Lustly(3)

“Fine. I’m hungry. Can we stop somewhere?” My fourteen year-old loved me, somewhere deep inside, buried and locked away.

“Let’s get your sister first and then we’ll decide.”

Opal spotted the van as soon as I pulled up and walked toward it. I wiped my eyes one last time and waited to get reamed out by my fifteen year-old. “Mom, seriously? You said you’d be right back. Now I can’t play Saturday and it’s all your fault.”

I thought about the shin guards being on the table where I left them and then went back to the vision of my husband getting a blow-job by my neighbor, and I lost it.

Tears rolled down my eyes and I threw the van into park, letting my head fall on the steering wheel.

“Mom, are you okay?” Violet asked from the back seat.

“I got pulled over. He was so mean to me. He made me sit there while he checked to see if my plates were stolen. Apparently there was a robbery in town today and my vehicle matched the description,” I lied. The more I sobbed the more believable it was. After all, I was the boring soccer mom that never did anything wrong.

“Oh my God! Will it be on the news?” Of course Violet would think she could use an incident like that as a popularity advantage at her school.

“No. It was just me and the officer. After thirty minutes he let me go. It just scared me, that’s all.”

“I guess getting something to eat is off then,” Violet said from the back seat.

“Oh, can we, Mom? I’m hungry too. I couldn’t eat that chicken you made yesterday again. It was too spicy.”

I’d tried to make jerk chicken the night before. Instead I’d made the most spicy chicken that any of us had ever eaten. Though my husband and son devoured every bite, none of us girls could handle it. Since I refused to throw away good food, I washed it off and offered it again for dinner. They weren’t falling for it.

Since the last place I wanted to be was at home, I decided that stopping anywhere was a good idea. “We can stop. I can use a few minutes to calm down.”

Normally fast food places take forever. Of course, on this particular night you’d think the building was on fire. We had our food in less than two minutes and I had run out of reasons to stall going home.

While my two daughters stuffed their faces in the vehicle, I drove silently contemplating on how I was going to handle things. My first concern had to be my children. As horrible as it was, I couldn’t subject them to his infidelities, even though in my eyes he wasn’t just cheating on me, he was cheating on them too.

That rotten bastard had let his dick ruin our family, and I was going to cut it off and stick it in my neighbor’s mailbox for her to keep. Better yet, I’d cook it and invite her to lunch. Imagining the look on my face as I sat watching her eating it was making me smile in the midst of tragedy. I had to let my mind wander, because it was the only thing keeping me from breaking down.

Not only could I not let my girls see me that way, but I knew for a fact that I’d die before I let him know he’d shattered my heart into a million pieces. The bile in my throat was a constant reminder of what I’d witnessed just hours earlier. My dignity was gone, and replaced with little self worth. How was I not good enough for him?

For him of all people.

The man who constantly had shit stains in his tighty-whities.

The man who soaked his pillow every night in drool.

The man who couldn’t order a pizza by himself.

I’d done everything for him our entire marriage, and this was how he repaid me, by f*cking my neighbor that I walked with on the weekends.

Come hell or high water, I was going to find a way to make him pay for what he’d done to me. This was not alright. I’d watched enough television shows on crime to know exactly how to make that mother f*cker suffer.

It was easy to get mad to hide the real pain that had overwhelmed me. I think when something like this happens you go through the motions, not really understanding the severity to an extent.

First there was the shock.

Then the pain.

Next comes resentment.

Followed by the hate.

Where is the revenge though? Where is the part where I had money stashed away in a dark corner for this very moment? Where is the handsome man in the butter commercials that’s going to swoop in and make me forget all about Mr. Shit Stains?

While all of this is running through my head, I realized that I’d pulled up in my driveway. As the girls got out I checked my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I’d wait for everyone to go to sleep before I addressed the end of my marriage with my husband. Nothing he could say or do would ever allow me to forget the image of him, no matter how much time could pass.

He’d cheated on me, in my own home, probably in my very bed that I put my head every night to sleep. He was scum, and I was literally in a world of a mess that I had no idea how I was going to get out of.

After a few more very deep breaths, I walked inside of my home ready to put on the best show I’d ever performed. Fortunately, he wasn’t even on the first floor. Our dog, Samson, came up and sniffed my leg, while I relaxed my uptight stance, feeling a bit relieved. That’s when he came walking down the stairs, a big smile on his face, like I recognized whenever I’d been out somewhere.

It hit me like a ton of bricks being thrown at my face. He’d done this to me over and over. “Hi, honey. I was wondering when you’d get back.” He walked over and kissed me on the cheek.