GRIM REALITY

by Vandemonium1

I think this is an original story line. Having not read every single story on Literotica I may be wrong. If I am wrong, I apologise in advance.

I know this, my first submission, is a bit long, so in the interests of saving time I’ll give a small summary. You can then decide whether or not to go to the effort of reading it.

It is a psychological thriller, based on fact. There is a bit of cheating, a lot of tension, a lot of realism, a lot of pragmatism, very little sex, and a devastating but non-violent BTB scene at the end. Unlike some writers on Literotica, it seems, I have read it several times and corrected grammar and syntax errors. Please Note: I use UK English.

Enjoy.

Thank you SW_MO_Hermit for the inspiration for this story. His “A Smart Set of Cheaters” published on Literotica is in my top three list. If you haven’t read it yet do yourselves a favour.

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-smart-set-of-cheaters

GRIM REALITY

I SAT IN OUR study at home and realised I had a problem. Where was that damned bit of paper? I had been sitting right here last Tuesday night finishing the list that had taken me several months. So where the fuck was it now? A second clearing of the desk, looking in the drawers, looking behind and under the desk revealed nothing. Ah, revelation, check the bin……………. empty. I thought back to Tuesday. I’m sure it wasn’t empty then. Friday was my wife’s housework day. Sorry, Dave, old son, but you’re going to have to scrounge through the recycle trash bin.

My Story

Hi, my name is Dave and at the time of this story I am forty-one years old. I grew up in a small mining town and for all you readers that had a similar childhood, you may recognise my symptoms. You see in my town it was not socially acceptable to be intelligent and I was. Smart kids were bullied and generally put through a living hell. So I learned to hide it. The secret was to not use big words and talk just like everyone else.

I think it came as a surprise to a few people when I finished high school class valedictorian in my class of about one hundred. Too late though suckers. I left town to go to college and was never going back. I was lucky that my parents broke the mold of their blue collar background and actually encouraged and supported my ambitions. Seven years later I graduated with honours in Mining Engineering and started my career.

I didn’t realise at the time but ten years of primary school had conditioned me to still hide my intelligence. After a while I discovered it was a professional advantage. Thinking I was average intelligence lured people into a false sense of superiority until a conflict came, at which time I went for bust and won nine times out of ten. They simply underestimated me.

You’re probably thinking this makes me sound arrogant and manipulative but you’re wrong. At the time of this story I am a successful mine manager pulling down a healthy six figure salary with very generous bonuses. The reason for the latter was that I had taken over a struggling, break-even mine and turned it around so that it was a money factory. I had done this my way. With my blue collar background I had molded the entire workforce into a friendly team who shared in the mine’s financial success. Everyone was happy and getting richer.

Eight years into my career I had met Tracey, swept her off her feet and married her. At the time of this story Tracey had given me two wonderful sons who are six and eight years old. They are the centre of my universe and my reason for life.

I know I am different to other guys. Where they are attracted to the physical things about women, big boobs, nice butts etc, my first attraction is to their minds. If they aren’t intelligent, I’m not interested. How do you judge intelligence? Easy. It’s all in the eyes. One glance in the eyes tells the whole story. Tracey was very intelligent. The perfectly shaped boobs and nice tight ass on a petite 5’ 6” frame, topped by a pretty face were a pure bonus.

Tracey’s Story

My dear wife and soul mate had a similar background to me. Her tradesman father and overbearing stay at home mother had provided for her well with only one character flaw. Her mother has pretty much destroyed her confidence. Her mother was a bully plain and simple. Her father was pretty much a silent partner. What words he could get in were shot down. Tracey was thus very shy, unconfident and had a woeful self body image. This was unjustified and I liked her body just fine. I had spent our courtship and married life to now trying to improve both her confidence and body image by congratulating her on her successes and worshipping her body. It was like trying to paddle a canoe against a very strong current. All married guys know this. Husbandly compliments just don’t carry much weight.

Her father died just after we started going out, of liver cancer. Her mother followed just two years ago with cancer of the everything.

Unlike my parents, Tracey’s hadn’t encouraged her intelligence and after high school she did a secretarial course. I met her when she was the receptionist/secretary of the mine I was working at as the Undermanager. Within two weeks we were an item. God, I loved and respected that girl.

Our Story

Four years and two different mines later we were married and had our first son. Making all decisions jointly we decided to move somewhere more civilised for raising our family. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mining industry. It is rewarding and exciting but why do they put the mines in the middle of the biggest desert around. I’d lived in some real shit holes. We managed to find one twenty five minutes’ drive from a regional centre of 100,000 people. It was scenic and a thoroughly nice place to live. We both loved it. The people were friendly and welcoming and Tracey soon had a good support group of other mothers that met either together or in small groups almost daily.

Now I know I’m going to piss a few people off with my next statement but hey, one of the things people like about me is my directness.

The job description of ‘mother’, is the highest rank in society as far as I am concerned. Higher than president, general, secretary general of the United Nations and every other title on earth. We are here to raise physically and mentally healthy kids. While I recognise the need for both parents to work to put food on the table in some situations, those other situations where both parents of babies work to further their careers or to be able to afford a lifestyle they don’t need, I just hold in contempt. One of you should stay at home and be a parent. It’s what the kid needs.

Luckily Tracey agrees and until our youngest son, who was born shortly after our last move, started school, she was happy to be a stay at home mum.

The problem for an intelligent person being a full time parent is that it isn’t the most intellectually stimulating job in the world. Recognising this, I did whatever I could to keep this stimulation up. Our talks at night after the lads were in bed were precious to us. I gave her as much time away from the boys, when I wasn’t working as she wanted. Girl’s nights out were a fortnightly occurrence at least. I looked after the lads while she did adult education courses at night or on weekends and we got baby sitters and went out together about monthly.

Life was good and I was happy with my soul mate and with every other aspect of my life.

The first major seed of discord started very innocently. After the lads were in bed one night we were watching TV when they announced that they were doing an IQ test. Over the next hour and a half they were going to ask the questions and at the end invite people to email or text in their results. It was sort of a national IQ census. They made people aware that as these tests are time related, all writing of answers should stop at the end of the quiz. The last half hour of the show was the answers and how to work out the score. Tracey and I both agreed it would be fun and sat down together to do the test.

At the end, I had a score of 136 and Tracey was 124. Both made sense to me but Tracey wouldn’t accept the results and said the test was faulty. She got quite heated about it and refused to text the results off. I was bemused to say the least.

The next night, at the same time, she announced that she had found another IQ test on line and had done it that day and had got a score of 132. She wanted me to do it. I sat on the couch next to her with my laptop and scored 141. Tracey was visibly agitated. Over the next month she found and we did about six others. The results were generally the same, me about 5-15 points ahead of her. She wouldn’t tell me why this was significant to her or why it upset her.

I was going through a busy patch at work and didn’t have the time or energy to give it much thought. One weekend though I forced myself to take the time to think about it. I instinctively knew it was important. I couldn’t immediately think of any reason for her rancour and it was bothering me. I have always been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle and through his character Sherlock Holmes I learned his method of battling problems with no clear solution. “Discount the impossible. Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. One improbable solution, the only one I could think of, was that Tracey thought she was smarter than me and when the tests showed otherwise, she resented it. Was she harbouring resentment that she, the smarter one, had been a secretary while I was the successful professional?

