Fool's Envy Ch. 02

As he screamed in surprise and pain, I moved in close so nobody else could hear. "You want to know what I said, bitch? I told your cunt wife that if she ever talked to Terry again, I would burn your fucking house to the ground and I'd make sure it was while you were both inside." He looked at me like I was insane.

"I warned her that if she told you, there was no way you wouldn't come charging at me like you just did and I would make you pay. Now that you're here, you have one chance. Your left arm is totally free and both my hands are tied up so I can't defend myself. If you can hit me, you'll win. If not, you're going to have a hard time impressing bored housewives with one of your arms stuck up your ass." He took the bait and got one foot under himself as he tried to swing at me.

As Ted reared back to swing, I put a small amount of additional pressure to his wrist. He screamed again as he fell, face first, to the ground, trying to find a position that would relieve the pain.

"Get this straight asshole, if you ever come near me or Terry again, I'll make sure you never use this arm again. Do you fucking understand me?" He nodded frantically as tears rolled down his face. I released the hold and pushed him hard in the shoulder with my foot. He tumbled to his back, grabbing the injured wrist. "Now get home before you really get hurt. Next time you better think twice before you fuck around with somebody's wife. The next guy might just use a gun."

As Ted scampered back home, Joe and Beth walked up to me in shock. "Wow, remind me not to fuck with you," Joe said with admiration. "Where the hell did you learn that?"

"Well, if you two will promise to feed me, I'll tell you all about it. I've got to admit, that felt really good. I almost wish he'd put up more of a fight so I didn't have to stop. Big mister weightlifter is a pussy at heart, I don't think he'll bother Terry or me again." Part of me wondered if Terry would thank me for chasing him away, or if she'd be disappointed.

I was just about to walk inside when something made me turn. There was Terry, standing on the front porch of our house just a hundred feet away. I resisted the urge to go find out if she was all right, afraid I might not be able to handle it or that I might give her the wrong idea. It was still too early to sort out exactly what was going on in my head. Sadly, I turned away from her, back toward Joe's house and walked in, with all traces of my improved mood wiped away.

At the end of the night, I asked Beth if she'd check on Terry. I couldn't bring myself to go there, but I was concerned about her. It was such a horrible tug of war; I wanted to ignore her but couldn't shake how badly I felt about leaving her. As I went back to my place, I wallowed in self-pity. I didn't like what I was becoming, but had no idea how to change it.

Over the next two weeks, Terry called me dozens of times and left numerous tearful messages, but I refused to talk to her. I went back to Beth and Joe's house for dinner twice, but managed to do it without running into her. The lack of contact wasn't helping me though. I still felt miserable all the time. I knew that it would take a long time to get past this, but had underestimated just how difficult it would be.

Terry had been the first woman I'd ever considered marrying. My other relationships had been so superficial; none of them ending had much impact on me. Now I was losing weight, feeling sick most of the time, rarely getting a good night's rest and wondering how I was going to take the next step in my life. Turns out it was taken for me. I got a message from a lawyer saying he had been hired to represent Terry. He said that he wanted to schedule a meeting with me. He let me know that any agreement to meet would have to include time for Terry to meet with me to discuss personal issues.

