“Which got you hard, right?”
“Yeah, but it made me feel inadequate, too, and probably added to my premature issues.”
“Look, I do think the guy’s cock size probably had something to do it with it. If you truly want answers, you’re going to have to be prepared for that.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” he wrote, “he was stroking it right in front of her, so she saw he had a bigger cock than yours. And she was probably flattered and excited when she was picked—you said her friend is quite attractive, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when her friend asked which one he wanted to fuck your wife could have left, but instead she waited for his answer. And Ashley was probably excited to have been chosen. She was curious to know what his cock felt like. And she didn’t put conditions on it. She didn’t insist on condoms. She probably wanted to feel it in all its naturalness.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’m not trying to bring you down, but if her motivations are what you want, you’re going to have to be prepared for those answers.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But you’re going to need those answers. Because if Ashley’s curious about experimenting with another big cock, you don’t want her running around behind your back, right?”
“No, I don’t.”
“OK,” he said, “so prepare yourself for what you might hear and then have a talk with her. Sound like a plan?”
“Yeah, it does, actually, thank you. I appreciate you talking to me.”
“No thanks necessary, bro. You seem like a cool guy in a tough situation.”
“Yeah, kind of. I don’t have anyone in regular life to talk to about this.”
“What about the guys you’ve talked to online? Have you gotten helpful perspective?”
“Yeah, I talked to a few in a similar boat but got verbally bitch-slapped last night.”
“Bitch-slapped?”
“Just guys trying to rub it in, telling me how they would fuck my wife and stuff.”
“Did that turn you on?”
“I was drunk. I think I listened because it was how I imagined the guy who fucked my wife would talk to me. This morning I wanted to puke and felt like a fool.”
“Why did you feel like a fool?”
“I sent out some wedding and honeymoon photos of her and us, and some of these guys were local.”
“You didn’t give them your phone number, did you?”
“No. I got asked for that and my wife’s screen name and email, but thankfully, I wasn’t drunk enough to do that.”
“Well it’s a very good thing you didn’t,” he replied, “sounds like you were talking to a bunch of vultures—chat rooms like this are full of them. They are about exploiting any vulnerability. If you had given out your wife’s email, don’t think for a second that they wouldn’t be doing everything possible to try and seduce your wife.”
“Oh I inferred that for sure.”
“The photos of Ashley—was she nude?”
“No.”
“Good. Were there any you would be embarrassed about?”
“No but one guy jerked off on a photo of us posing at our wedding and sent back to me with his cum on her face. Which was a fuck-you to me.”
“Hmm, yeah, those type of guys can be like that.”
“I was drunk and wasn’t thinking.”
“Let me get a sense of how what you sent.”
“It was nothing she wouldn’t have on Facebook.”
“Well, I understand if you don’t want to send them. I’m just looking to help.”
“OK,” I typed, “I’ll forward them. One sec.”
“Well you do have a beautiful wife there,” he wrote. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to lose her. You’re an attractive couple.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “It’s also that she has a great, down-to-earth personality.”
“Yeah, she expresses that,” he replied. “Who’s the other blond girl in that beach photo?”
“The girl she was with at the party. That photo is from Florida.”
“I just sent you a picture of me,” Mike said, “just so you know who you’re talking to. And my full name is Mike Janson. You can easily find me on Facebook—there’s only one Mike Janson from Brooklyn, on Facebook at least.”
I opened up the photo and looked at the guy, a young-looking, clean-cut guy with a friendly smile.
“I just wanted you to put a face on who you’re talking to as well,” he said. “I don’t hide behind my computer like some other guys.
“Look,” he continued, “the most pressing goal here seems to be figuring out whether it was a fluke thing or whether she’s inclined to do something like this again, right?”
“Exactly.”
“OK, and secondly, if she does open up, you want to make sure you’re prepared. You don’t want to be flustered and suddenly changing the subject.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“So when you are ready to talk to her again,” he said, “don’t start at the front door, go through the back door.”
“Back door?”
“Well, she told you how embarrassed she was about people at work knowing, and how she might have to look for another job, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So ask her if it’s gotten any better there—has the rumor become yesterday’s news—so then you’re not talking about how it affected you, but you’re asking how it’s affecting her.”
“That’s a good point,” I replied.