Once I figured out the problem, the solution was clear. On our next snuggle night I related the story of my childhood ‘intelligence hiding’ behaviour.

I came completely clean with her and apologised that it appeared that my behaviour had become so ingrained that I seemed to have even fooled her. She seemed to take it very well and positively even to the point of saying she could understand it. It gelled with her school life experience as well. In a way, an intelligent girl was even more socially unacceptable in small towns than a smart boy. A very sad indictment on the ethics and morals of our formative years.

I thought that heart to heart had solved that problem. I was wrong. I didn’t realise till much later that from that day on she subtly put more effort into winning our arguments than before.

With our youngest, Mick, was off to school, Tracey had six hours a day to fill. Like a good partnership we discussed her options. She wanted to go back to work but I suggested something else. With such a good brain, she could go back to school. In the end we agreed on both. She enrolled in a distance education Naturopathy course and looked around for a part time secretarial job. I would look after the kids at nights so she could study at home. I would even help out with shopping, housework and cooking.

She quickly got a part time job as secretary to an attorney. It was five days a week and she started every day after dropping the kids at school. Her boss was an old dude, near the end of his career who was on the wind down. He only worked short hours and took a limited number of cases. There were only the three of them in the office, the third being a 40 something married paralegal lady with whom Tracey quickly became firm friends. The office was an old house about twenty minutes’ drive from home. With a small number of cases, the work was very cyclical. With no big case on Tracey might only work three hours a day. With a big case on the go she would work up to the time she had to leave to pick up the kids from school. One or two days a month she was asked if she could stay longer to help. She was happy to oblige and if a phone call to me didn’t result in me coming home early then one to Mary, the widower next door who doubled as our baby sitter fixed that. On the rare occasion she wasn’t available then Tracey reluctantly turned the overtime down.

Everyone was happy. Tracey was stimulated and busy, the girl’s nights continued and our monthly date nights remained unchanged. Apart from our date nights, I didn’t have much social interaction. I was either working or spending my time with Tracy and the kids. No outside hobbies, poker nights, bowling. Nothing. That suited me, I had all I needed and wanted.

It is six months after Tracey started work again. In the next hour my life is going to detour down a bizarre path. I just didn’t know it yet.

She was working late. I had picked up the lads taken them home and started dinner. I was happy to be home early. All day I had the feeling like I’d left the notebook on the study desk last night. The notebook contained a loose page with the results of my project and was for my eyes only. Once home, I’d found the notebook but the list was gone.

I went out to the garage, swallowed my pride and emptied the recycle bin out on the floor. I put everything non-papery back in the bin then started sorting through the paper. No joy in the loose paper, what about the balled up discarded stuff. I know for a fact that I hadn’t scrunched my list up but was it possible Tracey had found it? Woops! If she had, it would take some explaining. I had hidden the list in the back of one of the five spare note pads in the desk drawer and not the one on the top of the pile either.

I started un-scrunching the balls of paper still on the garage floor. There were only six. The second one started my slide to a new, much less idyllic life. I was almost ready to dismiss it, as it was in Tracey’s handwriting, when I noticed the underlined heading. ‘Literotica’.

I smoothed the page and read what was obviously a list. In her neat writing was.

Photo.

Voice recorder in car.

Home early, caught in act.

Phone call overheard.

Text message on cell phone.

Sleep talking.

Bluffed into giving something away, either admission or body language.

Seen in public.

Ratted on by friend.

Car seen at motel.

Eye contact with other person in public.

Hidden letters/presents.

Laundry.

By this stage I knew what the list was. It was a list from the Literotica stories. A website of basically erotic stories, of how spouses had been caught cheating. Tracey doesn’t trust me I thought. It was a bit of a blow but not huge. I had my own trust issues, why shouldn’t Tracey.

I had got her into Literotica. When she started studying at the start of the year, I would use some of my time after the kids were in bed to read some of the stories on my laptop. I made no secret of it and often told Tracey if I found a particularly stimulating story. I was secretly looking for ideas on how to improve our sex life. I told her the juicy bits to try to fire her up. She started reading some as well. It must have looked real funny to see us both lying in bed, side by side each reading porn. It worked and I’d had fewer knock backs in the last two months.

Another thing I did was note what stories she spent a lot of time reading then read them myself, looking for clues on what excited her. Again I was looking for clues on how to improve our love life. She would read a story and if she liked it, look at other stories by the same author. I noticed she spent quite a bit of time on the stories of SW_MO_HERMIT and read one called ‘A Smart Set of Cheaters’ through twice. I read it two days later but couldn’t see anything in it that could possibly be of use. I read Hermits other stuff then moved on.

One night she came to bed after studying and snuggled up to me, reading the screen of my laptop.

 “The White Van, what’s that all about?” she asked.

I told her it was a story about a guy who caught his wife cheating and made her pay dearly.

 “Why are you reading stuff like that?” she asked.

I replied by asking if she had ever been cheated on and she said no. I said I had been and described how devastated I had been. I explained that by reading other peoples revenge stories it eased my lingering memories.

I had never told her about being cheated on and she asked me if I minded telling her the details. I did mind, it still hurt after all these years, but we shared everything.

I had met Cindy while in my last year of university in another state. She lived in the residential college next door doing her second year of an art degree. We immediately clicked and became inseparable. We started having sex very shortly after that but had to keep it very secret. Despite having a European name, Cindy was a second generation removed, but full blooded Chinese with very strict parents. Any word getting back to her parents and she would have been removed from the residency. I didn’t mention to Tracey that we had fucked like rabbits all year and it was the best sex I ever had. The next year I moved back to my home state to work, Cindy stayed behind and finished her final year and we kept up a successful long distance relationship. I flew up about once a month to see her.

After our second year she came and stayed with me for the summer and I proposed. My brand new fiancé then moved three hours down the road to the state capital to do a one year Diploma of Education to become a teacher. With a BA, opportunities for employment in a small mining town were nil. They were however, screaming out for teachers.

She stayed at my brother’s house in the state capital but he was away most of the year on a dig. Every weekend I would drive down or she would drive up. Being Chinese, with a strong work ethic, she also worked as a waitress in the local casino. We had also got to know a divorcee called Joe who lived up the road from my brothers. One week while on the phone talking about the next weekend she said she had to work on Saturday and that Joe had asked her to escort him to his company’s annual dinner on Friday. Being a trustful guy I agreed and said I would come down Saturday morning rather than Friday night. I’m still slightly embarrassed at what a naïve fool I was at that age.

That is what happened. We spent Saturday together until she went to work. She usually worked 5PM to 9PM but if they were busy she might be asked to work till midnight. At 10PM she wasn’t home and I was battling to stay awake. I decided to walk to Joe’s place just for the exercise. It was about two minutes to the end of the street then up a 60m dirt driveway to Joe’s place. When I approached his house I was shocked. There in front of his house was the Alpha I had bought Cindy. There seemed to be a bit of a party going on in the house. I couldn’t approach too close as there were continually people standing on the porch smoking.

