When Fantasy Becomes Reality

It was only supposed to be a distraction, something for my wife Randy to do when Abby, age four and Noah age three, took their afternoon nap. Randy now was reluctantly a stay at home mom because it was cheaper for her to watch the kids than it was to send them to day care, but she wasn't happy about it. I would come home after work and get hit as soon as I walked in the door, something about wanting adult conversation and interaction.

"How was your day hon, anything exciting happen?" she'd always ask.

"No, pretty much the same old stuff," I said grabbing and kissing her. "What's for dinner?" I'd just get that out of my mouth before the kids came running in to greet me. Picking them up, twirling them around before giving them a big kiss and hug was a high point in my night. "Were you kids good today?" I'd ask looking at my wife.

"Yes, daddy," was always their answer even when my wife would roll her eyes and smile.

I then set the table while my wife finishes preparing dinner. We sit down, have our dinner together and then a little rough housing with the kids before it's time for bed. Randy gets the kids ready for bed while I do the dinner dishes and cleanup the kitchen. After she lays them down, for the third time, she usually finds me sitting at the kitchen table. That's how most of our nights normally go.

"I thought I was going to lose it today. Abby spilled her milk twice at breakfast and Noah took forever to finish his lunch," she said running her fingers through her short brown hair and then folding her arms on the table resting her head on top of them. "I just want to crawl into bed and sleep for the next twenty-four hours straight."

I come up behind her, massage her shoulders, bend down and kiss her neck while rubbing it.

"I'll give you an hour to stop that," she tells me looking up with a weak smile. "What I could really use is a foot massage with lotion," she said removing her tennis shoes and socks. "Hell, let's do this in bed where I can stretch out my aching legs," she says as we make our way towards our bedroom.

While Randy lies back on her pillow, I get the massage oil out of my nightstand and warm it up in my hands before starting to rub her right foot. I do the heel, the ball of her foot, finally the toes and top while she lies there with her arms crossed over her eyes.

"Feel better?" I ask.

"No talk, just rub," is her reply.

After about ten minutes I move from the right to the left foot and hear her moan with satisfaction. When I'm a little too rough with that cord on the bottom of her foot, you know the one that runs from the toes to the heel, she lets me know it. Looking up at the clock I figure I've been at it at least twenty-five minutes as my hands start to get a little tired. I move up to her calf and massage the muscle from the ankle to her knee as she lets me know how great that feels.

All right, this rubbing is starting to affect me as I feel myself starting to get a little hard. I put a little more lotion on my hands and move from her calf to her thigh, now using both hands. I start low and slowly move upwards with each massaging stroke. When I'm about three quarters up her thigh, I make my move. Before she can get her head around it, I've moved all the way up her thigh and have slipped one hand under her panties and have this wonderful firm butt in my hand.

"Easy big guy, this was suppose to be just a foot rub," she tells me.

"I can make other areas feel just as good," I plead as I move a finger or two towards the area of her clit.

"Not tonight, I'm just too damn tired. I'll give you a rain check, maybe tomorrow night," she says as she pulls my hand out of her shorts. "Boy, those hands sure haven't lost any speed since we first met have they?" she says with a smirk on her face. "But back then, we didn't have full time jobs and two kids in the next room," she says getting out of the bed and heading for the bathroom.

"Damn, close but no cigar," I say to myself as I now lay on the bed. "Sure I can't interest you in a little extra curricular activity? I can guarantee you'll like it," I yell at Randy who appears at the bathroom doorway toothbrush in hand.

"I don't doubt it, but I'm dead and it'd probably take me too long to climax. Let's plan on tomorrow night, alright?" she says disappearing back into the bathroom not waiting on my reply.

"Simmer down big guy, you're getting no action tonight," I say to my semi erect dick. "Maybe tomorrow if you're lucky," I reluctantly say to myself as I get my ass off the bed and start to undress.

I put my dirty clothes in the hamper, lay out what I'm wearing for tomorrow and finally floss and brush before climbing into bed where my wife's nose is in a book, again.

"Any good?" I ask.

