Daydream Believer: Discovery

Homage dedicated to HardDaysNight, HDK, for all the enjoyment he has brought me in reading his stuff.

Lately, there have been several stories where husbands are betrayed and left distraught. This is my take on the genre. There is some light sex, but as usual, I am here to tell a story of which the sex just plays a peripheral part. I posted under Loving Wives under duress. Since this is an homage the early plotline is full of easily recognizable plot points. So don't bother trying to gig me on them; they are there for a reason. My aim was present a husband torn between what he wants to do, and what he needs to do.

And as always to LadyCibelle: The bestest editor one could have!

*

It was one of those perfect moments in life, the kind we experience and savor over and over. In years to come, Bruce Springsteen would capture the nostalgia of the moment perfectly in his song Glory Days . But that song was years ahead. This moment was in 1973 I was still playing center field for my college baseball team and still in love with the homecoming queen.

My hands knotted up, tightening their grip on the bat in my hands. Everything about this felt right. My feet shifted and I dug in, elbows high and wide. The pitcher nodded once at the catcher's unseen signal. For a moment the pitcher glanced to second base as Steve, our own shortstop and my best friend, moved ready to run like hell if I connected. My eyes stayed glued to the pitcher as he wound up. His foot stomped the ground as the ball was released and sped toward me seeking the strike zone. My hips dipped and the bat began to come away from its rest. I knew that it would connect. The air parted as the bat sought its target.

CRACK!!

The connection was solid as my hips pivoted adding extra power to my shoulders and strength of the Ted Williams I held. My legs crossed and I watched the ball speed away from me in a long, low arch just right of center field. I didn't need to see anymore. Steve was trotting to third as I loped off to first. It was a home run. The winning run! Everything had come together in that one perfect moment which I would relive over and over in my mind but never again experience, save once, in my life.

As I rounded third I looked up as Jeanne stood and blew me a kiss. Her blonde hair shimmered in the afternoon sun and the whites of her teeth contrasted sharply with the deep tan she had been working on. The left strap of her sundress fell and she pulled at it as I smiled and gave her the thumbs up, a big shit eating grin creasing my face. I headed for home. Steve stood there, hat in hand, grinning and pushing a wisp of straw colored hair from his eyes. I tapped base just as he pulled me into one of the big bear hugs for which he was so famous.

"You did it, Shortshit. I'll be fucked if you didn't do it!" he hollered. He was squeezing me hard and pumping me up and down against the ground.

"Yeah, seems so, Buttwipe", I acknowledged, "and that makes us even." The rest of our team, which we had dutifully nicknamed the "Mud Hens" came out and flocked around me.

That hit would have been the crowing achievement of my college career. As it turns out I had two others that last year. One was Jeanne saying yes to my proposal of marriage and the second was my graduating Cum Laude. Jeanne graduated Summa and, as expected, Steve squeaked by with just enough to get his sheepskin.

For the three of us the idle days of college were over. Jeanne and I were heading for a Masters program and Steve, well, my childhood friend and partner had been scouted out by the Orioles and would begin serving his apprenticeship in the minors. We were all happy that last year. Jeanne would go on to law school and I would study art history and restoration. Sport had always been Steve's forte and he would begin his winding trek to Cooperstown. Life was very sweet.

Upon graduation, Jeanne and I married. I couldn't believe my luck that day. Jeanne, whose parents had insisted on a proper Catholic wedding, looked more beautiful than I could have ever imagined as she walked down the aisle bathed in white, her arm linked through her father's as he brought her to me. I don't remember much of the ceremony but obviously I had recalled all the right words in all the correct places. I came back to reality just as the priest pronounced us and instructed me to kiss the bride. I did with relish.

The reception was held at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, my and Steve's hometown. I remember standing there with a stupid look etched across my face as friends and family came and congratulated us. Steve came up and shook my hand, then turned and took my new bride in his arms and gave her a long kiss full on the mouth. I stood there looking stupid. Steve had been my friend since our first year on Little League. That earned him some latitude but as I stood there wondering whether to hit him, shit, or go blind, I knew he was pushing the limits. Any other man would have already been picking his ass up off the floor. I cleared my throat just as he broke off and came up for air.