“And you can baby-step this and just listen to what she has to say. You may be able to discern a bit of how that night came to happen from what she says, and even if you don’t, you’ve started a dialogue and can proceed further the next time.”
“I hear you, man.”
“You want to make this about her,” he went on, “it’s not about begrudging her for what she did, it’s about making her feel comfortable to talk about it. Your opening is, ‘Have things gotten better at work?’ ”
“That’s great advice, Mike, thank you.”
“You bet bro. You seem like an honest and thoughtful guy in a temporary sand trap. It happens. Think of me as a friend, because that’s how I think of you.”
“Thanks Mike, I really do appreciate it.”
“Anytime … Oh, and Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to run for now, but no more talking to guys who want to exploit you when you’re down. They don’t care about you or your marriage. They’re looking for any window to sabotage it.”
“Yeah, I know it was stupid.”
“Don’t sweat it, bro. We all get stupid sometimes, just something to learn from.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ashley and I met my parents for dinner Monday night.
They had just come from a cocktail reception at MOMA, and Ashley was connecting with my mom on some impressionist paintings she’d seen.
“So,” my dad asked me, “when are you meeting your brother out in Las Vegas?”
“Friday,” I said. “I have to be in San Francisco for business on Wednesday and I’m flying to Vegas from there.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” my mom observed.
“Well, it will be good to see Sean, but I really only got the bachelor party invite because I’m Sean’s brother and he’s the best man. It’s not like Patrick and I are really friends.”
“Oh, come on,” my mom said. “You all grew up together. He invited you because he wants you there.”
“Mom,” I said, patting her, “that would work when I’m fifteen, but he’s Sean’s friend. At least he doesn’t give me wedgies anymore, I’ll grant you that.”
“Yeah but it’s still Vegas, right?” Ashley interjected. “I mean let’s bright-side things.”
“Honestly,” I said, “if I wasn’t already going to be on the West Coast, I’d be thinking of ways to bail.”
“I’m sure it will be fu
n,” my mom said.
“Well, knowing Sean and Patrick,” my dad said, “they’ll see to that, which is what worries me.”
Ashley laughed and said, “What worries you?”
“You really want to know Ashley?” my dad said. “I’m not saying Sean’s not responsible, but in a few years he’ll be forty and he still sometimes thinks he’s twenty-one.”
“Did you ever feel that way about Dave?” Ashley asked.
My dad looked over at me.
“Hey, stop right now,” I said with a smile. “We were simply talking about my Vegas trip.”
“Even as a teenager, Ashley,” my dad said, “David was more grounded.”
“Can we please change the subject,” I said.
“Oh, I almost forgot, Ashley,” my mom said, “I heard from the Seevers that you were the consummate host the other weekend at the pool, and they loved your Bloody Marys.”
“Oh my God,” Ashley said. “I can’t tell you what a godsend your pool was that day. It was such a great escape from the city. And your neighbors were a lot of fun.”
“Oh, and I gave Jay your address,” my mom said.
“What?” I said.
“He said he invited you to his birthday party.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“He told me yesterday he wanted to send you an invitation.”
“You gave him our home address?” I asked.
Ashley looked at me funny.
“Yes, he’s turning fifty. He said he told you about it?”
“Yeah,” I said, and then Ashley followed with “Yeah.”
“Well, we’ll be away on Block Island, but if you want to go, you can stay at the house, of course.”
“Well, we’re not sure what we’re doing that weekend. We’ll play it by ear,” I said.
Conversation swiveled back to some book my mom was reading and Ashley was hitting her up with questions. My dad had read the book, too, and was chiming in.
I just sat there, pretending to care.
****
“Was your mom holding back?” Ashley asked, as we lay in bed.
“About what?”
“She didn’t say anything about Jay being unstable or domestic abuse or stalker stuff.”
“My mom’s not going to gossip like that.”
“I know,” she replied, “but she’d say something, right, like don’t go to his party?”
“Oh, she would, if she actually thought we would go,” I said. “I wasn’t making up that stuff about Jay.”
“I know. I wasn’t saying you were.”
