130 comments/ 150473 views/ 31 favorites I Am Not A Wimp: Another Sequel By: jack_straw Author's note: A few weeks ago, cageytee put out a story called, "I Am Not a Wimp," and invited other writers to take a crack at ending it. Recently, fdkman262 tried it, and while his story isn't bad, it really didn't resolve anything and was way too short. But it piqued my interest, so I decided to see what I could do with it. The plot is fairly involved, so you need to read the original "I Am Not A Wimp," so you can become familiar with the characters and the actions they take. The narrative here alternates between the perspective of Ted and Jenny as they fight their way through the crisis that has imperiled their marriage. This story picks up as Rob, Jenny's brother and Ted's best friend and business partner, is leaving Ted's cabin in northern Georgia after pleading with him to come home and try to save his marriage, all to no avail. But before he leaves, Rob has a parting shot that rocks Ted to his core... ^ ^ ^ ^ ..."Ted, you are my best friend and I couldn't love you more if you were my own brother. I have admired and respected you for quite some time. I watched you stare down a huge client, showing the guts to stand by your principles even if it meant a huge financial loss. Your courage has been a major factor in the success of your business. But... To see you deal the way you have with a woman who loves you unconditionally and one whom you love to the extent of risking all to make her dream come true, all over not wanting to take a chance on her possibly hurting your feelings again some time in the future... Well, Ted, I can only say is, that in this matter, you're a wimp!" ^ ^ ^ ^ TED I sat there stunned as I heard Rob's car start up, back away then drive off. Wimp? Me? A self-made businessman? A former college football star? A wimp? I've been called many things in my years on this planet, not all of them flattering, but I'd never been called a wimp. I could feel the heat rising from my chest to my face as my anger came to a boil. Wimp, huh? My father; there was a wimp. He was a weak, spineless man who was so undone by my mother's sudden death that he lost his ability to stand up for himself. After three years of widowhood, he had met and married Janice – may she rot in hell where she belongs. Janice apparently sized up my dad and saw someone she could exploit for her own sick purposes. She quickly started cheating on him, he'd find out, she'd beg him to take her back and he'd cave in. And it would just be worse the next time, but he always took her back. I loved my father, but it ate my heart out to see her play him for such a fool, and one day I snapped. Even now, the memory is burned into my memory of that man forcing my father's face into Janice's naked pussy, which was overflowing with the man's cum. I picked up a stool and whacked the son of a bitch three times before he stayed down. I was arrested for assault, but the charges were dropped when the truth came out. Dad did finally send Janice away for good after that incident, but he always regretted it. He whined that he still loved her and that he was miserable without her, but that he kept her away for my sake. It was all a guilt trip he used to excuse his relentless drinking and a general lack of interest in caring for himself. He died nine years later, a broken shell of a man. Because of what Dad went through – what I went through, as well – I was determined that no woman was going to treat me the way she treated my father. And that's basically how I saw Jenny's actions. Even though Rob, Diane, even the FBI were convinced that Jenny had not had sex with Jerry Craig, I still wasn't sure. More to the point, her actions had left everyone with the distinct impression that they were carrying on an affair. She had been seeing him on the sly for three weeks, drinking, dining and dancing with him, while I was trying to get her "dream" cabin built. Some dream, huh? Now the place I had intended to be our romantic hideaway had become my refuge, a place where I could go to lick the wounds of my savaged pride, where I could stew in the bitter fruit of what I saw as Jenny's betrayal. Long after Rob left that night, I sat out on the porch listening to the sounds of the hills, drinking bourbon whiskey, and brooding over how it had come to this. God, I loved her! Even in my pain, even in the face of her betrayal, I still loved Jenny with a fiery passion. I had been so happy with her; she made my life complete. I ached to have my life revert back to the way it had been before all of this erupted around us. But I wasn't going to wimp out like my father did, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Jenny to screw it up again. And for my best friend to call ME a wimp was absolutely the most galling thing of all. I understood that she was his sister, and he had to defend her. But to call me a wimp because I refused to even consider taking her back was inexcusable to me. I was a wimp because I wouldn't show weakness and forgive Jenny? I was a wimp because I couldn't see past her betrayal? I was a wimp because she had everyone convinced of her innocence? How did I become the bad guy in this picture? Hoping to get some perspective, or maybe just to hear a sympathetic voice, I called Babs, my Aunt Barbara. She was Dad's older sister, and if anyone could give me good advice, it would be my Aunt Babs. I told her everything, and I told her what Rob had said about me. I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect her to agree with him. "Teddy, you're letting your stubborn pride cloud your judgment," she said. "I'm not sure wimp is quite the right word, but I