I was still confused as hell half an hour later when Cindy and Joe came out and walked to the car. I was hiding behind a wall very close to her car, I couldn’t see them but could hear clearly.

I heard her say, “Why do you keep trying to kiss me?”

 He mumbled something about how pretty she was. There was silence for a while. I peered over the wall. They were having a full on tongue tango. I was stunned. I immediately went into Crisis Mode. This was a mode I was very familiar with. Some people, in a crisis, panic. I went into ‘the mode’. Cold, clinical, decisive and calculating. I could even turn my emotions almost off with effort. It was a characteristic that had served my career well. People who are familiar with the mining industry know just how quickly harmless situations can degenerate into bedlam. Military personnel on active service and airline pilots should be familiar with it.

After a minute they broke and he asked when he could see her again. Crunch time. Before she could answer, he invited her over after dinner the next night. All three participants in this private charade knew full well I would be gone back to my town the following evening but my name wasn’t mentioned. Her behaviour to this point was forgivable but I would give her all the rope she needed to hang herself.

Shelving the big issue, my mind turned to the immediate problem. How to get home before her. Luckily she realised she had left her purse in his house and they went back to get it. It was in bed, pretending to be asleep when she got there. I won’t relate in as much detail the rest the rest of the story I told Tracey but in essence. I pretended to leave late the next afternoon just on nightfall, then returned to hide in the vacant block across the road until she drove to Joe’s place. I followed her on foot then watched through the window until they’d finished talking and foreplay on the couch and disappeared into the bedroom. Breaking into the house through an open window I removed her copies of my debit card, MasterCard, car key and my brother’s house key from her purse. As an afterthought I removed all the cash from her wallet as compensation for my understanding and effort. I then paused with the sounds of their sex stripping away my soul. I wondered if she was going to do her speciality. She loved blowing cocks. She had a special party piece. While on her knees, she would take your cock out of her mouth and in a sweet voice say, “Are you going to cum in my mouth?” It would make a two day old corpse start to drool. I left the house, unlocked her car and with the engine off backed it down to the bitumen, started the engine and drove it to my brother’s house. I locked it in the shed after removing her personal items. I then cleared all her stuff out of the house and threw it all down the back steps.

Despite the late hour, I used my brother’s phone to ring her mom and explained my side of the story and told her she would need to help their daughter out getting home. I locked the doors and went home.

The three times Cindy tried to call after that I hung up on her. I did accept a phone call from her dad apologising for his daughter’s behaviour. I never saw or heard from the bitch again.

Tracey could tell from the emotion in my voice that I was still deeply affected by this episode and knew what my opinion on cheaters was. I went on to say that I deeply regretted not exacting more revenge at the time and reading other’s, over the top stories, was somehow cathartic. We snuggled until we went to sleep.

So there I was sitting on the garage floor feeling a bit sad because my wife didn’t trust me. Going back to the list I kept reading.

Dress/behaviour changes.

Sudden disrespect.

Refusing sex.

Sloppy seconds.

Hickies.

Make up awry/fresh.

Wet hair/smell of soap.

Other spouse found out and blabbed.

Credit card bill/phone bill.

Phone tap.

Partner bragging.

Caught on a girls night out/party.

Talking about another person often then stopping.

Overhearing others talking.

Kids letting something slip.

Fellow girls nighters seen somewhere else or letting something slip.

Guilty conscience.

Condoms/ BC pills.

Followed to date.

Used rubber/ empty douches.

Lying eyes.

Anonymously ratted on.

Pregnant.

Lost wedding ring.

Changed sexual behaviour.

Found phone tap and cameras.

Found diary/phone in her car.

By the time I was even half way down this list my heart was pounding and there was a roar in my ears. I looked back.

Sloppy seconds, make up awry/fresh, caught on a girl’s night out/party, fellow girl’s nighters seen somewhere else or letting something slip, BC pills, empty douches, pregnant, found diary/phone in her car.

None of these made sense if they were a list of ways to check if I was cheating.

They made perfect sense if you were a woman who wanted to cheat and not be caught. WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING ON?

I immediately went into crisis mode. I finished going through the rest of the scrunched up papers then tipped the bin out again and did the whole lot again. Nothing. The recycle bin is collected every two weeks so I knew the list was recent.

Tracey arrived home in time for the dinner I had made. I looked in her eyes before giving her a welcome kiss but couldn’t see anything. I forced myself out of the ‘mode’ and tried to act normal. I had read in stories that it was difficult, but every author greatly understated how hard it was. It is torture.

That night the idea of sleeping was a joke. I started by examining our partnership looking for clues and before I knew it I was in the mode again. What does any crime need? Means, motive, opportunity. She had the means to do it, item one, a vagina. Opportunity. Times I’m working and she’s not, girl’s nights out, separate activities.

I spent most of the time on motives. I thought back to all the stories I had read. Most boiled down to disrespect, the quest for different experiences from a virgin bride, the hunt for a more satisfying cock, escape from an unsatisfying sex life. No solutions there. There was no reason for any disrespect. I had always treated her well and had a respectable job and income. I knew she had had half a dozen sex partners before me so I couldn’t see curiosity being a motive. My cock was just shy of 8” the last time I checked although that admittedly was when I was still in my teens. An unsatisfying sex life? That struck a chord. I had a very unsatisfying one. Tracey just didn’t appear to be interested in sex. By a year into our marriage our once a week tumble had become boring. I had to initiate it 95% of the time and received two knock backs for every success. She denied having any fantasies, had let me buy her a vibrator under sufferance and denied me anything but straight sex. Don’t get me wrong, she appeared to enjoy it when we did it and I didn’t stop until she’d had at least one orgasm and they were genuine.

I had noticed she was easier to fire up when I complimented her on parts of her body, I know she had a poor body image but I ran out of ideas after a few months so that had faded away.

My mind wandered to that time, about a year ago, when my hopes had lifted. I had her on her stomach with my hand under her rubbing her clit while I licked her pussy. She was loving it but wasn’t getting that last stage to orgasm. As a pure long shot I let my tongue drift from her pussy to her perineum then back again. I thought she might see where this was going and was waiting for her to object. To my amazement her moans got louder. I kept it going for five minutes and once again she plateaued out. Half expecting a slapped face, my next foray north went further and I licked her anus. To my absolute pleasure she immediately came and it was obvious it was a good one. With great hope for the future I cuddled up to her. Only to be told five minutes later that although she had enjoyed it, it was not to happen again. No, the idea of her having an affair for sex reasons just didn’t make sense.

Having discounted all the sex related reasons, the only other reason I could think of, about two o’clock in the morning, was emotional. I thought on that. I hardly ever travelled, I spent all my free time at home with her and the kids, and I made an effort never to show that she was any less of a priority to me than the kids. I helped her with the house and kids way more than most men. Shit, I supported her in any way I could. We had lots of cuddles, talked to each other easily and deeply and made all major decisions as a team. Sure we didn’t kiss for hours like teens but surely we couldn’t be expected to. I was still a romantic. I bought her flowers and chocolates regularly and made a point of never approaching her for sex on those nights to so as not to devalue the gesture. Thinking back on it, most of the times she had instigated sex was when I had done this but it wasn’t an expectation.

