Meet Desiree Jansen

EDITED BY: Miriam Belle

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

"Be forewarned, this is a story about cheating, so if that offends you at least you've been made aware. Cheers!"

***

The first of the real summer heat kicked in one late June afternoon just after my wife and I had gone through our latest round of fighting. It had been rough before, but now with the heat amplifying our problems and making us more irritable than ever before I was beginning to wonder if there would ever be peace. Our first year of marriage had been an unmitigated disaster. I could admit that now, though I spent about half that time in strong denial.

I was sitting on the back porch of my apartment, feeling completely empty of strength of resolve. Karen and I were on the verge of a divorce, that much was clear. I felt badly over the way things had gone but I knew there was nothing I could do or say that hadn't already been said that would change the situation. I had tried to make the marriage work, but after a year of fighting I was worn out. At 25 years old, I felt like I was going on 65.

The sun beat down mercilessly as I sprawled out on my lounge chair, wearing only my Bermuda shorts and trying to take the edge off my Irish skin. The complex was quiet, and it was my day off from work. I needed a little rest and relaxation. Karen's constant accusations of infidelity and her wild rants were enough to drive a man to the bughouse and back again. Our year anniversary had been lamented fully last week and I was out of reasons to try anymore.

How many ways can you tell someone you love them? How many ways can you forgive violent outbursts that happen again and again? Through our first year, I had seen her throw everything in the house and break half her belongings in a rage over simple, every day problems. I had seen her break down and go into hysterical fits of crying because she believed I would leave her for another woman someday (though my protests to the contrary had been ignored completely). She had tried to commit suicide twice and then to top it all of she had tried to give me a bedtime. That's right, a bedtime. Her thought was if she was in bed by 8:30, I needed to be in bed too.

"I'm leaving now," she opened the screen door and glared down at me, her blue eyes filled with indignant rage.

From behind my sunglasses, taking comfort in the silence that would follow her departure, I said, "Okay then."

"That's it?" she snorted and tossed her red hair back over her shoulders, "That's all you have to say?"

I sighed. "What else can I say? I'm done doing this shit with you, Karen. I've never cheated on you, I've stood by you, I've lied to cover up your mistakes and I've put up with all your bullshit over and over again. I'm finished."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means get your act together or make some decisions about what you want in life."

Karen replied, "Why don't I just go fucking kill myself? That would make you happy."

"Oh God," I rolled my eyes. When push came to shove, there was always the suicide thing... I said, "Karen, would you knock of this suicide crap? Just stop it."

"Who cares if I die or not?" she asked and stepped out in front of me, "Who gives a flying fuck?"

"Well," I frowned, "For starters, me and the kids might care if you died?"

"Yeah right," she fired back. You have to remember, this was the woman who threatened to abort my unborn son during our first separation in August of 2004 if I didn't come back. She throws around death and suicide and like some kind of ace-in-the-hole bargaining chip.

"Karen," I took off my sunglasses and looked at her, "What do you want from me? What can I do short of chaining my self to the bed posts and being your little bitch?"

"Well I've just given up on us having a sex life," she said. This was another tactic of hers. Whenever she finds herself being proven incorrect, she'll switch to another argument and start fresh. I think it was her way of trying to keep me off balance, and very often worked quite well.

"Okay look," I moaned, trying to keep my voice down, "When you ignore my compliments, when you make fun of yourself all day long and accuse me of cheating on you when I haven't, it's hard for me to want to be intimate with you. You're making this too hard. Sex should not be this fucking hard! Just relax. If you don't, well never be comfortable enough to be intimate."

"See?" she pointed at me, "Like I said. We're never going to have sex again. I knew it."

Now that was logic, was it not?

I took a deep breath. How do you argue with someone who is truly in danger of being a batshit insane lunatic? I had never cheated on her, I hadn't even thought of it. But because her ex, Dan, had cheated on her and was porn freak, I was getting the brunt of her anger. See, Dan had left her high and dry when she was pregnant with my stepdaughter Katy. In the final death throes of that relationship, Dan had turned to porn to deal with his frustrations and then finally cheated on her. I could see why he was into porn after having been married to Karen for a year. Her insecurities alone made it impossible to even want to be next to her, let alone make love (and this was a little problem she kept hidden from me until we got married and it was too late...). I could understand the porn, but cheating was cheating right?

