Survivor's Remorse

"Well, yeah ... I guess," he said.

"So what makes you think that you could have won if he'd been there?" I asked. "You should just be glad that you won and shut up. Actually you should start training now," I said.

"Why," he asked. "The race is over."

"There are other races this year," I reminded him. "And of course there's this same race next year. I'm sure you've told other people about your victory, right?"

"A few," he said. "Why?"

"When I get home and tell him about what you told me, he'll probably be really fired up to embarrass you the next time you guys run against each other. Especially with that crack you made about how you would have won even if he'd been there," I said. "It's going to be really embarrassing for you at this race next year."

"Oh Wendy! I was just talking shit," he said. "I just wanted to get him fired up enough to come back and run with us. He hasn't been in the park to run for the last couple of weeks. We miss him. I Uhm gotta go!"

That started me wondering about what was going on. Another thing that had confused me was when the check came from the insurance company. I asked him when he would be going down to the Ford dealership.

"Why?" he asked.

"Don't you want a new Mustang?" I asked.

"Not really," he said without a lot of enthusiasm. There was definitely something wrong.

"Why not, Honey?" I asked. It felt like he'd just told me that he didn't need to breathe anymore. Vee had been Mustang crazy ever since I'd known him. Something was wrong.

"I've got my Jeep," he said. "You've got yours. We're fine."

"But ... Huh?" I asked. I had no idea what was going on.

"I think I've grown out of the whole fast car thing," he said. "I want to concentrate on some other parts of our life, okay?"

"Sure, Honey," I said. "I was just asking." My mind was working overtime. I was trying to figure out who the hell I was talking to.

The man in front of me looked like my Husband Vee. But he didn't sound like Vee, or act like him.

Vee was hyper-active. He was always running or doing some kind of workout on our home gym. And that fucking car. He spent almost as much time working on or polishing or driving that thing as he spent with me. There were times when I was jealous of it. But now he had the chance to buy another one and he just didn't seem to care.

Then there was another thing. Our sex life had kind of dried up lately. At first I was pretty sure that he was sore from the accident. But after a couple of weeks, it was strange. I was used to having to tell Vee that I needed a night off occasionally. I guess I should have been glad to have the break, but there was something strange going on.

I've always been a woman who needed a lot of sex and Vee and I seemed to be perfectly matched. But at that point I felt like I was living in the twilight zone.

* * * * * *

Vee

Six weeks after the accident, everything changed. My boss, Frank, had fallen down a flight of stairs and would be in traction for two to three weeks. He would then be put into a regular cast for another four to six weeks while his broken femur set. Because I was so awesome at my job, he picked me to take over for him.

It surprised a bunch of people. I mean I'm a great engineer, if I say so myself. But I'm not so sure I'm the management type. In fact for the past few weeks, I hadn't been managing to leave my office. I had completed project after project with barely a word to anyone.

My boss did have an Assistant, Darwin Charles, who I was sure would do a better job than I could. But he had no technical knowledge at all. He was only a manager. My first assignment was to fly to Chicago to attend a conference of several companies that were clients of ours. My job would be to discuss the progress we'd made on several of our ongoing projects. It was something a management type couldn't handle.

My boss had been scheduled to go but the fall prevented that. I had to get there as quickly as possible. I had barely enough time to rush home and head to the airport. My flight was scheduled to take off two hours from then.

I drove home. For the first time since ... For the first time in a few weeks I was excited about something. Actually it had been the first time I felt any sort of emotion. I ran into the house, wondering where the hell, Wendy was. I checked the kitchen and found no sign of her. I decided I'd call her on my way to the airport if she didn't come in while I packed.

I ran up the stairs to our bedroom. I guess the thick carpet on the stairs softened my footfalls. But then again it could have been the fact that they were really busy concentrating on what they were doing.

My wife Wendy is a blond. Her hair is kept about collar length. She's short and built really well. She has large boobs that I love to suck on. She also has a big round butt that I love to slap while I fuck her doggy style.

The guy fucking her wasn't currently enjoying that. He had her on her back. He had her legs straddled wide open with her feet pushed back near her head. Wendy is really flexible.

