While My Wife's Away

by James Lear

  But all I could think was ‘well, this is very convenient.’

  Angie’s the one who’s been unfaithful and broken up the marriage, not me. Angie left Joe, walked out on him and her son just at the time when he needed her most.

  I am the victim, the wronged party.

  And unless I am missing something, she doesn’t know a thing about me. Doesn’t even suspect. She knows our marriage has fizzled out, we don’t have sex or talk, perhaps she suspects that I’m up to things behind her back, but she doesn’t know what.

  So where does that leave me? Free? Have I got away with it? My marriage is over with minimum fuss and no blame. I can do whatever I want.

  It seems that you can have your cock and eat it too.

  All I have to do now is keep my nose clean, be a good father to Alex while he gets through his exams, and by October, when he leaves for university, my new life will begin. Not such a bleak prospect after all. If Angie’s the one who walked out, I won’t be hit with a massive alimony bill. In fact, I might just insist that I stay in the family home for a few more years, at least until both kids have homes of their own, while Angie goes and lives with her new bloke.

  For the first time, I wondered who it was. Someone we know? How did she meet him? How long has it been going on? Months? Years? Is this why the sex between us stopped? Not because I was moving away, my interests flowing in other channels, but because she was being unfaithful, getting her sex elsewhere?

  I felt outraged and cheated for a fleeting moment, but it didn’t last. Even I’m not quite as dishonorable as that.

  Perhaps one day, we’d all be good friends—Angie and her new man, the kids and their partners, me and my boyfriend, if I ever got one. But now, at least, I was free to look.

  The idea of freedom and the reality are two very different things. After the first heady notion that I could now do whatever I pleased, the realization dawned on me that I was effectively a single parent, that my time was constrained by the needs of my son, whom I’d always left, more or less, to his mother. I was the breadwinner, even when Angie returned to work, and it was always assumed that she’d do everything for the kids. Just another one of those things that I’d never questioned in my adult life. Mothers are the primary carers, no matter how many articles appear in the press about new roles for men. I’ve been reading the same article for the last twenty years, and I don’t see any evidence of men taking over women’s roles in the world I live in.

  Now, however, I was doing just that. For how long I couldn’t say; surely Angie wasn’t leaving on a permanent basis? She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. I don’t have time to do all the shopping and cooking and cleaning, even if we do have a woman coming in once a week. I can’t be responsible for getting Alex up and dressed and off to school, or supporting him through his exams. I have other things to do. A job, for starters, and the gym, and men to fuck.

  You’re probably thinking at this point that Joe Heath is about to have a big revelation, that he’ll learn to put other people before himself, he’ll make his peace with his wife and family, and everyone will move on to a happier and more honest future. You’re hoping that I’ll settle down with a nice man and stop all this empty screwing around. And I’d like nothing more. But you’ll also realize from your own experience that life doesn’t work out like that. Things don’t fall into place. They fall apart very easily—if I have any belief in a guiding force in the universe, it’s entropy. Things tend not to come together, at least not without heroic effort and massive compromise, or at least blissful ignorance. I’ve coasted along on ignorance for nearly forty-three years, and now I’ve woken up. My life is a mess, and barring miracles, it’s going to stay that way.

  The house was quiet. I didn’t even know if Alex was in. He should be upstairs studying, but I hoped he wasn’t. I didn’t want him to witness the disintegration of his parents’ marriage. On the other hand, I needed to talk to him. He must know something about Angie’s activities over the last week or so—for all I know she’d confided everything in Alex and Nicky, and I’m the last to know.

  I called his name; the sound of my voice died out quickly. No reply. I went upstairs, checked his room, the bathroom. Empty. Perhaps he was out with his friends, or doing karate or band practice or something. Angie would know what time he’d be back. He should be upstairs studying. He should be eating. Who was feeding him? Who was he with? I realized that I knew next to nothing about my own children. When Nicky phones on the weekend, it’s Angie she talks to, about how things are going with her boyfriend Paul, about her classes: I get a hi and bye and a few jokes in-between, but nothing about the details of her life. As for Alex, we’ve only ever talked about harmless stuff like sports and music. Feelings are off limits. He could be up to all sorts of things without my knowledge. He wouldn’t be the first young man to have a secret life. Why, I fucked one of them in this very house just the other day.

