The Average American Marriage (8 page)

chapter fifteen

The Morning After

I
'm not as anxious as I thought I'd be around Alyna and the kids. I certainly feel as guilty as I imagined I would, but I don't feel anxious. No part of me thinks Alyna will ever find out that less than ten hours ago I had my dick in my intern's pussy and my finger in her asshole literally right where our children are sitting as I strap them in for a trip to see
Brave,
which looks like an even bigger steaming pile of shit than most movies I'm forced to pay for and sit through at the behest of my children.

As I click Andy's seatbelt he reaches out and digs at something on the back of the driver's seat and says, “What's this, Daddy?” I turn around and see that he's trying to scrape off a spot of what can only be my dried semen from the night before. It must have been an errant drop that found its way out of the condom when I flung it out of the window. I can feel my intestines twisting into knots.

I say, “That's just some dirt or something, bud,” as my mind frantically races through every possible fucking thing that could have been left in the car in the aftermath of a rushed fuck with a twenty-one-year-old the night before. I mean, if my fucking cum is on the back of the seat, Holly's dirty thong could be hanging off the rearview mirror. I do as thorough a scan of the backseat as I can without drawing too much attention from Alyna, who is sitting in the passenger's seat reading something on her phone. As I click Jane into her car seat, I look under the front seats for any errant hair clips, earrings, or other things I would never be able to explain away. I see nothing and hope I'm not missing anything.

I pop back up from the floorboards and see that Andy is really digging away at my dried cum. It's like he's one of the guys at the car wash detailing my car or something. I know that, at some point while I'm driving, he's going to scratch some off and put it in his mouth. That's what kids fucking do. I won't be able to stop it. It should seem far more disgusting than it does to me, but I chalk it up to the fact that my immediate concern over getting caught fucking another girl is far more pressing than worrying about the implications of my four-year-old son touching and possibly eating my dried semen.

For the entire drive to the theater I can hear and feel Andy scratching away like a little fucking gerbil. Luckily Alyna never really pays his little excavation much attention. I imagine her inspecting the spot close enough to smell it and identify it as semen. I concoct an elaborate excuse that involves me having to masturbate in the car because she got pissed the last time I did it in the house. I assume she'd buy the bullshit excuse after finding me jerking off to babysitter porn. It might result in me having to undergo voluntary sex-addict counseling or something, but that beats getting caught cheating.

When we get to the parking structure, I get Andy out first and look at the spot where my cum was. There's still a little white crusty spot, but it's about a fourth as big as it was when he started scratching at it, and he's biting his index fingernail. I am a terrible father.

some chapter

Sexting

I
'm sitting in my chair watching a recorded episode of
The Soup
. Alyna and the kids are asleep. It's 11:43
P.M.
My phone buzzes and I see that I have a new text message. It's from Holly and it reads, “I can't stop thinking about last night. I love your cock.”

Other than the immediate involuntary reaction of starting to get a hard-on, I have no idea what to do. I know sexting is the focus of a segment on local morning shows every other week, and plenty of people get caught sending pictures of their genitals to people they're fucking, but I've never experienced any of that, because I've been married for the entirety of the techno-sexual revolution.

My first instinct is to reply with a text that reads, “Thank you,” but that can't be right. I think it's probably better to respond with something equally sexual, something that conveys my interest in fucking her as well. I type out, “Your pussy is incredible.” It looks wrong. I read it out loud and it sounds even worse than it looks. I start to think I'm taking too much time to respond. I wonder if she's been fingering herself since she sent me the text or if she's just out with her twenty-year-old friends trying to get me to reply with something stupid so she can show them. I immediately discount the last thought and rationalize it away as false insecurity by reminding myself that she actually fucked me. Not only did she fuck me, she gagged on my cock and forced me to put my finger in her asshole. She's into this.

