Sunday 30th December 2018, mid-evening

“Wish me luck. Now for part two. I’ve got to go and talk to Callan.”

That’s what she’d said as she’d hurriedly finished dressing. I’d not had a chance to react or say anything before Jill was down the stairs and out the house. I closed my eyes, hardly able to believe the whirlwind of emotions I was being put through today. The nervous tension of the conversation with Jill, when she’d told me how she still loved me, but that what I’d done had changed everything. But that she wanted to work together to fix things.

And then this – Jill heading out the door to have a heart-to-heart with a guy who until recently I mainly thought of as one of our best friends. But who now was front and center in my mind as the man who Jill had loved before she’d known me. The man who I’d only won Jill away from by subterfuge and trickery. A trickery that had finally come back to haunt me twenty-five years later. The man whose baby Jill had been carrying, the baby she’d had terminated, leaving him a man who’d never known the life-defining experience of parenthood.

My eyes stayed screwed shut for a long time, as I tried to come to terms with this latest kick in the gut. Something that was all the more difficult to deal with as I had no reference point, no idea of how far the talk with Callan would go. If Jill had gone to Malcolm’s, I always knew pretty much what would happen.

But with Callan and Jill, I had no idea. Would the conversation stop with a simple ‘I’m really sorry, Dave had no right to do that, but we are where we are, let’s just all try and stay good friends?’ Maybe with a side-order of ‘yes I’m sorry, but you were the one who dumped me and broke my heart, get over it.’

But however much I tried to persuade myself this might be all Jill would say to Callan, I knew in my heart that this wasn’t Jill. She could never be this closed and calculating with a good friend, let alone with a guy who was both a good friend and someone she’d once loved deeply. I knew in my heart she’d inevitably feel a need to unburden herself about the unborn baby that she’d terminated. That without this act of confession she’d not feel even halfway whole, never be able to look Callan in the eye or retain a meaningful friendship with him.

Jill must have left a little before six, and she normally arrived at the club at around eight to nine this left me wondering what her plans were – whether her need to be at the club would bookend the time she had to talk to Callan or whether she’d call in and take a personal day.

What do they say? Waiting’s always the worst. Those words seemed etched into my brain by a powerful and painful industrial acid that evening. Or maybe carved in with the bluntest and most rusty of pocket knives. Whatever the metaphor, it was hard as hell to sit there at home, once again alone, wondering what was happening between Jill and her one-time boyfriend Callan. Conjuring in my mind all kinds of imagined scenes and outcomes – the ones that came to me naturally never-ending well, only counterbalanced by my rational mind’s much more two-dimensional monochrome happy endings. One a deeply felt and painful fear, the other an artificial and manufactured happy ending to cheer me up.

As I sat there stewing in my suffering, squeezing my hands and feeling my empty ring finger, I briefly toyed with calling or visiting Veronica, before remembering she’d be at work. So, the only practical thing I could think to do was to drive by the clubs and see if I could spot Jill’s car outside. (Strangely, this felt acceptable and less intrusive, whereas I told myself doing the same cruise by on Callan’s place would be a betrayal of Jill’s trust – the very thing that had gotten me into this mess all those years ago.)

Just over an hour later, I was back at home, with the unhappy realization that Jill had blown off work and was almost certainly still round at Callan’s place. I never thought I’d have felt happy to know that Jill was at the clubs with Malcolm – but that’s how I felt that Sunday evening. Malcolm, the lesser of two evils. How had my life, my marriage come to this?

However hard I tried, whatever distraction I came up with, none of them were the equal of the vivid, technicolor images that surfed into my brain one after the other. I’d seen so many real images of Jill with other guys over the last year, my brain had plenty of material to photoshop, to come up with pictures of what might be happening between Jill and Callan as I sat there imagining the worst.

