Flight Delay

It was four weeks before I had to go back on the road and during that time it seemed that Kate was always either telling me how much she loved me or making love to me. If anyone would have asked me if I thought my wife loved me I would have had absolutely no doubt that she did.

Over the next several months, a marriage that I had always thought was very good got a lot better. Kate, who had always been a loving wife, was even more loving now and much more accepting of my frequent travel. I could tell that Kate was much happier and so was I. I think this all had to do with the fact that the end of all my travel was in sight. We had already set the dates for our European trip and were talking about moving to a larger house when we started our family

*****

I didn't sleep that night. I needed answers but the only person who could provide them was the one person I didn't want to talk to. I needed time to get my thoughts and emotions under control. I decided to give myself a couple of days to come to grips with what Kevin had told me. That Margie Cooper spent a night with Kyle Porter, her old high school boyfriend, at the Cortland Holiday Inn while I was in Seattle last August.

I wanted a couple of days; I got fourteen hours. It was 4:15 on Saturday afternoon in LA when my cell phone rang. It was Kate and although I didn't want to talk to her yet I answered the phone.

"Where are you? You were supposed to be home two hours ago." Kate said in what I thought sounded like an angry voice.

"I'm still in LA."

"Why are you still there?"

"Something came up." I said.

"Something came up and you didn't think to call me? You promised to take me to see "CATS" tonight."

"Oops!"

"What?"

"I guess I goofed. I forgot that what you wanted to do tonight was more important than what's going on in my life." I said. I figured that would confuse Kate because I wasn't sure what I meant myself but I thought it sounded good.

"Are you saying that I'm selfish? How dare you? You're the one that suggested that we would go to the play tonight. What's eating you?"

I hadn't planned to do this over the phone but she asked the question.

"Last night I was thinking back to last year when I had to take that trip to Seattle and cancel our vacation in the Keys. Remember that?"

"Of course I do," Kate said. "Why?"

This time I could hear a little concern come into her voice.

"Well, I was just remembering how guilty I felt about letting my job interfere with our personal life. Our phone calls that week didn't help either. I felt bad that whole week even though I knew that you were at least having some fun with your friends while I worked twelve hour days, ate dinner by myself in my hotel room and had to deal with my guilty feelings."

"What made you think of that? It wasn't my fault that you had to go to Seattle and you were the one that suggested that I go visit my parents, which was no picnic. What's this all about?"

"I just wondered if you felt guilty about what you were doing that week?"

"I don't understand," Kate said. This time the concern in her voice was quite evident. "Why would you ask me if I felt guilty?"

"Last night I ran into Kevin Murray at the airport. You might remember Kevin from high school," I said. "We had a couple of beers together and he told me that he was back in Cortland last summer to visit his parents. He was telling me that he stayed at the Holiday Inn out by the I-81 interchange. Then Kevin told me that he saw Kyle Porter in the hotel lounge with a girlfriend. He said that Kyle and his girlfriend were making out in the bar and the last he saw of them was when they got on an elevator. Imagine my surprise when Kevin told me that Kyle's girlfriend's name was Margie Cooper."

I waited to see if Kate would say anything but she remained silent.

"I told Kevin that I was sure that Margie Cooper was married and would never cheat on her husband. Then Kevin said that when he saw Margie, she wasn't wearing a wedding ring."

I heard something that sounded like a whimper on the other end of the line.

"I guess that explains why I am a little angry and why I didn't come home today, doesn't it, Ms. Cooper?"

"Oh, God. Jim, Please come home and talk to me."

"I don't think so. I'll let you know if I ever decide to come home."

In a voice no more than a whisper, Kate said, "Please come home."

That was all I had the stomach for so I disconnected. I was glad that Kate didn't start the 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you' crap. Although, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that Kate didn't deny that she was at the hotel with Kyle. I guess I had a small hope that she would be able to convince me that Kevin had been wrong about what he saw.