Her big boobs wobbled forward and back, almost hitting her in the face and then moving forward onto her tummy with each stroke. The unusual thing was that the guy was sawing his dick in and out of her ass. It was a very unusual position for anal.

As my shock dissipated, my ears began to work again.

"Come on Rick," she whined. "Hurry up. You've been begging for my ass for the longest time, so go ahead and do it. This is the only time you're getting my ass."

Rick grunted and wheezed like he was trying to sprint a mile uphill. Sweat beads dripped down his forehead from the exertion. It dropped down on his chest and back. A few stray drops fell onto Wendy.

"Why not?" he grunted between thrusts. "It's not like no one has been in it before me. And it's so fucking tight. I mean your pussy is good, but I'm loving this ass, baby."

"Because of a promise I made that I've already broken," she spat. "When I got married, I wasn't a virgin ... Not that anyone is these days. But on our wedding night, I gave Vee my ass and I promised him that no one else would ever have it. So this is a one-time thing."

"I don't think I'm EVER going to use it again," I said, stepping into the room. "So you may as well let him have it."

Wendy screamed and tried to push the guy away from her. He was on the edge of the foot of the bed and when she pushed him. His rapidly shrinking dick came out of her ass with a popping sound. Both of them registered expressions of pain at the quick disengagement. He got the worst if it though. He lost his balance and fell backwards off of the bed, hitting his head on the floor painfully.

As he fell I recognized him. He was Rick Peters. His wife, Janice Peters, was one of Wendy's friends.

I looked at Wendy and she was too shocked to say or do anything.

"Are you okay, Rick?" I asked. He looked as if he was dazed by the blow to his head.

"I ... I ... I think so," he said shakily. Rick was about my size, although thicker and less in shape.

"Don't try to get up," I said.

"Really ... I'm okay," he said.

My fist slammed into his eye, snapping his head back. His arms went out from under him and he fell back to the floor. "I don't give a fuck how you are," l spat. "It's just easier to beat the shot out of you while you're on your back."

I dropped to my knees straddling him. That way he couldn't even get his arms up. I started pounding him. He moaned in pain and started trying to shake me off, but he had no leverage since his arms were pinned to his sides.

Within seconds, I had punched him 7 or 8 times and his face was a mass of bruises. Wendy dove at me to knock me off of him. I looked at her with nothing but contempt.

"Rick you really should have started running with me and my friends," I told him. "But even then you wouldn't have been fast enough to get to Janice before I call her."

The look on his face morphed then, from pain and fear of the beating I was giving him, to a different kind of fear.

"You don't have to bring her into this, do you?" he whined.

"Vee, this was my fault," said Wendy. "We need to talk about this. I'm really sorry, Honey. It's not what you think. It was just ..."

"Shut the fuck up, Wendy," I yelled at her. My voice was so loud that she winced as if I had hit her. In the eight years that we'd been married I had never yelled at her. I stood up and went to my closet. I pulled out three suits and laid them on the bed. I went out into the hallway and grabbed my suitcase and my carry-on bag as Wendy looked at me in shock.

"Vee ... Where the hell do you think you're going?" she asked, beginning to cry. "I told you we have to talk about this. You can't leave me over this. I think I may have made a mistake and ..."

"You THINK ...?" I yelled. I suddenly started laughing. "You THINK you've made a mistake?" I just shook my head.

"Well that's another mistake you made, Wendy," I hissed. "I'm not leaving. You are. I have to go out of town for work. Frank broke his leg and I have to fill in at a conference for him. I'll be gone for a couple of days. By the time I get back, I want you to have every trace of yourself and your shit ... out of my house. I'll start on the divorce when I get back."

Her eyes opened wider and her mouth dropped open in shock. "Di ... Di ... Di," she said. She couldn't bring herself to say it.

And as much as I was ranting and yelling and hitting people, it was simply a perceived response. I was just reacting the way I thought I should. Beneath the mask of anger, there was no pain, there was no true rage. I was still ... emotionally numb.

I guess, on some level, I was angry that Wendy had cheated on me. But I simply didn't feel it.

