I'm George, mwm, 52

by George Everyman

  One of them showed me a library card and she said she had snuck it from her mom because there were some library books at home and she didn't want her mom to take them back so she figured she couldn't without the card.

  I asked how old they were, and they said five, and I told them I was fifty too and their eyes got real wide, and then I picked up on that and I said I might die at any time. So we, not me, but we, created this game where we picked out a way to die and then snapped our fingers and said "you're dead."

  One of them said, "A shark bites you" then she snapped her fingers, paused very effectively, smiled knowingly, and then said, "You're dead." Then the other said "a car hits you" pause, snap, smile "you're dead." This all through their lack of front teeth, totally un-self conscious, grins. It was beautiful.

  So the mom comes out of the other office and they are snapping their fingers and mom asks what's this about and they show her the game and the mom gives me a shit eating smile, sneering is more like it, and when I told them to have a good day, which I do to everyone leaving the office, she said sarcastically "yeah, we'll have a great day with them doing this."

  I felt like saying to this bitch, you fucking asshole, these goddess like creatures are trying to teach you lessons in life about trusting and playing and living in the moment and you are so fucked up that you think you are the one teaching them something and you are even more fucked up in thinking that they are your possessions that you can control and mold into something that you think you missed in childhood. And no, bitch, I'm not trying to give these kids a fear of death, because they understand life and death on a far deeper level than you give them credit for.

  Ok, that's harsh. On both sides. Hers and mine. Much more so on my side. I'm sorry. At least I only thought it and didn't say it.

  Let's just say that kids are smarter, in the important ways, than we, as adults, are. By far. They are able to cut through the bullshit. We need to listen to them, not try and preach to them. And they don't belong to us. We are very lucky to have them with us for as long as they are willing to be with us, and that, by the way, is a direct reflection of how well we treat them, and I don't mean materially.

  I just had to get that out. And I'm sorry again for calling the lady, in my mind, a bitch. She is probably a good mother. On reflection, she must be a great mother since the kids were so cool. My rant was directed toward society in general and not her specifically, I'm sure on reflection.

  And I just figured something out. I just let the cat out of the bag. It's now pretty clear that I'm writing this at work. In between clients. In between kids and me playing games about death. While snapping our fingers.

  I like mixing up serious and frivolous things.

  Frivolous things like making a living, and serious things like playing games about death with kids.

  Chapter 47: Back to After the Ride

  Saturday nights are my favorite. No work the next day. I get to cook on the grill if I want. Abby and I might fuck. What could be better? Maybe watching Dewayne fuck Abby? Hmmm

  The rest of the day was uneventful. No more mention of Kim's call. At cocktail hour Abby and I did our normal chit chat which included, by me, "how was the ride" which I had already asked her when she returned, but we have to fill up cocktail ¼ hour so we tend to repeat the same questions, and that's ok with both of us. Redundancy is soothing.

  Abby didn't say much else about the ride. I didn't press.

  Dinner was good. I cooked fish and broccoli and potatoes for her and burgers on the grill for me. Lots of wine, for me at least. Bed by 8pm. Good spooning because it's now November and the door is open and it's getting colder.

  The next few days I kept looking for any sign that Kim's call had any effect on Abby, and I couldn't find any. Would love to be a fly on the wall in the Kim/Dewayne household.

  Here we are at a critical, critical in my mind at least, juncture. The two cheaters are still friends, still riding together, and their respective spouses, i.e. Kim and me, have radically different takes on this, i.e. Kim hates it, presumably, and I love it. And Dewayne has to sneak around or at least be evasive about it, and good old Abby just carries on as normal.

  Chapter 48: So what's the Big Deal?

  Maybe it's how long I've been married, i.e. twenty four years. Maybe it's the fact that I'm pretty sure Abby likes me enough not to leave. Maybe it's the fact that I've discovered the erotic half of jealousy. Maybe it's a combination of all three.

  But I just think that Abby fucking someone else is not a big deal. I mean it is a big deal in the sense that I'd prefer her not to go to a bar and fuck a different guy every night, but having a boyfriend on the side and doing him on occasion is fine with me. More than fine. And if that boy friend is married, so much the better for lots of reasons including the fact that he probably won't get so obsessed with Abby that he would leave his wife.

  I know this may sound radical to a lot of people. It probably sounded radical to me when I was in my teens and twenties. But not anymore.

  If you break it down logically, it works. It's when emotions get involved, that we tend to freak out.

  Here's the logical side. My side. The right side, I might add.

  Abby and I both had sex before marriage. We don't own each other's bodies. When we're not together, does it really involve me regarding what she is doing? Suppose she has a friend, let's call him Dewayne, and let's say they ride bikes together. Is that ok? Why not? It's not taking any time from the us that Abby and I are because I'm probably reading or walking anyway.

  Moving it up a bit, suppose they decide to walk and hold hands. Not very likely, since he doesn't seem like the hand holding type, but just suppose. No problem with that either. Then suppose they want to kiss just a bit. Fine. Then moving on, how about him copping a feel of her small breasts. Sure. Hand job? Why not. Lick the kitty? No problem.