*****

Over the next two days I tried to consider all of the possible ways of handling this situation. My anger made me want to go back to Atlanta and throw her out of the house but I knew I would never be able to do that to her. Then I felt the poison begin to fill my mind. Was that the first time she had cheated? Was it a long-term affair? Had she cheated on me since that time?

I spent two days thinking about our marriage and reviewing our whole relationship looking for clues to what happened.

*****

Margie Cooper was one year behind me in high school. When I was a senior she was the junior class president. I didn't really know her in high school. I knew who she was but I had never spoken more than a few words to her. She was tall with long dark brown hair and blue eyes. I always thought that was a beautiful combination. She was part of the in crowd and was probably the most popular girl in her class and one of the most popular girls in the whole school. Everybody liked Margie. I did vaguely remember that Margie had dated Kyle Porter but I never knew what happened with them after I graduated.

After high school I enrolled at State University of New York at Oswego where I was majoring in Industrial Arts. It was while attending a party during my junior year that I ran into Margie Cooper. I was standing, talking to a friend when I felt a hand on my arm. When I turned to see who it was I was surprised to see Margie's smiling face.

"Hi, Jim. How are you?"

Like I said before, when I was in high school I had never said more than a few words to her. I could never remember a time when she spoke to me first but here she was talking to me as though we were old friends.

"Margie. Wow. I didn't know you were going to school here. It's nice to see you."

After that I stood like an idiot having no idea what to say next. I assumed that she only stopped to say hello because we both went to the same high school and that she would very quickly wander off to join her friends. I was wrong.

"It's really nice to see a familiar face," she said. "How have you been?"

"I'm good, Margie. How are you?"

"I'm great," she said, "but don't call me Margie; call me Kate."

"Kate? Why Kate?"

"My full name is Kathryn Margaret Cooper," Margie said. "My mother always calls me Margie because that's her older sister's name. When I got here my friends started to call me Kate and I like that better than Margie."

"Okay, Kate it is."

Then Kate surprised me with how much she knew about me in high school. She didn't come right out and say it but I got the impression that if I had asked her out in high school she might have said yes.

Around midnight two of her girlfriends came over and said they were ready to leave. Kate told them she would be right with them and then she just kind of stood looking at me. It took me all of five seconds to figure out that I was supposed to say something.

"Would you like to go out tomorrow night?" I asked.

Kate looked over at her girl friends, waiting for her by the door, and then looked back at me. She said, "Yes." Then she opened her handbag and got a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote her phone number on it and handed it to me. "Call me tomorrow afternoon." Then she left.

My memory of that first date is still clear. I took her out to Rudy's for a fish fry dinner. Rudy's is an institution in Oswego. It's a small place on the shore of Lake Ontario that specializes in fried fish sandwiches, Texas Hots and similar treats. I always believed that if you stood at the counter in Rudy's long enough that you would see the whole world pass by, or at least everyone in Oswego.

Kate and I took our fish sandwiches outside and sat on a picnic table and watched the waves washing up on the stones on the beach. In Oswego, that passes for a romantic dinner for college students.

By the time we had finished eating and were ready to leave, I think we both knew that something special was beginning to happen between us. We kissed a lot that night but I didn't try to press for anything more.

On our fifth date I took Kate for dinner at a local Italian restaurant and then we went back to campus to watch some television in her dorm lounge. When the late news came on Kate took me by the hand and led me over to the elevators and took me up to her room.

Once we were inside the room with the door closed, Kate came to me and gave me a soft kiss on the lips. "Tonight's your lucky night, big boy," she whispered in my ear. Kate was moving a little faster than I was. I hadn't expected to have sex with Kate that night but I was able to catch up with her in a hurry.

The kisses became more passionate as we moved to the bed. I pulled Kate's top off as soon as we got onto the bed and I soon had Kate's breasts in my hands and mouth. As I sucked on her nipples, Kate made little mewing sounds in her throat. As her breathing intensified I began opening her pants. Kate helped me get them off leaving her on the bed in just her sexy black panties.

