Old Fashioned

I calculated that my journey—this place, Whole Paycheck and then a liquor store—would take about an hour. Maybe seventy minutes. Plenty of time for Jack and my wife to finally consummate things. I misjudged. Underestimated. Because...

...when I finally returned, bearing armsful of groceries and booze, nearly three hundred dollars' worth (they don't call it Whole Paycheck for nothing—plus I'd picked up a 1.75 of Jack), they were still at it. Not in the master bedroom upstairs but in the guest bedroom just past the vestibule, down a short hallway. Well within earshot. My arrival, if they heard it over their collective moans and cries and passionate declarations, didn't deter them. They kept at it. And at it.

I had to concede this: Jack had stamina.

And this, as I listened outside the door: "Oh Jack you're so big!"

I had two choices: I could continue to listen in the hallway while jacking my meat (Jack again!); or I could treat myself to a third shot of whiskey and chase it with a bleary beer. I pulled up my pants. I chose the latter. I could always masturbate. Later.

I'd skipped lunch. I was trying to lose a little weight, my gut. Our gourmet dinner, whatever, was at least two hours away. I was—already—drunk as a skunk. I was now officially, finally, a cuckold however. That was cause for celebration. Fuck Old Fashioneds. I poured another shot. A double. Staggered into the livingroom. Turned on the TV. TCM. Casablanca was on. Seen it a thousand times. One of my favorites. When they drown out Deutschland Uber Alles, the French, singing Le Marseille...never fails to bring tears to my eyes. But even that—That!—could not drown out the love-cries emanating from the guest bedroom. Cheri seemed to orgasm first. Soprano. Then, moments later, Jack's deep bass. Oh!

Oh!

The teary-eyed French national, whore to the Nazis at their peak, starts singing whatchamacallit, the Marseille, and Rick—my name is Rick—gives the nod to his band leader: Play it. Never fails to bring, um, tears to my eyes. The movie made before Pearl Harbor, before America entered the war. Yet there's this jaunty optimism throughout. We'll beat these fucks. No problem. Just hold tight for a short while. Those were the days...

My wife Cheri was the first to emerge from the bedroom, wrapping a diaphanous mid-thigh-high gown—gown?—around her just-fucked self. A pantyliner presumably adhered to the crotch of her bikini bottom, absorbing any latent sperm drippings. Jack's. She chose to ignore the, shall we say, elephant in the room:

"Did you get everything?"

I saluted. "Yes ma'am."

"You're drunk already?"

"You fucked Jack? Already?"

My wife combed her dyed and mussed dark-brown hair back with a hand, five fingers. "No, finally. Inevitably. Just like you wanted me to."

"I...?"

"You know you wanted it. Nice!" Cheri proclaimed, pulling wet, rubber-banded asparagus spears from the paper bag. (Plastic bags: verboten!) "What took you so long?"

"I was about to ask you the same question."

Cheri, asparagus bundle still in hand, looked at me, severely. "It's nice to be with a man who can take me places."

"Where did he take you?"

"What are you watching?" Cheri frowned, evasively.

"The greatest movie ever made?"

"Huh? This? This is old shit. It's not even in color. Put on something...funny. Light. It's Friday night."

Fuck it. I'd seen Casablanca so many times I knew all the great lines. And that, that was saying something. It was six-thirty. I switched over to CNB, a 24-hour news channel. They were doing a human interest feature on...Ronald MacDonald was it? No.

Some other red-headed clown.

Jack emerged from the hall, balls spent, looking a little, well, dazed. Asked: "What are we watching here?"

Cheri, at the stove, our dinner's beginnings, shrugged. "Some shit. I don't know. Ask Rick."

Curiously, counterintuitively, my boss, my wife's new lover, came over and gave me a pat. On the ass. As if we were football teammates or something following a great play. Or a fumble. "That was great," he said. "Thanks."

Before I could reply, IF I was going to reply, Cheri said, from the kitchen: "Jack's gonna spend the night."

"Oh," I said, landing cockeyed on our couch's center cushion. The couch where I would probably spend the night. Who would want to lie atop a recent wet spot in the guest bedroom?

"Rick, you been hitting the Jack already? Make me an Old Fashioned why don't you?"

"What's an Old Fashioned?" my wife's new lover asked.