I just couldn’t think of anything. Except, ‘discount the impossible, Dave’. Could she have found someone better than me? That wasn’t impossible so I couldn’t discount it. If that was the case, our marriage could be in trouble. Had she already met someone? Had she already started cheating?

I don’t know what time I drifted off to sleep but I woke with a start and a niggling idea.

I got up and put my work clothes on and pulled the folded sheet of paper out of my pocket. Yes, I was right. The list filled the page right to the end. Was there another page? It wasn’t in the bin. If it existed where was it? I had checked the desk thoroughly yesterday looking for my list so knew it wasn’t there. Then I had an idea, went into the study and grabbed the blank pad from the top of the desk. Putting it into my work bag I went to work.

The morning round of meetings passed unusually slowly today. I was way off my game and distracted. With business on auto pilot I went back to my office and hit the internet. I started googling, ‘recovering impressions from paper’, and followed with a few refinements. This gave me the answer I remembered. A youth spent reading detective novels finally paid off. A short trip to the hardware store, one bottle of graphite powder.

Back in my office I closed the door and removed the blank notebook from my bag. Following the instructions, I sprinkled the ultrafine graphite powder over the front page of the pad. Then, very gently from the side I blew most of it off the page. Yes you guessed it, my guess that a second page had been written on, then removed was right. In all good detective novels the imprint of the last page used would be indented on the next.

If my blood hadn’t been boiling so much I may have laughed at the indistinct but clearly legible heading of the hidden page’s writing. ‘To Do’. The last 1% of doubt was removed from my mind.

The second page.

No photos.

Check weekly for voice recorder or tracker in car. Check Ds CC bills and bank statements.

Never, bring L home, speak to him on the home phone or the mobile at home.

Never speak to L on new phone, text only.

Get 2^nd phone, leave it at work. Never in purse or car.

(unreadable, first letters Se).

Practice being bluffed, no voice, eye or body language responses.

Don’t tell anyone about him or be seen in public places. Travel separately.

Don’t meet anywhere close and avoid car being visible.

Don’t make eye contact with L in public.

Tell L no letters or presents. Hickies.

Soapless showers, don’t wet hair, douche.

Check weekly not dressing or behaving differently. Maintain 4-5 ………. (indistinct).

(indistinct) ……espect.

Wear minimal make-up when going out, check before return.

Disposable panties, pads.

Warn L against bragging and talking, go through these precautions with him.

New bank account, second phone, PO Box. All kept at work.

Find out how to check for phone taps, monitor D’s behaviour for changes.

Don’t ever mention Ls name to D or anyone else.

Meet at 1 in 5 random GNOs. Never skip out on GNOs.

Guilty conscience, see how it goes.

Condoms, spermicide work. Dispose and douches.

Never remove rings.

Write nothing down.

At the bottom was what could only be called a shopping list. New BA, phone, PO Box, douches, condoms, dice, undies, pads.

The cold clinicalness of this list made a mockery of the fear and anger I was feeling now.

Checking my credit card and bank statements could only mean she was watching to see if I purchased any surveillance equipment. The line about being bluffed was particularly cold if I assumed she intended practicing a response to me if I accused her of anything.

To arrange and pay for her trysts she was going to set up a separate bank account and get a second phone. So I didn’t see the bills and other correspondence she was going to set up a post office box as the address for those accounts. So I never saw the second phone, it was going to be kept at her work.

GNO I could only think meant Girl’s Nights Out. What the full meaning of “Meet at 1 in 5 random GNOs. Never skip out on GNOs” was I wasn’t sure. If she didn’t skip out on any nights and none of her friends were going to know about her boyfriend then how could she meet him there?

The line about condoms, douches and spermicide hurt me more than the rest. The rest were kind of abstract and could apply to an emotional affair. These items were specific on where this was all going. It sent an involuntary shudder right down to my soul. Pregnancy would be a real issue as I had had the snip after our second child.

The few indistinct and unreadable lines on the list worried me only slightly. I had enough to sink the bitch already. If the hidden page was a list of cardinal rules, then she had already broken a big one. Never write anything down. I reflected on my luck at finding the crumpled sheet in the recycle bin. It made perfect sense. I had never been lucky in the small things in life. Never won a contest or a raffle. But I was lucky in the big, important things, which always seemed to fall just right for me. This was never more the case than now.

So now I was faced with the age old dilemma. Do I stop this shit now or do I see how far it goes? I quickly discounted the first. All I’d found so far could be a theoretical exercise on her part. Challenging her now might stop it but wouldn’t tell me the fundamental reason for it all nor guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. I hadn’t even paused in giving Cindy enough rope to hang herself but she had only been my second girlfriend and I had been in my twenties.

Now I am forty-one, too old to start again. The grim, frustrating reality of my situation now almost froze me. I had coached enough of my employees through divorces to know how they worked. No fault divorces had been entrenched for years. In a divorce Tracey, as primary care giver, would get the kids. As our youngest was only six, I could look forward to custody one weekend every two weeks. I would also lose the house and have to pay child support and alimony. I didn’t give a fuck about the money but the kids were my reason to be on this earth, the sole purpose of every breath I took.

Only one certainty was in my mind at the moment. I couldn’t live with a cheater. Shit, was I too late? I glanced at the list again. Who was L? Come on, turn off your emotions Dave. What did I know? The list was less than two weeks old, she already had a boyfriend, L. It was two days from her next girl’s night out. I had no idea whether or not she was working this afternoon, could she be meeting someone now? The list showed she was being very smart in not being caught but showed no sign that she had prepared for any consequences of being caught. She already had a boyfriend. She might already have a second phone and an untraceable source of money. She already had a boyfriend!!! Fuck!!!

Things were urgent and being frozen in terror would not help. Forcing myself into the mode I returned to rational thought. One trip would probably give me everything I needed so I quickly planned it. I spent the next hour on the net researching and downloading. The $60 payment I charged to my company credit card. Yeah, didn’t think of that did you, bitch? This was common and I filled in the form to go to the accounts department for this amount to be deducted from my next salary payment. With a reputation for honesty to maintain I walked into my boss’s office. I simply told him I had trouble at home and would be off my game for a while. He waited for me to go into more detail but when I didn’t he just said ok. I left an hour earlier than usual and bought a cable on the way home.

In my car I pondered how I would treat Tracey. Should I do a charm and love offensive hoping to guilt her out of it? For the life of me I couldn’t think how to be more loving, considerate and caring so that was out. Should I act normal? I already knew how hard pretending normalcy would be. Now I knew she had a boyfriend it would be harder still. Fuck it, why should I suffer. I would not act with the anger that I felt, but I wouldn’t act normal. I would just be cold. If my behaviour changed just enough it may get her to pause whatever was going on and give me more time. I reminded myself that there was no evidence she had acted on anything yet. That gave me hope.

When I usually got home I would kiss Tracey first then go to the kids. This was deliberate to demonstrate the hierarchy of my love. This time, walking in the door I steered straight for the kids for my hugs and chatter. Sticking to the norm, I asked how their day was. Tracey, with an obvious disturbed look on her face interrupted me and came for her hug and kiss. With a deliberate, neutral expression on my face I kissed her on the cheek rather than the lips then broke quickly and went back to the kids. I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t asked her how her day had been. I watched her confused expression out of the corner of my eye. I knew two things at that point. She should never play poker and she would have to practice her responses to any ‘bluff’ questions from me very hard.

