I had knowledge that some weeks ago, Mr. W had helped my good friend Vanessa out because she had broken up with her long-time guy and was therefore sexually unfulfilled. And by “help out,” I mean he slept with her, kind of as a favor. And I was aware of it, and I was okay with it, it was nice of him. And then yesterday, the three of us went to the gym. Vanessa wasn’t able to drive, and Mr. W and I drove separately, so she drove back with him to his house where we were gonna meet up, drop a car off and go get a bite to eat. As Mr. W was exiting the house to go to the car, and Vanessa and I were picking up our purse and shoes and about to follow, Vanessa mentioned, tossing a used napkin or something in front of me into a trash can, that they had taken a little longer than me to get to the house from the gym earlier because they had a quickie in the gym parking lot before they left. I asked her, “I thought you were on your period.” She said no, and then I remembered that she’d recently told me that her period strangely lasted only a day and a half this time. So she was no longer on her period. “Oh, okay,” I said, and waited for Mr. W to leave the house completely. As soon as he did, I said discreetly to Vanessa, “Actually, I’m a little hurt about this one. He and I hadn’t had sex for 3 days, and then he goes to YOU for a quickie.”
She looked surprised. “He told me it was 5 days –”
I said, “Fine, maybe it WAS 5, but that’s even more of the point; that he hadn’t slept with me for that long and he goes to you instead of me.” And then, suddenly it hit me. “Wait. You know, I’m not okay with any of this at all! Nobody told me it was going to happen again or made sure it was okay with me this 2nd time! In fact, no one checked with me before the first time! I was just INFORMED after the fact that it happened!” And then I questioned my own logic. WHY had I been okay with this before?! “I just loved you guys too much to make a big deal out of it, but now I feel — I think he cheated on me!”
Vanessa gasped. “Oh my gosh! I think you’re right!” Suddenly she looked indignant, like she was angry on my behalf.
The two of us went outside, where Mr. W was at his car. Vanessa got to him first and said something I couldn’t hear to him, but it sounded kind of angry, and she pointed behind her to me. I was already in a rage. “You CHEATED on me!” I yelled at him, walking toward the car.
Mr. W walked forward toward Vanessa. I thought he was just going to talk to her or take her to eat as planned and ignore me, but he walked past her and walked toward me. I couldn’t help but notice, however, when he passed her, he gave her a smile and a look as if to say, “Cindy’s going crazy for no reason again.” Another two steps toward me, and I held out my hand as if to say STOP. I stepped backwards, away from him, maintaining a distance of about 15-20 feet.
“You SLEPT with her, TWICE, and you just TOLD me about it aftewards! I wasn’t asked if that was okay!”
“But you knew about it,” he said, almost laughing at me as if I was making a big deal out of something stupid. He took a few steps toward me again and I quickly put up my hand. STOP. I took the same steps backwards, back toward the house, away from him.
“You SLEPT with one of my closest friends! That’s NOT right! Normal people don’t sleep with their friends! Did you sleep with [his female best friend]?” He cocked his head to one side. “Did you sleep with [male best friend]?” I expected those answers to be no, I was just making a point.
He took a few steps in my direction again. “Well, I didn’t sleep with [male best friend],” he said, still smiling and shrugging like this was not a big deal.
“Wait. What are you saying, you slept with [female best friend]?!”
“Yeah, I slept with her.”
“WHAAAT?!” This was all the more absurd because I know that female best friend is not romantically interested in men, and she has a live-in long-term relationship. Suddenly I understood that he had slept with her to satisfy her curiosity about men at some point. I shook my head at him in disgust. This was just too much. Given all the things I had been forced to accept as part of his sexual past that I am not generally okay with, and now all THIS.
I turned and ran back into the house. I could hear him running behind me. I ran into the bedroom and closed and locked the door, then threw myself against it on the ground, sobbing. The sound of my wails bounced hollowly off the walls of the room.
Mr. W suddenly came in, and I realized I hadn’t locked the side door to the bedroom. Idiot. But there was no fixing this, there was no going back. I was just aware of how absolutely hurt I felt, and I wished so badly that none of this had ever happened, that time could turn back to before his indiscretions and instead of going on the skewed path, he would’ve chosen the correct things to do, and we could be happy together again. How much I wished for that.

Mr. W put his hand on my shoulder. “Cindy, wake up. Wake up, you’re having a nightmare. It’s okay, I’m here.” I woke up in mid-whimper. The nausea was still at my chest.
“You cheated on me! Twice! …With VANESSA!”
“Oh gawd, you and your dreams,” he smiled and hugged me.
“And you slept with [female best friend]!” This time he laughed. So I told him the dream in detail, ending with how he admitted to sleeping with his female best friend. He remarked how improbable that’d be due to her sexual orientation, and I said that it was because she’d been curious what being with a man is like so he did that to help out. “It’s like you were this sexual humanitarian or something!” I can’t remember the actual term I used for the life of me. But it means something like sexual assistant, sexual facilitator, someone who goes around having sex to “help” people. Whatever the term was that I used, he repeated it and thought it was hilarious.

I didn’t find it funny at all, and was unable to fall asleep after that. Ugh.

Oh, a note. After awakening, I did feel like I got my wish in the dream, cuz time went back to when we were good and he had committed no indiscretions. The 2nd thing that struck me was remembering how helpless and sad and hurt I felt while I was crying in the dream. Where was the anger? In real life I’d imagine I’d just stand up and walk away from him forever, knowing that my life would be fine without him.