I pictured them together doing all manner of things. From the relatively simple act of just talking or reminiscing, through the painful thought that maybe they’d talk about what the child they’d never known might be like. Through to the possible rekindling of their love, which had once burned so bright, now relit by the thoughts of what might have been. These thoughts and their shared memories of love driving them back into each other’s arms, kissing and looking deep into each other’s eyes. Moving on to clothes hungrily ripped aside so they could once again feast on each other's bodies. Eyes inquisitively seeing how the years had treated them, comparing each other to their more youthful college-aged selves, no doubt each pleased that the years had passed without leaving too much of a mark. Memories giving way to current lust and need and touching, two sets of hands roaming and caressing and squeezing.

Until finally the inevitable would happen, and Jill and Callan would be reunited as lovers, just as they’d been long before Jill ever knew me as a friend or boyfriend or husband. Their two bodies writhing together in passion and lust, reliving their glory days from all those years ago, the memories almost as sweet as the real here-and-now pleasure they’d each be feeling. Jill enjoying anew the feeling of Callan’s long thick cock stretching her wide as time after time he plunged in and out of the depths of her body. Moaning and sighing, calling out his name as she wrapped him tight between her arms and legs, making sure that once escaped he was going nowhere this second time around. As Callan for his part enjoyed the soft skin and ripe femininity of Jill’s body, savoring the snug and moist heat of her pussy – comforting, enveloping, and stimulating every nerve-ending in his impressive and ramrod hard cock.

My mind spent the whole of that evening torn between terrible images like this and considering the long-term impact of these two age-old secrets on Jill and my life. Our life had been complicated enough before this, and these latest revelations might test our love and marriage beyond what even we could cope with.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was just before two a.m. when I saw the headlights of Jill’s car sweep up the drive. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, thinking how despite the torment I’d been through these last hours I needed to play it cool.

When Jill walked in through the doors, aside from looking tired and a little puffy-eyed she looked very similar to when she’d left eight hours ago. Our eyes met as she hung up her keys by the front door and then with a sad look she spoke.

“I’m sorry if it hurts you, honey. But after everything that’s happened, after what you did to him, after what I did to him, it just felt right. To start rebuilding, undoing some of the injustices, some of the hurt and pain.”

I couldn’t argue with Jill – the sum total of what we’d done together was a terrible hurt caused – but nonetheless, I felt sick to my core as Jill’s words sank in. Without spelling it out in so many words, she was telling me that yes, she had slept with Callan. And more frighteningly what she was also hinting at was that it wasn’t going to be one-off. Jill rarely if ever used words carelessly – and her use of the words ‘to start rebuilding’ told me that in her mind at least tonight between her and Callan wasn’t a mere one-off.

And just as I knew Jill was never careless with words, so Jill also knew that I always listened hard to parse and understand every nuance of what she meant. So, with our eyes still locked together Jill could see the sadness and the fear in my eyes, as she tried to read whether I would object or give-in to the future she was hinting at.

It was already late and this tense and traumatic evening ended in the most surreal of ways. As we turned off the lights and headed upstairs, Jill turned on the stairs and kissed me. “Take me to bed, honey. I need you to hold me.”

And that’s how we drifted off to sleep. Spooning and snuggling together, Jill at first restless before her tiredness from an evening with her ex-boyfriend finally won out and I was left listening to the steady cadence of her sleepy breathing. It was maybe another hour or so before I was able to find sleep. The mix of the images in my head and the aroma of Callan’s aftershave, still lingering in Jill’s hair and on her skin the perfect combination to stoke my fears and stop me sleeping. Once I was sure Jill was asleep, I extricated myself and took my pillow down to the sofa; where I slipped into a fitful sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was how December 31st kicked off in the Foster household.

If Jill and my marriage had been congested and overpopulated before Christmas, as things moved into 2019 our social calendar started to feel like the arrivals and departures board at a Greyhound bus station. Finding time for Jill and me became a major logistical exercise, taking me right back to when we had three teenagers at home. When scheduling all the sports, social and extra-curricular pick-ups and drop-offs had needed a large sheet of paper on the Fridge as the family organizational bible for the week.