  The point is simple. Simple to me at least. As long as what they are doing is mutually enjoyable and mutually respectful and as long as it doesn't materially interfere with Abby's and my time together, why not?

  I'm on board. Abby is on board through her convoluted logic about the man vs woman thing. Dewayne's not thinking much about it, he's just getting what he can, which is what men generally do. The problem is Kim.

  The most logical thing to do would be to try and convince Kim of the errors of her way of thinking. Another approach would be a man to man with Dewayne, but I just get the feeling he's not going to want to take the time and do the work to bring her around, and once he gets the message that I actually like him fucking Abby, which he would get if we had the man to man, then he's just going to want to maintain the status quo, i.e. nailing both women without telling Kim. The only change to the status quo would probably be that he would tell Abby to tell me to vacate the premises, i.e. our condo, when they were in the mood so they could fuck in private.

  Since I didn't like either of those approaches, i.e. working on Kim, or having the man to man, I decided to drop back and punt.

  I don't like to use the drop back and punt metaphor because it's overused and if you don't follow American football, it makes no sense. But I already said it, so I'll leave it in here. So I dropped back and punted after deciding that working with Kim or Dewayne was not the best way to go in getting things moving on my 'open up the marriage', actually marriages plural, gambit.

  Abby. Yes, I was going to have to get Abby on board, and not in the hostile 'man vs women, George is wrong, go girl' stream of consciousness mode that she was using. Go girl was ok, in fact probably good, but not the other shit.

  So how to get the wife to admit/agree that she liked fucking Dewayne, that it wasn't my fault that she was fucking him, that it was ok for me to fuck Kim or anybody else that might have an inclination, that she had lust in general, that lust was good not evil, and that the fucking asshole nuns who stole her lust should rot in hell?

  That's a lot to hope for. But, hey, if you don't set your sights high, how are you going to accomplish a
nything worthwhile?

  The path ahead is set. Bring Abby on board.

  Chapter 49: Thinking of Lara, Not so Often and Not as Kindly

  Remember Lara? My thirty seven day internet girlfriend. Well, my attitude toward her and us is changing, as I was afraid it might. I wanted so badly to build firewalls around her and what we had. It felt so real and so good and so uplifting and so erotic. And now it seems like a distant memory, and sometimes it almost seems unreal as in maybe I dreamed the whole thing up. Seriously.

  I've always wondered what it was like to go insane. I mean do you know you are crazy but can't help acting and thinking that way? Or do you think you are sane and everyone who is saying that you are crazy is crazy instead?

  I don't really think I'm crazy, but I have questioned, more than once, how I could have had what we had and then it just disappeared. Of the hundreds of possible scenarios, the 'I'm actually crazy and dreamed it all up' scenario has appeared in my brain more than a few times. I hate to admit that, because in admitting it, I am questioning my own sanity, and that can't be good.

  I just wish I'd get an email from her letting me know she was real and not fiction. I know that's not going to happen, but I can still wish, can't I? Of course the ideal email would be a letter of sincere apology and an explanation as to why she had to go away, for a time, but now things have changed, and she would really like to try again. But at this point, I'd settle for something to let me know that she was real and not just a mental construct.

  This is a short chapter because I've basically moved on, as painful as that is to say. If that changes, I'll let you know.

  By the way, I mentioned when I first introduced you to Lara that I used to like Craig's List and that's where I met her. The reason for the used to is that every time I go there now and look at casual encounters, which is where I placed that initial ad, my mind seems to focus on Lara and how she might be looking there too and there are plenty of ads for men seeking women and then I think that she is answering them and fucking random strangers.

  That's not what bothers me, i.e. fucking random strangers. It's the fact that she could have me and instead she is opting, presumably for just a guy with a hot cock. I know that sounds presumptuous of me to think that I would bring so much more to the table, or bed, but she told me in her own words how much I meant to her beyond sex. Do people just lie? Or do they really mean what they say and then change their minds? As you can see, I'm still not over her, even though I just said, two paragraphs above, that I was over her. And I still go to Craig's List. Hoping. Pretty pathetic, even in my own mind.

  Chapter 50: The Discussion

  I am wondering what to call the recent conversation that Abby and I had about Dewayne and open marriage. Discussion and conversation are both wrong because they imply a two way discourse, but this was one way. Me telling Abby what I thought.

  You may wonder why I chose that format, i.e. the one way format. Well, I know Abby pretty well and I know that there are certain things she just won't talk about. She will listen, sometimes, if I lay out the groundwork carefully, if she is in the mood, and if she thinks the discourse will benefit her, which should tell you that it doesn't happen very often.

  You would think that any man, having found out that his wife was sleeping with another man, would have some leverage. You might think that the wife would have some feelings about his damaged ego, some fears that he might actually file for divorce, or at least have some guilt. In Abby's case, none of this came into play, but I knew that ahead of time, so I didn't try to capitalize on any of it.

