Aftermath of The Affair

The following is a sequel to deepemerald's The Affair, an erotic couplings story which should frankly be in the loving wives genre. The cliff-hanger conclusion earned deepemerald quite a bit of flak and eventually a follow up was not pursued. Again, the story had me in knots and the following story is a response.

Thanks to my early readers whose suggestions were great and I've tried to incorporate as many as possible. The time sequence for the storyline is as follows:

Christmas Past Terry discovers Julia's affair and has to find a way to cope with it, a band of brothers is formed

Christmas Last - Terry reveals his knowledge of Julia's affair, confrontation ensues and payback is launched

Christmas Present - The Bs are burnt and Terry needs to decide some things, how it all ends after vengeance is had

And before anyone asks, yes, I'm playing a joke vis-à-vis Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Heck, his novels tortured me as a kid and this is my payback :)

A note of caution: There is the possibility of reconciliation, so all averse to reconciliation in LW, please stop reading or rather, don't start reading, why torture yourself? Everyone else, read on, gulping eggnog simultaneously is optional.

*****

Chapter1

It happened upon a midnight clear

Christmas Present

Terry sat quietly in the chair next to the fireplace as he sipped the mulled wine he'd ladled after putting the children to bed. His youngest, Chris, had been the most reluctant to retire considering it was really only his second Christmas ever.

It had been a trying year for the couple and the family. They were still in counselling and were still trying to come to terms with the events of the last year that had rocked their family to its very foundations.

Julia stood observing her husband from the entrance of the entertainment room. She shivered as she recalled the events of the last year that started with the words Terry had whispered in her ear regarding his knowledge of her affair with Dan Sullivan and the chain of events that followed. Where she had once taken Terry's quiet manner for mildness and saw no harm possible in him, she now knew better than to mistake his attitude for weakness. The hope that everything could go back to what it was before the affair was what kept her sane through the year that had been. Curious how it had been that the very boring, routine life that had driven her to seek excitement in the arms of another man and to prove her own attractiveness, was now the very thing she wanted more than anything else restored to her. The routine, monotony and obligation which she had been desperate to escape, she now wanted more desperately than ever

I guess you never really appreciate what you have till you lose it.

Her mind chastised itself. The irony was bitter and acerbic.

Terry was silent as Julia sat herself down on the chair next to his and reached over to hold his hand in hers. Her inability to read him after all the years of assuming he was an open book, boring but predictable, made her uncertain and anxious.

That anxiety made her blurt out the question without preamble.

"Is there still a future for us?"

Terry gazed steadily into the fire, his expression unreadable as he recalled the same question posed (to him) by his wife a year ago in pretty much the same spot.

Christmas Last

A Year Ago

Terry was sitting quietly in his favourite armchair next to the fireplace, watching the flames dance merrily in a reflection of the joy the season often brought, emotions he did not feel. Still, it was better than the devastation, pain and rage he felt the Christmas before when he had to conceal his knowledge of his unfaithful wife's newly-ended affair. He could never recall how he managed to survive Christmas Past without losing it in front of family and friends. His best guess was somehow autopilot was switched on and he had on that fake smile that reassured everyone but himself that he was fine. He wasn't. One moment, he was tempted to give vent to his rage at his wife and kick her out after exposing her sordid little affair in front of family and friends. The next, he was about to break down in tears and ask Julia why she had chosen to throw away what they had worked so hard to build, their love and their family, just for some strange fuck. Was he that inadequate? What had he failed her in? But neither extreme showed itself, despite the tumult, he was expressionless and merely seemed distracted to the casual observer.