In the end, Karen never got a chance to vent her anger out on him, so it was being vented out on me. I didn't think it was very fair then and I didn't think it was fair now. Mind you, it's not that Karen was an evil person. She just had no control over her emotions or her thoughts. She acts on impulse and tries to blame others for it when it all goes bad. I suppose you could say Karen was the kind of woman who made her own drama and then blamed the person next to her for it. It's like when the rude guy next to you farts and then blames it all on you. You didn't ask to be blessed with methane because your accuser ate too many beans the night before. Either way, the situation still smells like shit.

"I am not Dan," I said, "Get it through your head, okay?"

"I am not Dan," she mocked me, her voice high and shrill.

"Okay, what is this? Third grade?"

"I've just accepted the fact that you're going to leave me," she ignored me, raising her hands into the air and giving up.

"Are you high?" I asked as sweat beaded on my bare chest and trickled down my stomach, "Are you needing to take a vacation? If I were going to leave you Karen, I would have. You've given me every opportunity to... doesn't that say I have some faith in you to get past this shit-attitude? If I wanted to leave-"

"So why don't you?"

"Because we have a family together!"

"Yeah," she laughed, "You have the family. I'm just easily replaceable. Dan replaced me, my parents replaced me and so will you."

"This conversation is over," I put my sunglasses back on and laid back down. She was determined once again to not listen to reason at all. She wanted to fight, and I wasn't going to oblige.

"And what does that mean?"

"Get a dictionary and look the words up if you need to," I closed my eyes trying to calm myself down. "Go and have fun."

"I'm not done talking yet," she said.

"Well I'm done listening, Karen. I'm not going to do this with you all day. Fuck that."

She stood with her arms crossed, tapping her foot like some kind of ridiculous parody of an authority figure.

"When you're calm, we'll talk."

"Whatever," she rolled her eyes and stormed off. I could hear glasses from the kitchen being thrown around and shattering and then there was the thunderous slam of the front door to signal the climax. I sat there for a long time, feeling so hopeless it was depressing. I was thankful my mom and dad had taken the kids for the weekend. They didn't need to see this crap. I had tried to shield them from it as best I could, but Karen's outbursts and behavior were becoming more and more intense with each conflict.

Everyone in my family had warned me against marrying her. At the time I just thought they were being silly, but now I could see the logic of their concerns. Karen was unstable, that much was sure. Between her bad-self esteem, unhealthy methods of anger management and trust issues, coupled with what I truly believed was a severe case of bi-polar disorder, Karen was on her way to another breakdown. The last one had been ugly and almost ended in a suicide. I feared for what might happen this time.

A few fights back, she had even said if I left her she would kill herself. Now how's that for a pickle? She tells me to leave all the time, but if I do she'll kill herself.

What she didn't understand is that even though she had effectively killed our marriage, I was sticking to the vows. At first it was simply a matter of me wanting to save the relationship, but more and more it felt like a fucking chant of denial to me. I was upholding the vows even after the passion and reason behind them had had been destroyed by her own special brand of madness. I was becoming convinced that a divorce was inevitable. No matter how many days she went without going crazy (and believe me, it was literally a matter of days and more recently, mere hours...) she still reverted back to her angry and accusatory nature.

For a woman so worried about her husband her cheating, she sure didn't mind treating me like shit. Day after day I would ponder why she took it all out on me. Lately, I was pondering why I put up with it at all. I was 25 years old and in the prime of my life. I was in shape and still had enough hair on my head to not be a visual hazard in the sunlight. We hadn't had sex in two months, which as I noted before was a serious bone of contention between us. But I wasn't going to jump in the sack with her acting like this and justify her behavior. Her attitude and the shit was doing had turned me off completely.

I tried telling her this, hoping it might help her see things differently, but her response to my problem with her was in the vein of her not being good enough or me not finding her attractive anymore. She thought she was too fat or stretched out from kids or too ugly or this or that.