The rest of the early evening was routine, dinner, stories, bed for the kids. She reminded me about her girl’s night out on Friday and confirmed I was ok to look after the kids. I stretched out the kid’s bed time till 9.15PM and as soon as they were down I announced that I was really tired and was going to bed too. This got another quizzical look from her.

Being a bloke, going to bed consists of brushing teeth, having piss, putting on boxers and getting in bed. Three minutes tops. Girls seem to find much more to do than that so it was fifteen minutes later she joined me in bed. As I had my back turned to her she slid in and snuggled up to me. I deliberately tensed myself and felt her answering tension. Well bitch, your list included looking out for behavioural changes in me. Could I be much clearer? I briefly pondered how I could have gone from thinking her the love of my life to a bitch in just less than 24 hours. My anger answered that question for me.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” she said.

 “Nothing, why?” I replied.

“You’ve just been very detached tonight that’s all, did you have a bad day?” she asked.

“No, I had a good day,” I answered. In all my years of marriage I knew that was the first lie I had ever told her. She said nothing further and being exhausted from last night’s deliberations I was asleep within minutes. I was aware that this night, it was she that tossed and turned all night.

As was normal I was up and gone before anyone else the next morning. I checked Tracey’s purse, looking for the missing page. I was curious about the unreadable lines. Nothing there, she was covering her bases well. I checked her key ring. At work I was much more on my game than yesterday. I had all my plans in place so was able to compartmentalise my home issues into the background. I organised to take the afternoon off and drove the forty minutes to the old suburban house that was my wife’s office, arriving just after noon. I had been there a couple of times before when I was in town during work days. Forcing a smile I walked into the reception area and asked my surprised wife if she would like to have lunch with me. Hearing my voice, her boss, Lance, came out and we chatted. He invited himself and Jenny, the paralegal, to the lunch after politely asking me if it was ok. Tracey went off to the ladies room, the others to get their jackets. This gave me the opportunity to quickly scan the room, Tracey’s desk and particularly the external door frame.

Lunch was pleasant. Yes I’m not dumb. I know Lance starts with an L. I watched for any subliminal interaction between him and Tracey but picked up nothing. What small talk he made that wasn’t about his family was about ours or Jenny’s. Besides, he was twenty-five years older than us. After lunch I went back to work. At 5PM I rang Tracey and, lying again, told her we’d had an incident and I had to work late to investigate it. I stayed an hour longer than normal then stopped at a bar on the way home for one beer.

At 8PM I walked in the door of home. Tracey must have seen my car in the drive as she met me at the door. Again I avoided her lips and kissed her on the cheek. She asked me about my beer breath. I explained that I had decided to conduct the investigation in a bar to relax all the participants. I deliberately didn’t make eye contact and tried to look slightly guilty. My plan was to put her into a flat spin. Both last night and tonight could be interpreted as me suspecting her of cheating or me starting to cheat. Keep your enemy on the back foot.

She warmed up some dinner for me while I played with the kids. After we put them to bed I told Tracey I was going to bed early again. I told her I wanted to get up at 3AM and go to work. I did this randomly every three months or so and I had explained to her why I did it. I wanted my night shift guys to know that the boss could turn up at any time. The logic was to deter a culture of safety shortcuts during the nightshift when supervision was light.

Tracey accepted this and I retired without a goodnight kiss. Again the perplexed expression on her face. I half expected her to follow me to bed but was relieved when she didn’t. I didn’t hear her come to bed and neither knew or cared what she was up to.

I quietly got up to my alarm at 3AM, packed my laptop, grabbed her keys from her handbag, left the house and quietly drove away. Tracey would have been worried by my direction once I hit the highway. Instead of turning north to the mine, I turned south towards the city. Twenty minutes later I was parked in a residential neighbourhood three houses up from her office. Five minutes observation showed all was quiet.

I got out of the car and walked normally up the drive to the office. Someone behaving sneakily immediately attracts attention. I used her keys to open the front door to her office. My scan of yesterday had revealed no sign of an alarm on the door or motion sensors in the room. Turning on my dim torch I decided to check the obvious spot first, her desk drawers. Not surprisingly the drawers were locked. Even less surprisingly that key was also on her key ring. I unlocked them.

Top drawer, stationery. Second drawer, hole punch, stapler, more stationery. I instinctively knew it would be third and bottom drawer. I noticed my heart rate elevate even further as I reached for it. After all I had absolutely no proof as yet. My pulse was deafening me as I slid the drawer open. Manila folder files, held closed with clamps.

I slid my fingers down the side of the stack of folders and felt a gap under them. I grabbed the whole stack and carefully lifted them out, putting them in the centre of her desk then shone the torch into the bottom of the drawer.

I felt faint when I saw what was revealed. An iPhone 4 sitting on top of its box and a charger. Underneath the box were two A4 envelopes. One, with a bank logo, was the paperwork for a new bank account, opened with a balance of $200 the previous Monday. It also contained a temporary debit card. The second was the paperwork for opening a post office box and two keys. I noted the address as PO Box 58 in the suburb where here office was. I also noted the bank account number in my notebook. Strangely, under the envelope were three dice. A normal six sided one and ones with ten and twenty sides. What the fuck? There was also a little stack of business sized cards held with a rubber band. I pulled one out and turned it over. In Tracey’s neat script was written ‘Tracey’, a cell number and in brackets underneath (Text Only). There were ten of them and what their purpose was I had no idea.

At least there were no douches, condoms, spermicide, panties or pads. Could they be somewhere else? I looked around the office. Everything else was shared property and accessed by others. Only her desk was strictly Tracey property. I concluded and hoped like hell that she hadn’t progressed to needing them yet.

The last item in the drawer was of course her list. The first indecipherable line from my copy was ‘See if D asks me for the code for my phone’. The first check a husband would make on a wife suspected of cheating would be her phone. The second full line was ‘Check weekly not dressing or behaving differently. Maintain 4-5 sessions with D per month’. The third line was ‘Maintain signs of respect for D and check him for signs of respect’. That was obviously a reminder to herself to check herself regularly that she wasn’t showing me any disrespect and to check for any sign of disrespect on my part, an obvious sign that I might have tumbled her little game. I read and re-read this line but it didn’t answer a critical question of mine. Had she stopped respecting me? Sorry, stupid question. How much had she stopped respecting me?

I returned everything back to the draw except the phone. I turned that on, relieved there was no password protection and attached it via my new cable to my laptop. The process wasn’t the ‘simple five minute job’ the website promised but no one expects that. It was twenty five minutes later that I was finished. Her phone now sported GPS tracking and a clone function. Every text to and from that phone would be copied to my work phone. Every voice call to and from that phone would send an alert to my phone. A different alert for initiated and received calls. Unfortunately, technology hadn’t advanced to the stage all calls could be recorded yet so I might miss the start of any calls. A scan of Tracey’s phone would reveal my spyware but I wasn’t supposed to even know it existed. The battery would drain faster than normal but being a different phone to her normal one, I hoped she wouldn’t notice.

