“This is a bridge for Sir Edmund Hillary,” Ashley remarked.
Once we got to the flat part, where the bridge really begins, we had second thoughts.
“What do you say we just ride back down and start heading home?” she said.
“Sounds good to me.”
And so I followed behind her as we glided back down. It was as long as a ski trail, reminded me of the Alpine Slide I’d taken as a kid. I watched her hair fly and her exhilaration as she looked back at me. Remember this moment, I said to myself. Appreciate this. Savor it. A wonderful day with my wife.
****
Sunday 4 a.m. and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’d ejaculated prematurely again with Ashley and was thinking back to the night of the party fuck.
How Ashley could have let this guy just walk in there and sperm her pussy, knowing I was outside.
I mean really, Ashley, I thought. Did Jim Murta spend every day of the last five years working on building a relationship with you? Did he spend 20K on a 2+ carat ring with a nice diamond cut? Did his parents pony up $30,000 to help cover the cost of your wedding? Did he take three days off from work last spring when you were sick? Did he take you on trips to Europe, Hawaii, Brazil and the Caribbean? Did he contribute $80,000 of his own money to help with the down payment on our apartment? Did he drive you down to Virginia when your grandmother was in the hospital? Does he take care of your bills and finances and do your taxes each year? Does he hug you when you need a hug?
No, of course not. He’s done none of that. It’s me. I’ve done all that.
I’ve invested everything for five years, and this guy just walks in, fucks you bare, sperms your pussy, knowing I’m right outside, and walks back out to the party.
Had he given a rat’s ass that I was there? Of course not.
He didn’t hesitate for a second. He probably got off on the fact I was there. An extra notch on his belt. Fucking a married colleague with her husband outside. It probably added to the thrill. Getting Ashley to be so slutty, while her own husband bumbled around oblivious, right outside.
Had he worried at all that I would find out? No, he blabbed away. And blabbed away the extra humiliating detail of busting his nut up inside her. Talk about not giving a fuck.
And what did it say about Ashley that she would let him fuck her? What a slut she must have seemed. His cock looked so appetizing, delicious, and significantly bigger than mine that she just had to have it.
I went to the bathroom and got on the sink.
He must have felt like the king of the world. What a chump I must have seemed like to him.
I pictured him calling me that to my wife, getting Ashley to say it back to him as she looked at herself being fucked in the mirror: “I’m getting fucked … with my chump husband … right outside.”
“You’re about to get your pussy seeded Ashley, now say it …”
“I’m about to have my pussy seeded, Jim, with my chump husband … right … out … side …”
And then I came hard.
This was not good. It was quite the contrary of good. It was pretty fucked-up. Off the map fucked-up, actually.
I started thinking I should see a therapist. Someone I could talk to about this.
Look into that tomorrow, I told myself.
****
The alarm clock might as well have been flipping me the bird as Monday morning arrived. It was going to be a three-coffee morning for sure.
I thought of being asked in the elevator heading up to my office, “How was your weekend, Dave?”
I imagined the cartoon absurdity of being completely honest: “Well, if you really want to know,” I’d reply, “my wife came clean and admitted she really did fuck this co-worker at a party I was at. And she told me the guy had a bigger cock than mine. The reason I look tired is because I was up late last night jerking off in the bathroom thinking about it. But enough about me, how was your weekend?”
I was putting on my cufflinks, looking for my watch as I heard a song Ashley had playing in the shower. I remembered it from The Wedding Singer soundtrack—The B-52s.
The chorus kept repeating, “You’re living in your own private Idaho,” and I internalized it, like it was being sung directly to me.
****
At lunch, I closed my door and Google’d “therapists in Manhattan.” I found marriage counselors and relationship specialists, but I wasn’t looking for couples’ therapy, I was looking for myself.
I found some personal therapists near my office, but then I suddenly wondered, how am I going to answer the question, “So David, why are you here?”
I could explain that my wife cheated, and that I was scared and worried by the implications. I could certainly admit to that; they probably heard stories about infidelity all the time. But that would only be part of the story.
The therapist idea would come to me during the comedown from masturbating. I was mystified by my strange reaction to Ashley’s cheating. But how, I wondered, could I ever sit across a therapist’s desk and explain that?
“OK,” I pictured the therapist saying, “so you learned your wife cheated. I’m assuming you’ve confronted her?”
“Yes,” I would reply, “we’ve talked.”
“And how did that go? She apologized? She’s broken it off?”
How do I begin to even respond?
