What Would I Do Without Leslie

I remember the day and the time. It was the day of my thirty-fifth birthday and the time was 5: 26 am. I know because I saw the clock when I reached over and silenced the alarm. I looked over at Leslie who would stay in bed another hour and saw something that I hadn't noticed before. Her night gown had slid down and I saw a love bite - a small hickey - on the underside of her left breast. And I had not been the one to put it there. I have at times put love bites on my wife so I knew how long it usually took them to fade and that told me that the one on her breast was recent.

My wife was cheating on me!

As I sat there on the edge of the bed and stared at the mark on her breast I thought back trying to think of any signs that might indicate how long she had been doing it, but I couldn't think of a thing. I hadn't noticed any lack of affection on her part or any changes in her behavior. Well, there was one small change; she was usually all over me when I got home from one of my frequent business trips, but when I'd returned the day before she hadn't. She said she really wanted to, but it was her time of the month.

At the time she told me that I had just accepted it as a fact of life, but looking at that obscene thing on her left tit I had to ask myself if she was really on the rag or just using it as an excuse so that she wouldn't have to get naked with me. Like most men I didn't keep track of my wife's cycle; I just kept on keeping on until she said, "Sorry honey, but I'm out of commission for a while."

Well, I thought as I got off the bed and headed for the bathroom, at least now I know why she didn't answer the phone when I had called her on the two nights I spent in Chicago. Out being busy with her lover or not brave enough to reach over and pick up the bedside phone while he was there in bed with her.

And then I started thinking on what I was going to do about it. Immediate confrontation was out! I was going to want to know who, where and how often and I obviously could not trust her to tell me and be truthful. Confrontation would only cause her to deny things and come up with some excuse for why the mark was there and then quit or slow down on what she was doing. Nope. No confrontation till I had all the facts. And then? Good question I thought; damned good question.

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Leslie and I went all the way back to grade school. We were the same age so we were in the same classes. Her last name was Taylor and mine was Talbot and in the early grades since the teachers usually had you sit in alphabetical order we usually ended up sitting next to each other.

The alphabet thing threw us together for a lot of activities like the time in the seventh grade when during Phys Ed they gave us dance classes and Leslie ended up as my partner. In the eighth grade we had a teacher who was big on class projects and she was always breaking us up into groups. Naturally she did it alphabetically so Leslie and I usually ended up together there also.

All of that alphabetically caused closeness had a far reaching effect that I did not realize until much later. Somewhere along the line that closeness gave Leslie the idea we were meant to be together - that I was supposed to be her boyfriend. Girls started thinking about things like that earlier than boys do. I had no interest in girls until I hit the ninth grade and when I did start to notice girls Leslie wasn't one of them.

The first girl to cause my heart to speed up was Pauline French. I dated her twice before she started turning me down when I asked her out. I was crushed - for all of two weeks - and then I went after Nancy Wilde. I had three dates with Nancy before she started putting me off when I asked for a date. After Nancy there were a half dozen others who would go out with me once or twice and then not have anything more to do with me. I moved into the tenth grade thinking that I had a bad case of body odor and really bad breath. I couldn't understand it because I took regular baths and brushed my teeth two or three times a day.

Our school had a dance once a month on a Friday night. Not a prom type dance, just a dance designed to help kids learn to socialize (and keep them off the streets on a Friday night). You could go to it stag and dance with the girls who came alone or you could take a date. Going stag marked you as "lame" and most guys did not want that tag hung on them so if they couldn't get a date they didn't go.

It was the third week of the tenth grade and the dance was the coming Friday. I had been turned down by four girls and had decided not to go when Leslie leaned over to me in Civics class and asked me who I was taking to the dance. Rather than admit that I couldn't get a date I just said that I hadn't planned on going. Then she asked me if I would do her a favor. I asked her what and she wanted to go to the dance, but that she really wasn't interested in any of the guys who had asked her.