think he's on the right track. It takes a stronger man to forgive someone they love than it is to simply turn tail and run away. And, son, you've run away like a scared puppy." "But Aunt Babs, I can't, I won't be like Dad," I said forcefully. "I'm not going to set myself up for a lifetime of heartache wondering if Jenny's staying true to me." "Look, Ted, I can't tell you what to do," she said. "But I think you're making a mistake by not trying to work things out." "You're just saying that because you're a woman," I said. "I'm saying it because you're my nephew and I love you and want what's best for you," she said, with a hard tone in her voice. "You think long and hard about what you want to do with your life, but don't be surprised if Jenny decides she wants a man with a heart. Right now, from the looks of it, you aren't that man." That stung, and I was tempted to ring off with a hearty, "fuck you," to my aunt, but I didn't. She and my cousin Karen are the only family I have left and I didn't want to alienate them. I was depressed and feeling sorry for myself, so I did the one thing guaranteed to make me feel worse. I got drunk. I started out drinking Jack Daniels on the rocks, like a civilized person. By the end, I was swilling it from the bottle, the way I'd seen Steven Tyler do once at an Aerosmith concert back before he kicked drugs. It wasn't a pretty sight then, and it wasn't a pretty sight now. Toward the end, my drunken thoughts were swirling around in a tangled jumble, as I tried to figure out what I was going to do. The divorce was in limbo; Reg, my lawyer, was waiting on me to give him the go-ahead to proceed. Jenny had already been served with the papers, but we hadn't filed yet. At some point, I got it fixed in my mind that I had to make Jenny understand once and for all exactly how she had betrayed me. I figured that if she could see it from my point of view, she might cease and desist with her continuing campaign to get me back home to fix our marriage. I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew there was something buzzing around my ear. When I went to slap it away, I became unbalanced, fell out of the rocker I'd been sitting in and hit my forehead on the arm of the chair, causing a nice little bo-bo. Moreover, the sharp pain, the sudden violent motion and the large amount of whiskey I'd consumed without eating anything the night before sent my stomach into immediate rebellion. I quickly found myself on my knees in the grass in front of the deck puking my guts out. When I was finished, I managed to stumble inside the cabin, found some ibuprofen and a glass of water, then fell into my bed, where I crashed until I vaguely heard my cell phone ringing, I had become accustomed to letting voice mail screen my calls, to avoid talking to Jenny, so I didn't immediately respond. But something told me I'd better at least check it, and when I did, I heard Larry Busby's voice. Larry was the FBI agent who was leading the investigation into Jerry Craig's little scam. "Ted, I need to inform you that it's going down tomorrow," the message said. "We're arresting Craig at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. I think it would be a good idea if you were here to help with the press. Your company's going to be in the line of fire, and it might look suspicious if you aren't there to defend it. Call me and I'll give you the details." Now that got my mind focused. Once I had gotten up, showered and eaten a bite, I felt a little better, so I called Larry and he told me what was going on, where I needed to be and what I needed to do. He was going to try to make it clear that I had cooperated fully in the investigation, but he wasn't sure what the media vultures would seize on as their prey. I spent part of the afternoon cleaning up the mess I'd made, then I packed a bag for a couple of nights, called ahead for a room at the Marriott and headed back to Atlanta. I knew, as I got up on the interstate, that my future hung in the balance. My company would be in the public eye – and not in an entirely positive light – and the crisis in my marriage was also coming to a head. By then, I had determined that I was going to have a final come-to-Jesus meeting with Jenny over what she'd done to me. JENNY I got the call from Rob about 10:30 that morning. I knew he'd gone out to see Ted, to beg him to give me a chance to make it right, to restore our marriage to the state it should have been in all along. I'd been on pins and needles all the next day, and when Diane called to invite me to dinner, I accepted eagerly. But I knew the moment I saw her face, then saw the look on Rob's face, that he'd failed. "I'm sorry, Sis, he wouldn't listen," Rob said. "He keeps talking about your betrayal, and I kept telling him you didn't DO anything. But he's a stubborn bastard, and you hurt him in some way I can't put a finger on. His reaction to this is just so extreme; I just don't understand why he's being such a hard ass about it." "I don't either," I said, tearfully. "I mean we all agree I made a stupid mistake, but is this worth tossing aside a really good marriage over? I don't get it." I thought I'd cried all the tears I could, but when Diane reached out to me, I lost it again. I was tired, tired of beating my head against the wall of what I saw as Ted's unreasonable intransigence. But more than that, I was starting to get pissed. And the angrier I got, the more I thought about my marriage, and wondered if it really was worth saving. I thought I'd known Ted, thought I understood him. But this was just so ... so out of whack, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night. Hell, I hadn't slept the whole