“Well you see, it was at a party. She had sex in a bathroom with a man she works with. There was no real relationship to break off, and I don’t think she’s interested in him now because he blabbed the whole story to everyone they work with.”
“But she apologized?” the therapist might interject.
“Well, she apologized for not admitting it sooner and I know she’s sorry about the rumor being spread around her office.”
“Did she specifically apologize to you for having sex with this other man?”
“No,” I’d reply.
“So, how did you respond to that?”
“I basically thanked her for being honest with me.”
What kind of ‘what-the-fuck’ look would the therapist give me then?
“Oh,” I’d go on to explain, “it was particularly humiliating because you see, I was there at the party. I even knocked on the bathroom door. Her friend—who was in there with her watching her have sex—told me to find a different bathroom. I was unaware what was going on.”
How could I look across at a female therapist and tell her even that much?
“But the real reason I’m here is, I now masturbate regularly thinking about my wife having sex with that man at the party. And the incident has made me less confident around my wife. Now I ejaculate prematurely when I have sex with her. So I guess I’m here, so I can learn to correct this and de-program myself from obsessing about it.”
Forget a female therapist, how could I confess that to anyone?
Then I considered saying, “well, you see, I have this friend, and my friend was at this party, and I was just asking, you know, for the sake of my friend.”
“David,” I imagined the reply, “I think you’re going to have to seek help for your—ahem—friend elsewhere.”
Therapy would be worthless if I wasn’t honest.
I can table this for now, I thought. It’s still an option, but I don’t have to figure it out today. Besides, this might be a temporary reaction. It might just recede on its own. I can give it a week and see how I feel.
****
Ashley called me that afternoon, saying she wanted to cancel our dinner plans with another couple. “I’m just not feeling it tonight,” she said, “and I thought we could have dinner on the roof, just the two of us, and talk.”
“Sure,” I said, “it should be really nice up there tonight. I can pick things up on the way home. You going to the gym beforehand?”
“I was planning to. Is that OK?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said, “you OK, Ash? How’s your workday going?”
“Not great, I’m fine, we can talk
when I see you.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Oh, and Dave?”
“Yeah?” I asked, hanging onto her next words.
“Can you get that wine from the place on Columbus?”
****
I was a little uneasy after hanging up the phone. Ashley’s generally not all zippity-doo-dah on Mondays, so that wasn’t unusual, but cancelling on her friend at the eleventh hour was. And she wouldn’t say ‘just the two of us’ unless there was something she wanted to talk to me about.
Perhaps she’d felt blindsided Saturday night when I brought up Jim Murta, or had since had time to reflect. Perhaps she felt bad for not really apologizing or realized how flippant, ‘just bigger OK’ came across.
I decided to be gracious about any apology she might give.
But back at the apartment, fixing a dinner platter, another possibility began to scare me.
“Dave,” I imagined her saying, “I didn’t want to tell you the other night, but this isn’t working for me. I’m going to move in with Tamara for a while. It’s not an easy or snap decision,” she’d continue, “but I think we made a mistake getting married, or at least I made a mistake. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I kept it all in, but it manifested itself that night at the party. I’m beginning to think seriously of divorce.”
And what would I say back to that?
“Let’s not be rash Ashley, I’m open to counseling, anything to make this work … I love you so much, I can’t imagine you not in my life, I’ll stop getting caught up in my job, I’ll be a better listener, we’ll get over this speed-bump, this relationship hiccup, just please don’t leave me Ashley.”
I braced myself for anything.
****
“To the workday being over,” I said as we clicked our wine glasses and she reached for the cheese platter.
“Amen to that.”
“Do you want to talk about it? What happened?”
“Just our CFO tearing into my boss in front of the higher-ups. And me running around like an ambassador to his finance underlings.”
“What was he going off about this time?”
“The fall convention, nitpicking the budget, why clients who’ve done no business with us were invited.”
“Well, he’s got a board to report to,” I replied. “Cutting costs is how he earns his bonus.”
“Well how is Sales going to drum up new business if we shut the door on new business prospects? And he didn’t have to chew out my boss in public like that.”
I thought about Ashley’s boss when she went down to the bathroom. My one memorable conversation with him had been when we were at his house in Connecticut for his sixtieth birthday. He’d been married for thirty-two years and as he was putting down the scotch, he told me that he loved his wife now more than ever.
“I treasure every moment I’m home with her,” he said, before grabbing me by the hand. “My wife’s my best friend. Is Ashley your best friend?”
I told him she was, and that he was an inspiration and ideal to aspire to. I remember him being moved when I said that.
