Stuttering Jack

No Sex...

There was a light on in the kitchen as I made my way inside my house. I watched my lover Brad pull away as I opened the door. I expected my husband to be asleep, but I could see Jack's shape in the kitchen. This all felt so wrong. I regretted letting my lover fill my pussy with his come right before dropping me off. Just another 'fuck you' from him to Jack. I didn't think Jack knew about Brad. I was an idiot.

"Jes Jes Jesse, we nee nee need to ta talk," Jack said.

Oh my god he stuttered. That is important because through most of his young life, Jack stuttered so much he was usually unintelligible. Stuttering Jack, they called him. We met in college where we were taking this advanced calculus class. There were eight of us in the class and Jack was the only one who wasn't failing. The professor was no help and only confused us more. The eight of us were sitting in the cafeteria when I said, "for the first time in my life, I am sitting in a classroom and don't have a fucking clue what the professor is talking about. I sit down for a test and don't know where to begin."

Jack, who rarely said a word, stuttered, "I help." We had mixed faces. We knew he understood it, but we couldn't understand him any better than the professor.

I held his hand and said, "I'm not sure how that will work Jack."

He looked at my hand, smiled and as clear as day explained how to solve the first problem on the quiz we just failed. In the beginning, I would have to hold his hand or sit next to him. By the end of the semester, he stopped stuttering. And that's when we fell in love or when Jack fell in love with me.

But now he was stuttering again, maybe worse than ever.

Jack tried to say something else, but he couldn't get past my name. He pulled out a yellow legal pad, something he used to do when I first met him. He jotted something down and showed me what he wrote:

"I know all about Brad, have known for a while. I can smell his come in your panties. Please go clean yourself up before I throw up all over you."

I went to say something, but he held up his hand. In the bathroom, I jumped in the shower and hosed out my pussy and my ass since he came in there before we headed home. I added a little body spray just in case.

Back at the table with my husband, or soon to be ex-husband, I said, "I want you to know that I ended it with Brad tonight."

On the pad he wrote, "There were others before Brad, they'll be others after Brad!"

"What, how did you know, when did you know?"

On the pad he wrote, "are you trying to get better at concealing your affairs?"

I knew I tuned bright red, but that's not why I asked the question, I just asked the question wrong.

"What I meant Jack, if you knew before, why are you confronting me now?"

"Brad disrespects me, you laugh with him, you have no respect for me."

"That's not true Jack."

Scribbling so fast and hard he tore through the paper and wrote, "Then why were your panties filled with his come when you came in?"

I started crying. He slid the divorce papers over to me and a copy of the PI report. On the cover of the report he wrote, "Brad's wife received a copy this afternoon."

"Why Jack, she doesn't deserve to be hurt by this."

Using his voice he said, "She deserves to fucking know!" There was no stuttering in that sentence as I recoiled from his anger.

He was scribbling again, "I'm executing the prenup. You have three days to get your shit out of my house. Our joint credit cards were cancelled at 10:00 tonight. I left you half the money in our checking account. You have three more days of cell phone service before your phone is shut off. Any questions?"

All of those sentences were written on separate sheets of paper. The kitchen floor was now covered in sheets of yellow paper.

I shook my head no at "any questions." Jack got up, grabbed an overnight bag he had sitting on the floor next to him and left. I sat there, it brought me back to that advanced calculus class where I had no idea where to begin.

Brad called, he started screaming into the phone, "Why did your wimp husband tell my wife about our affair."

"I guess he wasn't that much of a wimp Brad." I hung up and blocked his number.

After getting changed, I tried to remember when I fell out of love with Jack. Even before the wedding I knew I wasn't in love with him. I was in awe of him, he was fucking brilliant. The calculus problems we struggled with were like simple math to him. The hard part was trying to explain it to the rest of us mortals. My first mistake was seducing him one night, it wasn't hard, and it made him fall deeper in love with me. I was his first and he often said I would be his only. Our sex was warm and caring. I don't think Jack ever watched a porn movie and he had no idea how to satisfy me. Fear of hurting his feelings kept me from offering him some suggestions.

I can remember the first time I had an affair, two years after Jack and I were married. Sex with Jack was loving and boring, I needed something different. It was just a one-night stand while I was on a business trip. I felt horrible about it. The second one was easier for me mentally. I'm not sure if I can remember all of them. There was a visiting professor from England, he was the first one that lasted several nights. I was only faithful to Jack for two years and cheated on him almost constantly since then.

In the morning, I looked at the PI report over a cup of coffee. I had to throw up. It became clear that I was a horrible person, no better than the people who used to tease Jack for stuttering. The horrible things Brad would say about Jack and the way I went along with him, laughing at my wimp husband. No wonder Jack was divorcing me.

There was a binder on the table I hadn't noticed the night before. Opening it up I found most of my other infidelities, even the first one. Some I remembered some I didn't. It didn't matter.

The eight of us who were in that Advanced Calculus class stayed in contact through the years. There was another couple who married, and it turned out two of the guys were gay and they got married. We were all working in the field of advanced calculus, so we often ran into each other at different conferences. But the weddings were great because they gave a chance for the eight of us to get together.