I kissed my way up her inner thighs until I could feel the heat from her sex and smell her arousal. I pulled panties down to discover a lush triangle of curly dark hair. I pressed my face into her hair and inhaled her scent and then I ran my tongue over her vulva causing Kate's hips to jump just a little. As I began to probe Kate's pussy with my tongue she took my head in her hands and pulled me tighter against her. I wasn't sure if she was having an orgasm or not because Kate didn't make any noises but she was humping my mouth and her juices seemed to be flowing heavily.

I performed oral sex on her until my jaw began to hurt and even then I didn't want to stop. To give my jaw muscles a chance to recover, I got up and removed my clothes. When I got back on the bed, Kate took my cock in her hand and pulled it toward her face. I moved up the bed in the direction she was pulling, like I had a choice, and then Kate took me into her mouth. I lay there on my side looking down on Kate's pretty face as she worked my cock in and out of her mouth and I wondered how long I could possible hold off my climax.

I was very near climaxing when Kate stopped and asked me to enter her. I moved between Kate's legs and began kissing her as my cock searched for her opening. It didn't take long for me to find her warm wet sex and slide my cock deep inside her. We bounced around the bed, slowing and then speeding up, trying to prolong the pleasure as long as we could until I finally exploded inside Kate's pussy, spewing my seed deep inside her.

"That was wonderful," Kate said.

"I couldn't agree more."

"You know what this means, don't you?" Kate said.

"I could guess but I don't want of be wrong so why don't you tell me," I said.

"I didn't do this because I wanted to have sex. I did it because I love you and I wanted to have sex with you so please don't hurt me."

"I will never hurt you," I said. "I love you too much to ever want to hurt you."

I knew when I left her room that night that Kate was going to be my wife.

After college I got a job at a large manufacturing company in Syracuse. When Kate finished school the following May she got a job as a preschool teacher in Camillus and we got married that July. The following year I accepted a job offer from J.B. Brown Industries in Atlanta as a line manager in their manufacturing plant. It was a good job but I wanted more so I started attending night classes and managed to earn a degree in Business Management. When I completed my degree work Jack Brown offered me a project management position. Jack explained that there would be a great deal of travel with the job but that if I would do it for four years he would put me in a management job with very little travel.

Kate and I discussed the job and decided that I should take it. We decided that we would hold off having children until the four-year assignment ended.

When I look back on my marriage I can't think of any time that I didn't think I had a great marriage. No one could have asked for a more generous or more loving wife than Kate. She was always there for me. Whenever I met one of her friends from the school where she taught or from one of the charities she worked for they would always tell me how Kate was always bragging about me. The more I thought about our life together, the harder it was for me to believe she could ever have betrayed me.

Thinking back now I can't think of a time when I didn't think I had a great marriage. Our disagreements never turned into major arguments. When Kate got pissed about something she would let me know in no uncertain terms but then she would calm down quickly. It was her way of releasing pressure. Kate was very good at getting her temper under control.

*****

My reminiscing was starting to make me believe that everything would work out all right but then the poison started to spread again.

How did she end up with Kyle Porter at the Holiday Inn? Is he the reason that Kate decided to go to Cortland while I was in Seattle? How long had this been going on? How many others had there been?

I tried to work my way through all of these questions and I could come to only one conclusion. It had to have been a one-time thing. She couldn't have planned to meet Kyle ahead of time; at least I didn't believe that to be the case. She didn't know she was going to be going to Cortland without me until three days before the trip. Before that she just didn't have a time when she could have been fooling around. Since we had been married, that week in August was the first time she had ever gone back home without me. The only thing I could figure was that Kate must have run into Kyle when she was out with her friends and things must have happened from there.

I finally had to give up. The only way I would ever know what happened was to talk to the only person that could answer my questions but would she tell me the truth? I didn't know what I should do. That night my sleep was interrupted by nightmares of Kate's infidelity.

In the morning, while having a cup of coffee, I decided what to do. I picked up my phone and made the call.

*****

"Hey, Jack. It's Jim."

"Are you back home?"

