Truk 1 — From a Wayward Wife to Paradise Island

There was once a wayward wife who became bored with her husband & sought excitement in the beds of other men. An attempt was made by that wife to shift the blame for the extramarital activities & subsequent divorce to the husband. She explained that the husband’s poor performance in the bedroom drove her into the arms of other men. I was that husband. Although I felt I was OK in the bedroom department, her words left me with doubts. Over the years, I have met dozens of divorced men with similar stories.

My wife was not what most men (including myself) would consider good looking. She Smoked like a furnace & bit her nails to a nub. She was Over six feet with a masculine build. She had almost no breast what so ever. She did have one glass eye & tiny yellow teeth that were lacking dental care. Her skin was scared from years of severe acne. She couldn’t dance or sing. Her clothing fit poorly and she had a nightmare for extended family. She was self absorbed & had not a generous bone in her body. She was known to be easy but I was not sexually attracted to her. She was dishonest and lacked integrity. Why did I like her & marry her? She was very smart & witty — not afraid to show it. She was adventuresome — she was down for any new activity. She was not judgmental — no one was shunned for any reason. We were buddies for many months before one night we decided to have sex. Neither of us thought it was great sex but continued engaging when it was convenient. She complained that I was too analytical & never turned the animal loose. Career, college & military situations evolved to a point where it would be very beneficial for each of us to be married. We married each other to take advantage of those benefits. Our careers, educational activities & military commitments prohibited our living in the same dwelling until I graduated.

Both our careers landed us in Sacramento and we finally were cohabitating. We then found we didn’t really like living in the same house. I left my position in Sacramento & joined my engineer friend with a contractor licence performing small engineering/construction jobs in the Sierras. I built a very nice house for myself near Tahoe & my wife moved to the Sac Towers near her work. We would go to concerts, shows at Tahoe, trips or other event together & she would spend some weekends with me. She left her job after accumulating enough cash to allow her coasting for awhile. She moved in with me but was at my house very little. She traveled with her mother & visited her sister in San Jose. Ours was not a lovey dovey relationship. I didn’t expect fidelity, good grades in school, stellar career moves, or her bearing children. I did expected trust, respect for each others feelings, & an air of decency in our relationship. I really didn’t get any of those three things.

So planets began aligning for me as my marriage was dissolving. This wayward wife of mine took off on a two month trip with her boyfriend — prior to this trip, she refused to admit to her extramarital affairs. Another planet, 6 year reserve military obligation, was nearing completion. Because I was required to attend monthly military drills & Summer Camp, traveling far from the area for extended periods (as I wanted to do) was prohibited. Thirdly, my very small engineering/construction business closed it’s doors. A bankruptcy filing by my main customer & very late payments by others left me deep in the red. I was looking for a job. The fourth planet lined up, a job offer. This secured my destiny. I had long dreamed of living on a tropical island — there was a job offer to work in the South Pacific & the dream was about to come true.

After two months from the date of her departure, I received a call from my wife. Her boyfriend left her stranded in a bay area motel after his taking all her cash & car. He moved back with his wife. I drove to the motel & picked up my wife. On the drive back to my house, my wife & I filled each other in on occurrences of the past 60 days. I explained I was going to use my neighbors (who lived in a little trailer) as house sitters for two years. There were problems with the selling of my house so I needed a sitter rather than a buyer & they needed a house. When I built the structure, I never intended to sell it. No attention was given to marketability; I had 52" counters (I am tall), no public access, no closed off rooms (even the bath) & there was an encumbrance on the title by the NAACP. No mortgage company would touch it & Realtors felt uncomfortable even listing. I would need to make some changes prior to putting the house on the market. I was planning to take care of those changes in two years after completion of my South Pacific contract. It would be better if the wife would stay at my house & clean up the title, modify the cabinets, create some rooms, make access legal, plus other marketability issues that may emerge. She could also liquidate my construction equipment, cars, household items, etc. — she agreed. We would split the proceeds per the property settlement when we formally divorced in two years. The job at Paradise Island in the South Pacific required I be on site ASAP — I left for the Paradise Island a few days after my wife moved into my house.

The position on Paradise Island was at an Army base where separation of persons with family status & those with bachelor status was emphasized. The job application & employment contract required marital status be indicated but gave only two choices; “married” & “single”. I checked the “married” box. There was no choice of “engaged”, “separated”, etc. This resulted in my being assigned to family housing rather than the more appropriate bachelor housing. In hind sight, I should have demanded reassignment to bachelor housing which was basically a studio apartment with a kitchenette. The full kitchen, landscaped yard, in-house laundry, & extra square footage of family housing units persuaded me to not move. I invited my bachelor & native friends for dinner each night not realizing this was problematic for my neighbors & the Army. The bachelors advised me to keep a low profile in everything I did as to not draw attention to my being a bachelor in family housing. It was after four months of my living in family housing with no wife present that the Army had enough. They told me produce a wife or go home. There was an implication I was trying to scam the Army & I would be terminated with cause if there were no wife. I offered to move to bachelor housing but it was too late for that; the Army wanted to see a wife on the island or see me on a mainland bound jet.

