The Worst Gift

See what I told you, how could you not love this kid?

I actually managed to sleep a little, much to my surprise. I did hear Scott go out at about 4.00am. I knew it would be early, but I didn't think it would be that early.

I managed at school but only just. I wasn't really taking in anything from the training course and when I was asked a question, I had to blag it. I got away with it, but my closest colleague Graeme asked if I was Ok during the tea break. I told him I thought I had a migraine and he agreed I wasn't looking well.

We finished by 4.00pm so I wandered round the nearest supermarket for a while. I didn't want to go home and find that Caz was still there. At 5.15pm I turned into the drive but found Caz's car parked in her usual spot. Great. I nearly turned back round again and felt that fictitious migraine might soon become a reality. Well, I suppose I had to find out the truth, sooner or later. Best get it over with.

Caz greeted me with a smile.

"I didn't expect you to be here." I said quietly.

"I know what I promised Scott but I wanted, no needed, to talk to you first."

"Yeah, well, you've already proved that your promises don't mean much."

"Just let me explain and then I'll go to Scott's, I promise. I realise that you've had a dreadful shock, but I need to explain."

"Well I want the full truth Caz. I can't promise that it will make any difference, but I promise you, if I find out you have left anything out -- I won't ever speak to you again."

"Have you spoken to Angus?" Caz asked.

"Why would I want to speak to him?"

"Well, I just wanted you to know that I haven't told him that you know. I wanted to speak to you first."

"Thank you, I'm sure putting me first for once was difficult for you. So the floor is yours. I'll try my best not to interrupt."

"You know how desperate I'd got to have a child. All that crying every month. You held me and reassured me, but it wasn't enough. I was desperate to have a child. Angus was the perfect person, you see. He looked just like you, but that didn't matter in the end as Scott looks so much like my side. I couldn't take the risk, you see. He was so like you in looks and he'd already fathered three girls. Kate had told me that he only had to look at her and she was pregnant."

"So how exactly did you broach this subject with my best friend? 'Hi Angus, it seems your oldest and dearest pal isn't getting the job done when it comes to impregnating me. You are tried and tested in the baby making department. Would you like a crack at it?'"

"Darren no, it wasn't like that. He knew that you felt you were letting me down. He knew how much you were hurting. He only agreed to help us because of you. He just wanted to help."

"To help himself to my wife, you mean?"

"No, it wasn't like that. He was only ever going to be a donor. The first time we met in a hotel, it certainly wasn't to be intimate in any way. We were going to use a turkey baster that was the plan. He would go off to the bathroom and have a shower and do his thing. He said being in the shower would help. I would go to the door and he'd pass me his stuff and he promised to stay out of the room until I was decent. We would have seen less of each other's bodies than we have seen on the beach or at the pool numerous times before. It did feel strange through and very sterile. I started to doubt if this was the way I wanted to create a child for us.

I stayed on the bed but I did slip my knickers off, so I could do it as quickly as possible when he was ready. He couldn't do it though, it didn't work. He came out wrapped in a towel. He needed something to excite him. I just couldn't waste this opportunity to get pregnant. You must see that?"

"No, I don't Caz, I really don't."

"So, I lifted my skirt and showed him. I'm so sorry but I needed it to work. He started to get hard, I could see it under the towel. I turned around and told him to put it in me. I thought that if we did it doggy style and I couldn't see his face I could pretend that it was you. So that would make it alright. But it wasn't alright Darren. It was awful. Quite the worst sexual experience of my life. He was smaller than you, of course. He was useless, he just didn't seem to know what to do. How he fathered three children I couldn't fathom. He had nothing on you. After he came he sat on the end of the bed and cried. I thought it was guilt about what we'd done, guilt about you. I put my arm around him to tell him it was OK and he kissed my cheek and said:

'That was the best, I never knew that it could be like that. As good as that. Thank you.'

As he sobbed in my arms, this big strong man, so like you, I just couldn't believe it. He thought that was good? He was thanking me for the worst bit of copulation ever.