Julia had observed the distracted state her husband was in and had put it down to worry and stress over work. After all, it was Terry's preoccupation with work and the stress that he had been suffering that took its toll on his libido and caused a rift in their marriage. Julia stopped herself before she could put the blame for her recent affair with Dan Sullivan on Terry's shoulders. No that wouldn't be fair, her husband had never betrayed her or pushed her into the arms of another man. No, she had enough decency and honesty to admit that she was the one who had sought to find excitement and escape the frustration and monotony that married life and family obligations had placed on her. The excitement and perverse thrill of cheating had contributed to some of the best sex and orgasms of her life in the few sessions she had with Dan. The memories still caused a tingle to run through the pit of her stomach and still made her wet. They were, however, amply balanced by the fear of what could happen if her affair were discovered. So she had meant what she said in her last rendezvous with Dan, that she loved her children and husband far too much to cause them hurt. Of course, she could hear that small voice within herself scoffing at her own words. If you truly loved them so much, you would not have risked everything and risked them for those fuck sessions, regardless of how great the sex might have been.

The devil piped up of course, unwilling to let her guilt and reason dominate completely. Surely I'm entitled to a little pleasure, however selfish it might be. Anyway, it's just a little secret for me, a little indulgence. I haven't hurt anybody. What they don't know won't hurt them.

Julia sighed as she shut off the debate in her mind. There was no sense in regretting anything when nothing could be undone. Besides, she wasn't sure if given the chance, she wouldn't have had the affair all over again. And she justified herself in thinking that Terry had suffered nothing in all of this. In fact, after her affair with Dan, she had been less uptight and more willing to experiment again. If anything, Terry had probably benefited since she had worked hard to make things up to him and find that spark that had been missing from their married life. Again, she had to temper the urge to justify her affair in a way that absolved her of all blame.

Both husband and wife shook off the ghosts of Christmas Past that their reveries had immersed them in. One prepared to confront his loving wife with his knowledge of her sordid little affair a year ago. The other ran a trembling hand through her hair as she walked into the living room to be confronted with her deeds of the previous year, wondering if she had a marriage left despite the whispered words of her husband earlier in the day.

Julia sat in the armchair next to Terry and looked nervously at her husband's face, trying to decipher his thoughts and emotions. She realised with some shock that for the first time since they had married, she could no longer read him.

"W-When did you know?"

Terry sat expressionless as he recalled in his mind the shock and pain when he was confronted with evidence of his wife's straying.

"After your first fuck session in your car."

Julia winced at the coldness and terse vulgarity with which Terry spoke of her affair. Terry noticed the expression that flashed across her face and asked sarcastically, "Well, perhaps to you it was the first of a series of passionate unions, would you prefer to remember it as such?"

Her face all aflame with shame and guilt, Julia bit out a strangled "No!"

"Why?"

Terry's eyebrow lifted at her question.

"Isn't that the question reserved for the cuckolded husband or injured spouse?"

Tears gathered in her eyes as she belatedly realised the distance between her husband and herself was beyond what her frantic mind had imagined in the hours since her husband revealed his knowledge of her affair.

Biting back tears, Julia asked in a subdued manner, "Why didn't you confront me and stop it then and there?"

The bitter laugh Terry spat out before he answered made the sense of dread in Julia's gut redouble.

"What would have been the point? Wouldn't you have resented your little passionate secret being exposed and being forced to give up some of the best orgasms of your life? You would have just suppressed your desire to get strange, waited for the storm to be over and then resume with that bastard or found someone else if he wasn't available."

Terry's anger was starting to show and his breathing had become heavier and more rapid. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and drew that mask over his face, making him unreadable once again. Ignoring his wife's soft sobs, Terry continued in a deadly calm manner.

"No, Becky was right, you had to end it by yourself and if you chose to continue then, it would have been your decision. The consequences of that decision would have been borne by you so you had to make the decision yourself."

Julia stared at the husband who had become a stranger to her in a matter of hours. Her mind struggled to comprehend the sudden change in him.

As if he read her mind, Terry responded almost nonchalantly.

"No, the me you're now seeing didn't evolve just this afternoon. The day I found out you were cheating on me, the day you became a stranger to me, that was the day I changed and you never noticed for the last year or so. That was how much attention you spared me, the husband you professed to love too much to 'do that to' in your final fuck session with that fucker!"