"Not really. I'm a third of the way through and if doesn't pickup pretty soon I'm going to give up on it," she tells me as she never lifts her eyes up from the pages.

I make my way over to her and whisper, "I hear a breast calling me," I say as I pull on her nightshirt with my lips. "Sometimes I hear them calling my name when I'm trying to sleep. Steve, Steve," I whisper as I reach a hand under her shirt, cup a breast and twist a nipple until it becomes immediately hard. "See, I told you they wanted me," as I lift her shirt and slip the erect nipple into my mouth.

"You're going to make my shirt wet," she yells at me. "You are such an oral person, your mother should have breastfed you as a baby, maybe if she had you'd leave mine alone once in a while."

"I can use my tongue on other areas too," I say reaching for her pussy before getting my hand slapped away.

"I said not tonight, now go to sleep, it's a school night for Christ's sake," she says now getting a little annoyed. "Come here and give me a kiss," reaching for me as she gives me a quick peck on the lips. "That'll have to hold you until tomorrow."

I roll over and pull the covers over my shoulders. "Steve, Steve, we want you," I whisper out loud snickering to myself. "Don't listen to her, we want you," I say a little louder before getting a punch to the back.

"Go to sleep or you're going to be bitching that you're tired tomorrow morning and you'll have only yourself to blame."

"You going to turn off your light soon." I ask.

"As soon as I finish this chapter," she tells me rubbing my back. "Now go to sleep," and that's what I end up doing but not happily.

You see, Randy used to be a teacher and a pretty good one at that. She taught gifted students and said at times that they taught her as much as she taught them. She loved it, but when Abby came we found that childcare took a huge portion of our salary but her health insurance was a lot better than mine so we sucked it up and cut expenses wherever we could.

After Abby, Randy found she couldn't take the pill, it made her physically ill. We tried most of the contraceptives on the market and she finally settled on an I.U.D. It wasn't one hundred percent fool proof and there were problems with it at first, but neither one of us wanted a second child just yet.

It was just after she was having some female problems and had to have the I.U.D. removed that we had a little mishap. During this time we were using condoms and spermicides and were being very careful. That's when her parents took Abby for the weekend and we had a date night.

It was just the two of us, a romantic dinner, candles, wine, lots of wine and great sex from Friday night until Sunday noon. We reconnected and for that brief moment we felt like newlyweds again without a care in the world; that's when it happened.

There was no morning sickness, no nausea or cravings but Randy was feeling a little off. That's when she took the home pregnancy test and freaked. A trip to the doctor confirmed it and we were screwed. We're not very religious but neither one of us mentioned the 'A' word or anything about 'taking care of it.'

"I knew we shouldn't have opened that second bottle of wine," a frustrated Randy said getting ready for bed one night. "Neither one of us can handle our liquor and I don't remember much of what happened after that, except I found I was rubbed raw in the morning. That, Steve, is going to be one expensive bottle of wine."

When Noah was born, there was no way we could make it paying for two kids in commercial day care. We tried finding someone to come in and take care of them, but after going through three nannies, we decided it was a lost cause. Randy had to quit work and become a stay at home mom and wasn't happy about it.

"Why don't you quit and I'll continue working," she told me.

"I'd love to, but I now make more than you and my future earning potential is much greater than yours as a teacher," I said as delicately as possible.

Randy resigned herself to the fact that she'd be a house mom until both kids were in school. She wasn't into television soaps or most other shows so for a while I guess she went nuts trying to find something to do with her spare time. She started surfing the web but with no extra money, she couldn't shop on e-bay and not much interested her at this point.

"Why don't you start a blog or a diary or something like that," I suggested. She poo pooed me for a while, until I finally talked her into trying it. I even went on e-bay and bought her a Dell laptop. It wasn't new, but was more than adequate for what she was going to do with it.

For the next six months she tried this and that before deciding on writing the great American novel, well short stories anyway. She would e-mail them to me at work so I could give her my honest opinion but that only lasted for a little while. A husband should never criticize his wife's work if ever wants to see that thing between her legs again.

