It was All on Me

It was all on me. I knew all about Cookie and what she'd done before I married her and put the rings on her finger anyway. Why? Because we were in love and I believed her when she told me her wild days were behind her.

I understood where she was coming from when she explained she had wanted to look around and do things while she was still young and free. She knew from being exposed to her parents' relationship for twenty-one years that what she wanted to do and experience wasn't something she could do once you were married and raising children.

I understood because I was her mirror image. From the age of sixteen she had gone through boyfriends like a young kid would go through a bag of candy. I'd done the same thing although it had been a hell of a lot easier for her to do it than me.

She had lost her virginity following senior prom and so had I. During her college years she had been a wild child and had fallen in with a bunch of even wilder girlfriends who were her sorority sisters. Again the mirror image. My frat brothers and I were a bit on the wild side.

She had been involved in twosomes, threesomes, foursomes and gangbangs, but then so had I although, once again, it had been a lot easier for her to do it than it had been for me.

The curious thing is that even though we had attended the same college at the same time we had experienced all of the above we never met until after we had graduated and gone to work.

We still mirrored each other after leaving college. Cookie met John Carver during her senior year and they planned on getting married after they graduated. They both got jobs and started looking for a house. A month before the wedding Carver's company offered him a promotion if he'd be willing to move to their Cleveland office. He took the job and left without taking Cookie with him and she never heard from him again.

I'd met Holly during my senior year, fallen hard for her and when we left college we intended to get married. We found jobs and started to plan the wedding. The big day arrived and I was at the church on time only Holly was a no show. I found out later she'd met some guy and left town with him. I also heard later that when she told him she was pregnant he told her he was sterile so the kid couldn't be his and he'd kicked her to the curb. And didn't that just break my heart when I heard about it.

It was two years after we had both graduated that we met each other. My company had sent me to one of our customers to look into a problem they were having with a system we had sold them. My point of contact was a Miss Fredericks. I asked for her when I got to the reception desk, she was paged and when she came into the room and we were introduced it was a case of "She had me at Hello."

I'd found and fixed the problem by lunch time and not being familiar with that part of town I asked Miss Frederick (please call me Cookie) if there was a decent place close by where I could have lunch. She told me I was in luck because she was just getting ready to go to lunch at her favorite place and I could follow her over.

Over lunch we talked and discovered that we were both graduates from the same school and were shocked to realize we had both been there at the same time and had never run into each other. But as we talked a few things that Cookie mentioned as we tried to figure out why we had never encountered each other made me realize that even though I'd never met her I'd heard of her.

If she was the Cookie I'd heard about she had been known as the 'mattress queen of Kappa Beta Chi which, given as many gangbangs as I had been a part of, made it even more weird that we had never met since I had attended a couple of gangbangs at Kappa Beta Rho. Of course she might not have been that Cookie, but even if she was I'd never bring it up.

But I'm not going to lie and say that the chance she might have been that Cookie didn't play a part in my asking Cookie to have dinner with me some evening. I was pleasantly surprised when she said yes and we made a dinner date for the next evening.

The talk over dinner the next evening was more about our time at school, the things we did (other than sexual) and the people we knew as we tried to figure out why we had spent four years at the same place at the same time and had not run into each other. We even knew some of the same people. Finally she said:

"Enough of this. Tell me about yourself."

So I gave her the condensed version. Graduated from high school and went into the Army. Spent some time in Japan, Korea, Virginia, Texas and California.

"Took my discharge and went to school using the G I Bill, received a degree in Electrical Engineering and went to work at Curtis Engineering and they sent me to Marlowe's so I could meet you. What's your story?"

"Not as exciting as yours. I didn't get to travel any. Married right out of high school. We both got jobs: me as a waitress and him as a carpenter and we started saving up to buy a house. Three years into the marriage he hooked up with some bimbo and they took off for Florida or someplace south of here. Got about sixty miles before a semi driver had a heart attack, lost control of his rig and crossed over the center line and hit Mike's car head on.

"Between his life insurance and the trucking company's settlement I had enough to go to school and get a degree in Business Management. The degree got me the job at Marlowe's in time for me to be there for when you showed up. I guess the next question is where do we go from here?"

The answer to that question was the New Hope Lutheran Church eight months later where we took our vows.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

During the lead up to that day a few things happened. At least two of my friends confirmed that Cookie was indeed the 'mattress queen Cookie' of Kappa Beta Rho when they tried to talk me out of marrying her. Their biggest concern was her reputation in college and that someone with that background couldn't just turn it off. I brushed it aside with a "Why not? I did."

