Because He Could

A night of sleep apparently did wonders for my wife, because she seemed to be in much better spirits when I walked in the door after work the next night. She had fixed a nice dinner and seemed more cheerful... if I didn't know her any better and couldn't tell that her smile never quite reached her eyes.

We made slow passionate love that night in bed... if you call her being mostly disinterested and me basically just masturbating inside her pussy for 20 minutes. She did everything but yawn her way through the session, and I was so pissed that when I finished, I abandoned my plan to bring her off multiple times with my fingers and tongue, as I would have normally done. I really don't think she cared.

I wasn't the only one who noticed Susan's changed behavior. On Friday, Marianne came to me and asked me to go for a walk with her after dinner.

"Wow, Dad, how bad did you screw up with Mom?" Marianne asked before we had walked very far. "Something's really wrong. What did you do?"

I knew what my daughter was asking, but I had no answer for her.

"As far as I know, the only thing I've done wrong is just be myself. I'm guessing that Uncle Wayne's health is going south pretty quickly, and I think your mother is feeling overwhelmed and doesn't know how to express that to us. At least I hope that's what it is," I said.

My daughter is nobody's fool, and I could see my answer didn't completely mollify her.

"You aren't worried that she might be falling in love with Uncle Wayne, as close as the two of them have gotten due to his illness. I've seen her when she's on the phone talking with him, and she's like a teenager with a crush. She didn't know I was in the house when he called her. It was almost sickening. She was giggling and... and... several times she said something that I would say wasn't appropriate for a married woman.

"What are we... you... going to do?"

"Honestly, I really don't know," I answered. "If it's just an infatuation due to them becoming close, I might be able to put up with some of that, but if it's gone past that... I'm old-fashioned when it comes to wedding vows, Mare. If she breaks those, we're probably toast."

"I hope she hasn't, Dad. I don't want to see you two get divorced... but I would understand it if she's crossed that line."

Susan almost looked relieved to be heading back to California the next Sunday. I was both relieved and exasperated. We had only made love six times in the two weeks she was home after being apart for a month... and we had very little connection both inside and outside the bedroom. We had become little more than friends with some bedroom privileges.

"Maybe we need to just bite the bullet and hire a professional to care for Wayne if this is getting to you or Mom or Diana," I said before she went to her gate. "Remember, you also have a family that needs you even as you're caring for Wayne. Don't throw us away for him."

"How dare you!" she hissed at me. "I'm working my ass off caring for your brother... your brother. You're just a selfish jerk."

"I may be a selfish jerk, but I'm not stupid. Getting too close to Wayne would not bode well for our marriage," I snarled.

I called my parents the next night to discuss my fears and was basically rebuffed by my mother, who also called me selfish for worrying. I got a very bad feeling in my stomach when I told my parents that I wouldn't brook any "interference" in my marriage by my brother, even if he were dying.

"You don't mean that, Jeff. He's your brother; she's your wife; you love both of them."

"Do I, Mom?" I asked. "Do I love them that much?"

I was disappointed in my mother's comments but not by my father's laissez-faire attitude. As a kid, he repeatedly took Wayne's side over mine. I felt nothing had changed now that we were adults.

I had loved Susan obsessively since we were kids. I was pretty sure she had crossed a line with my brother, but I loved her so much I was willing to give her some cushion, right up to the edge of my personal respect. Some might call it my ego, but whatever you want to call it, I had to be able to look at myself in a mirror and not see the word "schmuck" tattooed on my forehead.

My daughter was more than willing to help in my plan. She surreptitiously took Susan's keys one day while Susan was home and had the key to my brother's home copied. I was going to show up at Wayne's home unannounced, and if need be I was going to hang around for several days to see for myself what was happening.

I waited for two weeks into my wife's time in California before I flew out. I drove up in a rental car to Wayne's home and let myself in at 2, hoping against hope but in reality knowing what I was going to find: the two of them asleep together in Wayne's bed. I brought a pot of cold water into the room with me and proceeded to dump it on both of their heads, causing them to shriek in shock and throw off the covers, revealing to me that they were both naked.

The shrieking morphed into screams and threats once they realized I was standing next to their bed, my phone in hand.