Then, my bride slapped my best man full and solidly. Steve's head spun to one side and he nearly lost his balance. I stepped between the two of them glancing around to see if any other guests had see the display. Fortunately, they hadn't.

"Steve Dwyer what the hell do you think you are doing?" Jeanne fumed. Her face was hot with anger but not as red as the raging mark on Steve's cheek.

"Damn, Jeanne, I am so sorry! I don't know what got into me", Steve gushed. He looked at me imploringly. "Man I am so sorry. It is just that I have wanted to kiss Jeanne since we all first met our sophomore year. I guess I figured this was my last chance. Can you both forgive me? You have to know I would never do anything to ruin our friendship."

Jeanne and I looked from him to each other. For the first time in his life, Steve, a man who was as close to me as my own brother, a man I had never seen lose his composure, looked like a lost puppy. Jeanne was the first to react. She placed her hand on his shoulder and said, "It's okay. No foul. I overreacted, too, I guess"

He looked over at me, pain in his eyes. "Can you forgive me?" he croaked.

I threw my arm over his shoulder and pulled him too me. "Hell, yes, bro!"

He smiled then, that great grin which had helped win so many games and so many co-eds. "Man, I really am so sorry."

"Forget it. Just remember in the future whose wife she is, Buttwipe." I grinned.

"I will," he promised.

The heat and tension of the moment dissipated as Jeanne turned to go off to greet a couple of family members. She looked back at me and said, "Go get the bags. We ought to leave out of here in twenty minutes. If you play your cards right, you might get lucky tonight stud", she teased with a wink.

Both of us watched her walk away. Steve turned to me and punched my arm. "Well, you did it, Shortshit! You married the prettiest girl in our class, the homecoming queen! I always said you had more luck than brains!" he grinned.

I smiled and replied, "Yeah. I'll be damned if I know how it happened. This whole day I've felt like I've been walking in a daydream."

"Well, this is one daydream you had better believe in and never wake from," he advised.

"I won't." I promised.

Two years after that, armed with fresh graduate degrees, Jeanne and I moved to Washington, D.C. where I had secured a position as a conservator for the Smithsonian and Jeanne had landed a position for a lobbyist off of Constitution Ave. Jeanne made sure we kept in touch with friends from school but it was Steve who caught up with us the most. He had moved up into the majors and Jeanne and I took delight in watching our friend play on a televised game from time to time. During the off season he would always come by for a week and stay with us. He timed these visits to coincide with my birthday. Each time he would bring a gift from his travels. One year a small jade Buddha he had bought in Thailand, the next a third baseman's mitt he had stolen from the locker of a Japanese team. One year, he had had our wedding photo hand painted on rice paper and sealed in a glass frame. Jeanne had cried when he presented it to me and I confess to misting up myself. It occupied a place of honor over the fireplace nestled between my MFA and Jeanne's LLD. Every year there was something different but each a treasure.

After that first year at the Smithsonian, I had been given a small promotion and Jeanne passed her BAR exams. Steve had been there on one of his little visits and the pressure of the past year was finally off so we celebrated until 2 AM. That night, Jeanne and I had about the best sex I could remember having in the marriage. I don't know if Steve got any sleep that night we were so loud. But I didn't really care, either. If he didn't he never mentioned it.

Nine months after that my son was born. We named him Stephen after his godfather and my best friend. I called him Stevie. Stevie was the true blending of Jeanne and I. He had my dark hair, and his mother's brown doe eyes. No matter how much he ate, he always looked gawky. From the beginning Stevie was quiet and contemplative like his mother.

Two years later, Stevie was joined by his little sister, Rachel, named after Jeanne's mother. Stevie was his mother's son but Rachel was all me with dark hair and blue eyes, stocky and mean. Rachael would keep us up most of the night for the first 3 months and seemed to delight in wailing loud enough to shake the rafters. Those sleepless nights resulted in Zachary a year later. Zachary took after his mother; there was little of me in the lad, save for a passion for sport and especially baseball. His fair hair and his mother's eyes held an intensity which would come out in sports. He was smashing my fast ball by the time he was six.

