Reluctant Cuckold (3 page)

“And then he had sex with her?”

“Yes.”

I tried to keep my emotions in check and focus. I wanted to get it straight, make sure I was hearing this all correctly.

“OK, so the rumor was that Ashley and Tamara went into the bathroom during the party—the one off the kitchen downstairs—and Tamara invited Jim Murta in. They did some lesbian show, and Tamara told him to take out his dick and stroke it for them.”

Craig nodded, “Yes.”

“And then Tamara asked Jim ‘Which one of us do you want to fuck?’ And Jim chose my wife. And then Jim had sex with Ashley right there at the party—I mean in the bathroom—as the party was going on?”

“Yes, that’s what I heard.”

“Did you hear
where
in the bathroom?”

“What?” Craig asked.

“Where in the bathroom?”

“Over the sink,” Craig mumbled, looking away.

Then I looked away. I was stunned, unable to process the sheer idea of it.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” Craig added.

“Oh hey, Craig, no, thank you. I appreciate you telling me.”

We sat in silence for a minute.

“So this rumor,” I asked, turning back to him, “do people think there’s truth to it? Office gossip is pretty typical there, right?”

“Typical?”

“Like it’s a big-time rumor mill over there?”

“I haven’t noticed that. I mean maybe it is, and people just don’t include me.”

“So, rumors like this aren’t typical?”

“I don’t know. After last year’s Christmas party, there was talk of a VP making out with his Assistant.”

“Do people believe it?”

“Yeah, there were several witnesses. And the VP got a dressing down about it.”

“I mean about this? About Jim and Ashley? Do people believe it?”

“Yeah, it seems that way.”

“A lot of people were talking about it?”

“It wasn’t like there was a crowd at the water cooler chatting about it. But sure, it definitely got around.”

“But did they think maybe Jim concocted it? Or Tamara?”

Craig looked at me oddly, like that was a reach.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Why would they?”

“So you believe it?”

Craig looked away and said, “I don’t know.”

“But people believe it’s true, that’s what you’re saying, right?”

“Dave, I don’t know. It seemed that way to me, but who am I to know for sure.”

I began zoning out until Craig gave me a nudge to get my attention.

“Oh, sorry, can I get you another?” I asked.

“No thanks, I need to get going. I’m meeting my girl for dinner.”

“Sure, I understand,” I said. “Well, thanks a lot for coming out and telling me this. I mean it. I really appreciate it.”

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “You’re not going to tell Ashley I told you this, right?”

“No.”

“I work with her, so it wouldn’t be cool, you understand?”

“Of course.”

We shook hands, and he patted my back as we said goodbye.

I swiveled back, but as I began zoning out, Craig tapped me on the shoulder. “You going to be OK, Dave?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to brave-face it.

“You sure?” he said with an expression of pity, like he clearly believed the story to be true.

“Yeah, I’m fine, really, I’m good,” I said, attempting a smile.

“OK,” he said, patting me again. “Let’s grab a beer soon.”

I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. It would be one thing if Ashley had just drunkenly kissed the guy. But I could never have imagined a rumor like this—that Jim Murta had fucked my wife in a bathroom, at a party where I was on the terrace outside.

It seemed so ludicrous and utterly implausible. Ashley wasn’t like that. It would be insanely out of character. We’d been together for over five years, been married over eighteen months. She wasn’t going to fuck her co-worker just because her friend gave him a choice.

The rumor should have been laughable. How could it have gained traction? No one should have believed it, not even for a minute.

And yet, according to Craig, people did believe it. His reluctance to tell me, and the way he said goodbye, suggested he believed it, too.

I walked out into the crowded, rush hour streets, heading home. I was having a mental back and forth. For a while, the “no possible way in hell” side won out. Then I started thinking about that night at the party, and had creeping recollections of what seemed like nothing at the time. I started thinking about going inside to piss. I could hear Tamara’s voice saying “Dave, there’s another bathroom upstairs. Use that one.”

I hadn’t seen Ashley for a while before that. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her for perhaps an hour. My heart started racing and my pace quickened. The story Craig had told me seemed so outlandish and freakish, yet strangely peculiar—peculiarly
detailed
. It wasn’t the run-of-the-mill office story—in fact, the contrary.

“Which one of us do you want to fuck?”

Jesus Christ. That sounded exactly like something Tamara might say.

Suddenly, it seemed potentially possible that Ashley, Tamara and Jim had all been in that bathroom when I had knocked.

Part of me wanted to rationalize it. Perhaps they were in the bathroom smoking a joint. But if so, why wouldn’t Ashley simply tell me that, or at least try and account for the rumor? And how would a story like that come out of nowhere? Why was Craig so reluctant to tell me? Why had he seemed to believe it? Was there even more to the story?

I started thinking how Ashley never actually denied it. She referred to it as a rumor, sure, but by definition a rumor means it’s not confirmed to be true. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

One thought quickly led to the next. She seemed to have told me about the rumor only because she had assumed I’d hear it from Craig. Would she have even mentioned it otherwise? The rumor had been going on since the prior Monday, over a week before she told me. Did she not want to trouble me or dignify it? Or was she working potential damage control on the assumption I already knew? Why, I wondered, had she told me not to bother asking Craig about it?

If the incident hadn’t happened, and people were spreading lies, Ashley would have stormed into HR that very Monday. Granted it’s not some ultra-corporate firm, but that’s how she is. Her dad’s a lawyer, for Christ’s-sake.