He had to have heard the story about Ashley and Jim. Stuff like that gets communicated to bosses.
I imagined him saying, “This was a private party when she was off-work, correct?”
When whomever told him nodded, I imagined him replying, “In my day, a gentleman never kissed and told. Let it be known, I do not expect to overhear anyone talking about this anymore.”
****
“I’m sorry, enough boring work talk,” Ashley said when she sat back down. “I want to stop thinking about it.” She paused for a moment and looked up at the sky. “Do you see that?” she asked, pointing.
“What?” I said.
“The moon—look how big it is tonight.”
“Well, those clouds have it pretty much surrounded” I replied. “They’re like, ‘put your hands up, moon, we’ve got you cornered.’ ”
“Yeah, but those clouds don’t know who they’re messing with,” Ashley said. “The moon’s gonna bright light itself past any interference they try and pull.”
We watched the moon silently for a few minutes. Every time it looked like the moon would be hidden by clouds, it came rebounding, shining back through.
“It looks like a jack-o-lantern now,” Ashley said, “Can you see it, the little eyes, the cheerful smile?”
“I do see it actually,” I said.
“He’s looking at our cheese and thinking, ‘looks mighty yummy.’ ”
“Nah,” I replied, “the moon’s thinking, ‘hey Dave and Ash, that cheese you’re munching on looks OK and all, but I’m the friggin’ moon. It ain’t nearly as tasty as the grade-A green cheese I’m made of.”
Ashley laughed and put her head on my shoulder. We sat there like that for a few minutes until she said was tired from the wine and a little cold, and how maybe we should head back down to our apartment.
When she sat on the couch and turned on the TV, and I was putting leftovers in the fridge, it suddenly really hit me. That was it? No serious talk and no self-reflection about two nights ago? Instead, we were talking about the moon?
Are you serious Ashley? That’s our conversation? The mother-fucking moon? And how big it was tonight? How much bigger was it tonight Ashley? Or was it just fucking bigger, OK?
But then again … Maybe she really had wanted to follow up, but her own nervousness had caused her to back down. Perhaps she felt as awkward talking about it as I did. After all, I had chickened out the first time. Maybe she got cold feet, or thought the timing was wrong, or didn’t want to get into heavy talk on a beautiful summer night.
I held Ashley close to me. Maybe she was in a purgatory of her own, wondering if I would suddenly pull the marital rug out from under her.
“I love you,” I said softly and she replied back saying, “I love you, too.”
There was something to take from that. She hadn’t dropped any conversational A-bomb. She hadn’t said she wanted to leave me. There was an A-OK, normalness to the evening.
****
“Are you OK with this movie?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
Ashley laughed and said, “That didn’t sound very convincing. I promise you’ll pick the next movie added to the cue.”
She was leaning on me as we sat on our living room couch. She wore one of my Giants jerseys that fit her like a mini dress. I was in my boxers and t-shirt.
When she put her hand on my thigh, I popped a boner. Her hand grazed across it when she began to pull away. She saw me angle my boner towards her, and finally, she pulled my dick out of the fly and gently caressed it. But her eyes stayed focused on the movie, as I stared down on her soft, beautiful, hand on my dick.
C’mon baby, I thought to myself, put that movie on pause and put your gorgeous, succulent lips around it. You haven’t blown me since Florida, since before Jim Murta. Show me what you probably showed Jim Murta. Get on your knees and blow me, Ashley, like maybe what you were doing when Tamara sent me upstairs.
Then I thought, holy shit, as I realized I was about to cum.
“Wait,” I exclaimed, pushing her hand away. But I knew there was no stopping it now.
I stood and pulled my boxers up, as my dick started spurting right into them. I muttered, “Be right back” as I hightailed it for the kitchen. I could feel it dripping down my thighs. My boxers were a sopping, sticky mess.
I scurried into the bathroom and grabbed a handful of tissues. I put the boxers into a plastic bag and buried them in my closet, pulling out a new pair from my dresser.
Now I had to go back out and face Ashley. I didn’t know how to explain myself. I had just creamed my fucking boxers. And all from a lazy, half-attentive handjob.
“Are you OK?” she asked when I returned.
“Yeah, I’m fine. That was weird,” I replied, “Not sure what happened exactly.”
“You just came?”
“Um I guess, I mean, yeah, a little
. Just a bit strange. I’m fine though. Sorry about that. Um, so how are you? What did I miss?”
****
Lying in bed I wondered what Ashley was thinking about this new sexual debacle. Perhaps she had wanted sex, but her attempt at mild foreplay had put a quick end to that.
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