"No, I'm still in LA."

"I thought you were coming back yesterday. What's up?" Jack asked.

"I've decided to stay out here until the project is done."

"I don't understand."

"I am going to stay in LA until we are done here," I said.

"The project has four more months to run. What did Kate say about your staying out there?"

"Haven't asked her. It's not up to her anyway," I said.

"What's going on? Did you and Kate have a fight or something?" Jack said.

"Or something... I don't want to discuss it right now. I just called to tell you I am staying out here."

"Okay, it's your choice. Anything I can do for you here?" Jack said.

"No. I'll be in touch," I said and disconnected.

Kate called twice that day but I didn't answer her calls.

On Monday morning I called home but Kate didn't answer the phone. I wasn't sure if she wasn't home or if she was trying to pay me back for not answering her calls and I didn't care. I was actually glad that I didn't have to speak to her; I only wanted to give her a message.

"Kate. I won't be coming home. I am staying out here until this project is done. After that I don't know what I will do. Maybe in the meantime, you can get Kyle Porter to take you to see CATS."

*****

The only one in the LA project office when I arrived on Monday morning was Joey Miller. Joey was dressed in the typical uniform of this project. Jeans, a tee shirt, work boots and a baseball cap. Joey was six feet tall. Weighed about 155 pounds, had brown eyes and light brown hair. Joey's hair was always tied in a tight ponytail that stuck out through the opening in the back of her baseball cap.

"Hey, Jim. How ya doing?" she asked as I entered the room. "I thought you were going home for a couple of weeks."

"Changed my mind," I said. "How are you?"

"Just fuckin great." This project is giving me a rash on my ass," Joey said and then laughed.

I laughed too. "A rash, huh? Just on your ass or anywhere more interesting?" I said.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

I liked Joey in spite of the fact that she walked and talked like one of the guys. At work all of the other PMs, myself included, just treated Joey like one of the guys. Outside of work I think I was the only guy that talked to her. The other PMs seemed to be intimidated by her. She was taller than most of them and they didn't feel comfortable talking to her about anything other than work. One night after work, when a bunch of us decided to go out for a drink, I suggested that we invite Joey along and the others all said no. One of the guys actually said, "It's bad enough that I have to work with a fuckin dyke. I'm not about to go drinkin' with the man hater too."

I always tried to be friendly to Joey and she was friendly toward me. I didn't see any reason to shun her because she was a woman or because of her sexual preference.

Joey stared at me for a few minutes with a strange look on her face.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I said.

"Something's bothering you. Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay, then let's go to work."

For the next two weeks I buried myself in my work trying not to think about Kate and what she had done to our marriage. Kate had tried to call me several times but I refused to talk to her.

That Thursday I was sitting in the project office updating my project plans when Kate called. I waited until she left a message on my voice mail and then retrieved it.

"Jim, when are you going to stop this foolishness and come home? We need to talk. How can we save our marriage if you won't talk to me? You are just being stubborn," she said.

I was being foolish and stubborn? That pissed me off. She might have been right but it still pissed me off. In my anger I pulled off my wedding ring and stared at it. I wondered why I was still wearing it. Did I want my marriage to continue or did I want a divorce? Could I divorce her without at least talking to her? Was I required to listen to her side of the story?

I am not sure where the impulse came from that made me do it but I grabbed a FedEx mailer and addressed it to Kate and put my ring inside. No note, just the ring. Then I dropped the package in the FedEx box and left the office before I had a chance to change my mind.

The next day Kate called and left a message.

"How could you be so cold? Just your ring, not even a note? Please talk to me. Give me a chance, please."

*****

Almost two months had past since finding out that Kate had cheated on me. During that time I worked long days six days a week and put in a half day on Sundays. I managed to keep Kate out of my mind during the day while I was working but when I went to bed at night I thought about her and our shambles of a marriage.

It was early on a Friday morning that I found myself in the project office alone with Joey again. Joey looked at me for a long moment and then grabbed me by the arm and said, "Let's go get a cup of coffee."