I thought back to her demeanor as we were leaving the party. She seemed happy but sober as she said goodnight to her friends, like she always does on any other typical night out.

But I couldn’t get past the fact that Tamara was in that bathroom when I knocked. Or how I didn’t remember seeing my wife at the time, or Jim for that matter. And Tamara’s line, “Which one of us do you want to fuck?”

Heading up Central Park West, I began to wonder … suppose everything Craig had just told me really was true?

All I had to fall back on was, Ashley would never do something like that. She’s absolutely not that kind of girl. Letting a co-worker fuck her in a bathroom at a party with her own husband nearby was off-the-charts-crazy.

Yet none of the tea leaves or strange road signs pointed to “this didn’t happen.” Instead, all the data points were lining up, like weird mental planets in alignment. Impossibility suddenly seemed possible, or maybe probable, or even highly likely.

Holy shit
, I thought.

I said the words to myself in my head: Ashley fucked Jim Murta in that bathroom that night. Jim Murta fucked my wife.

I walked into my apartment feeling dizzy, dazed, stupefied.

My marriage, the future, everything I had planned on, seemed suddenly hurled into jeopardy. I felt tears in my eyes. I don’t think I’ve cried since I was a kid. I was alone but grateful she wasn’t there. Ashley had texted me earlier, about some birthday party she was going to.

I looked around at the new gray Italia Charles sofa we had recently bought, the bathroom we’d had renovated in the spring, the new floral comforter for the summer, the funky lamp we had bought last month in Soho.

I looked at the smiling photos of friends and relatives she had put up on our fridge and her cutely written Post-it note reminders.

I looked at photos of us—smiling, arms around each other, on vacation, family holidays, on our wedding day, on our honeymoon.

I began thinking of my wife in that bathroom that night. Wondered how it was possible. If I were to pick anyone to have been in the bathroom, it would have been Tamara. Unlike Ashley’s more conservative and now-married friends from college, Tamara is bold, busty, single, flirty, vivacious, daring—and exudes sexuality.

Tamara was one of Ashley’s bridesmaids, and barely smiled in the photos that day.

I wondered why Jim had chosen Ashley. Perhaps it was that she’d seemed more untouchable, less attainable, a greater challenge. The fact she was married and that I was right outside. That she was higher ranked at work. I wondered if he’d been thinking that, what else he’d been thinking, how it all went down.

My thoughts were all runaway train, and I had to stabilize them. So I went into our home office and started cleaning. Ashley had been on me about it for a while. I had allowed the office to become more of a storage room. I spent the next hour hauling boxes down to the basement.

I was lying on the living room sofa when I heard Ashley unlock the door. I pretended to have dozed off, saying, “Oh, hi Ash.”

I was struck by how sweet and pretty she looked in just jeans and a Virginia Tech t-shirt.

“How was Lisa’s b-day shindig?”

“Good,” she said, leaning in to give me a kiss. “What’s up with Mr. Sleepy head? It’s not even eleven. Grueling day at work?”

“It was OK,” I said. “I had some number crunching tonight. I just fell asleep for a few minutes. So you had a good time?”

“Yeah. It was kind of subdued, actually. A few peeps canceled at the last minute, which was kind of lame, but we still had fun.”

“Cool.”

“So, check this out,” Ashley said, handing me a wrapped, brown roll of coins.

“What’s this?”

“The cab was twelve-fifty. I gave him a twenty and asked for five back. But Mr. Cabbie had no cash on him. Literally none. Can you believe that? All I had was twenties. So he gave me this. I was like, what the hell is that? What am I to do with a five dollar roll of nickels?”

She was laughing, and I laughed with her. “Did you say anything to him about it?”

“I asked him if he was serious. But he seemed embarrassed, so I didn’t give him a hard time. Besides, I was late.”

Ashley noticed the folded up cardboard by the kitchen counter. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Check it out,” I said, pointing to our home office room.

It was reassuring when she exclaimed, “Wow!”

“Looks great,” she said, coming back out. “Thank you so much for doing that, honey!”

“No thanks necessary,” I said. “I know I’ve been blowing it off for a while now.”

Ashley said she was going to get ready for bed, so I said I’d do the same.

I lay in bed, my mind racing.

Where was the logical explanation? And if this
rumor
was true, how could Ashley sleep so peacefully beside me? Had she been reassured by my not having heard the rumor? Did she assume I wouldn’t follow up with Craig after telling me not to? That I would remain forever in the dark? Was this a symptom of something seriously wrong in our marriage?

And yet she had acted as if everything was fine and normal when she arrived home. As though our conversation of the prior night had already been paved over. It wasn’t like she was proposing that we have a “serious talk.”

But now there was a growing possibility that I was all too oblivious that night. That I had been clueless while a crazy incident unfolded, starring my wife.

I couldn’t help but think that Ashley had been in that bathroom with Tamara when I knocked. Tamara addressed me by name. If Ashley had been in there, she definitely would have known that I was the one knocking outside.

And If Jim Murta were already inside, he would have known as well.

I began to assume all three of them had been in there when I knocked. That would explain why Tamara had been so quick to tell me to go upstairs.

I had a sickening, gut feeling that the rumor Craig had recounted had been unfolding at that very moment. Had I knocked before or after Tamara asked, “Which one of us do you want to fuck?” That one line kept echoing through my brain, sounding so authentically Tamara.