It was like one of those spy-thriller movies where the walls are pressing in from all sides. Jill’s job and relationship had been the two walls pressing in on our time together pre-Christmas. But that now felt positively idyllic and luxurious compared to how 2019 was shaping up. Two extra walls added and pressing in – Jill’s rekindled relationship with Callan and the not unreasonable requests from my new employers that I find a couple of days a week to be physically on-site in their L.A. headquarters.

It took us a few weeks to work it out and get into a new rhythm, but we eventually stumbled on a routine that sort of worked for us, at least as well any routine could work with so many demands on Jill and my time.

Jill still had Monday and Tuesdays as her days off and I made sure to be in Miami, now always able to work from home as Oasis didn’t have an office here in Miami. These two days were still the bedrock of the time Jill and I got to spend together. Then on Wednesday mornings, I’d head off to L.A. on the 6 AM early flight, spending Wednesday and Thursday nights in L.A. before heading back just after lunchtime on Friday, getting me back in Miami around nine-thirty on Friday night.

While I was in L.A., aside from working, Jill split her time between Callan and Malcolm. Wednesday nights stayed as one of Jill’s ‘Malcolm nights’, but with me now away on Thursday nights, instead of being in our family home Jill spent Thursday night sleeping over at Callan’s.

When we’d gradually morphed into this new schedule, I’d tried to persuade Jill (and through her Malcolm) to switch things around so that I’d see some more of Jill at the weekend. But claiming pressure and busyness at work, both of them held firm and insisted we leave things unchanged, with Jill still sleeping over with Malcolm on both Friday and Saturday nights.

And as if all of this wasn’t enough for our marriage to cope with, Luther was slowly pushing forward with his brainwave idea of ‘www.hotwifejanencuckydan.com’. He’d recorded and shared with me at least three other videos of Jill with Malcolm and some other guys, the only blessing being that as far as I knew the website wasn’t yet live to the general public. I could view the beta site, but it seemed Luther wanted to build a bigger pool of content before he launched. Either that or it was another part of his cat and mouse game with me, keeping me dangling there wondering when I had to start worrying about our friends and neighbors accidentally seeing Jill’s new career – interracial porn starlet.

By the end of January that was the pattern, we were living in. Sometimes I closed my eyes, so confused at the Kaleidoscope of relationships that was now our lot. A year and a half ago we’d had the most normal and conventional of marriages, and here we were living a life that would have been a good plot for a day time soap – all the ins and outs of different people in different beds, all the revolving doors of different relationships.

There were so many changing dynamics and changing relationships, that’s why I so often felt disoriented and confused – and all of this happening side-by-side with me trying to navigate the new relationships and people in my new job.

In these moments of confusion, I sometimes had to look at the ring which Jill had returned to my finger to convince myself that this wasn’t all some bad dream and that we were still together as a couple, despite all that had happened and all of the complexities of the other people involved in our lives.

Amongst all of this confusion and chaos, the relationship that I found most difficult to deal with was Jill’s newly re-kindled relationship with Callan. After the long-ago problems between him and Charlotte and Jill, through coaching our kids and other social circles Callan and Charlotte had both become some of the best friends we had. The kids looked upon them virtually as family – Uncle Callan and Aunty Charlotte – and yet Jill was now in a burgeoning romantic relationship with the guy who’d been her long-time boyfriend at college.

Because of their previous closeness, and the more recent close friendships between all four of us, Callan and Jill’s growing relationship had a totally different dynamic and feel to it than what she’d had with Chris and now had with Malcolm. Given the history, they shared, even at the get-go whenever I’d see them together or hear Jill talk about what they did I picked up a closeness that truly troubled me.

Whenever I’d seen Jill with Chris, I knew that even if they were close and they loved each other, I was always the one who truly held Jill’s heart. It was like I’d loaned her body and her heart to another guy – but always as a game, a temporary game which we both enjoyed – a game that would end when Jill came home.

