Secret Lives of Cheating Wives

by Curtis Bunn

  “I’m going through a divorce that’s pretty unseemly. He’s mad that I don’t love him anymore, so he’s being an ass. He’s a lawyer, too. And that’s another reason I like you: You’re not a lawyer. I’ve been with three lawyers and that’s three too many for me.”

  “I get it,” Maurice had said. “You’re using me. And guess what? I have no problem with that.”

  They’d laughed and their relationship was in full swing. He believed he covered his tracks so cleanly that Juanita had no idea. The reality was that she was so caught up in her own cheating that she was not paying attention.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CLAIMING THE CLAIMABLE

  RHONDA

  By the time she arrived to Lorenzo’s, Olivia had called him.

  “What’s up with your girl?” he said as Rhonda took a seat at the kitchen bar.

  “Who? Olivia?”

  “Yeah. She called me. Was all aggressive about getting with me. What brought all this on? What did you say to her?”

  “What did I say? I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t say anything—to anybody. Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, I had to ask. You told me she was super-interested all of a sudden and then she calls me.”

  “She brought you up out of the blue. She said she had been in contact with you and decided she was going to give you some coochie.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “She’s bored and desperate.”

  “So, that’s what it takes for a woman to want me: bored and desperate? That’s why you’re here?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Then why are you here? I’m glad you are; no doubt about that. But what’s broken at home that can’t be fixed?”

  Rhonda was not sure how transparent she wanted to be with Lorenzo. But the combination of the drinks from earlier and her desire to be truthful about something combined to open her up.

  “My husband—we’ve been married fourteen years—is either depressed or doesn’t care anymore because he has let himself go. I think I’m like a man in this way: I’m more of a visual creature than most women. I like a man’s body, how he grooms himself, how he dresses, how he smells. Those things are very important to me. My husband used to hit all those marks. But in the last few years, he has blown up. And what makes me really angry and disappointed is that I’ve told him about it and he still won’t do anything about it.”

  “So I’m your release, your outlet?”

  “I didn’t expect for this to happen. But I saw you walking by my house and I was impressed that you were in shape and was taking care of your body. You eat right. That’s a turn-on for me. What’s crazy is that I saw you—right?—but didn’t get to meet you. Then I go out with Olivia, and there you are.

  “I will admit: When I saw you that night, coming over toward us, I thought you were coming to speak to me. But you went right by me to Olivia. I was disappointed.”

  “Really? I saw you, but I knew Olivia. So I had to speak to her. We had gone out a couple times. But I noticed you, for sure.”

  “So why me now instead of Olivia?”

  “You know Olivia is cool. I like her. Wasn’t a real chemistry, a real connection. But with you. . .”

  “With me what?”

  “With you, it was different. It is different. Sometimes it’s hard to explain. I felt something. I feel something.”

  “Maybe because I’m married you thought you could take advantage of that.”

  “Wait, don’t even try it. Nothing happens unless you want it to happen. I didn’t make you do anything. Women. . .”

  “What do you mean, ‘women’?”

  “Women kill me. You act like you don’t know that you control what happens with a man. We can try hard, try to influence you, romance you, whatever. But if you don’t say ‘go,’ it’s not going.”

  “But where are your morals? I’m married.”

  “My morals are wherever yours are.”

  Rhonda got angry, but only for a second. He was right. She knew, as the married one, that the burden was more on her than Lorenzo.

  “What does it say about me that I’m doing this?”

  “It says you’re unhappy.”

  “But is it shallow to be so disappointed because I’m not happy with the way my husband looks now?”

  “Yes, you could call it ‘shallow.’ But here’s the thing: It’s your life. I’m not saying that to get you out of your clothes—you do look good, though. I’m trying to be impartial. What’s important to me might not be important to the next person or to you. Who can judge if you’re being shallow? You like what you like.”

  Rhonda nodded her head in agreement.

  “So how long could we do this? How long could you do this? You don’t think you’d want more from me than sex?”

  Lorenzo was stumped. He had not given much thought to how long he and Rhonda would keep up their tryst.

  “I get more from you than sex,” he said. “I get conversations of substance, which isn’t the easiest thing to get out there. As for the sex, as I said, I’m not in control of that. You are.”

  “But you don’t think you’d reach a point where you’d want more from me, to be in a relationship with me?”

  “That could happen, sure. I’m trying to stay on an even keel. I know you could end it right now, so I’m, like, mentally ready for it. I have to be this way to protect myself.”

  Rhonda was impressed that Lorenzo expressed his vulnerability. Men were more likely to accept their fingernails pulled out with pliers than admit they could be hurt. She was turned on.

  “So, you can keep this up as long as I want to?”

  “I guess we will see, huh?” he said. “If you’re good to me, I may be hard to get rid of.”

  “What if you found another woman? What if Olivia throws herself at you?”

