This story is a fantasy that came completely out of my dirty little mind. Any similarities to anyone you know or anything you have ever seen or heard is a complete accident, but ultimately inevitable.
*****
I woke up that morning thinking that my life was perfect. I was 30 years old, happily married to a beautiful wife, and had a great job and a wonderful home. I had everything I thought I wanted. I had no idea that by the end of the day my life would be turned completely upside down.
Unlike my wife I was an early riser, even on a Saturday morning. I was out of bed at 6:30, camped out in the living room with a bowl of cereal and watching ESPN. The sun was shining and the birds were singing.
Around 9 my wife shuffled in. Even 9am was early for her if she didn't need to get up. At first glance Lisa was everything I was looking for in a woman. She was 5'9" and 140 pounds of curves and womanly flesh. She wasn't skinny, but she wasn't fat, not by a long shot. She was curvy, shapely, and proportional. She had long brown hair and glasses, which were two things that always caught my eye for some reason. She was intelligent too. We met in college. We ended up living on the same floor of our dorm in our sophomore year, and we were just kind of drawn to each other. We hung out with our dorm mates, then we hung out alone, then we were a couple. Then we were engaged. After we graduated we got married.
The biggest debate of our relationship was where we would live. Lisa was more of a city person and wanted to get an apartment downtown. I had a business degree and was working as a financial advisor, and I was a big advocate of homeownership over renting. Accruing equity, and all that. Besides, it was 2008, the housing market was collapsing, and prices were plummeting. I pushed for a house in the suburbs. Somehow, I won. We found a nice three bedroom ranch on a quiet street at the edge of town. It was brand new. The builder was desperate to unload it, and we got a great deal. Our house was going to be one of a street full of houses, but the builder stopped building due to lack of demand, and six years later ours was still the only house on the street.
The sight of my sexy wife looking disheveled in her nightgown turned me on. I had seen SportCenter all the way through twice already. Would she be up for morning sex? Sometimes she'd come looking for me to invite me back to bed to snuggle and maybe more. Sometimes.
"Joe," Lisa said, "Don't forget you promised to get me topsoil for my garden."
I groaned. Lately Lisa had been talking about starting a garden. At least after six years she was finally taking an interest in the house, I thought to myself. It was just that even though I had a dream of homeownership I didn't really care about what it looked like, especially since we didn't have any neighbors to impress. So who cared about flowers? I mowed the grass every Sunday, and to me that was enough. I was allergic to flowers, anyway. It was probably just going to make me sneeze more. Still, I tried to look on the bright side. The more flowers that Lisa planted meant the less grass that I had to mow. I put on my best happy husband face. "Sure, honey," I said.
"Thanks," Lisa said. She was still half awake. She turned to go back to bed.
"Oh, by the way," I said as she headed back to the bedroom, "Emily is coming over later to watch the game."
I saw Lisa freeze in her tracks. Then she walked stiffly toward the bedroom without another word. You see, Emily is my best friend since middle school. She's basically the exact opposite of Lisa. Emily is a petite 5'4", a spunky tomboy with short blonde hair and a lot of energy. We grew up together but didn't really hit it off until we sat across from each other in Social Studies in eighth grade. I had recently discovered that I had a sense of humor and one day I spent most of the class cracking Emily up. I finally drew the ire of the teacher who singled me out for detention, which made Emily laugh harder than anything. After that day we were inseparable. We would go over to each other's houses to play video games, watch ballgames, and trade baseball cards. Basically anything you'd expect best friends to do.
Why didn't I end up with Emily, you're wondering. I know you are. I used to wonder about it too before I met Lisa. The short answer was that Emily was completely boy crazy. Every week it was a different boy. She'd have a crush on Mike one week. All she would talk about was Mike. Mike Mike Mike. Then she'd get bored and move on to Tony. Tony's so cute. Tony's so funny. Tony Tony Tony. Then she'd lose interest in Tony. And so on. After a couple of years of it I just got completely numb to it all. It was never "Joe's so cute, Joe's so funny," and I grudgingly accepted that we would always be friends. It's not like I didn't get my share of attention in high school. I was tall and lean, 5'11" and 160 pounds, not muscular but sinewy. I found that I cared a lot less about who Emily was interested in when I had a love interest of my own, and that's how it went.
I stayed local and went to a state college, got my degree after four years and started my career. Emily took six years to get a bachelors degree in marketing after flunking out of two colleges, one on the east coast, and one on the west coast. She was more out to experience everything life had to offer than get an education. She finally finished up at the same state school I graduated from, but I had already graduated and married Lisa by the time she enrolled there. I kept expecting Emily to run off to London or Paris and live the bohemian life, but to my surprise she stayed local, and more or less single. I was happy that Emily stayed around, but Emily's constant presence bothered Lisa. I never thought that Lisa would be the jealous type, but it was obvious she didn't like to have Emily around. We had a lot of "discussions" about it. Emily's my friend, I would say, and you're my wife. I love you. You have nothing to worry about. Somehow it never seemed to make Lisa feel better.
I threw on jeans and a t-shirt and went out to Home Depot. I came back with two of those huge bags of topsoil. I dragged them unceremoniously into the garage and left them there, next to the packages of flower seeds that Lisa bought weeks ago. By now Lisa was fully awake; her long brown hair brushed and tied back in a pony tail. She was sitting at the kitchen table eating her healthy woman's whatever cereal, and sipping coffee. She was wearing an old t-shirt and Capri's. "Morning, honey," I said as I bent to kiss her cheek. Lisa ignored me, continuing to stare at whatever she was reading on her iPad.
"What time is the game?" Lisa asked with an air of practiced indifference. The real question was "When is Emily coming over?"
"It's at 3 today," I said, "The Cards are on the West Coast..."
Lisa cut me off. She didn't care much for sports. "Do you think you can spread that topsoil on the garden before then?" She asked.
I groaned. "That'll be a lot of work, honey," I said. It was May so it wouldn't be too hot, but I was still dreading it. Who cares about a bunch of stupid flowers anyway?
"Why are you giving me a hard time?" Lisa snapped. "You were the one who wanted a house in the suburbs."
I took a deep breath. She was right, after all. "I know," I said, "I just hate yard work."
Lisa looked off to the side. "He hates yard work yet he talks me into buying a quarter of an acre full of dirt and weeds," she mumbled. Lisa was a big Tolkien fan, and she mumbled to herself a lot. I was half expecting her to start adding 'my precious' to the end of her sentences one of these days. "You know you have to break up the ground underneath too, right?"
"Ugh, Lisa!" I shouted. "Can't we just hire someone to do the work for us?"
