A Worthy Affair - Chapter One

A/N:  I just get so sick of Gleggie. I love writing Maggie, I love writing Daryl, so I’m going to write them together for once.

This is a re-write, and hopefully improved version, of the original story.

…

Maggie Greene wanted to cheat on her husband.

The idea to commit adultery actually came from the memory of a dear friend: Toni Radnor. Maggie remembered Toni as she lay staring up at the ceiling of the guard tower. She sometimes spent the night when she and Glenn had the entire watch duty to split between them, or when she just wanted to be outside where the air was fresh and cool.

The last time Maggie saw Toni was that day outside the pharmacy in town. A Greyhound bus was taking survivors to Atlanta, free of charge, and Toni stood in the line with her belly just starting to show her pregnancy, and a black eye. The baby, however, hadn’t belonged to Toni’s husband, but her lover.

“Why did you cheat on Kyle?” Maggie had asked, just days prior to the evacuation. “I thought you were happy.”

“We were happy. Maybe too happy,” Toni had answered. Her brown skin was marred by that ugly black eye and Maggie had stared at her in confusion.

“ Too happy? How does that work?”

“I got bored,” Toni said, wiping at the tears spilling down her face. “We lived the American Dream routine. We both worked, we came home. We had sex under the covers in the dark a couple of times a week and that was it. Then Gerry came along and…Everything in my life was centered around Kyle, Maggie. Everything. There was nothing that was mine. I don’t mean hobbies or anything fun. There was just nothing that was exciting.”

“Your marriage getting stale was a good reason to cheat?” Maggie asked, incredulous and angry.

Toni nodded, used to everyone’s anger, even when it came from friends and family. “Sounds awful, I know, but I don’t regret one single moment of my time with Gerry. It was something that was just mine, until it wasn’t. It doesn’t change the fact that I love Kyle. He’s my world, still, and I never wanted to hurt him. I just needed something that he couldn’t provide.”

For the first time since that talk Maggie fully understood what Toni had meant. Her marriage to Glenn was perfect. Too perfect. Everything in her life revolved around Glenn and she was, she realized, tired of it. Unlike Toni, Maggie didn’t have a whole world full of men to choose from to engage in an affair. Her world was very small, made up of the boundaries of the prison. There wasn’t anyone inside the boundaries of that world that she’d trust to keep his mouth shut if she approached him. Not that she would. She just liked the idea of something exciting. Something that was her own.

As she lay thinking about what it would be like to have a lover, to have a secret, the doors to the tower opened and Glenn came in, as she knew he would. It was habit to have sex at this time of the morning, when the sky was beginning to lighten with the first rays of dawn. That was their sex life. Habit. Boring. Predictable. It didn’t matter if he wanted to suddenly take her in their cell, or go to the administration offices on a whim. It was still Glenn. It was still the same moves, the same touches and kisses that could bring her to orgasm, but all by rote.

She almost wished he’d be the one to have the affair. He could cheat on her with one of the women at the prison. She’d like to know about it, find out but keep it to herself that she knew. Then she’d know he had something that was just his. As fucked up as that was, it was the way she felt.

Maggie laid on her back, her knees up, as was customary, while Glenn fucked her. She’d long ago stopped moaning and panting with excitement. He’d long ago stopped caring.

…

Papers were strewn all over the administration building. With nothing else to do Maggie decided to be productive and clean it up. Some of the council thought it would be a good idea to use the offices as private rooms and leave the cells to the newcomers, and Maggie agreed. She just wished the building was closer to the general population. If an emergency arose it would take the leaders a lot longer to get to it than it would if they stayed in the cell blocks.

“I might take one of these,” Daryl Dixon said, surprising her when he came into the office she was working on. He looked around it with a critical eye, perhaps imagining what it would be like to enjoy real privacy.

“It’d make a nice apartment. It's tiny but still bigger than what you got now,” Maggie agreed. “This was the warden’s office, so it’s the biggest one. The reception area could be a living room. The back of the office could be the bedroom.”

“You and Glenn ain’t taking it?” he asked.

Maggie shook her head. “Nah. There could be an emergency and I’d be too far off for my comfort. Why don’t you take it? I know you hate sleeping in a cage.”

Daryl inched into the room and looked everything over. As he was standing there, he lifted one arm to scratch at his chin whiskers, and Maggie’s eyes wandered over his muscles. Daryl Dixon was a good-looking man. He was loyal, brave, and on top of that he had arms to die for. His shoulders were the most unique she’d ever seen on a man, so broad and strong. He was hairy, too, like a man should be. He had tattoos and scars and he was just fucking hot.

His only problem was hygiene. Bathing wasn’t a priority for Daryl Dixon. She thought she could be into him if he’d take advantage of the soap and water and deodorant they had on a regular basis.

“Daryl, are you a sensitive man?”

“Nope,” he said, turning his attention to her.

She knew, in some ways, he was lying. He was one of the most sensitive men she knew.

“You got somethin’ to say, spit it out,” he said. He didn’t sound hostile, just curious.

“You could have a woman if you bathed more often,” she said, as gently add she could.

Daryl snorted. “Who says I want a woman and all that trouble?”

“Okay,” she said, and decided to joke to lighten the mood. “You could have a man if you bathed more often.”