I think briefly about texting something like, “I really liked my finger in your asshole,” but that sounds too nice, almost clinical. It's not dirty or visceral enough to carry the same level of sexual desire as her text. I wonder if I should play it cool and respond with a question like, “Yeah? What do you love about it?” I type it in and read it over. It doesn't sound as bad as the other shit, and it seems to put me in some position of power in the conversation, without having to use profanity or vulgarity, which seem awkward in a text message. I send it.

A few seconds later she replies. “It's big and hard and I love the way it feels in my wet little pussy. Does that turn you on?”

I have a hard-on before I finish reading the text. I contemplate replying by letting her know that, but instead opt for telling her, “Everything about you turns me on.”

She replies with a text that reads, “Carly's at the library and I'm fingering my pussy right now on my bed and thinking about you fucking me from behind,” which starts me imagining what her perfect little ass must look like doggy-style. I wonder if her asshole is the same color as her skin or if it's darker. Either way, I realize that I want to see it badly. Seeing it means I'm going to have to fuck her again. Fucking her again means I'm going to have to cheat on my wife again. I wonder if I can cheat on my wife again, and if I can, what that will mean. I know that if I do it again, I'll be able to do it several more times after that. I assume it will become a full-blown affair and I'll have to start leading a double life, which has to be a difficult thing to do.

I type, “Holly, we can't do this,” then stare at the text, knowing that a little farther up the 405 in a dorm room at CSUN the hottest girl I've ever fucked in my life has her finger in her perfect little pussy and she's texting me—not some douchebag her own age—the dirtiest shit she can think of.

I erase it and type in, “Is that how you want me to fuck you next time?”

chapter sixteen

Open and Honest

A
lyna and I pull up in front of a small house in Burbank. We've left the kids with her friend Isabelle. I say, “This guy doesn't operate out of an office?”

She says, “This is his office.”

“This is a house.”

“It's a home office.”

We get out and walk up to the home office of a couples therapist for our first session. When we get to the porch, I reach up to ring the doorbell. Alyna grabs my hand and says, “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Ringing the bell.”

She points to a sign hanging from the doorknob that reads,
SESSION IN PROGRESS. PLEASE TAKE A SEAT UNTIL IT CONCLUDES AND RESPECT MY CLIENTS BY NOT RINGING THE DOORBELL OR KNOCKING. THANK YOU. ROLAND
.

I notice two white plastic lawn chairs sitting on the porch, which I assume are meant for us. I can't help saying, “This guy seems real legit.”

Alyna says, “He is. Rachel and Doug have been seeing him for a year now and they say he's really helped them.”

“Couldn't have helped much if they're still seeing him after a year.”

“Will you at least give this a chance? Please, for me, can you just not make jokes and treat this seriously?”

I look at Alyna and wonder if Holly will ever be married to a guy she forces into couples therapy. Even though I had my finger in her ass, somehow it seems likely to me. I say, “Calm down. Yes. I can take it seriously.”

She says, “Thank you,” and sits down in the lawn chair next to me.

After a few minutes of silence, the door opens and a couple comes out. The guy looks like someone just spent an hour kicking him in the ball bag, and the chick has a giant smile on her face. Eye contact with everyone on Roland's porch is unavoidable. We all nod to one another. The guy gives me a nod that silently says, “You have no idea what you're in for, you poor fucking bastard.” The chick gives me a nod that silently says, “I know you're a fucking asshole or your wife wouldn't have had to bring you here.” Alyna gets a nod from the chick that silently says, “You go, girl.” And she gets a nod from the guy that silently says, “Fuck you, cunt.” They leave and walk off toward their car as Roland says, “Alyna?”

She says, “Yes. Nice to meet you.”

He says, “You, too. Thanks for being prompt.”

She says, “Well, the babysitter gets paid by the hour,” and they both laugh a forced laugh. All I can think is, this motherfucker gets paid by the hour, too, and I'm sure his rate is about ten times what I'm paying the fucking babysitter.