"If you weren't dying, I'd kill you!" I yelled to my brother. "As for you, bitch, if you can't figure it out, we're done. You don't have to come home at the end of your month. You can just stay here with him until he croaks."

A sobbing Susan tried to cover her wet, naked body with her hands, as if it made a difference.

"Really, Susan? Everybody in this room has already seen it all. The time to be modest would have been before you fucked my sleazebag brother," I growled.

"I-I-I'm sorry, Jeff," she sniffled. "But he's dying... and I've been trying to comfort him. He's family, so I figured it was okay."

"Nice try, bitch. If you wanted to comfort him in that way, you should have just bought him an escort, instead of becoming a slut," I said.

"I'm not a slut. He's family. It was the right thing to do. Even your mom said so..."

"My mom! My mom thought this was a good idea?" I wailed.

"Well, yeah. Me, her and Diana talked about doing something for Wayne... and this is what we came up with. He won't be able to do this too much longer, so we started last month."

"You, Diana and Mom all thought this was a good idea? And you never bothered to say something to me, even though I'm your husband... allegedly the person you're supposed to be closest to in the while world... the person you made vows of fidelity to all those years ago.

"If it was such a great idea, how come I wasn't let in on it? Shit, were you ever going to tell me?"

Apparently Wayne thought this was a good time to give me his opinion.

"Chill, Jeffy. Your wife is an amazing woman... and an amazing fuck," my brother piped up. "Nobody told you anything because you're an asshole, and we all knew you wouldn't be cool with this. And we were right."

"So you were part of this great brain trust? Great. The philanderer gets to have a say, but not the clueless, faithful husband" I said.

"Well, you were right. I'm not cool with this... wife sharing thing. You can keep her. I'll find somebody else. Somebody who will be true to me."

"Nooo, Jeff. This isn't a permanent thing. Wayne's dying, Jeff. Have a little consideration," Susan said.

"Are you fucking kidding me, woman? My consideration was to let you nursemaid him for a month at a time, not to sleep with him like a slut," I stated.

"Stop calling me that. I'm not a slut," she said.

"You're sleeping with a man who's not your husband. That's my definition of slut, even if it's not yours," I said.

"Who cares what he thinks?" Wayne chimed in. "I think you're a great sister-in-law."

Susan and Wayne put on robes and she started stripping the wet bed.

"So how long has this shit been going on?" I asked my wife.

I could tell she was trying to somehow soften the blow; lying didn't come naturally to her... well, at least it didn't, past tense.

"W-we started having sex the last month I was here. He's running out of time, Jeff," she whined plaintively.

"Please, stop with the Florence Nightingale shit. We all know that you're a slut and he's a cheating hound. End of story," I grumbled.

My brother hung on the periphery for much of the argument, smirking at me like he knew the answer to the meaning of life. When Susan took the sheets in to the washing machine, he figured it was his turn to get in some shots, knowing I wouldn't punch a dying man.

"She's a helluva fuck, bro, and it didn't take me long to convince her to move in to my room. You know why I did it, bro? Because I could. I win, Jeffy. I win."

"You've been a dick your whole life, Wayne. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you'd be even a bigger dick when you're dying. I hope you rot in hell, literally.

"You have a nice life... what's left of it, scumbag."

I turned and walked out of the house, headed back to the airport and was on a jet home before 8 AM. I was napping on the family room sofa when my kids walked into the room. I got up and shared a hug with each of them.

"Since you're back so quickly, I'm guessing it was what we figured," Marianne said. "Damn, I was so close to getting through high school with married parents."

Apparently Marianne had explained things to her brother, because he was nodding his head in agreement.

"I'm sorry, Will, I should have talked to you, too. I was really hoping that you weren't paying too much attention to what had been happening, and that I never had to fill you in," I said. "Damn, I've loved that woman for virtually my whole life."

"So that's it, Dad? You're not going to give her a second chance?" my son asked.

"It's complicated, Will. Marriage, fidelity. It's complicated. But one when partner cheats on the other, apologizing doesn't just wipe away the offense and the horrible pain that comes with it. Very simply, it's like killing somebody and then apologizing. The person is still dead, so how effective is the apology? She ripped my heart out of my chest. She abused my trust. She disrespected me. 'I'm sorry' just doesn't cut it," I explained.