night through since Ted had left me, and it was affecting me in myriad ways. The company was giving me a lot of leeway to deal with my personal problems, but as a senior vice president I was still expected to perform at a reasonably professional level, and I hadn't been doing that on a consistent basis. I was losing weight, I was tired all the time and I wasn't taking any joy out of anything. I was just on autopilot. I got up, showered, got dressed, drove to work, put in my eight or nine hours, went home, fixed something for supper – usually in the microwave – watched a little TV and went to bed. Day after day, that was my routine; the only change was on weekends, when I usually sat around the house and moped. Rob and Diane were doing what they could to get me out of the house, but there was only so much they could do. So when the phone rang and I heard Rob on the phone, I really didn't expect much. And I didn't get much. He told me that Jerry was being arrested in a few hours, that Ted would be there for the press conference, and that it would probably lead the 7 o'clock news. To say I was shocked by Ted's appearance when he spoke to the press – after we all got the pleasure of seeing Jerry Craig with his jacket pulled over his head in a vain attempt to hide his face – would be a major understatement. Ted looked worse than I did, and I knew I looked like hell. He had bags under his eyes, he looked drawn, he didn't smile – not once – and he had a nasty cut on his forehead. And his voice... He just sounded so ... dull, like he didn't care. I was shaking my head as I listened to the sports report come on when I heard the doorbell ring. I wondered who it could be at this time of the day, but I went to see who it was, and when I opened the door, there stood Ted. My heart leaped in my chest for a second, but the look on his face did not look like that of a man who was ready to reconcile. He had a determined, tight-lipped look on his face, and I shuddered at what that portended. "Uh, Ted, why did you feel you had to ring the doorbell?" I said, a little uncertainly. "This is still your home; you're free to come and go here at your pleasure." "Probably not for much longer," he said, and I think my knees got weak. But then something broke inside my heart and I suddenly grew a spine. I was tired of being on the defensive, and it was time to either fight for my marriage, or forget about it. "Well, then why are you here?" I asked. "I need to get some things off my chest, and I'm tired of dealing with your intermediaries," he said. "Those are your friends, too, and they're doing it on their own volition," I said. "I haven't sent anyone out to see you since you told me the last time not to bother you. I've given you your space, but ... Anyway, come in and sit down. I'll fix some coffee. Yeah, I do think we need to clear the air a little bit." TED Jenny's attitude surprised me. I expected her to be more contrite, more apologetic, but she seemed to be ... not quite angry, but she wasn't exactly backing away from me, and that confused me just a bit. But I was there for a specific reason, so after Jenny got us coffee and we sat in the den, I began my spiel. "Jenny, I really don't think you understand fully the impact of your actions," I said. "You make it sound like it was nothing, a harmless little ... flirtation. But to me it was nothing less than a betrayal." "How?" Jenny said. "How in the hell did I betray you? I didn't do anything with that clown except have dinner and a few drinks a few times. I realize I showed bad judgment, but nothing was EVER going to happen. I wouldn't have fucked Jerry Craig if he had the last dick on the planet. It wasn't going to happen. And I cannot for the life of me understand why you think this is worth ending our marriage over." I stared at her for a few seconds, not quite understanding what was going on here. This was my meeting, but she wasn't sitting back and letting me explain my side. "Just listen to me, Jenny," I said finally. "Here's what I have to get you to understand. Perception is nine-tenths of reality, and what people see, what they hear, forms the basis for what they believe to be true. When Rod, when Rob and Diane, when Chuck Sanders and his wife, when they all saw what you were doing with Craig – when they heard what he was saying about you and about me – their perception was that you were having an affair with him. It didn't matter whether you were actually fucking him or not. You were acting in a sleazy manner behind my back, and that's tantamount to cheating to me. You can dress it up any way you like, but it still comes down to the same thing. I can't trust you any more." I took a deep breath, waiting for Jenny to say something, but she was just gazing into my eyes with a disconcerting look. So I plunged on. "And there's this, too," I said. "What are my suppliers, my competitors, potential clients thinking when it gets whispered around that Jenny Conden's sleeping around with a slime ball who's fixing to go to prison for a long stretch. What does that perception do to my business, the one I've spent 10 years trying to build? That's why I can't get around what you did. You stuck a knife in my back with the one person that it would hurt the worst do have you do it with, and that's something I just can't forgive or forget." "Are you done?" Jenny said, almost impassively. "Just about," I said. "Jenny, I still love you, probably always will. But I don't think we can go on like this. I want you to ... Hell, Jenny maybe we need to go our separate ways, as much as it pains me to say it." "Well, that gives me an idea of where you are in your mind," Jenny said. "But I have to