Reluctant Cuckold by David McManus Page A

seeded, Jim, with my chump husband … right … out … side …”
     
    And then I came hard.
     
    This was not good. It was quite the contrary of good. It was pretty fucked-up. Off the map fucked-up, actually.
     
    I started thinking I should see a therapist. Someone I could talk to about this.
     
    Look into that tomorrow, I told myself.
     
****
     
    The alarm clock might as well have been flipping me the bird as Monday morning arrived. It was going to be a three-coffee morning for sure.
     
    I thought of being asked in the elevator heading up to my office, “How was your weekend, Dave?”
     
    I imagined the cartoon absurdity of being completely honest: “Well, if you really want to know,” I’d reply, “my wife came clean and admitted she really did fuck this co-worker at a party I was at. And she told me the guy had a bigger cock than mine. The reason I look tired is because I was up late last night jerking off in the bathroom thinking about it. But enough about me, how was your weekend?”
     
    I was putting on my cufflinks, looking for my watch as I heard a song Ashley had playing in the shower. I remembered it from The Wedding Singer soundtrack—The B-52s.
     
    The chorus kept repeating, “You’re living in your own private Idaho,” and I internalized it, like it was being sung directly to me.
     
****
     
    At lunch, I closed my door and Google’d “therapists in Manhattan.” I found marriage counselors and relationship specialists, but I wasn’t looking for couples’ therapy, I was looking for myself.
     
    I found some personal therapists near my office, but then I suddenly wondered, how am I going to answer the question, “So David, why are you here?”
     
    I could explain that my wife cheated, and that I was scared and worried by the implications. I could certainly admit to that; they probably heard stories about infidelity all the time. But that would only be part of the story.
     
    The therapist idea would come to me during the comedown from masturbating. I was mystified by my strange reaction to Ashley’s cheating. But how, I wondered, could I ever sit across a therapist’s desk and explain that?
     
    “OK,” I pictured the therapist saying, “so you learned your wife cheated. I’m assuming you’ve confronted her?”
     
    “Yes,” I would reply, “we’ve talked.”
     
    “And how did that go? She apologized? She’s broken it off?”
     
    How do I begin to even respond?
     
    “Well you see, it was at a party. She had sex in a bathroom with a man she works with. There was no real relationship to break off, and I don’t think she’s interested in him now because he blabbed the whole story to everyone they work with.”
     
    “But she apologized?” the therapist might interject.
     
    “Well, she apologized for not admitting it sooner and I know she’s sorry about the rumor being spread around her office.”
     
    “Did she specifically apologize to you for having sex with this other man?”
     
    “No,” I’d reply.
     
    “So, how did you respond to that?”
     
    “I basically thanked her for being honest with me.”
     
    What kind of ‘what-the-fuck’ look would the therapist give me then?
     
    “Oh,” I’d go on to explain, “it was particularly humiliating because you see, I was there at the party. I even knocked on the bathroom door. Her friend—who was in there with her watching her have sex—told me to find a different bathroom. I was unaware what was going on.”
     
    How could I look across at a female therapist and tell her even that much?
     
    “But the real reason I’m here is, I now masturbate regularly thinking about my wife having sex with that man at the party. And the incident has made me less confident around my wife. Now I ejaculate prematurely when I have sex with her. So I guess I’m here, so I can learn to correct this and de-program myself from obsessing about it.”
     
    Forget a female therapist, how could I confess that to