I don't think that I've ever felt as sorry for anyone in my life. He had just risked his marriage, his family and your friendship to give us our family. I owed him, which was when I decided to thank him properly. I hadn't planned it, it just happened in the moment. It wasn't about you or me. It was something separate. I didn't love him or care about him like that. It was a mixture of being grateful and feeling overwhelmingly sorry for him. He had the family we wanted so desperately but he didn't have a love like ours. He really had no idea."

"So now we've moved on to a pity fuck?"

"I suppose you could say that if you were going to be coarse. I carried on cuddling him, rocking him and his head dropped down to my chest. I lifted out a breast and I suckled him Darren, like he was my baby. I was just comforting him really, that was all. It was only then that I began to teach him about sex, just like you'd taught me. The only difference was that you'd taught me about making love. This was just sex, the mechanics of good sex. There was no love, I promise you. Yes, I did things for him that he'd never experienced with Kate and I took pleasure in his pleasure, like you've done so often with me. It wasn't about me though, it was about him. I never ever did anything for him that I didn't do with you."

"How reassuring."

"I always made sure of it, whenever we met, I came home and made love to you. I couldn't bear the thought that you were missing out on anything. You always had the same on those days."

"But I didn't have the same, did I? I had sloppy seconds. He still had a faithful wife and I had someone else's whore."

I stopped as an awful thought occurred to me.

"You let me eat you out, knowing that you were filled with his stuff?"

"Darren, it wasn't like that. I was giving myself back to you, back to my husband."

"By feeding me your lover's spunk!"

I made it to the sink this time as I began to heave. As I was trying to get myself together, I splashed some cold water on my face and turned to ask her another question. It was then that I spotted Scott in the doorway with his phone in his hand. He put his finger to his lips and backed slowly out of the doorway. I wasn't sure how much of this he needed to hear, but I trusted him to do the right thing.

"Caz, I bet you had a right laugh at my expense, making me into a cuckold. Belittling me."

"No Darren, no, we never did that. We both loved you so much. In fact it was easier if we never talked about you when we met. I told Angus very early on that if ever asked for a comparison of sex with him or with you he would always fall short, so he never went there again."

"So Scott was right? This did carry on then? It wasn't just a one off?"

Caz looked at me

"Would it make a difference?"

I shook my head.

"Yes it carried on, though not for a long time. I got pregnant that first time. I felt it. I just knew. They say some women know and I knew. When I came home to you that night and we made love that felt different too. I properly relaxed and just enjoyed making love with my beautiful husband. I wasn't worrying about making a baby. It had been a long time since we'd made love without that being our ultimate goal. Just loving you Darren. You're the only man that I've ever loved. I have only ever made love with one man -- you."

"So why carry it on? Was it some sort of training exercise on your part?"

"Well, I had to. We wanted more children, so I had to keep trying with him. When Scott was about 8 months we met in Leeds. That's where we always met. Never the same place twice. We were careful. Angus could manage to get away then as things had settled down after Jake was born. Leeds was ideal as it was in the middle. About an hour and a half away from home for either of us, As long as we were lucky with the traffic, it was fine, we could get away with it. We did too until you had to mess with that damn family tree DNA rubbish."

"Don't even think about blaming me for being a slut. I don't deserve any of this. I have done everything I could to make you happy. Haven't I been a good loving husband and a good provider?"

"You've been a wonderful husband, the best. You've been my absolute world, but you couldn't give me the one thing I really wanted -- a child."

I drew my breath in with shock that she could actually say that out loud.

"I knew that was what you wanted too and I found a way to give that to you."

Shocked I just stared at her before starting to slowly clap and give her a round of applause.

"Oh well done on your solution. It's interesting then that I haven't got a house full of children, isn't it? The large family we always wanted. We carried on trying until you were 45, didn't we? Then we realised and accepted that it just wasn't going to happen. How long did you carry on trying with Angus?"

"A little bit before we stopped trying. A few months, perhaps?"

"Are you seriously trying to tell me that you carried on having sex with my supposed best friend for a decade? God, I must be the most stupid person in the world. A complete idiot. I've wasted my life. It was all a lie."

I collapsed into a nearby chair and Caz came as if to comfort me.

"Don't you come anywhere near me. You don't get to touch me."

"Darren, I love you. You haven't wasted anything. It was all real. How can you say it was a waste? All those wonderful memories, all that happiness. We've brought up a wonderful son together."