  “We can play the ‘what if’ game all day. The real question is: Can you handle it if I start dating someone?”

  He was right. Rhonda had forced herself not to think of that scenario. But when Olivia said she was interested in Lorenzo, her territorial gene kicked in.

  “I know I have no right to ask you not to see anyone else. . .”

  “But. . .”

  “But I don’t want you to see anyone else.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. I mean, you know. It’s like, I mean. . .”

  “You haven’t said anything.”

  “I’m looking at it like we’re in a relationship. I realize how crazy that sounds. I’m being totally honest. When most women have sex with a man, she looks at him as her man. Or she wants him to be her man. That’s how we are.

  “So with you, considering I’m, you know, married, I have no right to say that. But it’s how I feel. I know I have some nerve to ask you to be faithful to me. But I don’t want you to see anyone else, especially Olivia.”

  Lorenzo was flattered but also conflicted. He did not have a desire to date various women, but the beauty of what he had with Rhonda was that he had the freedom to see as many women as he liked—without the concern of having to account for his actions or whereabouts.

  And he lived in Atlanta, meaning there was an abundance of women within his reach. He happened to have “cleaned house” right before meeting Olivia, meaning the three women he juggled were cast aside. “Time for a new crew,” he’d told his boys. “Time to reload.”

  They’d laughed about it, but he was serious. He considered Olivia a prospect and even considered bouncing between her and Rhonda, but thought better of it. He still, though, had an interest in seeing other women.

  “I don’t know how to respond to that, Rhonda. I’m single—you’re married. Why should I agree to see only you? That makes no sense.”

  Rhonda knew the only leverage she had was her body.

  “We’re doing too much talking,” she said. “I came over here not to talk, but to. . .”

  “To what?”

  “To do whatever you want. I’m not going to tr
y to fool myself about my life. My marriage has lost steam. Eric’s weight issues were the latest and greatest problem. But it’s been lacking steam for a while. We don’t do anything. We don’t have any fun. We’re going through the motions. I don’t want to go through the motions anymore.”

  “So take off your clothes then.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “You heard me. That’s why you came over here.”

  Rhonda was too tired to put up a fight, mostly because Lorenzo was right.

  “I know this is a mistake, but—”

  “Mistake? A mistake happens once. If it happens more than once, it’s a decision.”

  Rhonda smiled. She realized, on one hand, that Olivia was right—Lorenzo was all over the place in terms of what he wanted to do with his work life. But he was smart in a quirky kind of way. Clever. And he was straightforward in a tactful way. She liked him. And she liked the bulge in his pants.

  “You’re right—this is my decision,” she said, turning her back to Lorenzo so he could unzip her dress. She let if fall to the floor, never turning around. Again, she wore no panties or bra. She bent her naked body over the counter, inviting Lorenzo to take her from behind. Rhonda did not want to face him; she wanted him to please her—no kissing, no romance. She wanted only pure force and passion.

  He had no problem providing her that. In seconds, he dropped his pants and kicked them off from around his ankle. He eased his way into her moistness and Rhonda arched her back and challenged him to give her all he had.

  Lorenzo accepted the challenge and held her firmly by her waist and pulled her toward him as he thrust his hips forward. The sound of their bodies smacking filled his home, along with Rhonda’s increasingly loud moans. Sweat formed on his brow and after several minutes of sustained pounding, rolled down the side of his face and back.

  Rhonda enjoyed the action. She took the pain/pleasure as long as she could. In fact, she took it as a challenge not to break down and buckle under the power of his lunges. It was not until the buildup of pleasure collided in ecstasy at the point of his force, did the pounding cease.

  They both collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily, pleased in different ways, but pleased nonetheless. “I needed that,” she said as they lay on their backs, looked at the ceiling. “I really needed to be taken advantage of, to feel the aggression of a man I’m attracted to who desired me. I’m not sure you understand that, but that’s the truth. I needed to be fucked.”

  “Wow. Such language,” Lorenzo said, laughing. “I will give you this much: You’re clear about what you want.”

  “I gave you all that and that’s all you give me, that I’m clear about what I want?”

  “Think back over the last fifteen minutes and you’ll realize I gave you much more than that,” he said.

  “That’s true. Know how I know? My body tells me so.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TRAUMA DRAMA

  STEPHANIE

  When she woke up from her afternoon delight with Charles, it was almost six o’clock. He was still asleep. He had driven up from L.A. early that morning, and needed to catch up on his rest.

  She slid out of the bed without awaking him and slipped into a nightshirt. After a trip to the bathroom, Stephanie stepped out on the balcony, leaned on the rail and pondered her life.

  The thrill had abandoned her marriage for some time. The more consumed Willie was with work and building a successful business, the less she was a priority to him. She blamed herself mostly because she felt herself easing away and said nothing about it to her husband and did nothing about it. It was a classic case of the proverbial growing apart.

