Authors: David McManus
Ashley replied, “Me, too.”
“Well, I just wanted to say that you can be completely open with me. Nothing would change how I feel about you. The love I have for you has no boundaries. It’s, it’s unequivocal.
“And so,” I continued, “I think the key for us is open communication. I think if we have that, everything else follows. I want you to feel like you can tell me anything, and I’ll understand. And so,” I stuttered, “I know how things can happen, I totally understand that. I want you to know I do or that I would, that I have no judgments.”
“OK,” she said.
“It’s just that I’ve been wondering, I mean, just so we can put it behind us and move forward … that night … at your friend’s party ... it’s OK if it did … I understand how things can just kind of happen, I really do … but, like that night, you mentioned Jim Murta and I was just wondering … because you can be totally honest with me, and I won’t feel differently. But if there was something between the two of you that night, I mean—”
Ashley took my hand, cut me off, and said “Yes.”
I looked back up at her and quietly asked, “Yes?”
“You’re asking if something happened with Jim that night.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yes, we did hook up that night.”
Ashley was still holding my hand, trying to make eye contact.
“‘Hooked up’ as in ‘had sex’?”
“It’s like you said, it just kind of happened.”
“But you had sex?”
“Yes, we did.”
It was as if Ashley had just punched me hard in the gut. Even though I was sure it had happened, just the reality of her admission had me emotionally reeling. Like I was trying to conversationally get back up off the floor.
“I kind of figured that you had,” she said.
“You did? Why?”
“I had just gotten that impression. And I’m sorry. I should have been upfront about it when I told you. It’s just I was scared about how you would take it. And I was embarrassed. That first week at work, I was mortified—knowing people were talking about me.”
“I understand,” I said, “but there’s something else I’ve wondered about. Are you still interested in Jim?”
“Oh God, Dave. Not at all.”
“You sure? I mean you could tell me—”
Ashley patted my arm. “Jim is an immature jerk. He’s how the rumor got started. The last thing I need now is more gossip about me.”
“So there’s nothing between you and Jim now?”
“No, nada, zilcho. There’s zero between us.”
We were both quiet, but I found it hard to look her in the eye.
“You OK?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said, “I’m just glad we got it out in the open so we can move on.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“I love you, Ashley?” I said, phrased more as a question. I was desperate for reciprocation.
“And I love you,” she replied. “I appreciate you being so loving and understanding”
“Of course, Ash.”
“I mean it,” she said, “I really appreciate how cool and sweet you’ve been. That first week at work really had me freaking out. Being gossiped about. I thought I would have to start getting my résumé in order.”
“But it’s gotten better?”
“Yeah, as Tamara said the other night, ‘Just let time do its thing.’ ”
“Ashley,” I said, “can I ask one more question?”
“Of course.”
“I’m not really sure how to say this. But was he, um, was uh, I mean Jim, was he bigger, I mean, bigger than me?”
Ashley looked at me like she wasn’t sure of the question.
I looked down at the floor and said, “You know, his penis ... was it bigger than mine?”
She waited for my eyes to get back off the floor.
“He was … wasn’t he?” I asked.
Ashley looked pained, as though having to tell a kid the truth about Santa Claus. “Yeah” she said.
“How much bigger?”
The way I blurted out the question caused her to laugh slightly.
“Just bigger, OK,” she replied.
“OK,” I said, utterly floored, emotionally reeling, mentally stumbling. “Well,” I added, “I understand how things can get out of control or how you can get caught up in the moment.”
“Yeah, and I’m sorry, I should have told you before tonight.”
“It’s OK, Ash, no worries, I’m just glad we talked about it. I felt it was important.”
“Me, too.”
“So,” I said, “anything new with your mom? I mean, it looks like she’s coming out here in September?”
I didn’t initiate sex that night. I was still reeling, and Ashley conked out on our bed pretty quickly. I spent another night lying there thinking. My wife had just admitted to me—her husband—that she’d indeed let another man fuck her at a party we were both at. And now she was sleeping serenely beside me.
Her apology seemed insanely marginal. She hadn’t said, “I’m sorry I did that.”
She hadn’t said, “I’m sorry I let a guy fuck me at a party you were at,” or “We all heard you knocking on the bathroom door, and I’m sorry, I was just too horny, I just had to fuck him.”
The only “sorry” she’d offered was for not being upfront afterwards. What kind of apology was that? She might as well have said, “I’m sorry, I forgot to pay the cable bill.” Was it possible she didn’t recognize the magnitude of what she’d admitted? Where were the tears, the begging for forgiveness?
You just told me another man fucked you, Ashley! And you simply feel bad for not telling me earlier? That’s the only thing you’re sorry for? You’re sorry for the rumors at work? Really? That’s your main concern? Your reputation trumps our marriage? All I get is, “you OK?”
Could she really think this hadn’t affected me? Or was that what she meant when she said she figured I knew? Why? Because I seemed more nervous around her, less self-assured? Because I cum within a minute of fucking her now?
Is that how you put two and two together, Ashley? You assumed I knew, and yet you didn’t even bring the subject back up with me? You left it for me to do. You let some junior punk salesman fuck you in a ratty little apartment bathroom with your own husband outside, and it’s the work rumors you’re concerned with? Not how your own husband feels about it? You can’t even offer a real ‘sorry’? Instead I get a ‘thanks’ for being so cool and understanding?
Was she fucking serious?
“You let Jim Murta fuck you and cream inside your pussy while I stood outside knocking. And now that we’ve finally talked about it, you can sleep peacefully.”