The pain in his eyes told me he understood what I was saying. Kids grow up so fast these days. I suppose with the divorce rate being over 50 percent these days, he probably has several friends whose parents have divorced.

"Pizza tonight, okay? I'm not really in the mood to cook. We can all talk while we eat," I said.

They both nodded.

I gave my kids the full story over a large pepperoni and sausage pizza. Needless to say, there were a lot of tears shed, and I'm not too proud to admit a good share of them were mine. I also filled in my kids on the duplicity of their grandmother and their aunt. They were as surprised and angry at my mom and sister as I was.

I found it interesting that neither my mother nor sister had called me trying to apologize or explain. I was positive that Susan had spoken to both of them by this time. I fully expected to get the sisterhood version of a battering ram pretty quickly.

I wasted no time the next day making an appointment with an attorney I had contacted prior to flying out to California. I knew what I was going to find at my brother's home; the trip was just visual confirmation. I really was hoping to be proven wrong... even though I knew I wouldn't be. It's like when you look at your reflection in a mirror and then try to make a quick movement or something that is too fast for the mirror to accurately reflect... although in reality it catches every movement. Crazy? Maybe. But we all have tried that at some point. Admit it.

The first sisterhood apology call came that night from my mother... although it was more of an attack than an apology. I guess the women were going to try using a good offense as the best form of defense.

"He's dying, Jeff. She was just trying to make his time left better. After all, it's not like he's a stranger to her. He's family. He's your brother," Mom said as soon as I picked up.

"She's my fucking wife, Mom!" I growled into my phone. "She had no right. You could have stopped this... maybe. Instead, you and Diana encouraged her. Encouraged her to give to Wayne what was supposed to be mine exclusively... without even giving me a chance to weigh in on this stupidity.

"He's had a thing for her since we were kids. This wasn't a fucking Make-A-Wish here, Mom. Him dying didn't earn him a chance at her pussy... multiple chances."

I heard my mother gasp when I threw the first f-bomb at her. I had never spoken to her like that before. Too fucking bad. There was going to be a lot more bad words coming out of my mouth in the future.

"Don't you dare use those words..." was all she got out of her mouth before I disconnected the call.

She was in no position to be lecturing me about anything, I decided.

My phone rang within seconds of my hang-up.

"How dare you..."

The disconnect was immediate. So was the next call back. The next time there was silence on the line. Maybe you could teach an old dog new tricks.

"Jeff?" she tentatively asked. "You're not going to hang up on me again, are you?"

"New rules, Mom," I responded. "You attempt to lecture me, I hang up. You no longer have the right to lecture me on anything. You gave up that right when you encouraged my wife... my wife... to cheat on me with my brother... 'just because he's dying.'

"You're my mother, for fuck's sake. You're not supposed to be encouraging my wife... my wife... to cheat on me... even with my dying brother. What kind of a mother does that to her own son?"

She coughed into the phone.

"But he's dying!" she suddenly blurted out, her vigor apparently renewed by her latest pronouncement.

"Fuck him! Fuck him! Fuck him!" I yelled back. "Dying doesn't give him the right to ruin my marriage! It didn't give her the right to fuck him! It didn't give you and Diana the right to encourage her to ruin my marriage!"

"This won't ruin your marriage unless you let it. He'll be dead soon, and you and Susan can then go on with your lives. He won't be around to even be a consideration," she remarked.

"Or he'll always be around in my head, and maybe in her head as well, to be a consideration," I replied.

"Have you no forgiveness in your heart?" Mom inquired.

"No, I don't," I answered. "Would you forgive Dad so easily if he had sex with Belinda Parker?"

"Belinda Parker? That blonde slut who used to live across the street from us when you kids were growing up?"

I could hear spittle practically flying from Mom's mouth as she spoke. Belinda Parker was a beautiful woman who moved in across the street from us with her husband when I was in my teens. She was about 10 years younger than Mom, and I remember her going out to her mailbox by the road in a small bikini several times during the summer. Mom always made some sort of catty comment at the dinner table when Belinda made an appearance. It might have had something to do with Dad's eyeballs about falling out of his head when he saw our younger neighbor one time.

"You wouldn't have let Dad have sex with Belinda Parker if she was dying?" I asked.