And with Malcolm, even though the relationship was different than the one Jill had with Chris, I still had the same feeling. I had little doubt that if anything unfortunate ever happened to me, after a period of mourning she’d have built a new life with Malcolm. Giving him her heart fully, whereby for now he only partially had her heart.

With both Chris and Malcolm, whatever my fears might have been, deep down I trusted Jill to keep her promise to me to never leave me for either of these guys. I trusted her because I knew who she was at her very core – she was my partner and friend, the mother of the children we’d brought into this world and nurtured together.

But seeing her with Callan, there was nothing explicitly said or done that led me to doubt her, but it was just a feeling I had. With Chris and Malcolm, I’d always believed we were essentially playing a game. A game that had sent roots of emotion deep into Jill’s heart – because she was that kind of woman – but nonetheless it was always a game.

But with Callan, I wasn’t so sure. When I saw the two of them together, the way things just looked so natural and easy between them left me feeling uncertain and unsure. It was there in the smallest of signs, in the DNA of the body language between the two of them. The way they positioned their bodies relative to each other in simple everyday situations. The way they smiled and exchanged the smallest of casual touches. The way they finished off each other’s sentences.

It scared me because it was like I was looking at a mirror image of how Jill and I had been for so long. When we were together, Jill and I were still like this, but then again for most of the week, we were no longer together – busy with myriad work and relationship commitments.

The event that crystallized all of this for me was a neighborhood pool party that happened on a Sunday in about the middle of March. It was hosted by one of the couples who were pretty active in the local swinging scene, Liam and Jessica. They’d been the ‘happy swingers’ who Jill and I had always thought of as a good example of how to make this lifestyle work – the opposite of Callan and Charlotte whose marriage had been eventually undermined by swinging.

Most of the people at the party were part of the group we’d originally visited with when Jill and I had played with Darryl and Gemma respectively. And maybe it was because of this that Jill behaved quite differently all evening than she would have done if we’d attended a party with a different group.

At first, it was fine, but then about an hour after we arrived Callan and Charlotte turned up – which was certainly a surprise to me because, although they were still good friends, no-one had told me that they’d be attending.

At first, all went okay. The way that Jill and Callan behaved sent the normal signals to our local friends that Jill and I were together and Callan and Charlotte, even though now divorced, were there together. But as the party went on and more booze was drunk things started changing.

It first started about an hour after Callan and Charlotte had arrived, when I headed off to use the bathroom. When I’d left Callan had been standing next to a woman I didn’t know, on the opposite side to Jill and I, the two of us standing next to each other as part of a gaggle of about seven or eight discussing some of the changes to staffing recently announced in the local High School.

But when I came back from my short trip to the bathroom, I immediately saw that Callan had switched sides and taken the spot next to Jill where I’d been standing. This in itself was just a small thing, the kind of thing that happens at parties, but as the conversation went on even though he must have seen the look of irritation on my face he did nothing to switch back so that I could stand next to Jill. And Jill was no better, seeing that her and Callan’s glasses both needed a refill, she took his glass and headed into the house to the bar – not once looking across at me or thinking to ask me if I wanted a refill.

Upon her return, Callan’s ‘thanks babe’, said so all could hear was another slap across the face to me. The group conversation was starting to splinter up and Jill and Callan were soon turned in, just talking to each other, the flirting and closeness between the two of them evident to everyone.

Standing there with an empty glass, lonely and not really included in anyone’s conversation I felt my cheeks coloring up as I felt increasingly frustrated and angry at how Jill and Callan were behaving – showing me up in front of friends and neighbors. The group might have been a swingers group a couple of nights a month – but otherwise, it was a group where certain norms of convention and proper behavior needed to be observed.

Callan and Jill were doing anything but, and they seemed even oblivious to my presence by now, totally wrapped up in each other and their mutual delight at an unplanned afternoon together.