I had anticipated that, so was prepared. I was nervous, but determined to get past the meeting so I could finally get on with my life. After making a call to the attorney Pete recommended, I called her lawyer back and made the appointment. We made an arrangement to meet the next day.

~~~~~

When I arrived at her lawyer's office, I was shown right to the conference room. As I walked into the room, Terry stood shakily at the other side of the table. I sat across from her trying to appear indifferent to her presence.

"Steve, why won't you just talk to me? Don't you understand how sorry I am that this happened?"

I regarded her coldly. "If you feel so bad about it, why did you do everything in your power to make it happen? How am I supposed to feel about what you did, plotting with those two assholes the whole time?"

She appeared to be doing everything possible to remain composed. "I'll never forgive myself for letting it go so far. It just started out with Jackie and me teasing each other. Things kept going further and further until it was completely out of control. I just got caught up in how exciting she said it would be."

I didn't bother trying to hide my disgust. "Yeah, it sure looked like you were excited."

Her expression was one of pure guilt. "Please don't say things like that. You weren't exactly in misery on the couch with Jackie. If I had known how you'd react, I never would have gone through with it."

"Well I guess it is kind of hard to know how I'd feel considering the way you tried to trick me into it. Maybe if you'd thought to ask, it would have been easier to know what would happen." I paused, letting my sarcasm cut her. "Then again, maybe you knew that if you asked I would have said no, which would have spoiled all of your fun."

Her look of shame betrayed exactly how correct my assessment was. I had her and was ready to unload all of the pain I felt. "You don't think I saw this coming? I talked to you over and over about your 'friends' and how I didn't want you around them. You shot me down and even tried to embarrass me for not liking them. Well, you got to know them really well. Are you happy now?"

Terry didn't answer. She seemed to be struggling for a way to defend herself, but knew there was nothing she could say?

"What did I do wrong that made it so important for you to get fucked by another guy?" I continued. "I knew there was something bothering you, so I tried even harder to make sure you didn't feel neglected and that you understood exactly how much I loved you. Every time I did, I could feel you treating me like I was second on your mind."

"The day of the party I pulled you aside and told you how important you were to me. I asked you if there was anything you wanted to talk to me about and you told me that you'd never been happier. Well I guess that was because you knew you were finally going to get fucked by a big he-man like Ted."

She glared at me. "How can you say that? I love you more than anything. I made a terrible mistake, but you won't even talk to me about it. You could have stopped it at any time, but you let it go on. You watched us and didn't say a word. All you had to do was tell me to stop and it would have been over. I thought I had your permission."

It took all my patience not to reach across the table and throttle her. "Since when is it my job to beg you not to go through with your plans to have sex with other guys? Should I have followed you around every day to make sure nobody asked to fuck you? You know it's funny. When Jackie told me that Ted was planning on screwing you, I thought she had lost her mind. Not my wife; not Terry. She loves me and wouldn't do anything to hurt me. So I guess my only question now is, how's your throat?"

She ran from the room in tears. The emptiness I felt let me know that tearing her down wasn't going to make me any happier, but at least now my misery had company. When she came back in ten minutes later, it was with her lawyer.

"Mr. Davis, how much longer is it going to be until your attorney arrives?"

"I'll be representing myself today." Enjoying his surprised expression, I went on. "I've spoken to an attorney and he'll be looking over any agreement we make, but I can handle this negotiation just fine."

He cleared his throat and looked over at Terry, who just nodded. He ran through a bunch of numbers, obviously trying to intimidate me. I smiled as I listened to him lecture me like I was his inferior, and that somehow it was supposed to intimidate me. When he finished, I made a counter proposal.

"Here's what I will agree to. If your client doesn't contest the divorce in any way, she can have the house and everything in it. She can have the bank accounts, credit cards and her car. I will not agree to any alimony. Those are the terms or we will go to court and you can spend a ton of her money to get far less from me." I stared at him intently as he tried to size me up.

"Well that is unacceptable. Alimony is standard in this state and since you both had extramarital affairs, you will have a very difficult time establishing any grounds for something out of the ordinary. You really should have representation here." He smirked, trying to show me that I had no options but to acquiesce.

"Well Mr. McCallister, maybe you should do a little more research into whom you're dealing with or what cards you actually have to play. First, I consider your claim that I had an extramarital affair to be slanderous and you better be careful to never repeat it publicly unless you want to find yourself in need of representation." I watched his smirk disappear with a great deal of satisfaction. "I have never had sex or any similarly intimate relations with anyone but my wife."

I stared hard at Terry, as I made my point. She appeared confused, which turned to outrage. "How dare you lie about this! You can't make me out to look like the only one."