ask you again. Why is this such a big issue? There is something going on here that doesn't add up, something you're not telling me. You're just being too irrational about all this. Ted, I know I fucked up. I made a stupid mistake, but I did it because I love you and I want us to grow, not wither away. But your extreme reaction to this makes me wonder if I ever really knew you like I thought I did." I knew then that I had to tell her about Dad and Janice. I owed her at least that much. She needed to know once and for all where I was coming from, why I couldn't let her do to me what Janice had done to Dad. So I laid it all out there, and when I was done, she had tears in her eyes. JENNY I sat down heavily on the chair and contemplated what Ted had just told me. It explained a lot, but then I realized in a flash that it still wasn't sufficient grounds for him to simply walk away from our marriage. More to the point, it actually gave me the ammunition to maybe get through his thick skull the point I was trying to make. I stood up then and walked to the picture window that looked out to the west, at the last embers of the dying day. "That does explain some things, but I still have something to say to you, then you can go make up your mind what you want to do with the rest of your life," I said. "You talk about perceptions. Well, let's talk about perceptions, and why they got us to this point. I perceived that you were – for the third time in less than a year – falling back into the workaholic mode that was costing us so much before we went to the cabin the first time. You were lying to me about where you were going, and, sure, your intentions were good, but the fact is, you didn't trust me enough to tell me what was going on." "But it was supposed to be a surprise!" Ted said. "So that made it all right for you to lie to me about where you were going?" I said, my voice rising. "Even though you had to know it was fueling my resentment over the amount of time your work was taking from me, from us? It doesn't matter that you weren't really working; what matters is how I perceived it. So I was desperate to find a way to jolt you back to reality, and I did a dumb thing in my desperation, with a slimy asshole. I should have known better, but I was fumbling around for something that would work. Twice before you'd promised me you'd cut back on the workload, and twice before you'd appeared to have fallen right back into the same old pattern." I was on a roll now, and I was just getting warmed up. "But here's the kicker, Ted," I went on. "The very night you left me, I made up my mind that I wasn't going to be resentful of your job any more. I decided that a little bit of you was better than a lot of anyone else. I would take and cherish whatever time I could have with you, and if I had to sit alone some nights because of your work, then that was a price I was willing to pay. The point is, I wanted to be with YOU, no one else." I Am Not A Wimp: Another Sequel I walked over to the table, picked up our coffee cups, walked into the kitchen and refilled mine, after Ted shook his head to indicate he didn't want a refill. The interlude gave me a minute or two to marshal my thoughts. "You seem to want to compare me to your stepmother," I continued after refilling my coffee cup. "But what exactly is the comparison? Did I go to sleazy bars and pick up strange men to fuck? No. I met a fellow from your office, a guy YOU hired, for an occasional lunch and a few dinners at a nice restaurant and club. It may not have been entirely proper, but there is no comparison. Did I drag you into some raunchy sex triangle and make you eat some fucker's cum out of me? Nope. I did a little dancing with the guy one time. Again, not the best decision I've ever made, but it's still not the same. The point is, Ted, you seem to have tarred every woman you've come into contact with as clones of your stepmother, and that's a character flaw YOU have, not me." I looked straight in Ted's eyes and they had a slightly glazed look, like he was hearing something he'd never considered before. "Now, here's how this is going to play out," I said finally. "I have apologized up one side and down the other, and I have begged until I'm blue in the face. But I'm done apologizing and I'm through begging for you to give me chance to rebuild this marriage. I love you more than I've ever loved ANYONE else, including my mother, my father and my brother. I love you more than you will EVER know. I want to have your babies and grow old with you. But if you are so hard-hearted that you can't show a little forgiveness, a little bit of faith in me, in us, then maybe we should just call it quits. Ted Conden, you need to decide what you want out of your life. Do you want to be happy, with a woman who loves you without conditions or reservations, or do you want to live alone and bitter, a person stuck in the past because of something someone did to someone else while you merely watched. I thought you were a bigger man than that, but maybe I was wrong." "Jenny, I ..." he started, but I didn't let him finish. "Just go, Ted," I said, as I started to quiver. "Go back to your hotel and think about what I've said. Do you want to look forward or look back? Go, and think about it, but don't take too long. I'll wait for you, but I won't wait forever. Please, just ... leave ... me ... alone." I was in the kitchen by then, hovering over the sink as I felt the tears rolling down my face. I believed in that moment that I had lost the love of my life, and I could only see misery and despair waiting in my future. I barely heard Ted as he quietly let himself out of the house, got into his car and drove