The next 12 years went by quickly. I was promoted and now headed a section of the Smithsonian charged with acquiring and exhibiting cultural American art. The job was challenging and I did it well. Jeanne had left her lobbyists position and now worked on staff for a senatorial sub-committee. Steve, lanky and tall, and his contemplative ways had yet to find his niche but there was still plenty of time. He had also just discovered girls much to the chagrin of his mother and me. Rachel wasn't as into sport but was already showing artistic promise. Zachary, on the other hand was far too busy being a 10 year old super jock. He always happy and made us laugh at his antics.

Things had not fared so well for our friend Steve. First, he began to suffer from arthritis. Then the news he had developed type 2 diabetes. Naturally, for Steve, his baseball career was over. Fortunately for him, he had been smart enough to diversify his earnings into a car dealership and bought into several high tech companies supplying service for defense contracts. Financially, he was better off than he had any business being.

His personal life was a shambles, however. He had been married twice; once to a leggy, blond who thought a slider was the man running to third base. They lasted all of 18 months.

His second wife, Denise was a nice, attractive woman who had been a softballer. They had met at one of her exhibition games and for a while it looked like they could make it. The four of us would often have cook outs, and occasionally we shared vacations. There had no ominous cloud but they mysteriously divorced five years ago. Occasionally, I would see him and Jeanne caught up in an intense dialogue in which I would hear Denise mentioned but otherwise, to me Steve never talked about it. Denise remained in the area, moving to Falls Church and I would occasionally see her out and about the Mall in Washington. We would make brief chit-chat. I would ask her how she was, she would ask about the kids but Steve's name never crossed her lips and out of respect for her privacy I never asked about the divorce.

Divorced and childless, Steve made our home his. Each trip over to our place was like another Christmas for the kids. He doted on them and they adored their "Uncle Steve". Steve maintained that Stevie was the most like me a comparison which didn't bother me a bit. He also insisted that Zachary was the milkman's. Zach was much better at sport than I had been. He played just about every sport one could name and played them well.

Trite as it sounds, life was good. Occasionally I felt the need to pinch myself to see if this was a daydream I inhabited or just extraordinary good luck. I was successful in my career, as was Jeanne; we had a comfortable home, great kids, health, and good friends.

It was in the fifteenth year of our marriage I awoke.

I haven't gone into our sex life, mostly because I always felt that that was one part of a marriage that remained private. With today's rapidly diminishing sense of privacy I had felt it was the one part of a marriage that remained distinctively private and personal. Politics, religion, and financial affairs are all pretty much in the open now but sex was one part I wasn't about to share. But, if the reader is to gain any insight into what happened next, I have to open up that part of out life to scrutiny.

I knew Jeanne wasn't a virgin when we married. Neither was I but only barely thanks to an obliging older "fallen" woman in my old neighborhood. I learned much later that Steve had had his cherry popped by her as well. I suppose it was her way of community service and neighborliness. Where and when Jeanne lost hers I never asked and she never told me. It isn't the type of thing which usually comes up in conversation. Our own sex life was, I suppose, well, normal. We started having sex in our senior year of college and pretty much fucked like bunnies thorough grad and law schools.

After grad school with the pressure of respective careers the frequency dropped but not the quality. We made it a point to have our own little mini-vacations where we would reconnect and re-ignite the embers of a once fiery passion. These were very important times for us and only once had I nearly missed it. That had been years ago. And in 18 years of knowing her, Jeanne never gave me any reason to think our love life was anything other than as satisfying for her as it was for me. I still feel that way.

The chimera of our marriage remained as strong until the day I returned early from a trip to New York. My job would periodically take me to various museums and art dealers around the US, indeed around the world. It was one of the perks for working at one of the premiere institutions in the world. The Smithsonian can compete with the British Museum, (actually the closest in form and function to SI), the Louvre, and the Cairo Museum. As such, I would have the opportunity to evaluate items of Americana on display. That time I had gone to the New York Museum of Fine Art to look at a copy of one of Whistler's work which they had just put on exhibition. I had managed to skip a lot of the politicking and catch an early Amtrak back to Union Station. I had been tired the last couple of days from overwork coupled with approaching middle age. I wanted nothing more but to get home and catch a couple of 'Z's before dinner and time with the family. I caught the Red line back up to Adams Morgan and walked the 4 blocks to our townhouse.