The other was that Cookie did not want children. I didn't care one way or the other. My brother's five, with three of them boys, and my sister's three boys insured the family line. My mother and father did not think that way. As the oldest I should be the one to furnish the family heir. I told them sorry, but it was my wife's choice and I would honor it and I put myself under the knife so we didn't have to deal with condoms or birth control pills.

The next seven years were glorious. We both moved up in our companies with me reaching division manager and Cookie reaching regional manager. We bought a house in a nice part of town, met the neighbors and had weekend parties and barbeques with them. Along the way we vacationed in Hawaii, Cabo, England, Ireland, France and Spain. Then, two weeks after our seventh anniversary what I guessed was the fabled Seven Year Itch came calling.

It came during one of our romantic dinners. We tried to have one at least every other week. Wine, candlelight, and some soft music in the background. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise when Cookie said:

"Do you love me Bobby? I mean really love me?"

I automatically said "Of course my love" while my mind was thinking "I guess it depends on what you are about to hit me with."

She took a deep breath and said "The girls want me to go out with them for drinks on Friday."

"I thought your girls night out was on Wednesday?"

"They want to change it to Friday next week instead."

"So why are you asking me if I really love you? Why would changing the night from Wednesday to Friday make you ask that?"

"The thing is that Ralph asked me to go to it with him."

I guess I should throw in here that it wasn't really a girls night out, it was the group she worked with which included three guys. Why they called it a girls night out I have no idea. But to get back to the problem;

"And Ralph is?"

"He's new. He has only been with the company for a month."

"He does know you are married right?"

"He does."

"So I'm guessing that you want to be his date for the night. Am I right?"

She looked away and so I said "Okay. Go on a date with this Ralph. I'll see an attorney tomorrow and get the paperwork started."

"Attorney? Paperwork? What paperwork?"

"For the divorce."

"Divorce? What the hell are you talking about? I don't want a divorce."

"It is what usually happens when a man's wife wants other men."

"I don't want another man!"

"You must. Why else are we having this conversation? I'm guessing there is more to this, like you have probably had a lunch or three with this Ralph guy and I'm also guessing you didn't discourage him in his attentions toward you. All signs that you are interested in another man. An interest in another man indicates a lessening in your interest in me."

"Okay, okay, I won't go."

"But you want to and now you will be pissed at me for raining on your parade and your interest in Ralph and his interest in you will still be there so best I just set you free so you can do whatever you want without having to worry about me."

"God damn it Bob; I do not want a divorce!"

"Why not? It will set you free to go out with other guys."

"I don't want to go out with other guys!"

"Then what would you call your date with Ralph if not going out with other guys?"

"I did this all wrong. Let me start over. The girls want to switch from O'Briens on Wednesday to the Landing Strip on Friday because the Strip has live music on the weekends whereas O'Briens only has a juke box that lays the same songs over and over. Ralph, being new, does not know too many of his coworkers yet. He has been working mostly in my section so he hasn't had much chance to interact with the others.

"He would like to join the gang for our weekly get together, but he doesn't want to go not knowing anyone there. He asked me if I would go with him so he would know at least one person there he could feel comfortable with while meeting and getting to know the others. It is not a date type date. He isn't picking me up here. I'll meet him there along with the rest of the crew. What I should have asked if you trusted me. If you loved me enough to trust me."

"Why didn't you just tell me your bunch changed your night out and let it go at that?"

"Because people we know will see me and see Ralph hanging around me and a couple might add up two and two and come up with five. One or two may comment on it to you and I'd much rather discuss it with you beforehand rather than have you hear it and jump to conclusions after. But I guess you just did that, didn't you? As a matter of fact since it is the weekend and you don't have to work the next day why don't you come with me?"

As I said in the beginning it was all on me. I let what I knew about Cookie's past lead me to make a false assumption and I ended up making myself look like an ass. And don't think for one minute that Cookie didn't understand where I was coming from in my semi-attack and that she wasn't going to hold it against me. She hasn't and isn't going to let me forget about it anytime soon.

The icing on the cake is that I did go with her that night and I met Ralph. One hundred and fifty pounds overweight, bald and a bit unattractive (saying ugly just sounds too harsh) and again, don't think for one minute that Cookie lets me forget it.