A Story to Post

I was sitting at the kitchen table when my wife came home from grocery shopping. She saw the legal pad on the table in front of me and the pen in my hand and asked:

"What are you doing?"

"I decided to take you up on your challenge."

"I don't remember any challenges."

"Remember last week when we were reading those stories on that internet site? I commented on how bad some of them where and said even I could do better than that. You said I couldn't. You said I didn't have a creative bone in my body."

"I guess I did say that, but my comment was bases on what I know about your grades when we were in school. You always got B's and Cs on your papers in classes that required written reports and you got a C on the paper you had to do for Business Research and Report Writing."

"Well, I think I can do better."

"Whatever. Come help me bring the groceries in."

I helped her bring the bags in and helped put some of it away and that sat backdown at the table to write. As she was preparing dinner she asked:

"What's it about?"

"I'm not telling. I'll let you read it when I'm done and you can critique it before I post it to the site."

I didn't think it would be too hard. Yes, all the stuff I did in college didn't get great grades, but then I didn't expect them to. I only did what I had to do to get by in those classes. I didn't want to be there in the first place, but I was more or less blackmailed into it by my parents.

Dad wouldn't let me come to work in the family business unless I had a Bachelor's in Business Management. I'd worked there after school and during the summers since I was thirteen and I wanted to work there when I got out of high school, but dad said no. "Not without the degree. That is a must for you to come to work here full time."

So, I sucked it up and went. Got the degree and went to work in the family business.

I looked down at the pad, picked up my pen and started

+++++++++++++++++++++++

My name is Josh Barnum. I am an aircraft mechanic for a major air carrier and I'm married to Melinda Barnum. Melinda (I call her Melly) is an office manager for an insurance company. Melly and I have been together for a little over eleven years, nine of them married. We met in our sophomore year in college and for me it was love at first sight. For Melly? Not so much.

It took me three months to get a date with her. We clicked. On our seventh date we made love for the first time. After that we were a steady couple and usually made love two or three times a week. At least until the summer between our sophomore and junior years.

I had a summer job working for my Uncle Bill who owned a landscaping company. I was working ten- and twelve-hour days Monday through Saturday. As a result, I could rarely date Melly during the week. After three weeks of only seeing me on Sundays Melly started dating other guys. When I bitched about it I was told to live with it or lose my Sundays.

It was a defining moment in our relationship. I've already said that when it came to Melly it was love at first sight so I gave in rather than lose her altogether. I didn't realize it at the time what a mistake that was. It showed her that as far as I was concerned she could get away with a lot and I would let it go.

It was three weeks later on a Friday and I had only put in six hours before calling it a day because of heavy thunderstorms. I called Melly to see if she would go out with me that night and she told me she already had a date. I hung up on her without saying another word.

I called around to see if anything was happening and found out there was a party at Mike Mattson's place. I called and found out I was welcome so I decided to go. Bad move on my part. I walked in just in time to see Melly embrace and then kiss Dick Moore. Then they moved out onto the make-shift dance floor where Melly molded herself to Mattson as they slowly danced to the song. Mattson had both hands on her ass and was pulling her tight against him. Melly had her arms around his neck and pulled his face down and gave him a hot lingering kiss.

When the song ended they seemed reluctant to pull away from each other, but when they finally did Melly saw me. She said something to Dick and then headed my way. I turned, walked away from her and left the party. She might have had my number as far as stringing me along went, but I'd be damned if I was going to stick around while she made out with someone else.

The weather wasn't bad on Saturday so I ended up putting in a twelve-hour day. I had learned not to waste my time calling Melly on Saturday evening to set up a date for Sunday because she would be out dating someone. Normally I'd call her on Sunday around ten and arrange to do something that afternoon and evening.

But that Sunday morning I didn't call. One thing to know she was dating when I wasn't available, gut it was something else all- together to know she was making out with her dates. If the heat I'd noticed between her and her date was any indication they were probably fucking too.

That planted a bad thought in my mind. According to what Melly told me she didn't date any one guy for more than four dates the question I was asking myself, after seeing what I saw at Mattson's, was Melly fucking all of them?

If she was I could be in trouble as we usually made love on our Sunday dates and I'd heard, and believed, when you were having sex with someone you were having sex with everyone that person had sex with. I thought maybe getting tested for STD's might be a good idea.

Thinking that since Melly didn't hear from me on Sunday morning she might call me I got the hell out of the house and stayed gone all day. When I came home in time for dinner my mom told me that Melly had called twice and wanted me to call her when I got home.

I waited until I finished eating dinner to call her. She went right at it.