Julia reared back as the rage within Terry unleashed itself in his words. His words felt like slaps across the face, each stinging with unbelievable and yet invisible force. As she sat sobbing, something hovering on the edges of her shame induced pain pricked her consciousness.

"W-W-Who is Becky?"

Terry sniggered in derision.

"You don't even know the name of the woman whose husband you were cheating with, do you? Shows how much you care for who gets hurt by your betrayal. Becky Sullivan is Dan Sullivan's wife."

Julia flinched at the scorn that poured from Terry.

"I...I just never thought about anyone else getting hurt. It-It was just something I did.. I had for myself...I-I "

"Yes, you never thought about the people you would hurt with your little affair did you? Even if you did, it sure as hell wasn't enough to make you stop after the first fuck was it? Do you remember the day you insisted on going to the gym despite the blizzard? I pleaded with you not to go, I'd known by then you were off to your second or third fuck with that asshole. But you were so desperate to get strange cock that you ignored me, ignored the danger and went out to fuck him."

Julia shrank away as Terry stood up and leaned down towards her, his every word a bullet aimed at her self-respect unerringly.

"So, tell me, my dear wife," he bit out savagely. "Was he that good a fuck that you would throw away our marriage, throw away our family, throw away all we have built together, just to have him fuck you? Hell, it must have been out of the world sex for you to have endangered your own life going out in that blizzard just to get fucked by him!"

Terry backed off seeing the fear in Julia's eyes.

"Hell, I asked myself countless times 'Why?' What have I done that was so wrong that my wife saw fit to cheat on me like that? How have I failed her so she had to go looking for some other men? Was I that bad in bed that she had to fuck some other guy? Was I too small for you, honey? Not hard enough?"

"No!" Julia hurried to reassure her husband, horrified at the hurt, doubt and pain she had caused.

"It was just..just you were so preoccupied with work and so stressed out. And-And I was just feeling so stuck in the rut and routine. I just wanted to feel attractive again."

Looking down in shame and avoiding the eyes of her husband, Julia continued.

"He was just there. At-at the gym and he was friendly, he noticed me and he just made me feel attractive, new, like I wasn't just a married woman with 3 kids approaching middle age."

With her head even lower, she mumbled, "You're both about the same size, so it wasn't about size or how hard you could get. I-I just felt freer to explore with him. We-we've been together for more than 10 years, things were starting to get routine, monotonous."

"So he was an exciting fuck because he was new?"

Julia gathered her senses and rallied.

"But it's not like that. I never denied you anything and I never - I never did any damage to our marriage during the whole affair, it-it was only 5 weeks long at most." She faltered but regained her nerve looking at Terry's back. "You said that it saved our marriage right? I mean we both reconnected after the affair ended and we've been doing so well since it ended."

Even as she uttered those words, Julia knew it sounded hollow even to her.

Terry was silent, smiling cruelly to himself before he began his final verbal assault.

"Did you ever imagine it was him fucking you when we made love?"

Julia was silent but her flushed face and averted eyes made it clear to Terry what the answer was. She recalled with shame how after meeting Dan for the sixth time, she had imagined him fucking her when she and Terry were in bed. No, actually, after their second encounter, she was already imagining Dan when she used her vibrator.

"So how did your affair not affect us?"

"B-but but it wasn't like that!"

Terry ignored his wife's weak protest.

"By the time you met up with him for the third time, Becky's PI already locked in on you. In fact, you were tailed and that's how she eventually found me. Wasn't it true that you even bought new clothes that showed off your figure when you met him for the fifth time after gym?"

Julia gaped at him in shock as he continued revealing just how detailed his knowledge of her affair was.

"Have you ever denied me or faked an orgasm in the time that you were cheating on me?"

Again Julia's nervous reactions betrayed her. She recalled how after a make out session in her car one Friday, she hadn't been able to gather enough enthusiasm to respond to Terry that weekend. Not even fantasising about Dan had helped. She had finally faked it. The scale of her betrayal of her marriage and husband was starting to reveal itself to her and she didn't dare to acknowledge just how deep that betrayal went.