After checking everything was back in place, I locked up and left for work. I was still in time to talk to the dayshift and nightshift supervisors. Back in my office, I turned on my laptop and remotely interrogated her phone. No history of send or received texts or calls. Looks like I may be in on the ground floor. I had a shower in the change room and went home for a nap. I arrived ten minutes before Tracey left with the kids for school. I kissed her on the lips with damp hair, smelling of an unfamiliar soap. Disinformation time. She again reminded me of her girl’s night tonight.

I spent my nap time reading Literotica revenge stories, scanning down to the punchline. They could be summarised as killing the spouse, planting drugs on her or other means of proving she was an unfit mother, embarrassing her, getting her fired or thrown in jail. The only ones I could even imagine were the ones about embarrassing her or getting her fired. But she had lost both parents to cancer and no one else would give a shit I thought. So what if she lost her job of six months?

I went back to work and returned home shortly before she had to leave on her girl’s night. Before I left I again checked her new phone remotely. Nothing. I briefly thought of ringing Mary, our baby sitter and doing some spying but quickly discounted that. She was a much closer friend to Tracey than me and I was sure to be discovered.

I was in bed when Tracey came home before midnight and she slipped into bed. For the next two weeks I kept up my cold act, drifting further and further away from Tracey emotionally. I checked her new phone activity all the way to the next girl’s night, nothing. The phone had never left her office according to the GPS. In the last three weeks neither Tracey nor I had tried to initiate sex. Me because I didn’t feel like it and her because, well it was unusual for her to start anything anyway.

When she went out two weeks after the start of the tension, I again stayed home like a good boy but did some serious thinking. I couldn’t live like this anymore. Was my behavioural change holding her back? Let’s see. When she got home, I was again in bed pretending to be asleep but as soon as she slid in I attacked her. You know, sexually. I growled her to two orgasms then slowly screwed her to a third. The next morning she wouldn’t let me out of bed, holding me in her arms. She told me to have a sleep in while she got up to look after the boys.

From then on I went back to normal, the full monty. She acted a bit confused for the first day but soon got over it.

Another three weeks, another girl’s night with the mother’s group, another three weeks of no activity on the phone. Our quarterly bank statement did arrive which showed a regular cash withdrawal for $100 every Friday lunch time. Apart from that, nothing unusual. Was I missing something?

Another two weeks, another girl’s night. Another fruitless monitoring effort. The only thing out of the ordinary was a call from Tracey’s mobile to our house phone at 8.30PM. She said that they had left the restaurant and were going to a club and she missed us. Just before she rang off, I heard her tipsy friends in the background yelling, “We miss you too, Dave.”

I knew that the girl’s nights included dining at a restaurant and club dancing afterwards so nothing unusual there. We had even discussed what sort of dancing was appropriate and what wasn’t. What was unusual was the call itself. If I was a suspicious guy, which she had turned me into lately, then I might have thought the call was to confirm that I was at home. When we signed up to our phone plan we could nominate three cells that each could phone for free. She could call from her cell to mine at no cost. Ringing our landline from her cell cost.

This time when she slipped into bed later and I put my hands into her pyjamas, I got a knock back. “Sorry, honey, I’m real tired.” Alarm bells are a-ringing!

The following Tuesday I came up from underground, had a shower, went back to my office and checked my phone. I noticed the second, third and fourth messages I had received had a strange symbol next to them. I opened the first of those and my heart immediately started to race, oh fuck, here we go again. The first diversion was a text received by her new phone.

Tuesday 10AM. ‘Hey babe. Loved Friday night, when can we do it again?’ It was signed ‘Friday night Mark.’

Mark? So who the hell was L?

The second one marked was from her phone to his.

Tuesday 12.30PM. ‘Hi Mark, I enjoyed it too. You know I’m married and can’t get there often. Will let you know when. Trace.’

Tuesday 12.33PM. ‘Fine babe, you’re one hot lady, hurry back.’

Where was “there?” I would have loved to have spoken to one of her friends to see if Tracey was at a club with them all last Friday night but couldn’t see a way of getting away with that. One un-thought of possibility did suddenly occur. Tracey wasn’t a big drinker and thus was always the designated driver on nights out. Could she be dropping her friend’s home then going somewhere else. Her return time of 11PM-midnight didn’t support that but it was something to keep an eye on.

I deleted all three texts after forwarding them to my work email, finished my day and went home. This normalcy act was going to get hard again.

The next two weeks passed uneventfully except for one exchange the following Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday 6PM. ‘Hey babe, haven’t forgotten me have you? Mark.’

Thursday 12.45PM. ‘How can I forget a dancer like you? Haven’t managed to get away since last time. Trace.’

Now I was confused. I’d known all week she had a girl’s night this Friday. Why was she not telling him about it? I wondered also if she realised that we hadn’t had a date night in three months. I like dancing as well and she’d always said I was good. I checked for messages every hour until she went out the next day and kept my phone close all evening. Nothing.

Tuesday, eleven days after the last girl’s night and three before the next one.

Tuesday 12.01PM. ‘Hey Mark, you still up for a repeat? Trace.’

Tuesday 12.03PM, ‘Sure am hot lips, where and when?’

Tuesday 12.07PM. ‘Same place, about same time. Don’t try to sit with us. Don’t try to get more than 1 in 3 as I said last time. Behave yourself.’

I’m confused again. What was the bit about 1 in 3 about? Confused is not a good place to be. Time to phone a friend. I rang Guy. He ran the security company that covered the mine. We had become quite friendly in the time we’d known each other. I arranged to meet him that afternoon. I was a bit reluctant to bring someone else in but still couldn’t think of a valid reason to get a baby sitter. Besides, all Tracey’s friends knew me and I would stick out doing what needed to be done.

I brought Guy up to date on the essentials then asked if he could get someone to observe Tracey in a club Friday night. After saying how sorry he was he said he would do it himself. I thanked him and insisted that I would pay him as I didn’t want to impose on our relationship or his business with the mine. I pointed out that I couldn’t pay him yet as Tracey was monitoring our accounts but he told me my credit was good enough for him. I told him I would ring him as soon as I knew where to start tailing her.

The next night I subtly asked Tracey, when she reminded me about her night out, where they were eating this week. She told me they usually went to the same Thai restaurant and gave me the address. We’d had this conversation before so it shouldn’t be suspicious. I texted the details to Guy and suggested he start the tail about 8PM. I also dropped a photo of Tracey to him on Thursday. I asked for him to keep me posted.

Increased monitoring for the rest of the week revealed only one text.

Friday 3PM. ‘We still on for tonight? Mark,’

After I saw her off Friday night I struggled to concentrate on playing with the kids. At 7.30 I got a text from Guy, ‘got a visual at the restaurant.’ I put the kids to sleep before 8.30 and sat down with my phone and laptop. Within a minute the home phone rang. It was Tracey asking if I had put the kids to bed yet as she wanted to say good night to them. When I said they were already in bed she sounded disappointed and told us she missed us. Time to lay on the guilt a little.