"Would you take me Rob? I'd really like to go."

I'm not sure why, but I am guessing that my constant closeness to Leslie had me looking at her more like a sister or something like that, maybe a "not seeing the tree because of the forest" thing. I pulled back and took a good look at Leslie and suddenly wondered why I hadn't been paying attention to her. She was a great looking girl!

I told her that I would like very much to take her to the dance and that was the start of it. I had a great time at the dance and when I walked her to her door when I took her home she kissed me. I asked her if she would like to go to the movies with me on Saturday and she said yes and from then on we were a couple.

Most people could not understand it since Leslie and I were as different as night and day. We were oil and water and everyone knows that the two don't mix, but somehow we did. I was a quiet, unassuming guy and my after school activities were things like the Chess Club, the History Club and the jazz and classical music clubs. Leslie was an outgoing, aggressive over-achiever. She was on the cheer leading squad and played soccer and field hockey.

Looking back at it now I guess that it was maybe six months into our relationship that Leslie started running my life. It was so subtle that I never even noticed. In fact it wasn't even something that I realized until after I started looking into Leslie's cheating. It was little things like, "Oh no Rob, that tie just isn't right for you" and telling me that the barber that I had used for years "was just butchering my hair. You need to go to Anton's."

The biggest thing she did to me way back when was to get me to go out for a sport - any sport at all.

"It makes me look bad to the other girls on the squad (meaning the other cheerleaders) to have a boyfriend who isn't into sports."

I wanted to please Leslie so I went out for football and I even made the team and played varsity in the eleventh and twelfth grades. I wasn't any good and I knew it. For one thing I was too slow. For another at 6'2'' and 165 pounds I lacked the beef to be able to block for beans, but I had one thing going for me - my hands. If the quarterback could get the ball to me I would catch it. I couldn't go anywhere with it after I caught it, but then I really didn't need to, Third and twelve and I'd go down fifteen yards and if Jason could get the ball anywhere close to me I'd catch it, get tackled, but we still have the first down. Coverage didn't matter. Get it to me and I'd catch it.

When football was over I tried basketball. But was just too clumsy. I tried baseball, but pretty much sucked at it. Again, too slow and I could never hit the ball. Track and field was out - the slow thing again - but then a coach suggested wrestling. My weight put me in a class where anyone else who was that weight was smaller, height wise than me, and my 6'2" against their 5'9" or 5'10" gave me what amounted to a four inch reach advantage. I wasn't all that great as a wrestler, but I did well enough to letter in it.

Two other areas where Leslie worked on me were education and sex. I intended to get a degree in Business Management and then go on and get an MBA. When we started eleventh grade Leslie began pushing computer science.

"You don't want to be a stodgy old businessman honey. Put that fantastic mind of yours to good use. Information technology is the wave of the future."

By the time I graduated she had managed to talk me into computers.

And then there was sex!

With my upbringing I had the mind set that you abstained until you were married. Leslie was having none of that. It made for an awkward situation. Every other guy I knew was in a constant hunt for a willing girl while I was doing my best to hold Leslie off. We had hot - very hot - necking sessions, but every time Leslie's hands would wander I would push them away and tell her that we needed to wait.

"But I don't want to wait. I'm ready now."

I mentioned she was aggressive didn't I? We were at the lake on a Saturday. It was just turning dark and I was lying on a blanket when Leslie came out of the water and dropped down next to me. "I hope that you are not too worn out" she said and then she jerked my swimming trunks down and took my cock in her mouth before I even knew what was happening. I went to push her away and she clenched her jaw and I felt her teeth close on my cock and I wisely stopped trying to shove her away. She relaxed her jaw muscles and proceeded to give me my first ejaculation that wasn't by my own hand.

I was amazed when she kept her mouth on me and swallowed all of my discharge. She licked my cock clean and then went back to sucking on it until it was hard again. Once I was up again she moved on top of me and guided me into her as she pushed herself down. Once she had me in her she began to rock back and forth and she looked down at me and smiled.