"Terry, who told you that I had sex with Jackie?" I paused while she absorbed the statement. "Maybe instead of being so intent on getting to use Ted's big fat cock, you should have thought about the man you married. I would never cheat on you and the last thing I would want is a piece of a whore like her, especially after you just broke my heart."

She looked at me incredulously. "I saw you letting her touch you on the couch, then you went out together. I don't understand. When she came back, she gave me the signal that you said it was OK."

"Well maybe you two should have worked more on your signals. She touched me against my will so I told her I was going outside to be alone. That's when she told me that you gave her permission to seduce me. I asked her to follow me out to find out what was going on. Once we were alone, she told me you were planning on fucking Ted. Then she told me she was my consolation prize . . . Gee whiz, how special!" I said, with as much vitriol as I could muster.

"Let me ask you something, sweetheart," I practically spit at her. "If you found out that I wanted to fuck some hot chick so much that I told her husband he was going to get to have sex with you, but 'forgot' to mention it to you, how would you feel?" She wasn't looking at me anymore, but I could hear her sobbing quietly. I turned my attention back to her lawyer.

"Ok, so only one of us has been unfaithful and she gave me away like I was a piece of garbage to insure the deal. Does that fit in with your definition of ordinary spousal behavior?" I waited for him to respond, but had a look on his face like he just swallowed something the wrong way.

"Next," I continued, "there are no marital assets to divide."

He looked down at his notes and tried to speak, but I interrupted him. "I used the money that we had saved to pay off as many of our bills as possible. This way there isn't anything that we are responsible for together. The money that was left over after the credit cards, utilities and taxes were paid was put on the next few months of house payments so she'd have time to adjust."

I heard a surprised shriek from Terry. I turned to see her trying to form words, but nothing was coming out. Finally she managed to say, "That was our money, how could you just spend it without asking me?"

I laughed out loud, "You're asking me how I could do something without your permission, that's rich. Your lawyer is sitting here trying to think of a way to keep our money all for you, then demand I pay you on top of it. I used it to pay the bills we decided to take on together, while we still actually discussed things like adults. That money is gone and there's nothing either of you can do about it."

I turned back to her lawyer again. "Third, you want to add alimony to this? Well good luck, here's a copy of my last pay stub." I slid the document in front of him. "I took a new job within my company due to the stress your client's actions put me under. Now I make $28,000 a year before taxes. If we go to court, I'll get part of the house, if not the whole thing. She'll be humiliated publicly by what she did and your fees will cost far more than you could ever hope to get from me, even if you manage to get a judge who despises men."

I looked back at Terry and saw that she had her head in her hands. "Terry, was this whole thing just another setup to try and scare me into giving you another chance?"

She brought her eyes up to meet mine. I could see the pain in her expression and it hurt me terribly to see her suffer, but I wasn't going to allow sympathy to cloud my judgment.

Terry spoke quietly, her voice shaking. "I just wanted you to give me a chance to show you how sorry I am. I thought maybe if you stayed with me for a little while you could find a way to forgive me."

I shook my head in disgust. "You don't get it and you never will. It's got nothing to do with me forgiving you. If you had told me before we got married that you'd want to do some kind of swinger thing, I would have called off the wedding and we could have gone our separate ways. I am not interested in ever doing anything like what you proposed. Even if you had brought Jackie over and offered me some kind of threesome, I wouldn't have been interested. I loved you and that's all that I wanted."

"Jackie told me about putting on a show for you and what you did for them." Terry looked away again, crying a little louder. "Once you decided to go outside our marriage, it was over. I don't think I could have ever trusted you again. Actually, fucking Ted was nothing more than icing on the cake. I'm guessing you would have happily kept doing it if I had agreed and probably would have gone along with Ted and Jackie to their swinger parties."

"Swinger parties?" she whispered. "She didn't tell me, I thought that she just wanted to..." Terry trailed off as she realized that her best friend had been less than honest with her.

"Look, I don't want to hurt you, Terry. I haven't told anyone about what happened except Joe and Beth, and I made them promise not to tell anyone else. I'm sorry about your accident and I feel terrible that I wasn't there to help you. But you chose to go outside our marriage and it can never be the same between us, no matter what. Trying to force me into staying is exactly what I expected you to do. You might not realize it, but it's the same line of thinking you used to try to make me go along with the swap. It's not how I expect my wife to behave and just shows me that you'll never change."

I put my paperwork on the conference table and walked out the door. I paused without turning back, "I'm sorry Terry, I really loved you more than you will ever know. I would have done anything to avoid this."

Then I walked toward the exit, praying she wouldn't follow. I couldn't have held it together for another second.