Jill was the oddball of our original octet. She never married and as far as I knew she never dated. She was solo at all weddings. Sometimes I thought she was a lesbian, but I never got that vibe. Jill was cute and I'm sure many men were interested in her. Maybe she did date but kept her affairs quiet.

I decided to call her, maybe looking for some compassion:

"Hi Jill, this is Jesse. I don't know why I'm calling you, but Jack is divorcing me."

"About fucking time" I was shocked.

"Jesse, remember we are all working in a highly complex field and are being well paid. And none of us would be here today if it wasn't for Jack getting us through that class. And it only took you two years to start fucking around on him. Poor Jack, none of our little octet could understand why he stayed with you this long. We pleaded with him to dump you, but he refused. By the way, we all knew how you cheated on him at every conference we attended. You have quite the reputation amongst our profession but not one most woman would want. You are certainly not going to get any compassion from me and if you were on fire I wouldn't piss on you to put you out. And don't expect compassion from any of the rest of our group. I'm probably the only one who would answer your call, but you'll be blocked from now on."

And I always thought I was being so careful. Was I the laughingstock of our profession or the slut of our profession? Was I the one that didn't get any respect? It has been years since I was asked to speak at a conference and almost that long since I was able to get a paper published. I was trying to pack my shit but kept breaking out in tears as I realized how much I fucked up my life.

In between boxes I called apartment rentals. I had no idea how expensive rentals were. I ended up calling a mover to put my stuff in storage and planned to stay at an extended stay in until I could find something more permanent.

Before the movers came, I took one last walk through of what had been our house. It was one of the finest houses on campus. The kind reserved for the most important department heads. I loved the ivy-covered walls, the beautiful landscaping and the huge stone patio. My favorite was the long circular driveway that led to our front door and the huge chandelier visible in the window. My parents almost shit themselves the first time they saw it.

After I got into the hotel, I sent a text to Jack and told him I was out. There was no response.

By the time the divorce was finalized, I had a few hundred dollars in my checking account, a credit card with a $1,00 limit and was living in the same apartment I lived in when I was a grad student. Seven years after marrying Jack I was exactly where I was before I married him. I deserved it.

A year after the divorce, I attended a local conference. Jack was one of the main speakers and he had the final slot, the most prestigious. I looked forward to seeing him.

I attended the social gathering the night before the main conference. There was a weird vibe in the women. It was almost as if people were shunning me. Not one person in the conference spoke to me. I strolled around, feeling more and more uncomfortable every step and then I heard Jack's voice. And Jack wasn't stuttering.

That deep baritone voice led me to him. He was standing in the middle of our octet discussing some economic model when he noticed me. The rest of the group turned to look at me. There were no nods or greetings, they just stared at me. Then I noticed Jill slipping her arm onto Jack's. Jill was the only one who smiled at me.

Jack said, "Hello Jesse, you're looking well."

And then he went onto his story. The octet members turned their backs on me. Except Jill, who kept smiling at me and then I noticed the baby bump.

Jill must have been in love with him the whole time our octet was together, waiting for me to fuck up my marriage. Her patience was amazing. I was happy for Jack, jealous of what Jill had. I had talked to Jack many times about starting a family and he always put it off. Clearly, he wouldn't want to start a family with a cheating slut like me.

In the end I was right back where I started before Jack. It seems the whole industry ghosted me. Not only was I no longer invited to speak at conferences, but I was also no longer on the guest lists. The university was giving me a hard time because I wasn't publishing any papers. How could I explain that anything I sent to the publishers came back unopened. I was I danger of losing my job and my ex-husband was my department head. I made an appointment to go see him.

He was very gracious, "Come in Jesse and have a seat." With no hint of a stutter.

I congratulated him on the birth of his daughter. He said, "I am so thrilled with that little girl, you couldn't believe it. But what can I do for you Jesse?"

"Jack, I'm afraid I might lose my job. I can't get anything published and you know how the university wants to see their professors getting recognized."

"Jesse, as long as I am the department head, you will never be fired, and I plan on being here for a long time."

I thanked him and started to leave. I was going to say I was sorry about how we ended but I saw an evil look in his eye. I turned and left.

On the way home I realized I would never be fired but I would always be stuck in the same shitty apartment I lived in when I first met him. I didn't pay much attention to the professional lives of the rest of our octet but that day I googled each one. All of them were doing extremely well, department heads at other universities or working in the private sector. All of them had a long list of publications going back years and many were coauthored by Jack. I was too busy getting laid while Jack was helping our friends become successful. Jill had the most papers and the most coauthored by Jack.

The oddball in our octet was an Asian guy named Danny Soo. I googled him and found that he had developed his own software tool for energy trading. His company had gone public about the same time Jack presented me with divorce papers. Danny had become an overnight billionaire and so did his initial investors, the other members of our octet. Danny was nominated for a Nobel prize in economics. My question was why I wasn't invited to be an initial investor, and the answer was obvious.

The other thing I learned was that the other octet members were all on the boards of the professional journals where we published our papers. They would have veto rights on any submissions.

While I was out getting laid, they were putting me in a box I could never escape. Jill kept Jack close, waiting for me to push Jack too far and when I did, she was there for him. Now she was bearing his children and living in that beautiful house that I use to call mine.