Pass it on

My wife Jan and I have been married for almost 20 years, and in that time we have lived in three different cities, due to my promotions in my job.

About 3 months ago, a friend of mine from the second job was in town visiting relatives, and he took me out for a drink. We had kind of a pointless conversation for a while, and I was starting to check my watch, when he put down his drink.

"Jam (a much shortened form of my Polish surname)," he said, "there's something I have to tell you. It's been eating at me for years, because I'm not that kind of guy."

"What is it, Daly?"

"When we worked together in St. Louis, about 7 years ago, I fucked your wife, Jan." He shifted back in his chair like I was going to hit him or something, but I just asked, "How many times?" He bit his lower lip a little then blurted out, "Almost every week for a year and a half."

I was stunned, if not completely surprised. Jan was very attractive, so she had a lot of opportunities, and she had talked in her sleep many times like she was fucking somebody. I asked him quietly, "How did it start?"

"That's what's eating me, Jam. Do you remember Peter Cailey?" I nodded. "Well, one day I ran into him in the hall and he said, 'Oh, good, I've been looking for you. There's someone you need to meet.' I figured it was a client or something, but he wouldn't tell me any more, just to plan on going to lunch with him the next day. So I did, but instead of going to a restaurant he took me to a hotel, and to a room where he knocked on the door. It was Jan that answered it- I knew her because I had met her at a Christmas party- wearing a big smile and a tiny thong. She took my hand to bring me into the room, and Peter said, 'Have fun, you two,' and left. So to make a long story short, we fucked a couple of times... God, you know how good she is!...and then I asked her how I got so lucky. She just laughed and said, 'Peter is just a really nice guy. We've burned our candle out, and I asked him to set me up with you before we call it quits.'"

"You inherited her?"

"Sort of, yeah. But let me go on. About 9 months later, I told her I thought we were getting a little old, and she agreed. Then she asked me to set her up with another guy she had her eye on. I did, then I bowed out of her life."

I sat there turning my wine glass around and around. "Why tell me about it now?" I asked.

"Well, you remember Doug, the guy we worked with just before you left St. Louis?"

"Yeah."

"He's here now, as you know, and I had a drink with him last night. I asked him how you were doing, and he almost split a gut laughing. 'Not as well as he thinks he is!' he said. I asked what he meant, and he replied, 'I've been fucking his wife for more than a year now.'

"I had had three drinks, so I wasn't as discreet as I should have been. I told him I had 'dated' Jan, too, and I asked him, 'Just out of curiosity, how did you get started with her?' He said, 'That was the weirdest part of this. I had only met her once, at a company party, but apparently she liked what she saw. So when Rashad Derby, who I barely knew, was breaking up with her, she asked him to set her up with me. So he did, just brought me to a hotel room and there she was, almost naked.

"Jam, the only thing I can figure is that she has arranged to have herself passed from one of your co-workers to another for years now."