"No Caz, we've brought up your wonderful son together. I'm just lucky that he has chosen me to still be his father after all this."

I knew now that whatever happens he would always be my son, blood or not.

"So, you just went cold turkey from seeing Angus, did you? Gave up all this wonderful illicit sex after a decade?"

"It wasn't like that. As soon as I realised that there was little chance of getting pregnant at that age, I called a halt. It wasn't about the sex. It was never about the sex. I had you for that. We always had a wonderful love life, you know that."

"Well it's a vague memory nowadays Caz, but I thought it was. It obviously wasn't enough for you."

"Darren what I did with him just didn't compare, it just couldn't. It was different, it was separate to us. I won't lie, it did get better. After all I'd trained him up to do everything I liked. Even then, even at its best -- it still didn't compare in any way to you. It couldn't because he wasn't you. Suddenly I was older, I was made redundant and my new job would make it more difficult to get away with my new hours. I had started to get bored with it all anyway. I accepted that we just had Scott and that was the way it was meant to be. All that driving, for nothing."

"Sorry that your infidelity had become such a chore for you Caz. My heart bleeds. So how did Angus accept it ending? This sex that even when it was bad for you had him in tears because it was so good for him? He had crap sex life with his own wife but it sounds like he had a bloody marvellous one with mine, doesn't it?"

"You're twisting things Darren, It wasn't like that. Yes, he liked the sex, of course he did, and he's a man, isn't he? He was really doing it for us, don't you see? For us to have more children. He proved that when I told him it had to end. Yes he was disappointed but he accepted that it had to stop. He was sad, but he agreed."

"So that was it, was it?"

"Yes, apart from one more time. You remember his 50th. He was very down about things. He asked for just one more time. That was different though. I am truly ashamed of that. It felt dirty. I knew I was really being unfaithful that time. I'm truly sorry for that"

"Just sorry about that one time, his birthday treat? Oh what's another slice of a cut loaf, Caz? So how often did you meet during this decade of trying to give me more children?"

"Every few months, 3 or 4 times a year when I was at my most fertile."

I paused for a while to think about this.

"So you've fucked him around 40 times, probably more because you probably did it more than once on occasions?"

"You're making it sound cheap and tawdry"

"It was Caz. It was cheap. You made it cheap, like he made you cheap. Did it never strike you as odd that he comes in you twice that first time and his super seed gets you pregnant straight away? Then he fucks you 50 times or so when you are at your most fertile and it never happens again?"

"Well, I presumed that it was me and I never gave up hope that it would work with him or you"

"Of thanks for remembering me in this baby making bonanza. Yes, I could have still got you pregnant. Maybe it was you? Sadly Caz I have some shocking news for you too. Oh it doesn't compare with you ripping my whole life apart but you will find it interesting. Sadly Caz, you didn't have any hope of getting pregnant again with Angus. Just before Jake was born he had a vasectomy. He only told me. I actually took him and picked him up. He begged me not to tell anyone. I actually felt bad about keeping a secret from you, but as I was sure that it didn't affect you in anyway, loyalty to my friend took precedence for once. Even Kate didn't know. He knew that it wouldn't sit well with her church beliefs. He was going to have 4 children under 6. He just couldn't risk anymore children."

"No!" screamed Caz.

"So he wasn't trying to give us anymore children. He was merely shagging a willing, stupid bitch. A cheap whore for him then, who only cost the price of a hotel room? I presume he did pay? I bet he got some real internet bargains on those budget rooms too?" I mused.

I carried on as she flinched.

"A bitch who thought so little of her marriage vows. So little of the husband who apparently was her world, that she lied and deceived him for 21 years? You killed that love the first time you met him in that hotel room, even before you slept with him. You deceived me, broke the trust between us. What you did after that and carried on doing was pure evil. If that's your idea of love. You can keep it."

Caz looked at me stunned as if the thought that her finally telling the truth would rid her of any previous wrongdoing and lead to her being forgiven. I couldn't believe that this woman I had loved and respected could be so stupid and have shown so little value to what she had done to me and to our family.