Daryl  looked genuinely shocked. “I don’t want no man!”

Maggie giggled now, unable to help herself. “Just a thought. A haircut wouldn’t kill you either.”

She bumped his arm, trying to be nice, and then went back to work. She saw him lift that arm to sniff at his armpit. Then he shrugged and started pulling the receptionists ugly, gray metal desk out of the room.

Maggie considered apologizing. Daryl didn't smell that bad. In fact he looked worse than he smelled and she was worried she'd hurt his feelings. She searched him out to say sorry when she found him talking to Rick and Carol by the grill. He’d changed clothes, except for that dirty vest he always wore, the one with the wings, and there was a towel draped over those strong, broad shoulders. His hair was still wet from the shower and he looked squeaky clean.

He looked, Maggie thought, wonderfully fuckable.

…

Daryl smelled fresh from the shower the next day, too, when he joined Maggie to work on cleaning out the old warden’s office. They kept the shelves in place but they loaded all of the furniture, metal, outdated stuff, out.

“I saw a bed store in town,” Daryl said. “The mattresses were still wrapped in plastic. Wasn’t nothin’ wrong with them neither. I don’t think. They was dry, no water on the floor. Maybe mold didn’t grow in ‘em.”

“Why don’t we take the truck out and get a bed for you? I can pick up a mattress for Glenn and me, too,” she suggested.

Daryl nodded as he swept the floor.

“You smell awesome,” Maggie commented later, coming to sit beside him to drink a bottle of water. He was taking a smoke break. “Can I?”

Daryl looked mildly surprised as he passed her the cigarette.  He looked even more surprised when she didn’t cough and choke and sputter.

“You look like you done that before,” he said.

“I used to smoke a pack a day. I quit the year before you guys came to the farm. Good thing. Not like I can run out and buy them whenever I want.”

“Ah,” he shrugged. “These things is all over the place. Always stale, though.”

They shared the cigarette. Maggie closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of the nicotine rushing through her veins. It was a full body high, one she felt from her head to her toes.

“Feels good, don’t it?” asked Daryl.

Maggie swallowed hard. She knew full well Daryl had only been innocently talking about the nicotine rush but he had a voice that could be really deep and sexy, and the words themselves were so suggestive, considering she’d had fucking him on her mind a lot lately. Now that he was cleaned up, smelling fresh and clean, she took the time to indulge in the fantasy of what exactly was under Daryl's clothes.

“Feels real good,” she answered, intentionally making her voice husky.

Daryl only nodded, though, looking straight across the room. He wasn’t at all uncomfortable because sex wasn’t even on his mind. She knew when a man was flirting and Daryl Dixon just wasn’t. Why would he? She was a married woman after all. Wife of one of his friends. She wasn’t on the market. Even if she was she thought he wouldn’t come on to her, or any woman for that matter. He didn’t seem interested in landing himself in a relationship, or even sex with no strings.

Perhaps he thought he wasn’t worthy of a woman’s love. She’d learned in school that abuse survivors had a hard time making a connection with other people. They assumed nobody would want them, or see them as worthy, because they had such low opinions of themselves.

“A lot of things feel good,” she said, in that same tone of voice, but it went over Daryl's head. He just wasn't picking up what she was trying to lay down.

This time, to get her point across, Maggie laid a hand on the inside of his left thigh and squeezed. It was a wild, crazy, impulsive move that she should have been ashamed of but she wasn’t. Just cleaning this place out with Daryl and knowing that nobody else even knew they were working on it had been exciting for her. She had a project that she didn’t have to explain or let other people in on. If a project was this exciting, how much more exciting would an affair be? How much more satisfying would it be?

Daryl went still. He was still as a statue while he stared at the wall opposite them and allowed his cigarette to burn. He made no move to do anything so she pulled her hand a bit higher, almost brushing against his balls. That’s when he moved. He stood up and turned to face her.

“What the hell, Maggie?” he asked, accusatory, angry. “You’re Glenn’s woman.”

She stood and faced him. “I know,” she said, staring him in the eye. “I know, but…”

“Glenn…” he said, unsure how to give voice to his thoughts, to his feelings, to his obvious disappointment in her. He made her think of a child then, disappointed to learn that someone he admired was only human and made mistakes, and wasn't perfect.

“I know,” she said again, smiling sadly. “I love him. He’s my world and I wouldn’t hurt him for anything.”

“Then why?”

“It’s hard to explain if you’ve never been there. I’m bored. I’m tired. I’m lonely. I just…I need something else. Something that’s just mine.”

He didn’t understand. She wasn't surprised. Being honest, it was selfish and wrong and didn't make sense to her, completely, either.

“He’s not enough no matter how much I love him. I want something new. I need something, a secret, something that’s happy and makes me feel good that’s all mine.”

After a few tense moments of staring at her, Daryl backed away. “I gotta go.”

“Daryl, wait! I’m sorry!”

He didn’t wait. He just kept going and she wasn’t sure he’d ever come back. She knew he wouldn’t tell Glenn. Daryl wasn’t that type, the one to go blabbing knowing it would hurt the person he was blabbing to. Still, she wished she could make him understand because Maggie knew one thing: She wanted to have an affair. She wanted a secret, and Daryl was the secret she wanted to keep.

Next