I said, “If you miss us that much, you could always stay home”. This got no response and I quickly followed with, “Well, enjoy your dancing, you know it’s been a while since I’ve danced with you”.

She replied with, “Yes, it has been, hasn’t it.”

I made my excuses and rang off. I predict a date night suggestion from her in the next week.

At 8.50PM the unusual chime of a re-directed text startled me. I picked up the phone.

Friday 8.49PM. ‘Mark, running a bit late, be there soon, Trace.’

It took me a minute for the significance of this to sink in, then I had it. She had her second phone with her. I spent the next two minutes fighting the vindictive idea of ringing her on that phone and telling her I missed her. What stopped me? I had a reasonably clear idea of what she was doing but had no idea why. Weeks of musing still had not thrown up a result. Without knowing the why I couldn’t decide on the ‘what next’.

9.20PM text from Guy. ‘All girls at Star Bar, drinking and dancing. Any time you want to pay me $60/hour plus expenses for drinking and watching pretty girls just give me a ring.’

 I returned, ‘Ta.’ I then deleted both texts. I spent the rest of the evening reading erotica stories.

11.00PM text. ‘All still here, Guy.’

At 11.40PM I answered a call from Guy.

“They’re leaving now, just the girls.”

That’ a good sign. I asked him how the evening had gone.

“Well, Tracey danced with a lot of guys, never with the same one twice in a row.”

I could sense Guy hesitating. “Come on, spit it out, Guy, I can take it,” I prompted.

“Well, there was one guy she danced with ever third or fourth dance. A couple of the other guys tried to put their hands on her butt and she shut them down and didn’t dance with them again. When she danced with this guy they always drifted to the back of the dance floor. They got kinda smoochy and I did see his hands on her butt and she didn’t shut him down. At the same time, she didn’t do anything to respond to him and she had this kind of neutral look on her face. It was odd enough to stick in my memory. Just before they left I saw him try for a kiss and she shut him down big time. I’m sorry, Dave, I don’t know what that all means. I did notice he had a wedding ring on when he dropped her off at the table.”

I thanked him and rang off.

He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sure what was going on but I think he had met Mark.

I should expect Tracey to be home about 12.30 after dropping her friends home.

At 12.20 I was in bed when my phone gave its now dreaded beep.

Saturday 12.19AM. ‘I TOLD YOU NOT IN PUBLIC.’ Well that confirmed that.  I deleted that message then turned the volume of the ringer right down so any reply he gave wouldn’t be heard. Lying in the darkened bedroom upstairs ten minutes later I heard a car stop at the head of our driveway. I went to the window and looked out and saw the interior light of a car go on and off. In the moonlight I then saw Tracey walking down the driveway and around the side of the house. I rushed to the opposite window but didn’t see her reappear at the back. I was still there when I saw her lights coming down the drive. I made a prediction that I would find a phone hidden in the wood shed tomorrow. Careful to the end, that’s my Tracey. It was summer so I had no business visiting the wood shed.

I pretended to be asleep when she slipped in with me and made no attempt to snuggle. Was I seeing a pattern? Guilt free night = snuggle, guilty night = no snuggle. Had she noticed that I hadn’t approached her for sex in a two months? If she was following her list then she must be in a dilemma. She was set on maintaining our 4-5 sex episodes per month but also committed to not doing anything out of the ordinary. With me not approaching her she would have to approach me more. That would be abnormal.

Another restless night for me. I knew what was bothering me and it was a problem pointed out over 2,500 years ago by a Chinese dude called Sun Tzu, in a book called, ‘The Art of War’. One famous quote of his was, “Strategy without Tactics is the slow route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before the inevitable defeat”. Strategy is what you want to achieve. Tactics are how you want to achieve it.

I knew my tactics were good. What was my strategy? I didn’t have one. I reviewed what I knew.

I knew that that I didn’t want a divorce. I knew that nothing good would come out of that for me and I would lose everything dear to me. Dreams of revenge were just that, dreams. The grim, frustrating reality of all separations is this. During divorce, the partner who isn’t the primary care giver, gets screwed over. The screwing you get for the screwing you got.

I knew I had to know how far Tracey was willing to go with this.

I knew that if Tracey had sex with this guy we were finished. We might survive a kiss, not sex.  I was right royally stuffed. The only chance of survival was if Tracey didn’t go much further.

When I finally fell asleep I still didn’t have a strategy. The main piece was missing from the jigsaw. WHY TRACEY, WHY?

The next morning my tiredness and anger almost overcame my control. I got up early with the lads and when I heard the toilet upstairs flush I went and lay back on the bed until Tracey came and joined me. With not as much as a good morning, I stared into her face from a distance of less than a foot, with a deliberately neutral look on my face and asked, “Did you have fun last night?” My tone and face alerted her that something was wrong.

Her face didn’t move but I saw the cringe in her eyes. Ten seconds of staring then she yawned and rolled onto her back and started rabbitting on about how nice the dinner was and about the club they went to afterwards.

I listened attentively and when she had finished I asked, “Look is there something wrong with us? Are you not happy with me, have I done something wrong, don’t I support you enough?”

She vehemently denied all of these, while smothering me with kisses, saying that I was the most loving, supporting husband and father a girl could ever ask for. She then told me to never think like that and then asked me why I had brought it up.

I just said that I had sensed something had changed. I reminded her that we hadn’t been on a date night for three months and couldn’t remember the last time we had made love.

She told me that after my comments last night she now realised that we had let our date nights slip and she’d make it up to me. She also said that we hadn’t had sex for so long because I hadn’t brought it up and pestered her.

I reminded her of several previous conversations of ours when I’d told her that I got a bit discouraged about having to pester her all the time and how disheartening the knock-backs were. She apologised. I had just finished reminding her that she should bring up any concerns about our relationship with me straight away when the lads discovered she was awake screamed in and started jumping all over us. Ah kids. The world’s most effective contraceptives.

The rest of the weekend was all hugs, cuddles, kisses and yes sex. We had a great family weekend of playing, cycling and feeding the ducks at the local park.

It was Sunday before I could check the wood shed. Her phone was on a rafter, under a box at the back. I had already received the two forwarded messages via my phone but hadn’t read them, hoping to preserve the magic of this weekend. On Monday morning at work I was bloody glad I had.  

Saturday 10AM. ‘I am so sorry Trace but you are so beautiful and with your body so close to mine I just couldn’t help it. You are all woman and I want you so badly. Please forgive me. Mark.’

Fuck, this guy is married?

 Saturday 6PM. ‘I take it from your lack of response that you don’t want to see me again. That would break my heart. Once again sorry. Mark.’

Later that morning the response came through.

Monday 10AM. ‘Mark, sorry for the delay. I usually keep this phone safe at work and only check it occasionally. I only got your Saturday messages just now. Yes I was angry with you Friday night, you know my situation and my rules. I forgive you this time but never again. You’re such a good dancer that I’d love to see you again, I’m starting to need our time together. I’ll let you know when I can get out again. Don’t pester me. I hope with messages like your last one you are taking precautions to avoid your wife seeing them. Love. Trace.’

Three minutes later. ‘Work phone, password protected. Glad to hear we are still friends. Mark.’