I knew jack shit about sentence structure, grammar and story lines. If it didn't have enough gratuitous sex and violence I found it boring and made the mistake of telling her so.

Big, let me rephrase that, a huge mistake on my part. After that, I saw nothing of what she was writing, but at least I was the supportive husband. Many an evening I kept the kids out of her hair for hours on end while she typed away. Sometimes I would wait for her in bed, hoping to knock off a chunk, only to be told that she'd be up in a minute. I was long asleep before her minute ended.

I dealt with the rejection letters right along with her, told her that they didn't know squat and to try another publishing house. Hell, what did I know anyway? During this time our sex life was decreasing rapidly but I said nothing not wanting to add to Randy's stress. I loved her and the kids more than anything and figured she would soon get frustrated, quit and things would go back to how they were before.

When she got her first acceptance letter the world was good again. Hell, it was fucking great. I took her to dinner and had the best sex of the last year both that night and the following morning. She was beaming and even went to Wal-Mart to get a frame for the letter hanging it on the wall in the den. Then things took a turn for the worse.

It wasn't overnight, but there became a gradual decline in our normal daily routine. Randy was now driven to get the next and the next and the next story published at any cost. I became the caregiver, cheif cook and bottle washer.

When I got home at night, the crock-pot was always full of that night's dinner or there was a note on the refrigerator saying that we'd be having leftovers again. I set the table, got the kids ready and dished the food out. More times than not, we ate by ourselves. Occasionally Randy would honor us with her presence but most times she would grab a plate and head back to the den to finish up what she was working on. Life sucked.

This went on for an entire year. Don't get me wrong, she was doing great, better than we both could ever imagine and she was making some real money which we quickly found outlets for. But I was beyond frustrated and ready to have a 'come to Jesus' meeting with her when things took another turn and not for the better; Randy got her book of short stories published.

The publishing company decided to throw a small party, in honor of their up and coming author, at their office in New York City. Randy immediately went shopping for an appropriate black dress and even informed me that I needed a new suit for the event. It seemed to me that it was a lot of money to spend for just basically a coming-out party but I kept my mouth shut and didn't rain on her parade.

Neither one of us had ever been to New York and when we got there Randy ate up all the attention that was being paid to her. I guess once an author gets published they like to keep them in their stable, so to speak, so they went all out. The hotel was impressive and certainly expensive, lucky for us we weren't paying.

The party was a drag, in my eyes anyway. Everyone wanted to meet and talk to Randy and I was left in the background to fend for myself, so I took advantage of the open bar. Every once in a while Randy would drop by to see how I was doing but was immediately pulled this way or that to meet another person, she just had to meet. I did however get to know the bartender, Ken, extremely well and per him, this was a monthly event. By the end of the night we were both in agreement that ninety-five percent of the people were either intellectual snobs or just stuck up.

"Steve, you ok?" Randy finally inquired about me around 11:00. "Did you get something to eat?"

"You mean there was food here? Ken, how come you didn't tell me they were serving food?" I said to my bartender buddy as he dried a glass with a towel.

"Steve, are you drunk?"

"Nope, but close," I said as I slurred my words. "Are we about ready to leave, because I think if I have one more drink someone's going to have to carry me to my room?"

"A few of the people have asked if we want to go to an after hours club with them. There's no way you'll be able to go, so why don't you go back to the room and I'll join you in an hour or so."

If I had been even a little bit more sober I would have told her no way, but at this point she wasn't asking my permission, more telling me this is what was going to happen. Who put me into a cab or how I got to my hotel is still a mystery to me. However, room service did bring up a burger, fries and two pots of coffee over the next three hours.

At 3:07 A.M. Randy came walking or should I say gliding into our room. When she saw me sitting in a chair, still dressed, she was taken back a little.

"Steve, I thought you'd be dead asleep. What are you doing up?" she asked.

"Waiting for my wife to come back. Let's see, 11:00 add an hour and that should make it, now don't tell me," I said sarcastically. "That's right 12:00. And it is now 3:07 A.M. Randy, pardon my French, where the fuck have you been for the last four hours?" I yelled. "You left your cell phone here in the room, the hotel hadn't a clue where you were and besides the bartender I didn't know another soul from the party. So here I sat for the last four hours wondering where and what the hell my wife was up to."