  I texted him. What time you getting home? You hungry? Dad.

  Nothing for half an hour, then: Back about 9.

  So I ate and had a glass or two of wine and I looked through my emails, deleted the nutcases, and on a quick reckoning, I counted eight viable new applicants offering a variety of sexual experiences, plus three tried-and-trusted veterans willing to return for a second go.

  I should have been feeling horny as fuck, sorting out the next shag and the shag after that. But my libido was gone. I searched for it. I tried to entice it with photographs and videos online, with memories of recent experiences, with squeezes to the groin, but nothing worked. The idea of sex was—not repulsive exactly, just irrelevant. Alien. My cock was free, but it was apparently dead. A tube for pissing, nothing more.

  The doorbell rang; it was half past seven. I wasn’t expecting anyone. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Meter reader? No, it was a grocery delivery that Angie had obviously arranged and omitted to tell me about. She must have forgotten. Things were obviously more serious than I thought. Angie takes shopping and food very seriously indeed, and if she’s letting her personal problems get in the way of a grocery delivery, then things had gone even further than I imagined.

  I lugged the crates into the kitchen and unpacked; the driver helped me. He was a big man with a shaven head, his thick arms covered in tattoos, a gold earring in his left earlobe, and a scar over his right eyebrow. A boxer or a bouncer, by the look of him. Tired of fighting, now delivering groceries for a living. Getting a bit thick round the middle, I couldn’t help noticing, from all that sitting in traffic. But still powerful, judging by the way he was hefting the crates of food around. There was enough here to withstand a siege. Eight cartons of long-life milk. A huge pack of toilet paper. Stuff to fill the freezer. Cans of tomatoes, packages of pasta, coffee, dish liquid, laundry detergent. It occurred to me that Angie, thoughtful to the last, had laid in provisions for her absence, so that Alex and I wouldn’t starve. There was even a bottle of scotch and a bottle of gin and a packet of paracetamol. Everything I need.

  ‘You alright, boss?’ He made me jump; he was right behind me in the kitchen doorway, holding two crates, his muscles bulging. ‘Anything missing?’

  Apart from my wife, you mean? ‘No, I’m fine. Sorry, miles away.’

  ‘On your own, are you?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. The family’s away.’

  ‘Right.’ He put the crates down. ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Is there any more?’

  ‘Just a couple. I’ll get ’em.’ He heaved the last of the shopping into the kitchen while I pondered the strange turn my life had taken. ‘There you go, boss. Mind if I use your toilet?’

  ‘Course not. Go ahead.’ We moved into the hall. ‘It’s just down there.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He stood there smiling, huge hands hanging by his side, gold tooth gleaming. ‘I’ve been driving around all afternoon.’

  ‘Must be hard.’

  ‘It is.’ He made no move toward the toilet. It was already quite clear to me what was going on. How does he know? What secret
signal am I giving off? Does he just try it with any lone male?

  I should have said, ‘Well, there you go,’ and gone back to the kitchen, but instead I leaned against the wall and said, ‘I don’t know how you do it. The stress would drive me crazy.’

  ‘Yeah, well, there are ways to unwind.’

  ‘Right.’ Was my libido back? I didn’t feel particularly excited. He was sexy, that’s for sure, and if this had happened six months ago I’d have been practically coming in my pants by this time. But now, as the opportunity fell so easily into my lap, I was unsure if I really wanted it. I glanced at my watch. Well, Alex wouldn’t be home for an hour and a half. This wasn’t going to take long, ten, fifteen minutes at most. It would be a shame to turn him down when he so obviously wanted it. ‘I go to the gym for my stress relief,’ I said. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘Yeah, I train.’ He ran a hand over his convex belly. ‘Not as much as I used to, unfortunately.’

  ‘You still look in good shape.’