The complaining and self-depreciation got old really quick. Sure, she was a little stretched out from child bearing, but I didn't mind. She was no runway model in terms of her body, but I found her sexy. She was curved and voluptuous and had a set of breasts that a man could lose himself in. There was nothing wrong with her at all in my opinion. That's part of why I married her. But as time progressed, I realized she hidden the most important truths about herself from me.

It was her attitude.

It was her personality.

It was the choices she made.

All of those things factored in so completely to how I ended up feeling about her. I felt stupid. I had given up my life back home and moved to a place where I had no friends to talk to, no family for support. I had left my job behind to be a stay at home dad for a while while Karen worked. Which, by the way, was another huge problem in and of itself. She had said she wanted to give me time to write a book (a dream of mine) and offered to work for a year while I stayed at home and took care of Katy.

In the end, I found out her reasons for offering such a selfless act were less than noble. She had not wanted to pay for daycare and she was worried if I found a job, I would cheat on her. She actively tried to sabotage me from having a life. So, against her strenuous objections, I got a job as a nurse's aide again and paid for the daycare myself. At this point, she got fired from her job as a housekeeper at the hospital and decided to be the stay-at-home mom.

I rubbed my eyes and got up from the chair as she sped away for the rest of the afternoon. I stretched my back out and looked across the lawn of the courtyard. Pulling up my shorts a little, as they tended to sag now that I lost most of my weight from last year, I noticed that Desiree Jansen was coming out of the laundry room across the way. She was carrying a huge basket of laundry as she negotiated the heavy, self-closing door while trying to maintain her balancing act.

Desiree was one of those women that guys secretly fawned over from afar. She was a mother of three and in her early forties. Youth had remained a strong ally for her though, as she only appeared to be in the beginnings of her thirties. She was tall and voluptuous, her body not so much streamlined but more curved in all the right places. Like Karen, she was no stick figure but Desiree had recovered from her childbearing days with grace and dignity.

I watched her walk down the cement pathway between her apartment and the lawn as I opened the screen door to go inside. I turned and then heard her cry out. She spilled the clean clothes all over the walkway and the grass. She looked down at the toppled pile of laundry and shook her head, her hands out and open in surprise. She looked up and saw me standing there, her grayish-green eyes wide and embarrassed. She ran a hand through her thick black hair and grinned sheepishly, "I guess one washing wasn't good enough..."

"You need help?" I laughed.

Desiree sighed and nodded as she knelt down beside the mess, "Yeah, could you? I have to wash these again."

I opened the back gate of the three-foot tall retaining fence around our small patio and walked over to her. The concrete was hot against my bare feet as I hopped onto the grass where it was much cooler and easier moving. I got on my knees and turned her red, plastic basket right side up.

"This shit happens to me all the time," I joked and began tossing her whites back into the basket.

"It cost me five bucks to wash all this," she frowned and threw a t-shirt in with the socks.

"Well, don't worry," I smiled and piled more clothes in, "I can spot you some change."

"Really?" she looked hopeful.

"Yeah," I nodded and picked up the basket for her, "Us low-income folks got to stick together, right?"

Desiree smiled at me and it felt good to have someone just being nice for a change. I walked with her back to the laundry room and was relieved when the door opened and the air conditioner inside blasted me. I carried the laundry to the counter and sat it down as Desiree pulled her long, black hair into a ponytail. I noticed her give me a quick once over as I stood there. Before I could be absolutely certain, her eyes darted back to the row of five washing machines.

"Thanks again," she smiled and began pulling her clothes out of the basket, tossing them into the open maw of the first washing machine.

"Here," I got in between her and the clothes basket, "We'll relay. Less of a trip."

"Thanks," she said again and we began loading the washer. As we worked, I found myself looking at her tanned legs and admiring their subtle muscular appeal. She wore a simple white skirt that cut off around her mid thigh and did nothing but accentuate her ass. She had a bubble butt to be sure, and her curves was so perfect I figured scientists could recalibrate their precision tools based on her sheer roundness. I looked away, feeling bad for a moment. That was all I needed: Karen's crazy predictions coming true.