  A huge part of that was her smoldering animus with Willie. Early in their marriage, she had learned he’d had an affair with a former girlfriend. It was not a lingering thing, he’d insisted and she believed it was a one-night fling. But it had happened nonetheless and it broke their marriage for a year.

  She had found out about it in the most unique way: Willie had told her. They had celebrated their third wedding anniversary. After a weekend in Reno, Nevada, where they’d won $800 gambling, fished in Lake Tahoe and generally had a beautiful time together, Willie had told Stephanie they needed to talk.

  They were on their couch in the first home they’d bought together in Alameda. He had been drinking much of the unusually chilly November evening. When Stephanie had asked him, “Are you as happy as I am?” he’d spoken his truth.

  “I’m more happy than you are probably,” he’d said. “I was in a place with our marriage last year where I didn’t think it would last. I’m only being honest.”

  “I remember when we had our issues, our growing pains,” she’d said.

  “To be where we are now after being where we were is pretty crazy.”

  “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” she’d asked.

  “Maybe not for you. But I was being pulled all different directions.”

  “By who? By what?”

  “We weren’t getting along that great and then Theresa, my old girlfriend kept nagging me and—”

  “What? You were talking to her? Why?”

  “Because we weren’t getting along that well. So she and I would talk and then one night—”

  “One night what?”

  “That one night when you were upset with me because I said I’d rather not spend Thanksgiving with your mother, and—”

  “Yeah, I remember the night. What about it?”

  “That night I thought you overreacted when you left me in the house, sitting there like a fool. So I called Theresa and one thing led to another.”

  “And? What the hell does that mean, Willie?”

  “I called you that night, if you remember, but you wouldn’t answer. So I ended up going over to her house.”

  “You what?”

  “I know, it was stupid. But I can tell you about it now because we’ve overcome the early troubles and now we’re great.”

  “What did you do at her house, Willie?”

  He had looked away from his wife. He knew in every symbolic “man code book” there is never a mention of telling the truth when it came to infidelity. In fact, it says to “never admit” to an affair. And yet, in his drunken state, Willie went against the No. 1 code.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” he’d said, which in the “man code book” is a sentence never to utter to your woman, along with the other one he’d told Stephanie: “It just happened.”

  The joy they had found in their relationship was shattered like a Christmas ornament falling to the floor. Stephanie had screamed and cursed. Willie had cried and begged for forgiveness. They went to counseling every week for a year. It wasn’t until Willie comforted her with attention and love as she dealt with her mother’s death that she finally saw beyond his indiscretion and truly forgave him.

  As Stephanie came to grips with her mother’s death, she and Willie came back together as a couple. Still, while she forgave him for putting their marriage on the line, she never forgot that he hurt her and dishonored her. She moved on from it, but somewhere in her mind, it was always there.

  She believed she had payback to get, if she ever was so moved. He’d cheated on her and she’d forgiven him. If he ever caught her cheating, Willie had her actions when he cheated as a blueprint on how to respond to it.

  Charles was Stephanie’s payback, more than a decade later.

  She understood all this time later her cheating would jeopardize her marriage if Willie found out. Men were less tolerant of infidelity, their pride more times than not unable to take knowing another man had been with his woman.

  But it felt right to Stephanie, not wrong, to be with Charles. She had refused to consider the feelings of his wife. She did so because she knew it would bother her. So, she kept her head down, focusing solely on her needs and desires.

  That focus drove her to the idea that she would stay with Charles at the hotel. She would figure out something to tell Willie. The room, the view, the feeli
ng, Charles. . . all felt too good to end.

  She went back into the room to tell Charles just that. He had awakened and was sitting on the side of the bed.

  “I’m going to stay,” she said. “Can I stay with you?”

  “You’re joking, right? Is that a trick question? I dreaded having to be here by myself, sitting at some bar, eating dinner, the whole time wishing we were together.”

  “That was the perfect answer.”

  She then retrieved her cell phone from her purse. It showed three missed calls from Terry, her sister Toya’s husband. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?” Charles asked.

  “My brother-in-law called three times. Why is he calling me?”

  “Could it be about us?”

  “It has to be. What else could it be?”

  “Call him back.”

  Stephanie used a few minutes to craft a story before she called. She stepped on the balcony and waited for Terry to answer.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’re at Highland Hospital on Thirty-first.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m still not sure. Toya passed out. We were headed to the movies and she collapsed. She hit her head and is unconscious. She’s with the doctors.”

  “Oh, my God. I’ll be there fast as I can. And don’t worry about calling Willie. I will call him. She’s going to be all right, Terry. She has to be.”

  She returned to the room with teary eyes.

  “He found out?” Charles said.

  “No. That was my brother-in-law. My sister is in the hospital.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “They aren’t sure yet. She passed out and hit her head. She’s with doctors now. I’ve got to go.”