Wendy lurched forward trying to throw herself at me. I had no idea whether she was angry and wanted to try to hurt me more than her cheating had, or if she was trying to hug me and beg me not to leave.

It didn't matter. My response was the same. I waited, remaining still for a fraction of a second. I waited until she had committed herself to her move. As her feet left the ground, diving for me, I took one step backwards.

Wendy's forward momentum carried her to where I was only instants before and found that space unoccupied. She ended up sprawled on the floor only inches from my feet.

"Don't get up," I said. "I know the way out."

Her fall had clearly knocked the wind out of her. If I'd been less emotionally bankrupt, I might have laughed.

"I'm not kidding, Wendy," I said from the doorway. "I want you gone when I get back. You have two days to pack anything you want to take with you." I paused after picking up my suitcase and garment carrier.

"Wendy ... I love you. I'm really sorry things didn't work out," I told her as I walked out of the room, down the stairs and out of the house.

I got into my Jeep and headed for the airport. I had a lot of things on my mind to say the least. Darwin called to confirm my flight information. He emailed me a power point presentation that I would use for my speech at the conference. I could review it on the plane and a few times in my hotel, before I had to do the speech.

But the thing that kept going through my mind more than anything else was my own emotional state. I was normally a pretty warm and caring guy. There was something wrong with me. I needed to figure out what was going on. I would give my actions and motivations over the last few months a lot of thought as soon as I got back. It wouldn't be hard. I'd have a lot more time on my hands and a lot more control over my time without Wendy in my life.

The flight went well. There was no turbulence. It took off on time and landed a few minutes early. The flight wasn't long enough to have a meal, but the snacks they served were great. I went over the presentation several times on my iPad. I even managed to correct a few errors in the information and update some of the figures and statistics that were either outdated or incorrect.

For the rest of the time in the air, I couldn't help thinking about the situation at home. The biggest question I had was why? Why the hell would Wendy do that to us? Everything in our lives was going the way we wanted. We'd been married for 8 years. I'd just turned thirty and Wendy was thirty two.

We had paid off the last of my college loans last year and my income had reached the point where Wendy no longer had to work. Our house ... Well my house, my grandfather had left it to me, was paid for and we had money in the bank. We weren't rich by any means, but we had just decided that we were financially stable enough to start banging out the kids. What the fuck was she thinking?

And she was so stupid about it. She did it right in our house ... Right in our bed. That had to be the dumbest place possible. And the things she said. She must've clicked off every cliché in the cheater's handbook. "We need to talk. I can explain this." Followed by the absolutely classic, "You don't understand."

Fuck her. We didn't need to talk. There was nothing she had to say that I was interested in. And how could she possibly explain ruining what I had thought was a perfectly good marriage for what? ... A guy who was married to one of her best friends?

Did she even realize that there was only one way for it to end? Two long term marriages ended so she could have what ...?

The plane landed and I had to concentrate on what I'd come to Chicago for. At the airport, I had an incident at the car rental agency. I stepped up to the counter and the girl there looked at my order and gave me a set of keys.

"You have the Ford Mustang, Sir," she said with a big smile and a knowing wink.

"Do you have any other cars?" I asked.

"Sure but the Mustang is one of our best cars," she said looking confused. Then she brightened up suddenly. "I see what's going on. You're afraid that either it won't match up to your car. Or that you'll fall in love with it and want to buy it, right?"

"Uhm, something like that," I said drearily.

"Your Mustang belt buckle gave it away," she smiled.

"I'll take anything else you have on the lot," I told her.

She shrugged her shoulders and gave me the keys to another car. I found it by looking for the slot it was located at in the parking lot. I had no idea what kind of car it was and didn't care.

For the next two days I attended conferences and spoke about my company's projects and interests. My own presentation went extremely well. I got lots of compliments on both my material and my delivery.

At night there were a couple of parties that I attended simply to make an appearance and attempt to dig up more business. I secured meetings with at least three companies about either increasing their business with us or starting to do business with us.

There were a couple of times when I was asked to dance or offered other things with women at the conference. I raised my hand as obviously as possible displaying my wedding ring.