off. I was at the point where I had to seriously think about a life without Ted, and I didn't like it one bit. No sir, I didn't like it at all. TED I honestly don't remember anything about the drive back to the Marriott, and it wasn't until I got back in my room that I really started to think about what Jenny had said. I had driven down the day before anticipating that everything would be resolved to my satisfaction. I would see Jerry Craig removed forcibly from my life and I would have a final reckoning with my wife. I had gotten the satisfaction of seeing Craig hauled off to jail, but Jenny had managed to turn our encounter completely on its ear. She had gone on the offensive, and not even hearing about my father had derailed her momentum. The more I thought about it, the more I had to admire her. Whereas before she had been weepy, pleading and apologetic, this time she had been forthright and composed, confident and serene. I thought about what she'd said and the attitude she'd taken. She understood that she had made a mistake, and I had been able to get my point across about the consequences of her actions. But she hadn't backed down, and had patiently pointed out how I had appeared to let her down. I thought, too, about Janice and my father, and it hit me then that I was still playing the victim. After all this time, I was still letting Janice call the shots in my life, albeit from the grave. She had died of AIDS five years earlier, but her corrosive influence was still coloring my life. Why? Why was I letting that woman win? Why was I living my life chained to the memory of a spectacularly evil woman who ruined her life, my father's life and tried to ruin mine? And I thought about what I wanted, thought about what Rob had said about me being a wimp, thought about what Aunt Babs had said, and suddenly I knew what they were talking about. I wasn't showing the strength to break free from the bondage of the past, wasn't strong enough to open my heart and do what I knew was right. Sure, Jenny had made a mistake, a serious one. But I'd made one too by lying to her about what we were doing, and it didn't matter that our cause was noble. From her point of view, her cause was noble too, and we had both made false assumptions that had driven a wedge between us. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Jenny and I had both done a bang-up job of laying the roadway to perdition. It was up to me to find a way out of the morass we'd found ourselves stuck in and break free. It was a simple thing, really. I just had to ask myself one question, and when I boiled everything down to that one question, my course of action was crystal clear. I went to bed that night and slept better than I had in weeks. JENNY When Ted didn't call or show up the next day, I knew I'd lost him. Rob called that morning, and I told him about Ted's visit, how he seemed like a stranger in the home we'd made together. I also told him about what Ted had said about his father and his stepmother. Neither one of us had heard anything about that before. "It explains a lot," I said. "But it's still a copout. And I told him so. He's letting a dead woman run his life from the grave." "So, what are you going to do?" Rob said. "Me? I've done all I'm going to do," I answered. "Rob, I laid it all out there for him in black and white, told him I was done begging and feeling sorry for myself. The ball's in his court now. He's the one that has to decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life. I've left the door open for him, but he has to make the decision of whether to walk back in. He has to decide if he wants to be happy with me or miserable alone." We chatted a little more, and Rob invited me to join him and Diane at a Braves game that Saturday afternoon. They were playing the Mets, so it was a big game. I played softball in high school, so baseball is the one sport I know a little about and can follow. I'm not a fanatic about it, but I do keep up with the Braves, and we usually try to get to a few games every season. We figured it would be a good way to get me out of the house, rather than sitting around in misery. The next day was Friday, and I had a stack of reports that I had to wade through before the end of the day. So I got to the office early, then told my secretary, Kathy, to hold all of my calls and not to let anyone in my office unless it was the president of the company himself. I even ordered Chinese delivery for lunch, so I could get my work done. I knew that if things continued to fall apart between Ted and me that I would need my work for moral support, and I had let things start to slip. It was a little after 4 o'clock in the afternoon when Kathy buzzed me and told me there was someone to see me. "Is it Ralph?" I said, referring to my boss. "No, but I think you need to see this person," Kathy said. Honestly, I was so focused on work that I didn't think of who it might be, and I almost told Kathy to just tell the person I was busy and couldn't see them, but then I decided I needed a break, so I told her to send him in. The door to my office opened and Ted walked in. He shut the door behind him and locked it carefully. I noticed he had one hand hidden behind his back, and if I hadn't known better I might have gotten a little fearful that he had decided on a permanent solution to our marital problems. "I don't want anything to disturb us," he said quietly. I studied his face, and he looked serene, far better than he had two days earlier. "I must say, this is a surprise," I said. "What brings you here?" "This," he said, and he held his copy of the divorce petition. "Jenny, I went back to the hotel the other night and thought