"Why didn't you call me this morning?"

"I just figured, given the way you were making out with that guy last night, that I'd been replaced."

"We've already had this talk Josh. I'm not staying home on prime date nights just because you can't make it."

"I know and I accepted it when I thought they were just platonic dates, but what I saw last night was way, way beyond platonic. I thought we had something special Mellissa, but I'm not so sure anymore."

"Don't be talking like that Josh. We do have something special. We need to talk baby. I don't care how late you work tomorrow, but when you get off come see me. Will you do that?"

"I guess I can."

"Promise me?"

"Okay; I'll be there when I get off."

Monday was a twelve-hour day so I didn't get to Melly's place until a little after eight. Her mom answered the door and told me Melly was out on the patio waiting for me.

Melly was talking on her phone with her back to the door when I stepped outside and what I overheard before she closed her phone did not bode well for our relationship. What I heard was:

"I loved what we did Friday. Can't wait to see you Tuesday. Got to go. He'll be here soon. Bye."

I stepped back into the house and then made a lot of noise sliding the patio door and she turned and saw me coming out of the house. I didn't give any indication that I'd overheard anything, just walked over to the table and sat down. I just looked at her and waited. She finally figured out that I wasn't going to start the conversation so she said:

"What's wrong Josh? You agreed to my dating when you couldn't get the time off."

"That is when I thought those dates were things like going to the movie's and maybe a milkshake at Harry's after. Or maybe a party like Mattson's where you would dance and socialize with our friends. Simple stuff. Behaving like you were still my girl. Not like what I saw at Mattson's.

"The way you swapped spit with that guy and let him run his hands all over your body without you even trying to stop him pretty much told me that if he wasn't already fucking you he soon would be. Not exactly the way I was expecting my girl to behave in front of my friends."

"That's a rotten thing to say to me!"

"If the shoe fits."

"Maybe you had better just leave!"

"That would probably be best. After what I saw and not knowing whether or not that's the way you are with all your dates I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get myself tested."

I got up and left her there with a shocked expression on her face. I made it all the way to my car before she caught up with me.

"You don't really think that of me; do you?"

"What I saw Friday night was pretty raw Melly. I don't want to take any chances."

I got in the car and drove off with her standing there watching me go.

++++++++++++++++++++++

I did get tested and I came out clean, but I never called Melly and let her know. We avoided each other for a little over a week and then on a Thursday while I was eating lunch in the student cafeteria Melly came up to my table sat down and said:

"You didn't call me on Sunday."

"No need."

"You aren't being fair Josh. Why do you expect me to sit home six days a week because of your job?"

"Maybe because I look at it as on the job training."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Maybe it is to prepare you for what you might have to do after you get married and your husband has a job that keeps him working late."

"That's just silly. Being married is different than going to school."

"Maybe the way you look at it, but not the way I do. You've known all along that I intended to ask you to marry me after graduation and you have led me to believe you would say yes. You know that my major is Aviation Maintenance Management and when I graduate I'll have my Aircraft and Powerplant license. My goal is to work for an airline and work my way up

"The odds are damned good that if I do get on with an airline as a new hire I will get the worst shift and the worst days off. If you can't handle my working hours now how do you expect to handle my working swing shift, three to eleven, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays for days off?"

"That's different. I'll be working too and we will do what we have to do to adjust to our circumstances."

"That's in the future, if we have one. Right now we have to survive as a couple and I'm not sure that we can given what I now know your dates are like."

We made arrangements to talk that night after I got off work and in the end she caved and said she would only date on Friday and Saturday and she would always make sure the dates were around my friends. That way I would always be able to ask someone if she was doing anything that wouldn't pass the boyfriend test.

It helped that landscaping was seasonal work that ended in late Fall.

For the rest of our junior year and all through our senior year I kept a close eye on her and she only fell off the wagon three times and I pretended I didn't know. Why? Blame it on love.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When we graduated Melly moved in with me and we lived together while our mother's planned the wedding. It was a new experience for both of us. Being able to make love every day and not having to rush things to get home. There were nights when I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to get out of bed in the morning. It seemed like all Melly (and me-oh yes, and me) wanted to do was make love all the time, but of course we couldn't.

I did get on with an airline and true to form I got the worst shift, swing shift, four to midnight and my days off were Wednesday and Thursday.

Melly's degree was in accounting and she landed a job with an accounting firm and her hours were eight to five with Saturday and Sunday off. During tax season, roughly from the end of January until the first of May, she usually put in ten to twelve hours a day and had to work an occasional Saturday.