  I told Abby that it would be good if I could tell her how I felt about 'the situation' and she said "ok," probably glad that I wasn't going to ask her to 'talk about it' which would mean that she would actually have to participate in the discussion, which I'm sure she didn't want to, and would most likely have refused to do, leaving her with only the burden to listen.

  I launched into my diatribe about how life was complicated and marriage was a compromise and that I thought her lust was stolen by the fucking asshole nuns and that I was glad she had lust for Dewayne, but I'd prefer that she would share that lust with me on occasion, throwing in the fact that I had lust for her and even though it might be unconventional, at least in the circles that we normally hang out in, having a boyfriend in addition to your husband could be viewed as a form of empowerment. Go girl. I think she liked the go girl part, even though I didn't use those two words, because she would have thought, I'm sure, that I was being flippant or cynical, which I wasn't.

  That's about the whole of it. No use muddying the waters, at this point, with the fairness factor about me being able, in our new arrangement, to fuck the shit out of Kim, on occasion, if she was interested, and if not, some other random lady. Keep it simple, I was telling myself. One thing at a time.

  Over the course of the next few days, things just kind of stayed normal which was good. No mention of the discussion. No mention of Dewayne. No mention of Kim, No mention of the situation. Good cocktail hours. We were on the way.

  Chapter 51: Kim Calls, Again

  Remember that Kim called a while back looking for Dewayne and wondering if he was alone riding with Abby and I said yes and she said ok.

  Fast forward a few weeks and I get a call from her, at home, at night, with Abby there, after cocktail hour, which was good because I had some alcohol in me. She said, "Can we talk," and I said sure, and I looked over to see if Abby was paying attention and she wasn't at first. Cash Cab was on TV.

  I took the portable phone into the spare bedroom and sat on the bed, knowing that curious Abby would come in at some point to see who I was talking to.

  Kim said she had just had a discussion with Dewayne and that he told her he loved her and was sorry she was upset and wouldn't fuck Abby again. Of course she used 'see' instead of 'fuck', but I knew she meant fuck.

  I was waiting for the other shoe to drop as in 'but I told the bastard to pack his bags', which I really didn't want to hear, and it never came, which was good, but I sat there thinking that maybe Kim had more to say. But apparently not.

  So I had to keep the conversation going, or at least I wanted to, so I said "are you ok with all of this?" There was a hesitation and then she said "It's water over the dam," and I thought she could also have correctly said 'water under the bridge' which kind of shows you my mind set, i.e. my mind was not really involved in this process because we were just dancing around the issue at hand.

  Abby stuck her curious nose in the door and gave me that quizzical look meaning 'who is on the phone?' and I held my hand over the mouthpiece and said "Kim" trying to be cool and nonchalant and a little self righteous and Abby looked a little bothered and annoyed and surprised all at once. She shut the door and walked out and I was glad she was bothered and annoyed and surprised, so obviously I wanted to keep the conversation going as long as I could.

  It was my turn with Kim since she indicated with her water analogy that she was willing to move forward and she probably wanted to hear what I thought since she had initiated the call. So I told her I was glad she was ok, even though she didn't really say she was ok. Then I said that Abby and I were doing fine, not wanting to say something trite and totally untrue about my being ok with the situation, because even though I was totally ok with it, she would not have understood what the ok meant, and in misinterpreting it, would have thought I had the same feelings about a cheating spouse, and since I of course did not, if I had said I was ok with it, it would have been deceitful. So by saying Abby and I were fine, it left the door open for a further discussion about fine and what that meant.

  Sometimes I wish we could just mind meld with people, if they both agreed, and then all the emotions and nuances involved with them could be transmitted directly without having to translate those emotions into words and then transmit them to the other person with words and then have that person retranslate the words into their own emotions. So much is lost in the two translations I think.

&
nbsp; If I could have mind melded with Kim, she would have known instantly all my feelings about Abby and how I adored her and wanted her to have lust and that I really didn't care that much for Dewayne, but that was irrelevant, and that I lusted after her, i.e. Kim, also and that we should all just take a chill pill and enjoy the ride on life's train.

  I suddenly just said 'what the fuck'. To myself. I knew it was time to tell her how I felt and throw caution to the wind because I wasn't the bad guy here, not that there were any bag guys here, and I had nothing to fear.

  So I said, basically, "Kim, I probably have a different perspective than you on this" and continued with "It's kind of hard to put into words, but let me try."

  I was buying some time here and starting to regret that I had started down this road but there was no turning back now.

  I suddenly remembered that we had already started this conversation in my condo and anything I said might just be a reiteration of that, but I had forgotten most of what I had said, so I just said 'what the fuck' to myself and continued.

  I launched into my diatribe about marriages and infidelity and how high the percentages were for cheating and divorce and how expectations were just out of whack with reality and how there had to be a better model and that we all needed to just try and look at things practically instead of emotionally.

  She listened, which was good. She didn't try and stop my monologue by saying that I was crazy and maybe I was responsible because Abby and I practiced some sort of sick perverted kind of marriage. I was halfway expecting that, by the way. More than halfway, truth be known.