What came next made it ten times worse. Someone shouted out a suggestion for couples’ pool volleyball, and before I knew what was happening Callan had volunteered him and Jill to be a team and for the next hour or so they played the happy couple in front of the assembled cheering on-lookers. Given Callan’s stellar High School and College sports background and that Jill was both a strong swimmer and pretty sporty, it was no surprise that Callan and Jill sailed through the various light-hearted elimination games and ended up in the final. The other pair, actually the hosts Liam and Jessica, put up a fair contest, but in the end, they had little answer to the general fitness and power of Callan’s game, his competitive spirit, and the support Jill could give him.

It took Callan and Jill around five minutes to win the final, celebrating with a jokey little plastic trophy and a less jokey full-on kiss, right in front of all our neighbors. And all throughout the entire mini-tournament, the final and the celebratory kiss, I was the forgotten man. No one, least of all Jill and Callan, paying me a blind bit of attention – Jill and Callan the couple together, seemingly in their eyes and anyone else who had eyes to see.

When the matches finally finished everyone kind of drifted off, with a few couples staying in the pool to enjoy its cooling effects – with Jill and Callan one of about three couples who were each enjoying the isolation and privacy offered by the various corners of the pool.

At first, they were just talking, their heads close together at a distance that told even the most casual of observers that the two of them were more than friends. But then as more and more people drifted away from the perimeter of the pool and into the house or other parts of the yard, Jill and Callan’s close heads got even closer, and closer until they were exchanging kisses. The kisses getting more and more passionate, all four of their hands under the water, only the blurring effect of the water and the angle I was looking from stopping me seeing the full extent of what was going on.

I was trying my best to be discrete – sat at one of the tables, pretending to look at something on my phone, with dark glasses and a large straw hat to disguise me and the direction I was looking in. In fact, the whole get-up did such a good job in disguising me that neither Charlotte nor Jessica realized it was me sitting just behind them as they stood there gossiping.

“Doesn’t it upset you, Charlotte. To see Callan and Jill carrying on like that, right in front of you?” Jessica’s gossipy voice intoned, with mock shock and outrage, no doubt trying to provoke Charlotte into revealing something even more juicy that Jessica could then spread around the community.

“No, Jess. I’m fine with it. After all, we’re split up for good now. And after all, I was the one who cheated on him. And we’re still good friends and I’m happy for him. He’s had it pretty rough, and if I’m honest, I’m not sure he ever really stopped loving Jill.”

That gave the nosey Jessica food for thought. She went quiet for a few moments and I thought the conversation was over – but I should have known better. One gun spiked didn’t mean she was done, although I was soon to wish she was.

“But what about poor Dave? He was standing only feet away, having to watch them cavorting and carrying on like that. I know this isn’t exactly your normal PTA group here, but nonetheless, to have to stand there and watch your wife carry on like that with another man, a man you always thought of as a friend. Well, that must have cut him up inside, cut him to the core.”

It had been bad enough having to watch – but being gossiped about in this way only made it worse, with Charlotte’s giggled laughter and words only make it worse still.

“Oh, don’t worry about poor old Dave, he’s quite the cuck. You know about Darryl, I’m sure. Well after Darryl broke her in, sweet little Jill has developed quite the taste for men who have, shall we say, a little more to offer than her loving hubby. After Daryl, there was Chris, her boss at work – almost as handsome and hunky as Daryl. Then there were those black teachers who live next door to Jill and Dave – and ever since then, she’s been carrying on with a number of different black guys. Hell, didn’t you know she quit her job to manage a black strip club – even got herself a black boyfriend, a huge guy who she sleeps with two or three times a week. So, no, Jess. I’m not too sorry for sweet little Dave – if anything he seems to like this more than Jill does, and much as my still love my Callan, I hope he doesn’t get spat out and hurt, coz he’s just the latest man in and out of little Jilly’s bed and legs …”

Of course, as I was behind them, I couldn’t see Jessica’s face – but I bet her jaw must have hit the ground. I’m sure some more than a few details of the life we’d been living had leaked into the local gossip networks, but I’m sure that however much she sought gossip, Jessica had never heard such a blunt and comprehensive description of the slutty lifestyle that was now Jill’s staple.