We walk inside Roland's house and he takes us to his second bedroom, which he's converted into an office for therapy. There are three chairs. Alyna and I take the two that are clearly for the couple seeking therapy, and Roland takes the one that faces us both. He takes out a little journal in a leather jacket and an overly fancy pen and says, “Okay, you guys, you obviously wouldn't be here if things were as good as they could be in your relationship. And that's how I want you to think of it, too. Too many couples think of couples therapy as something you do when there's a problem in the relationship, but that's not what this is about. This is about helping you guys get everything out of your relationship that you can, even when things are going fine. So I'll ask each of you, without wording it in a way that makes it sound like a problem, what is one way you'd like to see your relationship improve? Alyna, why don't you start?”

She says, “Okay. I'd like to catch my husband masturbating less frequently.”

I say, “Jesus Christ. Does he have to know that?”

Roland says, “It's okay. I don't judge anything that's said in this room, and I need you both to be open and honest for this process to work. Okay?”

Alyna says, “Okay.”

I say, “Fair enough. If we're putting it all out there, the reason I was jerking off—”

Alyna cuts me off. “Can you say
masturbating,
please?”

I say, “Fine. The reason I was masturbating is that my wife will only fuck me twice a month, if I'm lucky, and she doesn't even seem to be interested in those two times while they're happening.”

Alyna stares at me with her mouth open. “Can you say
making love,
please?”

Roland leans back in his chair, puts his little journal down on the ground, and says, “Okay, guys. This is a very common issue in marriages, especially after kids are introduced. It's tough to maintain that same level of physical intimacy that you had in the beginning of the relationship when you have to worry about dirty diapers and trips to the pediatrician and rides to school. So what I'll ask both of you to do right now is be extremely honest with one another and promise each other, and me, that you won't react emotionally to anything that's said over the next hour but instead you'll hear everything and process it logically. Can you do that?”

I say, “Yeah.”

Alyna says, “Of course.”

Roland says, “Good. So, Alyna, you start again and tell your husband one thing that turns you on about him.”

I can't fucking believe what I'm hearing. Roland is a fucking genius. With one sentence, it's like he's erased every complaint in Alyna's head. As I wait for her to say something, to say anything, I know the real answer is that
nothing
about me turns my wife on.

She says, “Well, you really are a good provider for us. For our family, I mean. You work hard.” This is a total crock of shit. Alyna's just throwing out some generic compliment in an effort to completely avoid actually answering the question, actually addressing the matter at hand. I want Roland to nail her to the wall for it.

Roland says, “And this sexually arouses you?” Roland is my new best fucking friend. I love this guy.

She says, “Well, not sexually, but it's an attractive quality.”

Roland says, “Well, can you think of something about your husband that
sexually
arouses you?”

She says, “This isn't a fair question. We have two kids. We've been married for five years. I mean, can he name something that sexually arouses him about me?”

Without hesitating for a single second I say, “Your ass, your tits, the sound you make when you cum, the way your neck smells, the way your mouth looks when you eat marshmallows, and the taste of your pussy,” and I sit there staring at her, waiting for her to have anything to say in response to this. She just stares at me. She knows I'm being honest, and she knows she can't even come close to my answer.

Roland says, “Alyna, how does hearing that make you feel?”

Alyna says, “I feel a little embarrassed, actually.”

Roland says, “Why?”

She says, “Because I just don't see myself like that anymore, I guess. I'm a mom now.”

Roland says, “But before you were ever a mom, you were a woman your husband was very attracted to, and obviously still is.”

Roland spends the rest of the hour giving us pointers on things we can do to increase the frequency with which we have sex. When we leave Roland's home office we walk past another couple sitting in the plastic lawn chairs. The guy looks like he'd rather be drinking from a fountain of liquid shit than sitting on that porch until he sees that I have a giant smile on my face and Alyna looks like someone spent the last hour kicking her in the cunt.