But after Ashley fell asleep, I thought about what my mom had done. She’s not stupid, especially when it comes to a person’s character. Why would Jay make an additional effort by asking my mom for our address? How could my mom not see his motivations? Could she think he would have ever invited me solo? No, he was only inviting me because he wanted to get with my wife. I’d be just some pesky, slightly inconvenient, obstacle for his friends to distract.
Mom, do you realize what Jay was actually asking?
“Can I get your son’s address? I want to fuck your daughter-in-law, your son’s wife. I want your son to bring her to me.”
The fucking chutzpah of some guys.
Hey Jay! You think I’m going to RSVP “yes” and bring my wife out to you like some kind of birthday fuck present? That I’m going to dither obliviously while you take her up to your bedroom?
You are fucking out of your mind. You’re fifty years old, you dirty old man. Yeah, I’m sure you could kick my ass, or try and make a fool of me with your blue-collar biker-type losers, or have them pull interference on me, but guess what? We’re not fucking showing.
****
By Tuesday night there was a card in our mailbox.
There was a pretty generic “please join us” card inside, but on the back, Jay had left a personalized note:
Ashley and Dave, I had a great time the other weekend and I would love to have you out to the house for the party. Ashley, if you can get out here early, I’d love to take you for a ride on my pasta rocket—I’m sure you’ll have a blast!
Jesus Christ, I thought, was this guy fucking serious? Ride on his fucking pasta rocket? How was he not implying he wanted Ashley riding on his big fat Italian cock? Jay had to know I would see the invite. Perhaps he didn’t give a fuck. Just like he hadn’t that day by the pool.
“I know you’re not man enough to stand up to me,” I pictured him saying.
****
I was leaving for the San Francisco office in the morning before going to Vegas on Friday.
I wasn’t happy about being away from Ashley for four nights and started thinking of what to do with the invite. I left it under some papers on my desk.
“I forgot about it,” I could always say later, “we weren’t really planning on going out there anyway, right?”
Ashley had a work dinner, so I went back online and saw Mike. I had put the other guys who had messaged me on Ignore.
“I thought about what you said,” I told him. “I’m heading out of town for business and a bachelor party, but I plan on having another talk with her when I get back.”
“Good for you man,” he replied, “and don’t over-think it. Focus on the things you NEED to know, and save what you WANT to know for later.”
“Right,” I typed, “well, I liked your idea of cloaking it as asking about her job.”
“Yeah, be gentle and understanding, but ask open-ended questions, nothing she can say yes or no to. You want her to simply start talking, communicating about this. You want to starve that elephant in the room, and send him running for the hills.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“How long are you away for?”
“Four nights. Leaving tomorrow night and back on Sunday.”
“Does that worry you? Will you be wondering what she’s up to?”
“Well, I’m going to miss her primarily, but yeah, I’m sure I will be wondering. There’s some older guy where my parents live, who flirted with her the weekend before last, and he just sent us an invite to a party.”
“Who’s the guy?”
“Some construction guy who was ogling over Ashley when we were at my parents’ pool.”
“Who is he?”
“A neighbor with his own construction business. He’s turning fifty. He gave Ashley his number and openly flirted with her.”
“What was Ashley’s reaction to him flirting?”
“It’s hard to tell because she’s friendly with everyone, but she was running in to get him beers and jiggling her tits in her bikini. And they talked a lot.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“Awkward,” I replied, “and a little intimidated, to be honest.”
“But Ashley hasn’t called him, has she?”
“I doubt it, no. Like I said, I think she was just trying to be the friendly hostess.”
“What was the party invitation you mentioned?”
“He’s throwing himself a happy-birthday-to-me party. Well, he invited us and we said we’d think about it. He asked my mom for our address and I got the invite tonight.”
“Are you gonna go?” Mike asked.
“No, and what he wrote has me peeved.”
“What did he write?”
“Well, as I mentioned, he was openly flirtatious with her, and he had talked about motorcycles and Ashley joked how she likes to ride ‘pasta rockets’, which I’ve since learned is slang for Italian bikes.”
“Never heard the term myself.”
“Yeah, and he wrote in the note for Ashley to come early, so he could give her a ride on his pasta rocket.”
“OK, bro, you need to watch out with this guy. He wants to fuck her; that’s quite obvious.”
“Yeah, that’s what I surmised.”
“Do you think Ashley has any interest in him?”
“I don’t think so, and he’s twenty years older.”
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