We married five months after graduation and our wedding present from both sets of parents was the down payment on a four-bedroom ranch in one of the towns better neighborhoods.

Neither of us wanted children until we were well established in our jobs so Melly used one of the bedrooms as a home office.

The house had a fair-sized patio in the back and one of our first purchases after moving in was a hot tub that was set off to one side of the patio. It didn't take long before it was full.

We had a house warming a month after the tub was installed and after everyone had tried out the tub it seemed we had company every weekend. Not that I got to enjoy the company. I need to leave by a quarter after three to get to work on time.

As we got to know our neighbors we began getting invited to barbeques and cook-outs and once that started we of course had to throw a couple of our own. We got to be real good friends with the neighbors an both sides of us and the ones right across the street.

Things were great for the first two years and were adjusting to our different schedules.

And then things changed.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I didn't find out about it until much later, but it was pretty much what I had brought up when talked to Melinda back in college. I worked Friday and Saturday and Melinda got tired of sitting at home on 'prime' date nights.

At first it was a night out with the girls after work on Friday. Nights that she never mentioned to me. After a couple of months of that she decided that since she got away with me not finding out about her girl's night outs she could get away with going out on Saturdays also. She just had to make sure she was home in bed by the time I got home.

She started going out on dates with the guys she worked with and guys she met on her girl's nights out. I don't know when the fucking started so I had no idea of how long it had been going on, but I was clued in by the neighbor who lived across the street.

He was having drinks with a client Friday night after having dinner and he saw Melinda dirty dancing with some guy and playing kissy-face. Saturday morning while Melinda was off shopping he came over and told me what he saw. It upset me, but it didn't surprise me.

The he told me his brother was a cop who did part-time work on his days off as a private detective and his brother's days off were Friday and Saturday. He said his brother's rates were twenty-five percent of what a full-time private detective would charge so I told him to put me in touch.

All it cost me to have him on Melinda from Friday when she got off work Friday until she went home and on Saturday from the time I left for work until she went home was six hundred dollars and it was worth every penny.

Friday when Melinda got off work she headed straight to a bar and she had no sooner sat down on a barstool than she had a guy buying her drinks and dancing with her. They left the bar at eight and checked into the Motel 6 (and yes, they had left the light on for them) and had gone in to room 107 until eleven and then she headed home.

On Saturday she didn't even leave the house. At four her supervisor from work stopped by and while Spenser (the cop) couldn't get film of what on in the house he did get some pretty good footage of Melinda giving her boss a blowjob while he sat on the edge of the hot tub and then fucked him while lying on the cushions from the deck chairs.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On my first day off I took what I had to a divorce attorney and after looking at what I had he suggested that I go after her boss for alienation of affections and after her company if their Company Policies and Procedures manual had anything in if about relationships between supervisors and those they supervised. I told him her boss owned the company and when I told him that I could almost see the dollars signs in his eyes.

I told him to go ahead and get the ball rolling. He told me to give him a week or so and he would have the papers ready for me to come in and sign.

I left his office hoping I could act like a clueless boob (which I had been until I got Spenser's report). I guess I must have pulled it off because Melinda didn't seem any different around me.

The attorney called me a week later and told me he had he papers ready for me to sign. When I got to his office he was smiling and told me he had some very good news for me. It seems like her boss was bragging to everyone in the office he was fucking Melinda.

"I'm not an attorney, but I'm pretty sure an overheard conversation is only hearsay? Basically a case of he said/she said?"

"Maybe, if it wasn't taped. The person I got the tape from hates Philby and is always looking for some way to stick it to him."

"Isn't there some law that says both parties must be aware of the taping?"

"In some states yes, but this state isn't one of them."

"Okay then. Go ahead and do what you think best."

I finished the story, reread it and decided it was okay. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost dinner time. I called the wife in from the kitchen and handed her the story, asked her to read it and give me comments. She took the story from me and started to read it. About halfway through it she started to frown and finally she gave a loud gasp, looked at me and fainted. I got up and got a glass of water and threw it in her face. She was sputtering as I helped her up.

Just then the doorbell rang and I told her it was probably for her. She was looking confused as I walked her over to the door. She opened the door to find a young blond-haired girl standing there. The blond stopped chewing her gum long enough to ask:

"Mrs. Melinda Barnum?"

Melinda said yes and the blond handed her and envelope and said "You have been served. Have a nice evening" and she turned and walked away. Melinda didn't hear that last bit. She had fainted again when she heard she had been served. This time I didn't bother with the glass of water. I just grabbed a leg and pulled her into the room far enough I could get the door closed and then I went into the kitchen and got myself a beer.