What a Woman Will Do to Keep an Unfaithful Husband (Part I)

I recognized him when I saw him and I knew him when he spoke. I’d met him before. Different model, but he was the same old played make. From the first day we met, he wanted to flirt. He wanted to be sexual with his words, sexual with me, a stranger. Not his wife, the mother of his child. Of course he was claiming to be a cool brother, devoted to his marriage, a good father. But all of his actions said something else. I’d seen it all before. He was basic.

I let him know I wasn’t interested in that game. I didn’t play anymore. “I’m just coaching, so let’s keep it business,” I’d said, but he was persistent. He kept dumbing down the conversation with crass references and innuendo that weren’t really all that slick. I wasn’t impressed or interested. I had an agenda for this place and it had nothing to do with him. Besides, I thought I’d heard somewhere that men and women could work together without the shenanigans. I guess he hadn’t heard that.

One day, I had to just come right out and tell him, “I don’t feel comfortable with that kind of conversation. I don’t mess around.” He laughed and said, “You’re that sensitive, huh?” I said, “Yeah, I am.”

I guess he got it without really getting it because the next time his conversation went all LGBTQ. He started telling stories about all the times gay guys had hit on him. He seemed pretty proud of his broad appeal to women and men. Of course, I wasn’t impressed, just more aware of his arrogance. Then, his wife walked in. He stuttered and cleaned up the awkward moment by bringing her into the discussion, smiling the whole time. “Baby, remember when we were shoe shopping and . . .”

Of course, she bailed him out. She knew what she had, who she’d married. She’d seen it all before, only with a different woman, maybe one who was actually interested. So she went with the flow of his story smiling beautifully like it didn’t bother her to walk in on her husband talking about sexual things with a coworker who also happened to be a woman.

I felt sorry for her, so I befriended her. At first, I wanted her to know I was not a threat. Then, it turned out she was a really good person with a tender heart, and a pretty great sense of humor, so we actually became friends. . . friendly. . . as friendly as you can be in this kind of a situation.

She stood almost half a foot taller than him, making them an odd, but attractive couple. He had rich cocoa brown skin, while she was a golden light brown with honey blond hair. Yet, they both had the same strange, light brown eyes like you might find among siblings.

He appeared to work at retaining his muscular physique, clearly a college athlete who wouldn’t give up his workout regiment, but his hair was graying and his hairline was receding. He was balding in the crown of his head and I surmised he must have shaved a few times a week to keep a more youthful appearance.

She was a beautiful woman by anyone’s standards who had, at one time, been a world class athlete. Those who knew her in college also knew she’d given up a world class body to bear this piece of man a new version of himself, giving him a new chance at life. Yes, together they’d made a beautiful son.

On his own though, he’d made her a nervous wreck. She was always worried about what he was doing when she wasn’t with him. So thinking like a desperate woman or a smart wife with a whorish husband, she’d found a way to always be around and always vigilant because she knew what she had.

All of our coworkers talked about her, laughing about how she rushed from her teaching job to pick up their toddler from daycare only to spend whole evenings watching him coach, making sure he had no time to play. She was on the front row for all of his games. In fact, she was even on the sideline for all of his practices under the guise of working out. Or maybe she really was trying to drop the pounds so he’d be attracted to her the way he had been when they met at their Southern Georgia alma mater.

A few times, I worked out with her. I wanted her to be encouraged, refusing to be one of the many who laughed at her and judged her for doing what many wives did to keep their straying husbands. But it seemed like everyone else was mad at her, like she was doing something wrong by loving him like she did.

I soon figured out that he was just feeling me out, to see if I was the type to play. This guy already had a mistress at work. Turns out, his side piece was always around too, at every practice and every game. In fact, she was typically working out in the weight room one door over from the gym while the wife was doing suicides on the sideline. While I was relieved to think I wouldn’t have to deal with his inappropriate behavior in a more formal way, I was disgusted at how easily and openly he cheated on his wife in our workplace.

It was a dangerously sick dance he and his side piece were performing. I think a few times, they all walked out to their cars at the same time, talking like old friends do, the wife, the mistress, the teetering toddler, and the dog-of-a-husband. The wife was looking at her husband’s mistress, but she had no idea what she was seeing.

Everyone else at work knew who the sideshow was and she didn’t try to hide it from them either. In fact, she’d made the whole conquest a game, reveling in the openness of the seduction.

From his first day at the job, she’d told her circle in the faculty lounge how sexy she thought he was, “with his little self.” And every day she grew more drunk with the adrenaline of her risky behavior. She wore more make up. Her clothes changed, dresses getting shorter, pants getting tighter.

I couldn’t believe her resolve to have an affair. With her own husband and two small boys at home, she had a lot to lose. Yet, she continued the pursuit like a heat seeking missile. To her, it was all, “so fucking hot,” and she said so, but to me, it was all so fucking classless and her circle egged it on, casting her as the star of their own little reality tv show.

They all knew what she was doing was wrong and they said so, but only when she wasn’t around. One time I’d even heard someone say, “She better be careful ‘cause his wife is gonna’ come up here and murder her one day.” We all heard that and they all nodded their agreement.

To be continued

If you think it’s a good start, recommend it. I’d also love to hear your critiques.