hard about what you said, did a lot of soul searching. I believe you understand now where I'm coming from and why it was so hard for me to forgive you for what you did with Craig. But I realized that I had made mistakes, too, and that whatever else you did, you did it with our best interests at heart. You picked an abysmally bad way of doing it, but... Well, I believe you when you say nothing happened with Craig." "Ted, I've been telling you that all along," I said. "What's changed?" "Simple. I asked myself Dear Abby's famous question she tells her readers to ask themselves when confronted with a situation like this," he said. "I asked myself if I would be happier the rest of my life with you or without you. Once I got to that point, it was easy. I've gotten a taste of what my life would be like without you in it these past few weeks, and, quite frankly, it sucks." I could feel my heart pumping 90 miles an hour, and I could feel my excitement level rising. "Me, too, Ted," I said in a voice verging on hysterical. "I've been so lonely without you." "Anyway, I brought this along to formally show you my intentions," Ted said, and he held up the divorce petition and ripped it in half, then quarters, then eighths, and tossed the pieces into the trash can. "I'm sorry for being so stubborn. I love you, Jenny, and I don't want to live without you." "Oh, Ted," I cried as I rushed into his waiting arms. "I'm so sorry for being so stupid. You've always been the only man in my life." We kissed then, frantically, and as we did, lust like a tsunami washed over us and I was damn glad Ted had locked my office door. It had been six weeks since either of us had had any sort of sexual release. I didn't know what Ted had been doing, but I had been too depressed to even masturbate. Every time I had gotten a little twinge of arousal, I thought about Ted and what we were going through, and it was like pouring cold water on my fire. So when he told me he was coming back to me, the dam just exploded, and I wanted him right then and there. I didn't care who came to my office door; I had some catching up to do with my husband and I wasn't going to wait. Apparently, neither was he, because his hands quickly found my breasts through my blouse and his mouth was kissing its way frantically down my neck, to my suddenly-exposed bosom. He quickly unbuttoned the blouse, flipped my tits from the cups of my bra and feasted on my nipples. My hands were caressing his buttocks, pulling him into the fulcrum of my lust. I slid one hand around the front of his pants and felt his burgeoning cock, hot and hard. "God, Ted! Fuck me, please, I need you so badly," I hissed. His mouth descended on mine again as I felt one of his hands slid under my skirt to my crotch, which was wet and hot with incipient arousal. We were like two bugs in a hot skillet dancing around as our lust soared through the roof. I managed to get the zipper to his khakis open, and I delved in there until I was able to flip his iron-hard cock out the hole in his boxers. God, it felt so good! It was hot and throbbing in my hand, and I squeezed it to let him know I wanted it. Ted just growled as he spun me around and pushed me by the small of my back so I was leaning over my desk. He pulled my skirt up over my waist, pulled down my pantyhose and panties, until they were down between my knees. I felt so slutty exposed like I was , but right then, that's how I wanted it. He slashed a couple of fingers between my juicy lips, and I groaned in abject surrender, then he lined up the head of his cock to my boiling opening and rammed it home with all the power of a heat-seeking missile. I think we both gasped loudly as he entered me for the first time in so long, and I could feel my climax building to a roar. "G-g-g-god! I needed this," I stammered. "Oh, Jenny," he wailed. "I needed it too." Ted slammed his cock back and forth in me with a power and passion that we hadn't experienced in quite some time, and I hurled my hips back to meet his incoming thrusts with equal strength. My hands gripped the edges of my desk as I felt the feelings welling up inside of me. My nipples were sliding on the rough surface of the desk pad, and the feeling was electric as it sizzled from my nips through my pleasure center. I was sitting on the precipice of a powerful orgasm, and even as I teetered on the brink, I felt Ted pick up speed. We were both panting and grunting like two animals in heat. As I felt the explosion ignite in my inner core, I heard Ted gasp loudly and felt him lurching forward deep in me, followed seconds later by a wet volcano of steaming hot cum. We twitched and twittered together as our release swept over us. For long minutes, Ted just kept pushing his cock forward in my flooded canal, shooting little aftershocks deep in me. Finally, I felt my passion ebb, and I slumped fully on my desk, and Ted fell forward onto my back. I felt him slide a couple of fingers over my neck to caress my face, and I took his hand and brought it to my mouth, kissing him tenderly, affectionately. "Ted, my love," I whispered. "You'll never regret this decision. I'll spend every day for the rest of my life making sure of it." "I know you will," Ted said after pulling his cock out of me and turning me around to face him. "I know you will." TED I wrapped my arm around Jenny as she dozed on my shoulder while I drove. I knew how she felt, because I was pretty exhausted myself. After our frantic bout of fucking in her office the night before, I had left to go back to the house, and she had come on an hour or so later with a pizza for us to eat. Then we had gone to bed and made love, the way we had so many times