I turned the corner and saw the familiar front of our townhouse. I noted that Jeanne must be home from the presence of her car. This was an unusual but pleasant surprise. Contrary to popular belief our career hadn't become less demanding but rather more so as we had risen in ranks. When before we could take the odd day here and there just for us, it had become increasingly difficult lately. Time to recharge our batteries and become reacquainted with each other was almost non-existent. As for love-making, that had become a ritualized dance we managed to hammer out once every three weeks. Spontaneous sex was a dim memory. My coming home a bit early was fortuitous. Maybe I could reawaken it. I was speculating on the possibility of foregoing the nap in favor of a little afternoon delight as I made to the front door and found it unlocked.

I stepped inside the house and looked around. Jeanne wasn't there. I called out here name with no reply. I remembered her silver Beemer sitting in the drive. She had to be home. I began to trudge up the stairs to the second floor. From our room on the third floor I could hear the loud but indistinct sounds of human voices.

She must be upstairs watching TV , I thought. I moved across the landing to the last set of stairs and the noise grew louder. As I placed my hand on the banister I could make out the sounds of heavy breathing and a groan. During one of our experimental times we had purchased several love-making instructional DVD's (read porno discs) and my first thought was that she was watching one of them. This was fine with me. I was up for walking in on my wife masturbating. I could finish the job, super stud that I was.

But the sight that greeted me wasn't one of my wife riding her hand but of her riding the man I had shared half my life growing up.

Jeanne was on top of Steve, cowgirls fashion and was riding to the brink of her climax. With one hand she was massaging her breast in that same way she had done with me so many times, the other was behind her, on Steve's leg to steady her. She rocked against his cock in a steady rhythm, her eyes tightly closed. Steve was, naturally, lying on his back his own eyes closed, his hands on her hips guiding her movements.

I stepped back, and pressed myself against the wall. My heart was racing, eyesight blurred. I began to hyperventilate. What the hell was this? How long? Why? My mind was a kaleidoscope of sensations. This wasn't happening. I was working too hard and my mind was playing tricks. But the sounds drifted across to me from the open bedroom door, a bedroom that I had thought was mine.

'UHHHHHHHH...push it harder, Steve. Shove it way up there, baby", Jeanne heaved.

Steve began to push his hips up off the bed, using his heels as anchors. As he pressed up, his hands would force her hips down, impaling her on his thick cock.

"Hmmmmmm, I do miss these times, Sleepy Jeanne. Your pussy is so wet and hot! "

"Ummm, I'm gonna..I'm coming, Steve. "Her hips began to gyrate faster. Her hands flashed forward and buried themselves in his chest hair. Her fingers tightened, kneading his chest like dough. "Fuck, cominnnnng,.....come...comminnnnggggggg", she breathed.

Her body fell forwards as he pushed up one last time. "Ahhhhhhh, Sleepy Jeanne, baby.....shit...." he breathed. I could tell by his jerking that he was shooting his come into MY wife! Jeanne collapsed forward just as his slick, greasy cock slipped from inside her. For some reason - to this day I can't fathom why - I noticed with some satisfaction that is cock was no larger than mine. Of what benefit that was to me, I didn't know. But in the mist of this nightmare I took some satisfaction in that fact.

"Hmmmm, Steve, thanks, baby. ", she murmured sleepily as she looked up to kiss him. For his part, Steve took had that glazed and sated look.

Turning from the spectacle, I pressed myself up against the wall again. My eyes were watering! No, I realized, they were tears. I was beginning to cry, something I had not done since my father had passed on some three years ago. It was the first and only time Jeanne and Steve had seen me cry. I vowed they would not see me cry again and pushed off the wall. Silently, I padded back down the stairs; to where I had no idea.

I stumbled over to the bottom kitchen cupboard which Jeanne and I used as a makeshift bar cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam and opened it. I retrieved a tumbler from the dish rack and filled it. I took a deep swallow. The liquid scalded its way down my esophagus and settled into a mild conflagration in the pit of my stomach. Good! Perhaps it would fill the empty pit there. I placed my arms behind me and leaned back on the counter waiting for the Beam to take effect.