"I told you that I didn't want to wait."

It wasn't until I dropped her off at her house that it dawned on me that Leslie was not a virgin when I slid into her. She had some experience and I wondered where she had gotten it, but not enough to ask her. From that day on Leslie and I made love whenever we got the chance.

There were a lot of other changes, too many to mention here, but by the time we were halfway through our freshman year in college Leslie was pretty much running my life. Not that I noticed at the time and not that I would have cared. Why would I? Things were going good so why would I have cared even if I had noticed. I didn't even think twice about it when someone did tell me that I was being manipulated.

It was at a kegger at one of the frat houses. I was sipping a beer when Nancy Wilde came up to me and asked me why she had never heard from me again. I told her that after being turned down by her a half a dozen time it was obvious to me that she wasn't interested.

"Well that wasn't exactly true Rob. I was interested, but I was scared off and now it seems that I was lied to."

"I don't understand."

"I was told that I should stay away from you because you had a social disease. Gonorrhea is what I think she said."

"Who the hell told you that?"

"Your girlfriend."

"Leslie? How would she know even if it were true? I didn't start dating her until well after I stopped seeing you."

"What she said was that her cousin worked in the office of the doctor that you see and her cousin told her that she had seen the results of a test that you took. I don't know what she told the other girls that scared them away, but what she told me scared me away. Then, when no one else would go out with you, she moved in. She must love you a lot to go to all that trouble."

And that is what I keyed in on - "She must love you a lot" - and I never mentioned the conversation to Leslie.

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Mid junior year Leslie asked me if I had given any thought to our wedding. Did I want it big with all the hoopla or small and quiet? That caught me off guard because I hadn't even proposed. Not that I didn't love her, it was just that I assumed that we would always be together and I assumed she felt the same way so I had never bothered to formalize things. I thought about her question for a moment or so and then told her that I didn't have a preference so I would leave it up to her to do whatever she wanted. From the smile I got I assumed that it was the right answer and two days later she told me that her mother was starting to work on the planning and Leslie suggested a date six months after graduation and I said that it was okay by me.

Three months before graduation I started sending out resumes and I received several responses. One night I was sorting through them trying to decide which ones I wanted to interview for and in what order when Leslie handed me one that she had been reading and said:

"Here honey; this one is perfect for you."

My attitude was simply "I'm about ready to graduate and I need a job" and it didn't really matter to me who I was working for as long as I was working. I arranged an interview with the XYZ Corporation (the one Leslie picked) and they made me an offer and I took it and the wedding (full blown, church and reception) took place in February.

Looking back on my life as I pondered Leslie's cheating I was astounded at how much she had controlled me without me ever realizing it. In my defense I can only say that every decision made for us by Leslie was on something that I didn't care much about one way or the other. She picked out the house we bought, what we furnished it with, the cars we drove and on and on and on. I didn't care because everything she did was something I didn't have to do. As far as the house was concerned all I cared about was a roof over my head. House, condo or apartment, I didn't care. Cars? As long as it got me where I wanted to go I didn't care what kind it was. I had pretty much turned everything over to Leslie.

I worked hard at XYZ and over the years I was promoted several times until I became the manager of Information Services and in addition I was the company's lead trouble-shooter on IT problems. Since XYZ was a national company with offices in several cities I was traveling on the average of ten days out of the month. Leslie rose in her company and eventually reached the position of regional manager which meant that she also had to travel to visit the offices in her region.

Leslie had some leeway as to when she had to visit the offices in her region so she tried to schedule her visits to coincide with the times I would be on the road. It wasn't always possible though since my trips were usually because of an IT emergency that had just occurred but we were still able to spend more time with each other than two people with traveling jobs should have been able to.

For sixteen years I had honestly believed that I had the perfect wife and the ideal marriage and it was a hell of a shock to me to find out that I was wrong.