Meanwhile, back in California; the wife had sold all my construction equipment & vehicles but not the house. She & her new boyfriend were enjoying my hospitality with no progress on marketing the real property. The wife was about finished with this latest affair but didn’t want the unpleasant task of kicking him out. It was very convenient then that I needed the wife in the South Pacific; going with me to the island helped facilitate her dumping this guy without hurting his feelings. I traveled to California, put all my stuff in storage, moved my neighbors into my house, & flew back to the island as the Army wanted.

I didn’t expect the wife to stay on the island for my entire contract but for a period of time long enough to pacify the Army & make them feel I was not trying to scam them. With my going to work every day & there being little resources on the island to keep the wife busy, I wondered how long she would last. Many of the wives on the island secured lovers from the 5000 horny bachelors on the island, the wives made two-day shopping trips to Honolulu, they engaged in water sports & drank a lot. My wife did these & more. My wife’s new boyfriend on the island was a flight attendant who was off-island much of the time. Her drinking & shopping buddy was a woman from South Carolina named Ann. Ann had a husband who worked off island & she planned to divorce him as soon as his contract was complete. I worked off island a lot too — so I saw my wife very little. When I was with my wife, we would always have activities with large groups. It looked as if things had stabilized with my living in a non-intiment relationship with my wife & she being occupied with her new fly boy plus her buddy, Ann. She seemed to be OK with things & I was very OK with things.

So I was working at my dream job at my dream location. Those I talked with prior to my accepting the job & who were familiar with this location warned of two things; excessive drinking and inappropriately addressing sex needs. Many bachelors were having affairs with wives who were there on family status — some husbands disapproved & made things very uncomfortable for those bachelors. Some bachelors were involved with high school women — they were kicked off the island when exposed. Monogamous relationships were not part of island culture. By US standards, the native women were promiscuous & most had STD’s. I decided to keep it zipped while on island. I had not dated during the two months I was separated from my wife prior to going to the island & I was not active after my moving there. There was concern by me for my wife’s declaration of my being a poor performer — I wasn’t looking forward to the next woman I was with making a similar evaluation. Six months without a date & I was then living in a non-intimate relationship with my wife. Despite my irregular relations with women being part of the picture, I like my job & my employer liked me.

As I arrived, I introduced the island to high strength fast setting epoxy asphalt concrete as a runway patching medium. The material was not compliant with FAA & Army standards but I could patch the runway in less than an hour & hunks of pavement stopped flying loose & hitting the underside of the planes. I was a hero for a day. Then, my marital/housing status threw a monkey wrench in works. With an on-island wife & my continued success providing engineering services, the monkey wrench was a thing of the past.

The Army’s agreement with the local government required all workforce groups include 10% natives. None of these 10% performed much work — we just wrote it off as a cost of overhead. For my 10% I was given a draftsperson, Ratak. He was a member of a royal family & he had no drafting skills. I found he could best be used as a general helper & I tried to keep him away from the drafting table. I had to keep him busy with out-of-the-office tasks but my list of non-drafting chores was limited. The draftsman learned to keep out of sight & stretch out his time spent on each assignment. He would have made a good state side civil servant. My wife befriended Ratak & helped me keep him away from his drafting table & out of sight.

She spent much of the time while I was at work with my native islander draftsperson, Ratak, She was quite interested in a native school of erotic arts (Translation of the school’s name is Sunrise Academy) where the draftsperson used to teach. The US closed the school when they took control of the islands. I would often come home from work & find textbooks from that school that were detailed & graphic with penciled in English translations. My wife was excited to try the things that she learned from these books with her next real lover; she didn’t want to waste the new love making tactics on her flight attendant. One evening, my wife showed me two small (2" X 2") envelopes given to her by Ratak. The envelopes were made from the husk of a coconut tree trunk with some sort of membrane liner inside. The envelopes contained powder that was a two component love potion, pre-measured for one event. Both powders were to be mixed together with about 16 oz. of water. The mixture was to be left standing until bubbles stopped forming & then consumed. The effects would start working in about 20 minutes. This concoction would assure an erection of maximum size & extended duration; this all combined with sex drive unlike that experienced elsewhere. My wife was saving these envelopes for a very special male; she would know him when she met him. No wasting these envelopes on the flight attendant. Sex toys made on the islands, little sex idols, native lingerie, contraceptive devices, etc. came into my island home by the box loads. I wasn’t sure how this stuff was going to make it through customs but I felt this issue was far in the future — we’d worry about customs when move out was nearer.