before, but it was different this time. We had needed the catharsis of our earlier coupling as a way of blowing the cobwebs out of our relationship, but the second time, we took the time to really love each other. Now we were headed back to the mountains, so I could show her the cabin for the first time and I could retrieve my things that I'd had with me during our separation. As we motored along in silence, I pondered my decision to go back to Jenny and work on restoring our marriage. Was I doing the right thing? Or was I simply setting myself up for more heartache down the road? Was I a wimp for reconciling with her? Or was I showing the kind of inner strength Aunt Babs had suggested I needed to show? I would be telling a lie if I said I had no more doubts about going back to Jenny. I did. But I was committed to that course of action now, and I wasn't going to look back. Jenny had said I wouldn't regret my decision, and I had to have some faith in her, in us as a couple. One thing I hadn't said to Jenny, however, was that I wasn't going to make the mistake my father made when he kept letting Janice back in his life after she continually betrayed him. I had decided to give Jenny a second chance, but there wouldn't be a third chance. She'd used up her mulligan, and if she ever did anything like what she did with Craig again, we would be finished. But somehow, I didn't think she'd do something like that again. Jenny's not stupid, although she'd acted in a less than intelligent manner when she decided to try to make me jealous. She'd made a mistake, but she's not one that keeps making the same errors over and over. So I felt pretty confident that my faith in Jenny would not be abused. Jenny was speechless when we got to the cabin and she saw it for the first time. She was in awe of the way it had been built, and by the view of the rippling mountains that you could see for miles on end from the spot I'd chosen. "My God, Ted, it's beautiful," she said softly. "No wonder you wanted it to be such a surprise. I'm really sorry I spoiled it." "I shouldn't have been so secretive about it," I said. After we got settled in, we took a walk through the woods, and Jenny kept going on about the views from various points along the trail. It was mid-afternoon when we got back to the cabin. Jenny had a devilish look on her face as she suggested we take a shower, then spend some quality time in bed. I wasn't about to argue with her. Jenny's naked body looked so enticing under the cascading flow of water from the shower, and we kissed hungrily, our wet bodies sliding together in mounting lust. My cock was rock-hard as it pressed up against Jenny's stomach. I reached over, grabbed the bar of soap and used it over every inch of her body. I glanced up and saw that she had her eyes closed as she reveled in the feeling of my soapy hands over her skin. I caressed her tits, her stomach, her back, her butt and between her legs, a move that elicited a soft gasp. I gently sawed two fingers between her labia and used my thumb to roll her clit several times. "Mmmmm, nice," she purred as she seemed to come back to reality. "Now, it's my turn." She took the soap from me and used it over my pebble-like nipples, my flat stomach, over my taut butt then softly stroked my cock. I groaned then bent down and kissed her again, deeply. "Jenny, I think we need to take this to the bedroom," I said in a husky voice. Once we dried ourselves off, we tumbled onto the bed, giggling like newlyweds. Our hands went straight to each other's sex like magnets, and I could see Jenny was already hot and wet. Wordlessly, we found ourselves on our sides, our faces between the other's legs. I pried apart Jenny's legs and gazed at her nicely-trimmed bush, with the dripping gash it framed. I bent my head to her crotch and licked tentatively a couple of times, then zeroed in on my prey. Moments after I got my whole mouth on Jenny's pussy, I felt her lips slide over the head of my cock, and I hummed into her cunt as she took me into her mouth. We worked on each other like that for a few minutes, then Jenny subtly moved us to where she was on her back, with her legs spread wide and my legs straddling her face. My dick was dangling over her mouth, and she quickly let my length slip back into her mouth, deeply. I pushed forward slightly with my hips and drove my cock effortlessly into Jenny's throat. This was something we hadn't done much of over the course of our married life, but I'd learned pretty early that she could do it when she was really horny. And there was no question that she was really horny. I could tell from the way her hips were humping my face so she could keep my mouth connected to her bubbling cunt. I licked, I sucked, I nibbled all over her burning flesh as we gave each to the other, giving as good as we were getting. I could feel my own climax building up steam, even as I felt the jerky motions of Jenny's body as she worked up to a frothy orgasm. We were communicating now on a totally non-verbal plane, because we seemed to come to the same decision at the same time. I wrenched my cock from Jenny's mouth at the same time she disengaged her pussy from my face. I spun around so that I was between her legs, my cock like a dousing rod in search of pussy. I looked down at my wife and saw such a look of need and longing that I knew then I'd made the right decision. More to the point, I wondered how I could have ever considered a life without her. I wasn't sure what my eyes were revealing, but she must have liked what she saw, because she gave me a sexy smile and whispered for me to put my cock in her and fuck her. I Am Not A Wimp: Another Sequel "Love me, Ted, please?" she