With Charlotte having spilled the beans in such a complete and utter fashion, I found myself holding my breath, desperately trying to make myself invisible, desperately hoping they’d not turn around or head in my direction. My pulse pumping like a sledgehammer, I got up as quietly as I could and headed into the house, thankful that I’d made my escape before they’d spotted me.

One of the few people in the lounge, I helped myself to a large drink and found a corner from which I could watch the yard without being easily seen myself. Looking out I saw that Charlotte and Jessica were still deep in conversation – likely about me and Jill – but however hard I looked I couldn’t see either Callan or Jill.

I began to get a bad feeling in my gut. Liam and Jessica held these parties twice a year, and although many of the guests were friends from the swinging group, the events were social rather than sexual. Nonetheless, more than a few couples had been caught in compromising situations in one of the bedrooms in Liam and Jessica’s large house. Until now it had always been a bit of a joke, but not seeing either Jill or Callan anywhere about I wasn’t feeling like laughing.

Downing my drink in one swift gulp, as casually as I could I started towards the stairs, thankful that most people were still outside in the yard. When I reached the top, I saw six-bedroom doors, all shut, and I slowly worked my way down the corridor listening at each. I was on edge as I moved door to door, but it wasn’t until the last but one door that I felt a real kick in the gut. As I heard the unmistakable sounds of a couple making love, instantly recognizing the two voices I heard from the other side of the door.

“Oh yes … yes … yes … so good, so good … oh god, I’ve missed this … missed you … forgotten how good you feel … how you know just what to do to me … you haven’t forgotten, all these years, you haven’t forgotten.” Jill’s heart-breaking commentary accompanied by the slow and steady slap of flesh hitting flesh, the lovers showing no hurry, taking their time as they relived the greatest hits from their back catalog.

“Oh Callan, I love you … never stopped loving you … never stopped ….”

I’d had enough. Despite everything Jill and I had done the last year and a half, this was the first time I genuinely felt she’d been unfaithful.

Everything we’d done over the last year plus had been by agreement and out in the open – but this was different. This was totally out of bounds – in no way something I’d signed up for.

Ever since I’d popped to the restroom, she’d totally ignored me, more preoccupied with her new beau – her old beau. And then to cap it all, not content with flirting and making out in front of all our neighbors, they’d snuck upstairs for a secret fuck. Jill unable to keep her hands off her old boyfriend – even though I was letting them spend time together when I was in L.A.

Just as with the night of Luther’s brainwave of the Jill and Dave cuckold website, I’d had enough. Even I had reached my limit. I thought about storming in there and confronting them, but then I thought ‘screw them’. I wasn’t going to embarrass or demean myself any more than they’d already done by their actions. There was a woman on the other side of town who’d be only too pleased to see me.

I walked back to our house, packed a suitcase, and got an Uber over to Veronica’s. Veronica was happy to see me, albeit also a little concerned by the circumstances and by my mood as when Haley was safely asleep, I ranted and raved about Jill and Callan.

When the storm of my temper had finally blown out, Veronica took me to bed and we made gentle and tender love. It felt so good to be with a woman where the only thing in my mind was how we felt about each other and how we could express this both physically and emotionally.

Making love to her felt so wonderful, so pure and so uncompromised. When I’d spent myself and made sure that she was satisfied, we just lay there looking deep into each other’s eyes. We both wanted each other so badly, it would have been so easy to make a misstep, but to her eternal credit, Veronica thought more about my needs and situation than her own.

“Honey, stay the night, you owe that to yourself, and it sends a signal. But then, tomorrow, you have to go and talk this through with Jill. You know that, right. What do the vows say – for better or for worse.”

(Thanks to cbears and Kite for help removing mistakes.  Any shortcomings in the story itself are entirely mine.)