Desperate Confusion

Paul thoroughly enjoyed his extramarital affair with Stacy, but the guilt had begun to affect him. He also feared being caught. The last thing that he wanted was a divorce, since it would mean eternal damnation according to his belief system.

Nevertheless, he couldn't bring himself to end his relationship with the single mom. Not only was she absolutely delightful in bed, but she also seemed to understand and respect him more than his own wife did. It was a terrible dilemma for the exterminator. He wanted to stay married and avoid getting caught, but he also wanted his mistress. He couldn't give either of them up.

Michelle, for her part, had an awful secret as well. She had gotten an abortion behind Paul's back, because she didn't want any more children. It was against her Catholic faith, but she justified it by telling herself that it was dangerous to have more children so soon after her last baby. However, she knew that this act would enrage her husband if he discovered the truth.

She also felt guilty about having secret sexual fantasies about her friend, Karen. She didn't know why she desired to fuck a woman, but Karen was a former co-worker who had always seemed to provide her with risqué humor and plenty of fun. Of course, she was also in an unofficial marriage with a man named Rick and she was about a dozen years Michelle's senior.

The idea of being bisexual confused and terrified her. She knew that she wasn't a lesbian, because a lot of men excited her, but she now doubted that she was straight. Some of her thoughts, such as bending Karen over and licking her ass, particularly frightened her. Why would she want anything to do with anal sex? That was dirty and sick! She never did stuff like that with her husband, even when he asked to rim her.

Stacy, meanwhile, had no worries beyond what Michelle might do to her if she found out about the affair. She could just picture the jealous fury on her co-worker's face. She DID feel some guilt, but she thought that the wife, in this case, had asked for it by taking Paul for granted. That was something that Stacy could NEVER do. He was too great of a lover to her for that to happen. After all, didn't she deserve to be happy with a good man, even if it meant that his sour spouse would be hurt?

Paul knew how his paramour felt about his wife, but he thought that it was a lot easier for an outsider to take a harder and more disinterested view of his marriage than he did. Of course, Stacy didn't regard the matter of pain for his mate to be that important; she was not obligated by vows and a sacrament to either of them. If he were not Catholic, it would only be vows and a contract, but he firmly held to the tenets of his church, even though he presently engaged in violating them.

So, while a seemingly strict Catholic wife and mother hid her abortion and Sapphic lust behind a confusing and contradictory façade, her equally fearful husband anxiously continued his adulterous liaisons with his mistress. He simply kept a tight lipped, placid appearance, while his worried spouse maintained her determination to seem simultaneously faithful and voyeuristic. Stacy just had a grin on her face that she refused to explain to anyone, especially her lover's official partner. She was the LEAST nervous person in that love triangle.

Nevertheless, secrets of such a powerful nature are difficult to keep, so Michelle let her cover slip on the matter of the abortion during a particularly angry dispute with Paul. He pointed out that she still seemed to hold a grudge against him for making her give him a 2nd child, when she snapped back at him.

"You won THAT battle, but you have lost the war! I'll NEVER bear you any more children! I've acted once to stop it and I will again if I must!" she thundered at a stunned husband.

"Mother of God! What the hell do you mean by that? How did you prevent it? Is that why our sex life has gone downhill? Have you been putting me off in the past week to keep from having more kids?" he demanded furiously.

"Partly. I was fertile last week, but if you had gotten me into bed, I'd simply have killed it like the last one!" she shouted.

"Kill what? What are you talking about? Did you have an abortion? Michelle, that's murder!" he probed with a mixture of panic and anger.

"Yes, I had an abortion. I know it's murder, but I don't fucking care right now. The child was better off dead than growing up with us. You're always complaining about my 'attitude' and I'm constantly mad at you lately. We're a terrible couple to raise a family and I REFUSE to have more rugrats anyway," Michelle declared.

"Yes, we do make a bad pair, don't we? Well, that's still no excuse for murder, dear. There IS such a thing as adoption, you know. Mind you, I'm in no place to lecture you about morality. I have to confess that I've been cheating on you," Paul responded.

"WHAT? Who's the slut? Who have you been fucking on the side, Paul? What's her name?" she screamed at him.

"Stacy. I've been sleeping with your co-worker. It started out as a fantasy, but I let it come true when I fumigated her apartment. It was wrong, but I can't stop doing it with her. I actually ENJOY her company in bed," he confessed.

"So, you're going to just keep fucking the tramp, are you? Don't I have anything to say about this? I'm your WIFE, for God's sake, man! You swore vows to me and took part in a sacrament in the Church! Now, I have to choose whether to put up with your infidelity and go to Heaven as a martyred wife or leave you and make sure that BOTH of us burn in Hell! There is NO SUCH THING as divorce for a Catholic; you DO remember that, don't you, Paul? You were in catechism. I can't divorce you! It's a mortal sin!" she yelled at him.

"Well, you can separate from me. I can move into the spare bedroom or somewhere else. Whatever the case, I don't need your sanctimonious claptrap right now! You fucking killed our baby! That's a far cry from an affair!" he retorted.

"Okay, but why? Why cheat on me? What have I possibly done to deserve such a betrayal? I've never been unfaithful to you!" Michelle demanded.