said softly. I wasn't going to keep the lady waiting, so I pushed the head of my cock past her gates and plunged into Jenny's hot, pliant pussy. I drove it in to the hilt, nice and easy, and quickly got into an undulating rhythm that had her squirming in seconds. We worked as one in the way we always had, but having faced a potential crisis that could have split us apart, it seemed all the better. As we quickly jacked up the pace of our lovemaking, we gasped and grunted and exchanged the heated endearments that were like music to our ears. Soon, however, we were beyond words, as the pace of our coupling began to reach the frenzied stage. Jenny wrapped her legs around the small of my back and humped me for everything she was worth, and I was giving her everything I had. Inoutinoutinout, aroundaroundaround, we felt the rusty crackle of a huge mutual explosion, and even as the thought passed my mind, I felt Jenny's body jerk and convulse under me. Her eyes were squeezed shut as her orgasm blew through her like a hurricane. Seconds later, I grunted hard as my scrotum boiled over with molten cum, and I spewed a hard, rapid series of cumshots deep in Jenny's spastic hole. We clutched each other as if we weren't going to ever let each other go. Finally, I felt drained, and I slumped forward as Jenny caressed my sweaty brow. I rolled off her body and took her in my arms. For several minutes, we said nothing, as we fought to get our breathing under control. After awhile, though, Jenny looked up at me and her eyes were glistening. "Ted?" she said hesitantly. "Are we OK?" "I think so, sweetheart," I said. "I'm still a little hurt and embarrassed by what you did, but I think I can get over it. Just don't do it again." "Heaven forbid," Jenny said lazily, as we both dozed off in the sleep of the sexually satisfied. JENNY I lay back on the sweat-soaked sheets, exhausted from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Exhausted, but exhilarated. All around me was organized chaos, but at that moment, nothing seemed to penetrate my conscious mind. Then I heard a voice in my ear, accompanied by the sound I'd waited months to hear. "Would you like to hold your baby?" the nurse said. I looked over at Ted, and he looked like he was about to burst. I saw Diane, who had coached me through the birth of our first child. She had a beatific smile on her face, and she subconsciously rubbed her belly, which was starting to show the makings of her own child. I just nodded, and seconds later, a squalling little thing was placed in my arms. Maybe it was the fact that she knew her mother, but for some reason, the moment little Roberta was placed in my arms, she went silent, asleep for the first time. Nine months, give or take a day or two, had passed since the weekend when Ted came back to me. I knew I was fertile that weekend, but I didn't say anything to Ted, because I didn't want to spook him. When we got back to Atlanta, and Ted readjusted to being with me again, we realized that what had let us down were our communication skills. We hadn't talked, I mean really talked, about our lives and what motivated us to do certain things. We decided to see a marriage counselor to see if we could gain some insights into why we had let something like that nearly drive us apart. We each learned some things about the other that we really hadn't consciously known, and that has helped our relationship reach a new plateau of understanding. We also learned some things about ourselves that we hadn't been willing to admit to, and that, too, helped immensely. We learned that I'm a little self-centered and that I'm pretty high-maintenance. I need to be the center of attention, and I don't react too well when I seem to be ignored. Once I was confronted with my self-centered nature, I started working being more giving. I'd actually started the process the night Ted left me, without realizing it directly. We learned that Ted was badly scarred by his father's experience, and by his mother's sudden death. He had developed a deep mistrust of women, because the two most important women in his life had let him down, his mother by dying when he was 8 and Janice by cheating on his father. I learned, too, how much pride drives Ted. I think I finally came to grips with why he had been so unwilling to bend. His experiences from his childhood, plus his pride and self-worth had led him to feel betrayed by my actions. And I did betray him, I realize that now. By sneaking around behind Ted's back with a sleazy operator like Jerry, I had betrayed him. I'd wounded his pride and reawakened all the mistrust of women he'd been carrying around since childhood. The more I subsequently learned about Ted's psyche, the more I appreciated his decision to come back to me and work to rebuild our marriage. It had been a hard thing for him to do. It took a lot of inner strength for him to overcome all of that and forgive me. But he did it because, when you came right down to it, we loved each other and we needed each other. And as he said that afternoon in my office, we were both better off together than apart. Of course, the dynamics changed when we discovered I was pregnant. Suddenly, it wasn't just the two of us. Now we had a child to consider. I looked up at Ted, always and forever the love of my life, and asked him softly if he was ready to hold his daughter. The look he gave me then was priceless, a mixture of love, surprise, a little dismay and a lot of uncertainty. But after I handed over the little bundle of joy, his features softened and the look of reverence he had as he gazed at our child told me we were going to be just fine. My husband? A wimp? Not on your life.