[M4F] [Greed 4 Grace] Your boyfriend is responsive, loving and kind. He’s supportive and would basically be perfect if he wasn’t for one teeny tiny little red flag: He cheats on you CONSTANTLY. The worst part is that he told you that he would… At least he’s always been honest?
“I'm a serial cheater" might not be exactly what one would want to hear in the conversation that we use to establish the relationship, but there was no mistaking what my reply had been. I seemed a bit nervous to share that tidbit with you, and it clearly had weighed on me for quite a while. It was hard to admit that I was so consistent at self-sabotaging relationships, but it was true. In every single one of them, no matter how good of a thing it was... I did something behind my partner's back and thing unraveled from there. Honesty always had its price.
The two of us had been dating for close to two months, but there was never any real discussion on what *exactly* the two of us were looking for. I had stayed over at your place maybe a half dozen times, and you had done the same. I met your friends, and you met mine. People had even described us as a couple while we were out together.
Still, that didn't change the fact that when you asked for me to make a commitment, I had replied with four words that would scare most other women away. I admitted that I was being blunt, but also stressed that this was the most honest thing that I could say. You wanted a boyfriend, and I seemed to be the ideal candidate until I let that bombshell drop. I told you that I still wanted to keep seeing you, but knew that what I had just shared might put an end to things. "It's not a question of *if*, but **when**." I told you as you tried to ask about things being different this time. I would be your boyfriend, but I would not necessarily be ***yours***.
It took a week before we spoke again after that conversation. We caught up, we discussed where things stood, and you made a comment that I wasn't ready for: You still wanted to see me. Over the last two months, I had made you happier than any boyfriend you had had before ever did: The cute dates, the sweet and thoughtful gestures of affection, the fits of laughter and every single warm smile that the two of us shared. You weren't ready to give that up. What made the waters murky was what I felt obliged to remind you: "I promise you that I **will** cheat. It's just something that happens. Whether I'm drunk, or stressed or just need a bit of chaos in my life... I don't always plan it, but it just *happens*.
The rest of the conversation wasn't easy for either of us. We wanted the same thing, but it was clear that there was always going to be something that made the relationship different and hard to navigate. The waters weren't just murky, but rocky and wild. But at the end of the night, we held each other by the hand, and took the plunge.
A year later, our life together seemed normal. We had date nights, we had fights and we had all of the normal parts of a relationship. I treated you well, and always was looking for new ways to make you happy. But there was always a shadowy presence looming over us as a pair. When we saw your friends, you would notice my eyes lingering on them as they walked by. When I worked late you had to wonder if I was actually in my office. Hell, when she visited, you couldn't account for your sister or I for about five hours while you were handing errands on a Saturday.
You never caught me, but you could tell that it was happening. I asked for new things in bed. I had new talents. You could tell I was regularly with someone else, but it was never clear who. Was it someone you knew? Was it your roommate? Your best friend? More than one person? The lack of evidence was what really seemed to sit with you. No condom wrappers, no stray hairs that weren't yours. I *practiced* this. You didn't have a single sign of what I was doing but you knew it was happening. It lived in your head, rent-free every time I kissed you, squeezed your hand in mine or told you that I loved you.
Ultimately, you decided to go along with it. I might have had a couple flings behind your back, or I might have three other girls I was consistently hiding from you. The good outweighed the bad, and the bad was something you could ignore if you really tried. Sure I cheated, but it was all out of sight, out of mind. If your friends knew, they didn't bring it up. My phone was never hidden from you, but you never felt the need to check my messages. But what if you did...? The thought stuck in your mind. You could easily figure out exactly how much I cheated just by looking through my unlocked phone. For a long time, you waffled back and forth before you made your decision: You had to know just how much I cheated.
Today was the day. I was in the shower and you heard my phone buzz next to you on the couch. Normally you would leave it, for me to check but today you would figure it all out. Who was texting me? It might just be work. Maybe it all wasn't so bad. Perhaps I had only cheated a few times and it was all in your head. Picking up my phone and unlocking it, you scroll to my recent messages to see exactly what all I've been doing behind your back.
It was worse than you could have ever imagined. I had been trading nudes with maybe a half dozen girls in the last week. I had a group message that looked like I was coordinating a threesome. My Snapchat was active and the messages ranged from the tame "I can't wait to see you again" to the fiery "You wanna fuck my pretty li'l mouth, Daddy? I want that too." The more that you scrolled, the more you realized that I seemed to ramp up my cheating as our relationship grew. But it was clear it had been going on since day one. But when we decided to try this relationship, that long conversation we had? You promised that you'd accept the transgressions so long as I upheld the rest of our relationship. *You* had promised *me* that you could forgive the cheating, no matter how much it happened...
There was something, however, that really made your heart sink. It wasn't the photo. It wasn't the messages. It was who sent it to me. In that moment everything was real, and the gravity of everything I had done while we were together landed on your shoulders. The icing on the cake? I was stepping out of the shower as you set my phone back down, chilled to your core. I repeat myself, and you can finally make sense of what I had to say:
"Hey babe. There's still some hot water left. Feel like joining me?"
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I'm looking for partners who can write well and have fun while doing so. Obviously there might need to be some suspension of disbelief. While I want to build a really great story, I know that not everyone will be able to reply immediately or even every day. If you like what you've read, please PM me and keep your eyes open for other prompts. When you do message me, please don't just pick up where I left off. Introduce yourself so we can figure out where things go. This is just meant to get the ball rolling and isn't meant to be something we're absolutely stuck on.