Three is a crowd: David’s shenanigans drive Diane back to the bottle
- Written by MARGARET WAMANGA
David and Diane have been married for years; then there is Julie, the young secretary whose axis collides with the couple’s in ways none of them saw coming.
JULIE
David did not stay for as long that evening as he usually did, and when he left, I was still shaken by his visit. It was the first time since he had resumed his visits that he had been openly angry or cold towards me, and although he had not actually hit me, from how rattled I was, he might as well have.
Just as unnerving as his anger, was his reason for it; although he had not spelt it out in black and white, David had made it very clear that he considered not just Junior, but me as well, his property, and as such, any relationship with another man would be viewed as a betrayal.
He also made it clear that his financial support to us was contingent upon my loyalty to him; in other words, Kenneth had to get out of the picture.
It was an ironic demand, coming from a married man who went home to his wife each night, but as unfair and unreasonable as it was, the reality was that I was totally dependent on David; so, I did not have the ability to resist him or object.
That said, no matter what David’s terms and conditions were, my feelings for Kenneth were not like a light switch that I could flip on or off; I loved him and was not ready to give him up.
The only solution was to be more careful and ensure that David did not find out about our relationship. But what happened if David decided that he wanted more from me than my ‘loyalty’?
What if he wanted to return to my bed; what then? I might be able to hide my feelings for Kenneth from David to ensure that he continued to provide for me, but could I fake my feelings for him and give him my body again for the same reason? And if I could, what would that make me?
Besides, while Kenneth might be able to understand my need to keep our relationship hidden from David, there was no way he would understand me sleeping with him!
DIANE
I had desperately wanted David to make love to me that night, but when he finally did, I wished he had not. I had been hoping for gentleness, affection and communion, a reassurance of our bond and the strength of our marriage; instead, I got a cold, hard, rough assertion of his dominance.
It was like he was releasing some pent-up frustration or trying to prove a point, but I knew I had not done anything to upset him, and he knew he had nothing to prove to me; so, it clearly was not me he was making love to – if you could call it that.
The thought that your husband is thinking of someone else while having sex with you is like a slap in the face, and there were no prizes for guessing who David might have been thinking of.
That he had reduced me to her level and used me to vent whatever frustration she had caused, was sickening. Once he was done, I felt used and dirty, and rather than snuggle up to him like I usually would, I made a literal dash into our bathroom for another shower.
I stayed in the bathroom and scrubbed my skin raw under scalding water, until the hot water ran out, and only then did I climb out of the shower, wrap myself in a thick terry robe, and return to the bedroom.
Whatever had been bothering David, the sex had apparently worked it out of his system, as he had fallen asleep in the thirty minutes I had been gone.
Looking down at him sleeping as soundly as a baby after he had just wreaked havoc on my emotions drove me mad, and for a minute I was tempted to shake him awake and ruin his night the way he had just ruined mine, but then realized that would not make me feel any better; so, instead I slipped on my bedroom slippers and quietly left the room.
The house was silent, everyone but me fast asleep, and while one voice in my head told me to go back to bed and try to get some sleep as well, another retorted that the only way I was going to be able to get any sleep that night was if I had a drink first – a large drink.
I hesitated at the top of the stairs for a moment, torn between the two voices in my head, but it was a battle that barely lasted a minute; the latter voice won, and while the rest of the house slept, I quietly crept down the stairs.
DAVID
The next morning, I woke up feeling calm and in control; I had laid down the law with Julie the previous evening, and I was pretty confident she would follow it and there would not be any more surprises from her.
On the home front, Diane was not giving me any trouble either, and although she would never win any awards for housekeeping or child-rearing, she was trying, which was proof that she still considered our marriage worth making an effort for.
Besides that, Julie and I had not been intimate in quite a while, and although this was something I intended to change soon now that I was reasserting my position in her life, it was good to have a wife at home, always ready to provide the physical and sexual release.
That is what Diane had done last night; still agitated from finding that bloody doctor at the apartment, I had been in a foul mood all evening, and although she could not have known the cause of my mood, Diane had known just how to make me feel better.
She had openly seduced me in lingerie that left nothing to the imagination, and a scent that she knew drove me wild, and while men are naturally hunters and prefer to do the chasing, sometimes it’s nice to be given without asking.
Her advances could not have come at a better time; my ego had taken quite a hit when I found Julie cozying up to that doctor at the apartment, especially since she kept me at arm’s length when it came to intimacy; Diane coming on to me was a soothing balm to my bruised ego.
By offering up her body to me, she had unwittingly given me the opportunity to not just vent my frustration, but reclaim my position as top dog as well; so, I had closed my eyes and imagined it was Julie beneath me...