  ‘You should have seen me when I was fighting.’ I was right then. A boxer of some sort. ‘I was like a fucking machine.’

  ‘What was your sport?’

  ‘Kick-boxing. Muay Thai. That sort of thing.’ He was still rubbing his belly, a little lower now.

  ‘I better watch my step then.’

  He laughed and took a step toward me. I could feel the heat from his body. ‘Don’t worry, mate. I’m not going to hurt you.’

  My cock was getting hard. A mechanical response, pure and simple. ‘You’d better have that piss, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. And you’d better come with me.’

  ‘This way.’ I took hold of his right bicep, where a complicated Japanese-style tattoo scrolled out from the sleeve of his dark-blue polo shirt.

  ‘Get it out for me,’ he said, pointing toward his cock. It swelled in his trousers like a bread roll. ‘You can hold it while I piss.’

  He stood with his hands hanging by his sides while I undid his belt and zipper and pulled out a huge, hard cock. It was pale, almost white, with a thick blue vein down the shaft and a long foreskin that was only slightly retracted, even at full erection. A patch of shiny pink helmet was visible in the crinkly opening. It was wet.

  I wanked him gently and said, ‘How you going to piss through that?’

  ‘Don’t know. Going to have to try though.’ He positioned himself at the toilet, my hand still wrapped round his cock. ‘Hold still,’ he said, ‘or I’ll never be able to go.’ He shut his eyes, breathed out loudly through his nose, and then I felt it, a thundering surge of piss coming through his cock, past my fingers, gathering for a split second at the hole before jetting out at about thirty degrees to the left. It missed the bowl completely, splattering over the porcelain and onto the tiled floor. I pulled him over to the right; the stream was strong and occasionally split in two. Whatever I did, it seemed to make a mess. Finally we got it under control, and I held him while he emptied his bladder, never losing his erection. When there were just a few drops left, I started wanking him off again.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘You’re going to suck it now.’ I got down on my knees, taking care not to soak myself in piss, and started licking the wet end of his dick. It tasted good, clean and salty, so I took it in my mouth and started moving downward.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ he said. ‘Suck my cock, mate.’ He held the back of my head, pulling me in, fucking my throat in a way that would have made me throw up a few months ago. Now I knew how to control it. He must have sensed that I was experienced enough to take it. How could he tell? Had I become so easy to read?

  I assumed that he’d blow his load in my mouth, or perhaps on my face, then wipe up and go, leaving me to clean the bathroom and put the groceries away. But he had other ideas.

  ‘I want you to fuck me,’ he said. ‘You up for it?’

  I let his cock out of my mouth, leaving a long string of sticky drool hanging between us. ‘OK.’

  ‘I like a big dick up my arse.’

  I didn’t know quite what to say to that. I almost said ‘me too,’ but that didn’t seem quite right. He was wasting no time, kicking off his shoes and pants until he was naked from the waist down, that big cock waving around from side to side. He put one foot up on the edge of the bathtub and stuck his arse toward me. ‘All yours, boss.’

  Half an hour ago, my sex drive had packed up its bags and left. Now it was back in control, pushing all the buttons in my brain and intoxicating me. I unzipped, got my cock out, grabbed his hips, and started rubbing it against his arse, pushing the head into his hole. I spat in my hand, slicked up my shaft, and worked a finger inside him. He was pressing back onto me, taking all I could give: this wasn’t his first time at the rodeo either. I gave him another finger, and another; he was open and silky soft inside, his prostate a hard little walnut, his ring clamping down around my knuckles like an elastic band.

  I pulled my fingers out and positioned my helmet against his wet hole; one good shove and I’d be inside him, fucking the come out of him, pumping him full, reducing this big brute to a moaning bitch.

  ‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’re not going in there bareback, mate. Are you fucking mad?’

  ‘I’m . . . I just thought.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ He stood up. ‘That what you normally do, is it?’

  ‘No. I’m really careful.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘I am, honestly.’ My dick was wilting. ‘I just thought . . . ’

  ‘What? That I’m stupid enough to take it without a rubber? Fuck off.’