It was great, being seen and appreciated for my skills in a new way. It took my mind completely off of the issues that awaited me back home. I was almost sad when it was time for me to head to the airport for the trip home.

I turned the car in to the same smiling counter girl or her clone. "How did you find the Honda Accord?" she asked.

"Is that what it was?" I asked. She nodded. "Well ... I went to slot A-127 like you told me. And there it was," I said. She laughed for a long time.

"I meant what did you think of it?" she laughed.

"To be truthful," I said. "I didn't think of it. It never registered on my consciousness. Shit, I don't even remember driving it. Did I actually drive it? I guess I must have. After all I didn't walk back here."

"You really should have taken the Mustang, Sir," she said as I left the counter. I was really irritated by her comments. She acted as if the type of car I rented for the two days that I was in her city mattered. Maybe there was more to it than that though. Maybe it was the little voice in the back of my head that was frustrating me so much. It was screaming very loudly, but for some reason I couldn't understand what it was saying.

The flight home was uneventful. With nothing to study or prepare for, my thoughts turned back to my personal issues. I checked my phone and found an insane number of messages and texts from Wendy.

There were also a few from Rick. I decided to call Rick to see what the hell he wanted. To be honest I was confused. I couldn't imagine what he thought he could gain by talking to me. His best option would have been to remain silent and hidden in the hope that out of sight truly meant out of mind.

He answered the phone tentatively.

"What do you want, Rick?" I asked him.

"I wanna talk about wha' happened," he said. He slurred his words as if he was on drugs or something. "I wanna make a deal," he continued.

I have to admit I was intrigued. "Okay," I said. "Come on over. I think you remember where I live."

He must've really wanted to talk because he was there in less than half an hour.

I almost burst out laughing when I opened the door. He looked like a raccoon. Both of his eyes were blackened. His nose was swollen and he had a lot of bruising all over his face.

He got angry when he noticed that I was having a hard time controlling my laughter. He stuck his lip out and I noticed that it too, was swollen. There was an angry looking gash on the inner surface where it must've been cut against his teeth when I punched him.

"So what do you want?" I asked. "I don't have all day and the time I DO have, I don't want to waste on you."

"Come on Vee. It doesn't have to be like that. It was a mistake. It's not the end of the world. We were friends," he said.

"Don't fuckin' call me Vee," I hissed. "My name is Irving. My friends call me Vee. You and I were NEVER friends. Our wives were friends. You and I were acquaintances at best. You've been in my home and I've been in yours. I guess that made me think that there was a level of trust between us. I can see now that I was misguided in believing that. You are not the kind of man anyone can trust. The way you stabbed me in the back proves that my trust in you was the mistake here.

But it's a mistake that won't ever happen again. And you're right about one thing though ... It's not the end of the world; it's just the end of my marriage and probably yours too!"

"Ve ... Irving!" he said with a look of panic on his face. "Why do we have to take things that far? If you don't want to be with Wendy anymore, I can understand that, but why do we have to involve Janice?"

"Because she and I are the injured parties here," I said. "And I think she needs to know what kind of scumbags she has as a husband and as a friend. What she does with the information is up to her. Personally I hope she rapes you in your divorce."

"But we have kids," he whined.

"You should have thought about that before," I said.

"But you know my kids. They'll be heartbroken," he said.

"And whose fault is that?" I asked. "While you're expecting me to think about the pain your kids will go through ... Did you ever give a thought to how much this would hurt ME? And what about my kids?"

"You guys don't have any kids yet," he said.

"And now we never will!" I spat. "Now get the fuck out of my house."

"I didn't want to play this card," he said. "I hoped that you would do the right thing. I hoped that we could just sit down and discuss this, but I guess we can't. So here's how things are going to go. If you just have to. You go ahead and divorce Wendy. It would be a stupid thing to do because she loves you. You heard her ... Even when we were doing it all she thought about was you. I couldn't have her ass because of you. She wouldn't suck my dick because of you. She acted like I was some filthy fuckin' CHUD and she had to keep herself pure for YOU.