"Th-that's a stupid analogy!" she yelled at me.

"Obviously not," I said quietly.

My sister called two days later. At least she was smart enough to sound apologetic.

"I'm sorry I wasn't smart enough to see what should have been obvious to everyone," Diana said. "I guess we all got caught up in Wayne being sick to let that overrule our good sense. I mean, even if you weren't my brother, I should never have encouraged Susan to cheat on you just because Wayne was dying.

"Ronnie about bit my head off when I told him what Susan did... with my and Mom's encouragement. I told him last night... and he hasn't talked civilly to me since then. He told me he wouldn't blame you if you punched me right in the face. I foresee a lot of cum swallowing in my future to get back in his good graces," she said.

An hour later Ronnie called, offering his sincere apologies for my sister's stupidity.

"I didn't know, Jeff. I'm awfully sorry. If I had known, I wouldn't have encouraged that kind of idiocy. Do you know what you're going to do?" he asked.

"Yeah, I do, Ron. He might have seduced her, but she's her own woman, and she could have said no. The dying thing was as much an excuse as anything." I said. "Obviously, she felt it was better to seek forgiveness rather than ask permission, especially since Mom and Diana were pushing her. But this also wasn't a one and done. She's been fucking him regularly for the last two months."

"I've got your back, Jeff. No matter what happens. You need me, just call," Ronnie said.

I waited until Susan's plane was in the air to call her parents and tell them what their daughter had been doing in California with my brother. As I expected, since I knew them from the time I was a kid, they were embarrassed and appalled once they accepted what I was telling them was the truth.

"Seriously, Jeff? This isn't some kind of sick joke?" her father yelled over the phone.

"Seriously, Dad. You know I'd never joke about something like this. He's always had a bit of a thing for Susan, and I guess he figured he had nothing to lose trying to seduce her. I don't know if my mother and sister knew about his plan in advance, but I know they encouraged her to do it," I said.

"She's more than smart enough not to fall for that shit," my father-in-law groaned. "I'm sorry we apparently raised a slut, Jeff. I'm shocked. I'm assuming you're going to divorce her."

"Yeah. I won't put up with that, and I could never trust her again," I said. "She'll be getting served when she gets off the plane in a little while."

I waited until Susan's plane was in the air so my in-laws wouldn't be able to warn her ahead of time, not that the ass-chewing she was going to get from them would actually be a warning. I wanted her to be completely blindsided so it would maybe hurt her as much as she hurt me with her betrayal. If anybody should know that I'm a vindictive bastard, it's Susan. She should know that I was going to get my pound of flesh several times over.

I wasn't surprised that she never called in the two weeks since I busted her. She knew that a faceless, weak-ass apology would inflame me more than soothe me. Her best hope at extinguishing the flames of my anger would be for her to be in my arms, in our bed, with my hard dick buried completely in her warm, wet pussy. It was a strategy she had used successfully on me many times in the past when we were at odds over something. This, however, was way more than just being at odds. I was always aware that she was fucking me into the mattress to push her argument, but I usually allowed it. Not this time. Not ever again.

Like usual, I was waiting for her when she came out of the gate, but this time there was no hug and kiss. Judging by the stricken look on her face, I know she wasn't surprised. She was surprised, however, when the young man standing near us walked right up to her, asked her name and then handed her a manila envelope, telling her she had been served.

"After 19 years, you don't even give me the courtesy of having me served in the privacy of our home?" she asked softly.

"Considering you didn't even give me the courtesy of telling me about your affair; I had to find out on my own? You're lucky I didn't shoot the two of you in his bed. If I could have figured out some way to do it and get away with it... but you two aren't worth spending time in jail. He'll be dead soon enough, and you... you will just be a bad memory that I'll hopefully someday be able to push to the back of my memory closet, sort of like a slut dust bunny."

Tears crept down her face slowly as she did her best not to sob in public. Out of habit, I reached into my shirt pocket, pulled out a Kleenex and handed it to her.

The ride home was mostly made in silence, which suited me fine. I guess curiosity finally got the best of her, because just before we got to the house, she asked me who knew about her... indiscretion, as she called it. I chuckled at her choice of words. She winced at my laughter.