First weekend back from Maui and the new wife already had a honey-do list for me. Drop off all my wedding gear at the dry cleaners, she said. I told her just to hang the damn dress up in the closet like a normal person. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said her cousin did that and their dog–a bastard of a Boston Terrier–peed all over it. Ten thousand dollar dress ruined with one lift of a leg. I started to tell her we don’t have a dog but then thought why bother. It’d give me a chance to grab some fresh air.

I stopped by Alicia’s, threw the dry cleaning bag in the corner, and before I could complain about the complexities of married life she was on her knees and somehow my pants found their way around my ankles and now this woman ten years younger is doing that thing with her tongue she picked up from who knows where and that never fails to make me cum. Some women are meant to be wives and others are destined to make the husbands to those wives happy. Alicia, god love her, will forever be in the latter category. She’s never asked for much out of life, and life has been more than willing to oblige her meager expectations.

We met at a swinger’s club, of all places. I didn’t even know there was one in Phoenix until my buddy took me there to celebrate my engagement. Every guy should go to a place like this once in his life, he’d said. I’d had just enough to drinks to think it was a fine idea.

I still think it was a fine idea. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t now be on the receiving end of such an amazing blow job which, let’s be honest, is heaps more fun than going to the dry cleaners to drop off a stupid wedding dress. I tell myself at least I’ve been honest with Alicia from the get go. I never led her on, didn’t once give any hope to the idea I’d break off my engagement. No, my marriage is more than a boy-meets-girl-and-they-live-happily-ever-after thing; it’s more like a two-wealthy-and-influential-families-solidifying their power base move, and the best sex of your life can’t even get in the way of that.

“Almost there, Beautiful,” I say. It prompts a quick grin and she redoubles her efforts. I really do mean the ‘beautiful’ part and though they do share that, the differences between my wife and Alicia couldn’t be more stark: white vs. black; pixie cut vs. braids; high-income vs. low; career woman vs. single mother; naiveté vs. street smarts. The biggest difference, of course, is marriage material vs. pull-up-your-pants-and-leave material. That’s no knock on Alicia, it’s just how things tend to work out in this world.

I’m past the point of no return and in that slice of time between when the inevitable announces its intentions and actually happens, something occurs to me. Maybe this is my way of rejecting my upbringing, I think. A carnal act of rebellion. If so, it sure beats renouncing my family, forfeiting my trust fund, and waving goodbye to what’s gonna be a seven-figure inheritance.

The moment Alicia grips my thighs and pulls all of me into her, those week-old wedding vows might as well have happened in a different lifetime. I groan as my climax starts and pushes any further armchair psychiatry theories out of my serotonin-addled brain. As my eyelids flutter, I glimpse the top of her head. The veil, I admit, is a nice touch.