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I was gone before Leslie got out of bed and I suppose that was a good thing because I'm not sure that I could have kept it together if I would have had to face her that morning. I spent the ride to work wondering just what I would have to do to find out the who, when and where. Eventually I would also probably want to know why, but that could wait.

I did know one thing though and that was that I was going to need some legal advice. I got out the Yellow Pages when I got to work and looked under the listings for attorneys for one who specialized in divorces and while I had the book open I also checked out private detectives. I was reaching for the phone when it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't call and attorney or an investigator just then. I would need to pay them and Leslie handled the family finances and she would see it right away and then we would have the confrontation that I wasn't ready for. Unless I could come up with some funds that Leslie didn't know about I would have to hold off. I needed something positive before I could go to either one. Once I knew for sure I could go to the detective and have him nail it down and then I could go to a lawyer. Then if Leslie caught the expenditures and the confrontation occurred I would be on firm ground. There was no other way - I was going to have to follow Leslie and spy on her until she gave me something concrete.

You will note that nowhere have I mentioned sitting down and trying to talk things out and maybe finding a way to get the marriage back working. No sir, wasn't going to happen. She was either mine or she wasn't and if she wasn't she was gone.

I did have a small stroke of luck. At eleven in the morning Leslie called me. One of her offices had been broken into and she was going to have to catch a flight and she would be gone at least over night. That meant that I wouldn't have to face her for at least another twenty-four hours. Maybe by the next time I saw her face to face I would have myself under control and be able to hide the fact that I was onto her.

If I had not seen that love bite what happened next would never have happened.

Since Leslie was going to be out of town I decided to stop at the Starlight, a lounge where the group that Leslie and I hung with, usually congregated. I walked into the place and looked around and saw a dozen or so people that I knew and suddenly I just felt like I really didn't want to be around anyone. What I really needed was to be alone. I turned around and went back out to the parking lot and got in my car. I was just pulling out of the lot when I felt the need to go to the bathroom. I pulled over and went in the back door and down the short hallway and into the men's room.

I was sitting in one of the stalls when some one came in and I heard him unzip and start to take a whiz. The door opened and some one else came in and I heard a voice that I recognized as Brad Brown's say:

"Did you see Talbot come in?"

"Yeah. I wonder what's up with that?" Chris Chambers said.

"He looked around and probably realized that every guy he saw had been fucking his wife."

There was a lot of laughter and then Brown said, "Do you really think he knows?"

"No idea, but as much as she fucks around on him I don't see how he couldn't at least suspect something."

"Maybe he is one of those guys who gets off on knowing his wife is a slut."

"Rob? No fucking way. Not Mr. Straight Arrow."

"You tap her lately?"

"Two days ago when he was in Chicago. He made his nightly check in phone call and she was reaching for the phone when I stopped her. I was too damned close to getting off to slow down while she talked to him. I think it pissed her off. I think she gets off on talking to him while some other guy is fucking her."

"No, that's not it. She did it one time when I was fucking her and I asked her that very question and she looked at me like I was some kind of freak and said no, that she loved him and just wanted to hear the sound of his voice."

"You get any of her lately?"

"Not lately. I haven't been lucky enough to be in here when she's come looking for a playmate."

I heard both of them zip up and Brown was saying as they walked out, "Maybe you should just call her and have her set up one of those fake out of to..." and the door closing cut off the rest of what he was saying.

Fake out of town trips? Is that where she was right then? Not on a trip to an office that had been broken into, but in a hotel or motel right here in town fucking some asshole?

I thought about the men I'd seen when I walked into the lounge. They were all supposed to be my friends, but Chambers said that everyone that I saw had been fucking my wife. When I left home that morning I thought that I was as bummed as I could get, but things had just gotten worse -- a whole lot worse. A faithless wife and now friends who were stabbing me in the back.

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