"You were unfaithful to me because of what you wanted and needed. It was nothing to do with me. You were having your ego fed by someone who thought you were some sort of sex guru. Don't tell me that you carried on to try and get pregnant. I think you got off on the secrecy, the lies and making a fool out of me. I will never forgive you Caz. Never. Get out of my sight -- I don't want to look at you."

As she turned she finally saw Scott standing in the doorway.

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know that my mother is a selfish bitch."

"Scott please," she whimpered.

"No, before you go, you might as well hear this. I've been to see your lover today. I set off very early, I didn't expect to be this long. I didn't think it was fair that he could ruin our family and get away with his being OK. I also wanted to tell him that I would never see him again and make sure that he knew that I had one father and his name was Darren. He seemed a little shocked to see me arriving at breakfast time. He was worried that it was bad news. Well, it was for him. By the way Mum, Aunty Kate is very anxious to speak to you. She seems quite cross with you. That was before she knew the full story too. Thankfully she'll be able to listen to most of your confession to Dad as I thought it would be wise to record it for her as you spoke. I felt sure that she would want to listen too."

Caz just looked stunned as Scott carried on with his tirade.

"At least you were honest eventually. Angus decided to try and lie. Apparently I was made with a syringe and he was only trying to help. No sex involved at all. I told Aunty Kate that I didn't think that was entirely truthful. Rhian seemed the most upset. It turns out she's had a massive crush on me for years and if I'm honest I felt the same. Thank goodness we never acted on it. You could have added allowing incest to your sins mother."

He turned to me then,

"Dad, I also took the liberty of hitting your ex best friend rather hard in the face. Just one hit but I did it for you dad. I knew that you couldn't risk an assault charge and losing your job. I think I'm safe as he wouldn't dare report me, particularly as I'm sure Aunt Kate did far more damage when she kneed him in the balls."

He turned back to his mother.

"Are you still here? At least you've got somewhere to sleep tonight. Angus will probably be in a B and B by now. Kate threw him out. I've given her your address at the flat. I'd expect a visit from her."

I knew that I could never get past the betrayal. She was always on my team, we were a unit and it broke my heart to realise that she hadn't been on my side. The sex part of the affair was bad and enough to end us, but what really broke me was the thought of him holding her, stroking her hair, telling her that she was beautiful. The affectionate and intimate moments that I thought were only part of us, which were part of the special magic that only we shared. It was these thoughts that kept me awake at night over the next few weeks as I began to face my new reality. I felt that I would never see myself as good enough again. She chose someone else to give her the precious gift that I was so anxious to give her, but she was too selfish to give me time.

I had trusted her with my life and the loss of that trust had changed me in ways I could never imagine. When I thought about them being together so many times, it made me think how little we had been together in the last few years. Apparently, Caz had decided that her sex life was finished. She's made that decision that so many others without thinking about my needs or feeling in the scenario. It was a ridiculous thought but I kept thinking that if her sex life and desire would eventually run out, what a pity she had wasted so much of it on him. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.

I suppose that you are wondering what I did about my erstwhile friend? I didn't do anything for about 6 weeks. I spoke to Kate and even met up when she came over to see me, but I knew that if Angus approached me I wouldn't be responsible for my actions. He was blocked on everything. I knew that like me Kate had filed for divorce. I also knew that none of his children were talking to him. The girls were angry enough but Jake was the worst. He's only spoken to his father once and that was to tell him that he wished that I was his father. I'm sure that must have hurt. Good. Each of the children had contacted me in some way to check that I was alright. I was worried about Rhian as she was taking it the hardest, I think her feelings for Scott were stronger than she made out and finding out they shared DNA shocked and appalled her.

Kate and I had a long talk. She had loved Angus but found him hard work. She told me that she felt like he was another child to look after and his selfishness at home in private was shocking. She felt he wasn't supportive as a father and only really made an effort when others were around, particularly me and Caz. We both agreed that they had both done a very good job of fooling us and neither of us had any inclination that anything was going on. But why should we? We were both faithful spouses albeit me more happy than her. We trusted them and that was the main thing. They used our love, trust and belief in them against us. Kate and I will continue to be friends and I have to say that she seemed more relaxed without the pressure of Angus. I hoped at this point was that I would always be in her and her children's lives.