now, without betraying any emotion I asked as casually as I could, "What is he like?" "He's nice." "I would not expect otherwise," I said with a little laugh, trying to pretend that I didn't care. "He's called William and he is fourteen years older than me." "What does he do for a living?" I winced at my own stilted language. I had sounded like a Victorian father enquiring about the prospects of a suitor for his daughter's hand. "He's a solicitor, in fact," Shelley paused, seeming slightly abashed, "He's the solicitor I went to, to handle the divorce. Of course, when something started between us he handed the case over to a colleague. The important thing is that he is very fond of Sarah and I know that he will be kind to her." "What is he like in bed," I asked crudely, my equanimity starting to falter. "There are no fireworks like with you but he's considerate and patient - and he satisfies me, makes me happy. "How long have you been sleeping with him?" "The first time was the reason I had to switch solicitors. It was difficult at first until he fixed me up with the flat. I couldn't move in with him without compromising the divorce." "So that's why you are not asking more from me. I see it all now - he's rich and you are marrying him for his money," I accused. "I'm marrying him because I love him," Shelley told me proudly. "He's is not suspicious of everything that I do like you were. Will trusts me implicitly. Despite my months of training the red mist of rage came from nowhere. "Whore!" I exploded, ripping the duvet away to reveal her cum filled body and hand squeezing my flaccid cock back to stiffness. "If he trusts you implicitly, what the fuck are you doing here?" Death of a Marriage "This doesn't count, Frank, we are still married," Shelley flustered. "You needed some comfort and I'll admit so did I. That's all this is." "Don't fool yourself, Shelley," I sneered. "You enjoy screwing with me and this was your last chance for a fling. You admit there are no fireworks with him but believe me, you are a girl who needs fireworks. If he can't give you that there are going to be loads of other men who can." "You're not going to tell Will about this - about us?" Suddenly shy, she had grabbed a sheet and pulled it up to her chin. "Why should I?" I said. "Why should I get him off the hook? Let him invest years of his life like I did before he finds out. Shelley, my love, I may have accused you unjustly in the past but only I think because I recognised the tart deep down inside you." * At the hospital Shelley accepted the air ambulance option and less than two hours later they had gone, leaving me to send on all their luggage by train. Since then, whenever Shelley and her husband bring Sarah to stay with me, they both come into the house and we make polite conversation. I cannot warm to the man but Sarah talks enthusiastically about her Uncle Will. I've met a girl and we are getting serious. She is reasonably attractive but when we are out together there are no unwanted admirers to contend with. Beth does like sex but not too much.