The silence stretched. Julia was painfully aware that Terry had left the burden of reply on her. She gathered the last bit of bravado left in her and tried to explain her position.

"Terry, I know how it must seem to you, but please believe me, I never wanted or thought of hurting you. When this all happened," she said feebly, her hands spread in a forlorn gesture that reflected the helplessness she felt inside. "The only thought that was in my mind was that I had to do this for myself, I needed to feel alive again, attractive, wanted, desired. I only thought of it as something for myself. It wasn't something that had anything to do with our family or us. And if for one second it had occurred to me that you would find out or it would hurt us so badly, I would have never gone so far, I would have tried to stop myself."

Terry stared at his wife and contemplated the effect of what he was about to unleash on her.

"So because you never intended to hurt me and it was merely something you wanted for yourself, we should just forget about it and move on?"

Julia winced at the heavy note of sarcasm in Terry's voice.

"No. I don't mean that it was alright. It was a mistake but it's something we can work our way through. I know we can, we have so much to fight for!" She pleaded with tears in her eyes, a sight that would have rendered Terry helpless before the affair. Now, he felt nothing but contempt and rage.

"Well, Julia, I guess we'll both have to work on it." He watched with satisfaction as his wife seemed to relax with that statement. "Me on forgiving you for that fucking little affair you had and you working with me to overcome what I did to save my own sanity after discovering your affair."

Disconcerted, Julia stared at her husband, whispering her confusion, "What do you mean what you did? What did you do?"

Casually, as if he were merely talking about activities of the day, Terry said dispassionately, "I had an affair with Becky, Dan Sullivan's loving wife."

While Terry had spoken in a quiet and calm voice, each word sounded like a cannon shot in Julia's ears and mind.

Relishing the stunned expression on Julia's face, Terry continued with deliberate indifference.

"When Becky first approached me, I thought she had to be mistaken or was joking. Then she showed me pictures of you and your fuck buddy making out in the car park, in your car, in his car. By the time she showed me the video of your first fuck session in your car, the car I bought you to ensure you and our kids had a more comfortable ride, I was almost catatonic. I nearly ended up in the ER because I started having chest pains and had difficulty breathing. You — using your car, lowering the seats, fucking your damn lover in the seats that our children and I used —"

Terry was almost gasping for air as his anger spiralled and exploded on that Christmas night. He ignored Julia's shaking form as she wrapped her arms around her body and rocked herself, sobbing brokenly all the while. Her memories and illusions surrounding the affair, encased in a fantasy bubble of passionate orgasmic union she created in her own mind, were shattered and exposed by the brutal, harsh light that Terry now shone upon them. In the past, fantasy had shielded her deeds from her own judgement and self-condemnation. There was no shield and no escape now. And Terry saw that with some measure of bitter satisfaction.

Taking several deep breaths and calming himself down, Terry continued his diabolical assault.

"The day you insisted on going to the gym despite the blizzard that was blowing outside?"

Julia had whined softly, shaking her head even as she acknowledged the event.

"That was the day I accepted your infidelity and betrayal. That was the day I finally admitted to myself I'd married a cheating whore. That was the day I took samples from our 3 children and sent them for DNA testing. You killed my love for you that day as surely as if you'd taken a knife and stabbed me in the heart."

Julia was crying openly, her mouth barely able to form the words, "No no no no please".

Yet nothing could have prepared her for what came next.

"That was also the day I started my affair with Becky. You never noticed, but I was home late that night because I was busy fucking the woman betrayed by my wife and her fuck buddy in her car at the gym. Later we even used the same squash courts and office that you and your fuck buddy used."

Terry chuckled but it was filled with bitter anger rather than humour. The incongruous sound drew Julia's eyes to Terry's grim countenance. For the first time since they started dating, Julia saw the familiar features drawn in such harshness that she hardly recognised him. Anger and bitterness etched in every plane and fold, drawing an ache of regret that she had caused this in the man she loved.