  ‘OK. I’ll get some.’

  ‘Too late, mate.’ He was pulling his trousers up. His dick was still hard, and he had difficulty stuffing it back into his pants.

  ‘Please. I’m sorry. I just blanked out.’ I stood there with a limp dick hanging out of my fly, my cheeks burning, feeling like I might start crying. The delivery man obviously took pity on me. ‘Alright, mate, alright. Cheer up. Tell you what.’ He hoisted his cock out again; it was still hard and wet. ‘You have a good suck on that, and let’s see if we can get you hard again.’

  I got back on my knees and started sucking gratefully. My dick soared back to full stiffness. He pulled out, slapped his cock around my face a few times, and then put it back in my mouth, shoving his thumb in for good measure, stretching my lips.

  ‘You straight?’

  I looked up into his eyes and nodded.

  ‘For a straight bloke, you fucking love cock, don’t you?’

  I managed ‘mmmm’ before he plunged into my throat, blocking my air. Well, I was certainly being punished now. He was pushing me back and down; my trousers were wet with piss but I didn’t care. I braced myself against the wall, my thighs stretched to the point of pain, my head back, throat exposed, and took what he had to give me. He placed a foot on either side of me, cradled my skull in one palm and jackhammered his cock into my mouth, swearing and sweating as he did so. My neck hurt, my legs hurt, my stomach muscles were starting to shake, my cock was hard, but if I moved a hand to touch it, I’d fall over. It was without doubt the most uncomfortable sexual experience of my life; the pain was almost unendurable, but I didn’t want it to stop.

  ‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh FUCK,’ he said, pulled out of my mouth, and unleashed a tidal wave of spunk over my upturned face, my shirt, my trousers, some of it even going over my head and hitting the wall.

  He scooped the last few drops off the end and stuck his fingers in my mouth. I was starting to come myself; all he had to do was take hold of me, wank me a few times, and I would be adding my load to his. I was soaked with the stuff, the light-blue cotton of my shirt almost completely dark now, adhering to my skin. My trousers were ruined. Spunk was running down the side of my face, almost getting into my eye.

  ‘Next time,’ he said, as he dressed, ‘make sure you’ve got some condoms ready for me.’

  I stripped, sho
wered, mopped the floor, cleaned the toilet, and put a load of laundry in. By the time I’d put the groceries away, it was 8:45. Alex would be home soon. Jesus Christ, was I mad? What the fuck just happened? The delivery man, in my own bathroom, when my wife or son could have walked in on me? Just because the breakup of my marriage is officially Not My Fault, and just because I haven’t been found out so far, doesn’t mean that I have to take suicidal risks. And trying to have unsafe sex, thinking that it wouldn’t matter. Not even thinking that. Not thinking at all. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I poured myself a huge glass of wine and downed it in two gulps.

  Alex let himself in quietly and started going upstairs. I could have pretended not to hear him, and that would have been that.

  For once, having done nothing but wrong for so long, I decided to do the right thing.

  I went into the hall.

  ‘Alex?’ Nothing. Louder: ‘Alex!’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can you come downstairs when you’re ready?’

  He put music on. I repeated myself, yelling.

  ‘OK!’ he said, with barely contained irritation. OK, Alex, OK. We’re going to have a showdown, and this is going to be unpleasant, but come what may, you will tell me what you know. And, somehow, we are going to live together and get through this, and somehow I am going to stop being a complete fucking dickhead.

  He slouched into the living room as if the effort of walking downstairs had exhausted him. He looked exhausted, dark shadows under his eyes, just like when he was five years old and refusing to go to bed. His hair was sticking up, and his clothes were saggy and creased.

  ‘When did you last have a bath or a shower?’

  ‘Is that what you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘No. Just curious.’

  He shrugged and picked at a fingernail.

  ‘Alex, come and sit down.’

  He chose the chair furthest from me and perched on the arm. His phone was in his pocket, and his hand strayed fretfully toward it as a means of escape.

  ‘You know Mum’s gone away for a few days, right?’

  He mumbled ‘yeah.’