"How are things going with you?" Desiree asked as I handed her a wad of clothes, "Everything okay?"

"It could be better," I said, "It could be a lot better, actually."

"She still doing her whole 'you're gonna leave me' thing?"

"Every day," I sighed miserably.

"That's gotta get old after awhile," Desiree ventured and moved to the second washing machine, "She needs to relax."

"That's what I keep saying," I agreed.

"She's got gold in her hand with you," she continued, "You're smart, funny, attractive and kind all rolled into one package. It's a shame some women can't appreciate what they have."

"Well, I'm a decent guy but I can be a pain in the ass too," I shrugged, embarrassed and little horrified as my cock began to swell slightly, "I mean, I don't hit her, I don't do drugs, I'm not an alcoholic and I don't lie to her. I try to treat her like I want to be treated."

"You still thinking about a divorce?" she asked. Desiree had been my confidant since I moved here, and if hadn't been for her I might have lost my mind. She looked at me as I handed her a pair of her panties. I looked down and realized what I was holding and blushed.

"Oh, sorry," I managed as I handed them to her and laughed nervously.

"It's okay," she reassured me, "I'm not embarrassed."

She opened up the white thong panties and said, "See? No stains."

I laughed and turned away as my cock betrayed me and began to make a bulge in my shorts. I wasn't wearing any underwear, so the eight inches of thick meat I sported was going to make a sizable problem for me if I didn't get it under control. I tilted myself so that my body was facing away from her and said, "I think Karen has no idea what she wants."

"I'll buy that," Desiree nodded and smiled. As she turned, I noticed her white tank top had moved to the left a little and was revealing the side of her breast to me. My eyes widened and I felt a little dizzy as I stared on the massive side swell of her right breast. She wasn't wearing a bra and I realized that her nipples were erected and poking through the fabric of the top.

'Oh shit,' I thought to myself, 'This is just great...'

"I know I have to do something about this," I sighed, trying to get my mind off Desiree and her large breasts and the way they jiggled under the fabric. This was insane. I chastised myself for being so horny and weak minded. After two months of nothing but masturbating in the shower I could see why I was so "sensitive" to visual stimulation, but I was married for God sakes. I said, "I have to do something."

"Don't stress over it," she said sympathetically, "I know when my ex-husband wanted out, he made my life hell just so I would be the one to leave. Sometimes people want out and they can't say it so they try and manipulate the situation."

"You think that's happening here?" I asked, refusing to look at her.

"Well," Desiree said thoughtfully, "I mean no matter what you say, she won't agree with you. It's like you can't win for losing. Believe me, I've heard you both late at night and that woman fights like a hardened lawyer."

"I know," I sighed. I hated that Karen yelled so friggin' much. I hated that I got so worked up that I yelled. I hated that our problems were public interest around the complex.

"I think she wants out," Desiree said carefully.

"Well if she wants out she can leave," I grabbed the last handful of clothes from the basket, "Jesus, I can't do this anymore. You see how much hair I'm losing over this?"

Desiree smiled and looked at my thinning, Bruce Willis-esque hairline. She said, "I think it flatters you."

"At least someone does."

"Hey," she said and closed the lids to the washers. She came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders, gently rubbing the tight muscles there. I had no idea how tense I was until Desiree began massaging me. I suddenly felt like the biggest asshole on the planet and the luckiest man alive. My heart raced and as I looked down. I could see my cock was boldly tenting my shorts out now. She said, "You have to relax. Don't get all bent out of shape here, Clark. Things will work out."

"Things will work out," I repeated and just stood there as she worked my shoulders over with her slender fingers.

"Speaking of working out," she added after a moment, her breath hot on the back of my neck, "Have you been exercising?"

I smiled, "Yeah, been running every morning. I bought one of those Ab Lounge machines too."

"It's working," she commented and squeezed my shoulder in a long, sensual motion that made my nipples harden. I became acutely aware that Desiree was now very close to my backside, her large breasts pressed against me. I could feel the texture of her tank top and the hard points of her nipples pressing to my skin. Her forearms were resting on my shoulder blades as she massaged my neck with a dedication we should not have been indulging in.