"Well, you sure sent me confusing signals about that, don't you? Of course, I never thought that you were ACTUALLY getting some on the side, but I wondered from time to time about that. I especially feared that you'd get drunk and do that. However, I'm not the model of marital fidelity anymore, am I? Be that as it may, abortion is a lot worse than adultery! I hurt a grown woman who happens to be my wife and the mother of my children. YOU, on the other hand, hired a so-called doctor who deserves to lose his license to kill an innocent child. Are you hiding anything else?" Paul declared.

"Well, maybe. How did my partying and going to male strippers mean that I was cheating, any more than your doing so made you unfaithful? Do you actually think that I would get so drunk that I would let some stranger seduce me? If anyone succeeded with me, it wouldn't be any of the strippers or guys at a bar. It wouldn't be a man at all.

"I have certain feelings for a girlfriend of mine, but she is involved and I'm married. Besides, I have mixed emotions about same sex activities. I guess that I've made too much of my fidelity because of her. I wanted to convince myself and others that I'm a straight, old-fashioned Catholic wife with basically traditional values, even if that is only partly true. If I leered at men too eagerly for your comfort, that was also because of my confusion. I'm sorry if I made you wonder about me. I guess that I've been a royal bitch lately. I haven't even made love to you in a while, have I?

"As for the abortion, well, I suppose that you're right. It's a pretty serious matter. I know it's a mortal sin. I know that you're furious that I've denied you children by that means. I've been selfish and dishonest. I've been overly critical of you in general. However, you are no saint yourself. You cheated on me and you have yet to explain why you did it," she commented.

"That's very simple. I was unhappy with you and wanted to sleep with someone with whom I could get along for a change. It was a pleasant difference, I must admit. That doesn't excuse my affair, but it IS my reason for it. She was friendly, willing, and available. Also, the fact that you took me for granted, because of my breast fetish, made me want to prove you wrong by screwing a woman who wasn't the busty type. There is nothing else to say," he admitted.

"So, that is it. Are you going to keep fucking around on me every time that you feel mistreated? For that matter, are you ever going to stop sleeping with Stacy? It sounded earlier like you weren't ready to give her up. I can't keep looking over my shoulders to see if you are going to betray me with another woman. I can't leave you either. I don't think that you really want to leave me, do you? You wanted children. Would you want them wondering where Daddy is? There is no solution here. For once, I don't have any answers. If you want to be head of the household, this is your chance, honey. You can figure something out for us," she urged him.

"You're right. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to break it off with Stacy, either. What I would want to do is not something that you could probably accept. I want to keep BOTH of you girls. I don't expect that you'll actually go along with that, but it is the only solution that I can propose wholeheartedly. Aside from that, I have nothing to suggest," he finally stated.

"So, you want to keep your present situation of a wife and a mistress, only now we'll both know about each other? What do I get if I agree to that? Shouldn't you grant me a favor in exchange for one? I think that I should be able to take a lover if you can: a woman. I want my own mistress. I think that's only fair, don't you?

"I love you, but I refuse to let you set a double standard. I'm not a weakling, you know. I'll put up with some things that are past, because of my own lies and cruelty. However, if we're going to start our marriage all over again, we need to treat each other with more honesty and respect than before.

"I would also suggest that you use a condom with me, since you want more children and I don't. Moreover, with each of us having lovers, there is a greater risk of disease that we shouldn't pass on to each other. I know that the Church forbids birth control, but we haven't exactly obeyed it in other things, have we?" Michelle responded.

"This other woman wouldn't be that girlfriend of yours, would she?" Paul asked suspiciously.

"No. Her boyfriend hasn't done anything to deserve that. I want some time to find a lover. Since you will have sex with Stacy during that period, I should get to try out some women before making my final choice. After all, you played the field a bit before we met. Don't worry. I won't neglect our children or become too promiscuous. I just want to experiment with a variety of women. I've never acted on my desires before. This is my opportunity. Whatever the case, you have my word that I will be careful with them. The condoms should help as well," she reassured him.

"Very well. I'll compromise. We'll both get what we want this way. The condom idea makes sense, as I don't want to catch anything from you. I also don't want to give any diseases to Stacy. I wouldn't want to give you anything that I caught from her, either. I know that I hurt you with my affair, just as you hurt me with your abortion, but I still love you. I know that you still love me, as you have said so.

"Since we have agreed not to separate or divorce, we'll just have to live with our past sins as well as our present ones. More to the point, we'll have to live with each other's sins. We must keep this secret from our kids, of course. They don't need to know about our activities, past or present," he concurred, though somewhat sad that they had admitted the failure of their attempt to conform to the ideals of their religion.

"True. It does make you wonder, doesn't? I mean, if it's so difficult and stressful to live by the principles of the Church, maybe Roman Catholicism isn't so right. After all, we have to disobey it's rules in order to do a lot of things or prevent them.

"If we had used birth control, for instance, there would have been no abortion. If we had taken lovers with each other's consent in the past, you'd have the children you want without putting me through the trouble of pregnancy again. I don't mind a child or two, but that's my limit. My health is being affected by these pregnancies, I suspect. That placenta previa occurrence happened just once, but it scared the shit out of me.