"I'm sorry, hon. Like I told you, we went to an after hour club for a while and had a few drinks before ending up at a coffee house in the Village. I figured you'd be dead to the world and I just lost track of time. I had such a great time talking to everyone about my writing, books and how we all had so much in common," she told me beaming. "This was the best night ever."

"Well, it's back to reality tomorrow. We've got an 11:00 flight out so we'll have to get a move on in the morning."

"Steve, there's been a slight change of plans," she said choosing her words very carefully. "They want me to stay a day or two longer."

"What?" I said before she could get another word out. "I've got to be back at work tomorrow, there's no way I can stay two more days."

"I know that. You can fly home today and I'll be back on Tuesday late afternoon. They want me to meet a few more people, sign a couple hundred books and go over a few other things."

All right looking back I didn't handle it as well as I could have. I did throw a hissy fit before getting into a huge argument with Randy and grabbing a cab to the airport with all my clothes jammed into my suitcase.

"Seventy-five bucks for a fifteen minute ride to the airport?" I shouted as I threw the money at him. "At least kiss me before you fuck me," I said under my breath as the driver called me a hick.

Airport food isn't all that great and like the cab ride, it cost a fortune. I guess my main beef was that Randy was making decisions that affected the both of us, without even talking to me about it beforehand. She'd told them no problem, she could stay an extra couple of days, how about the kids? I had to work and who was going to watch them?

The vibration of the cell phone in my pocket brought me back to the matter at hand. I didn't have to even guess who it was as I reached for it in my breast pocket.

"Hello Randy," I said without even looking at the screen.

"Steve, I'm sorry, I don't want to argue with you about this," she said in almost an apologetic tone.

"A little late for that, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess I just got caught up in all the excitement and never considered how it would affect you and the kids. I just got off the phone with mom, and either she or my sister Carol is going to watch the kids until I get back. Please don't be mad and let me have my fifteen minutes of fame. The extra money will pay off our bills and for a change we won't have to dread going to the mailbox. When I get back we'll sit down and talk, I promise."

"I'd rather lie down and talk among other things," I replied trying to add a little humor.

"I know we haven't done much of that either lately but that to will change when I get back. I love you Steve, and remember I'm doing this for the both of us."

"I know, but everything is changing so fast, I don't know what's going to happen next," I said trying to make her understand where I was coming from.

"We'll talk but not right now, I need a few hours of sleep. Call me when you get home and give the kids a kiss and hug for me." With another I love you she hung up and I went back to my egg and sausage muffin. Damn, four hours until my flight left, this wasn't how I imagined our trip would end, but maybe Randy did.

The kids were wild when I picked them up from her mom's house. They didn't fully understand where their mother was and why she wasn't with me but were happy to be going home just the same.

"Isn't it wonderful about our little girl?" Randy's mom, Ann, said proudly. "She always was a good student and now she's a published author, you must be so proud," she said looking at me.

"Yeah proud," I thought to myself as I smiled back at her. "Are you or Carol coming over tomorrow morning?" I asked trying to move it along so I could get home.

"Carol is taking Monday and I'll be there Tuesday morning. Just leave the kids sleeping and we'll take it from there. How did you like New York, Steve?"

"Didn't see too much of it in two days but I'd never want to live there, it's way too expensive," I said grabbing the kids overnight bags.

"Well, with Randy having to go back every once in a while, you'll probably get use to it."

I said nothing. I don't even think our eyes met as I started a slow burn inside.

"It looks like Randy didn't tell me everything this morning," I thought to myself as I dragged the kids out to the car. I guess we will have to talk when she gets home.

I called Randy after I got the kids home and in bed but got no answer. I gave up after my third call, just after midnight, and left a message.

"Sorry I missed you. Kids are fine but miss you. You must be having a good time. Talk to you later." There was no I love you, I miss you or what the fuck are you doing out at twelve o'clock, only short non-descript statements of fact.