And Jim fucking Murta ….
“Oh God no, Dave, I have no interest in him now.”
Why Ashley? Because the guy fucking blabbed to your fellow work colleagues how he fucked and spermed you? Is that the only reason you have no interest now? If he had kept his fucking trap shut, would you have fucked him again? Would you still be fucking him? And then, good God, you tell me Jim Murta’s cock is bigger than mine.
Sure I asked the question and sure I suspected that answer, but couldn’t she have at least lied or downplayed it? Said something like “not really”?
And that fucking brief laugh when I asked “how much bigger?” Could she be any more condescending?
“How much bigger Ashley?”
“Just bigger, OK?”
What was with the “OK”?
Like, “you don’t pay it any more mind, don’t trouble yourself with the details, just know that it was bigger.” And conversely, the implication was, my dick is smaller.
How fucking big was it, Ashley? Obviously it wasn’t just marginally bigger, or you would have told me that. Was it seven and one half, eight, eight and one-half? Was it porn-star big?
Had she really misunderstood my original question? Did I have to squirm and actually have to say, “Was his penis bigger than mine?”
Do you not see how humiliating and embarrassing that was?
Good God Ashley, how fucking big was he?
I got out of bed and went to the hallway bathroom.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I had gotten hard just thinking about it and felt compelled. I was back on the sink again with my boxers down. My wife had just admitted to fucking Jim Murta that night and strongly implied that his cock was significantly bigger than mine.
Had Ashley stared, mesmerized by its size, as Jim Murta stroked it in front of her? Was it irresistible? Was she so intrigued and tempted by the prospect of feeling it inside her that she didn’t care her own husband was outside? Had knocked on the goddamn fucking door?
He had stroked it, pointing his big cock right at her, as he looked down on her in the bathtub, staring at her tits. When Tamara asked, “Which one of us do you want to fuck?” was Ashley hoping Jim Murta would pick her? That she would have the honor and privilege of being fucked by Jim Murta and his big, fat, cock?
God fucking dammit, Ashley. You let him take you bare. You let him drain his big fat balls inside you. You let that horse-cock fucking seed your pussy.
And then I came hard.
This is so fucked up
, I said to myself.
“What kind of a pussy are you,” I whispered as I looked at myself in the mirror.
“I think I’m breaking my bike out” Ashley said the next morning, “it’s a gorgeous day.”
I offered to join her, telling her I could rent one from a place nearby.
An hour later, we were riding through Central Park. She was wearing snug white shorts, and I just looked at her small, firm ass as I followed behind. Soon, we were darting through city streets, making our way to a bike path on the East Side.
We stopped at a Dog Park, twenty or so dogs running around in a fenced-off area as their owners sat on benches.
“What a big old party,” Ashley remarked. “Look at little Napoleon; he may be runty and small, but he ain’t taking shit from no one.” When Napoleon started humping another, much bigger dog, she burst out laughing.
We rode uptown, crossing over to Wards Island. Neither of us had been there. It was like a sanctuary—picturesque, full of trees, and free of people. In the distance we could see the Hell Gate Bridge.
“That’s the bridge you and your dad used to picnic by, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “When I was five years old it was my favorite bridge. I mean it’s kind of ridiculous, picnicking by a bridge, but my dad indulged me.”
“Aww, that’s all cute,” she said.
We biked right up to it.
The Hell Gate Bridge is a steel railroad bridge that crosses the East River. I didn’t think it was even still in use, until we watched an Amtrak train glide across.
The area was quiet, almost eerily. We were talking about the castle-like structure that supports both sides, when a park employee came up from behind and startled us. He seemed to have a certain fondness for the bridge himself. Ashley told him about my boyhood fascination with it.
“It was remarkably constructed” he said, “Made to last.”
Then he told us that if humanity went extinct tomorrow, virtually all the bridges in the world would collapse within three hundred years from lack of maintenance.
“But that bridge,” he said, “would be the very last to fall. It would take one thousand years.”
Ashley looked at him funny.
“I’m not making it up,” he said. “Look it up on Wikipedia.”
He was an older man, maybe mid-fifties, but I could tell he was checking my wife out as he talked; he was obviously staring at her tits.
We got back on our bikes, and Ashley yelled back, “Hurry up, slow-poke.”
Staring at her as ass, I followed quickly behind.
We arrived at some sort of facility. Then we saw a bunch of men looking at us from behind a chain fence.
“Oh my God,” Ashley said, “I think there’s a big psychiatric center here, like for the violently deranged.”
She was right. I looked it up when we got home. That was exactly what it looked like. No one behind the fence appeared in any way normal.
“What do you say, Ash,” I asked, “do any of them loonies have a face that says ‘you’re the only one who understands me, please take me home’?”
Ashley punched me playfully in the side. That felt good. Next we attempted the bike path on the Triborough Bridge. It’s insanely steep, so we quickly switched to walking our bikes.
“This is a bridge for Sir Edmund Hillary,” Ashley remarked.
Once we got to the flat part, where the bridge really begins, we had second thoughts.
“What do you say we just ride back down and start heading home?” she said.
“Sounds good to me.”
And so I followed behind her as we glided back down. It was as long as a ski trail, reminded me of the Alpine Slide I’d taken as a kid. I watched her hair fly and her exhilaration as she looked back at me.
Remember this moment
, I said to myself.
Appreciate this. Savor it. A wonderful day with my wife
.