Battling to hold back my fury I couldn’t believe the two Traceys I had seen in twelve hours. Loving wife and mother followed by slut who had returned an entirely inappropriate text from another man with “love”. I was going to struggle to hold myself together soon. I concluded that I should slow down reading erotic stories and spend the time reading up on split personalities. It was about the only thing that made sense.

That night I started the charm offensive and surprised myself by finding a few new ways to spoil her. I was staggered that on Thursday she’d bought me a nice box of my favourite chocolates. I even got to have a couple before two ravening boys found them and demolished the rest. Every night was a snuggle on the couch talking about our works and family things.

It was almost a vent for my frustration when I decided on another visit to her office. I pulled it off exactly the same as the last time. I shouldn’t really have been surprised when I saw that the bottom drawer now sported a permanent debit card from the bank, a three pack of panties, a box of panty liners and a six pack of douches. No condoms, though. I noticed there were only now six cards in her little pile, four missing. I still couldn’t see the significance of them though.

I went straight back home after this trip, no mention was made that I hadn’t had enough time to get to work and back and spend more than ten minutes there. I just didn’t care though.

The following Tuesday was my first warning of a girl’s night on Friday. I was a bit stunned so no acting was involved when I looked at Tracey coldly and said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I maintained a cold stare, seeing her mind racing. It took a good minute, while I enjoyed several of her facial expressions, before the penny dropped.

“God, I forgot our date night, didn’t I?”

I stood up and walked away, throwing over my shoulder, “Just don’t worry about it.”

She didn’t follow me to bed and I don’t know when she came up but I’m sure I heard the sounds of quiet sobbing drifting up the stairs. That was strange. Why sobs? The only thing I could think of was regretting what she was doing to me and our relationship. Why the fuck not stop then? Discount the impossible Dave. Why not stop something that was hurting? Blackmail? No, impossible. That only left one possibility. Compulsion. Something within herself was compelling her to do this.

The next night she was very apologetic and announced that she had organised a night out for us on Saturday. She apologised again when I reminded her that we had a work function on Saturday. She then made all the phone calls necessary to change the sitter to Friday and cancel out on the girl’s night. That date night of dinner and dancing was a little stiff but enjoyable. The strain was really starting to get to me. This shit had been going on for thirteen weeks now.

A month and two more girl’s nights later things gave the impression of being normal. Apart from one text from Mark asking if she could get away, with her blowing him off, the phone was silent. Why would she meet him some nights not others. I re-read her list and the 1 in 5 comment and suddenly realised what the dice was for. She thought by leaving the decision on whether or not to meet him up to the dice there couldn’t be a pattern. She was certainly sticking to the script. I wondered if she had found a tracker or phone bug yet. What about the 4-5 sex sessions with me a month? The idea of the dice just made the whole situation more bizarre and somehow impersonal. A strange word to use but apt. Every good manager knows that you start off with a plan but change it if conditions differ from those expected. I know I had been seen to behave erratically since this had all started, yet she was sticking fairly rigidly to her plan. Whatever that is.

The following Tuesday the texts started again.

Tuesday 1.45PM. ‘Hey remember me, how about same place 8.30ish Saturday? Trace.’

Tuesday 3.05PM. ‘I’ll be there, really looking forward to it. Mark.’

Time to ring Guy again! My crystal ball was telling me that the girl’s night was on Saturday this week.

I rang Guy and asked for his availability on Saturday. He said he was free but then asked me for a favour. His wife had given him a hard time when he had ‘worked’ for me last time and came home smelling of beer. He wanted to know if he passed the phone to her whether I could speak to her. I told him I could do better than that and told him I’d be there in fifteen minutes. When I explained the deal to Gloria she could tell from my passion that it was all legit. An hour later I felt I had made a new friend. Neither Guy or Gloria could add any guesses on ‘why’ though.

I took the following afternoon off to see a Behavioural Psychologist. I’d had to book the two hour session three weeks before. I explained Tracey’s behaviour over the last few months. What a waste of time. Apart from confirming it wasn’t any kind of multiple personality thing, she could add no insight. I paid in untraceable cash.

I briefed Guy on the proposed meeting at the Star Bar at 8.30 on Saturday. I didn’t want to alert Tracey by quizzing her on the restaurant this time. Kissed her goodnight and waited by the phone. Just for the exercise I used the GPS locator which showed the phone was still in her office. No trip necessary to the wood shed this week. Yes I got her, now familiar, call on the land line when she left the restaurant to make sure I was at home. God, hadn’t this woman heard of private detectives.

Only one text from Guy this night. ‘Dave, all girls in club, T dancing with the guy from last time again. Guy.’

Just after 10.45 he rang me.

“They’ve just left.”

“Who, Tracey and her guy or all of them?”

“The girls, he stayed here.”

I asked him what had happened. He said it was complicated and too long to explain over the phone. He would catch up on Monday. Bugger that. I asked him if I could catch up tomorrow, I couldn’t wait. He agreed.

At 10 o’clock the next day, I invented a reason to go to work for a couple of hours and drove to Guy’s place. Over coffee with him and Gloria I got the full story.

It had started like normal with Tracey dancing with lots of guys and every third or so dance with the presumed Mark character. Similar to last time when they danced they shuffled to the back and he had his hands in inappropriate places. She spent a lot of time glancing around and when not, just talked to him. Guy said it was all so subtle that he even thought her friends dancing or sitting at the table wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on.

A half hour before they all left, just after dancing together Mark had led Tracey out a side door into the courtyard set aside for smokers. Guy had followed them out as quickly as he could and was there less than a minute after them. The courtyard was a small, fenced off area with tables. Mark and Tracey were sitting opposite each other on one of the tables holding hands across the table when Guy came through the door. Tracey quickly detached and Guy went to the opposite end of the small space and lit up.

“Now, Dave, I couldn’t hear everything they talked about. Tracey has a very soft voice so I mainly heard what shithead said. A lot of what I will tell you next has some guesswork in it.”

He then told me he’d heard SH say, just after hands were withdrawn, “Is this public?” Guy caught Tracey’s nod out of the corner of his eye. He caught enough of the next minute or so to know SH was saying how wonderful and beautiful she was and making his lust quite obvious. SH was just leaning in and gazing into her eyes. She was leaning backwards away from him.

I asked what her eyes and face were saying. Guy said that she kept glancing at the door and at him with a nervous expression. When she wasn’t doing that, she had the strange neutral expression that had seemed odd last time.

SH then leaned back a bit and spoke. Guy only caught about one word in three but heard, “not enough” and “next level”. Guy thought SH was piling the pressure on. Tracey had a kind of stricken look on her face. She then spoke for about two minutes. It was her time to lean in so he didn’t catch a word but she had a determined look on her face and was stabbing her finger into the table top. Guy guessed she was laying down the rules again.

After this they both backed off and went back to smiling. Having finished his smoke, Guy pulled out his phone and pretended to text to have an excuse to stay outside. “Dave, I’ve got to tell you, they are planning to meet up sometime next week. It was her suggestion and she sounded kind of desperate. I think she was kinda scared of losing him and was throwing him a bone.”

Their tryst had ended when one of the girls came out and said she had promised her husband she would be home early that night.

From this day onwards I saw a change in Tracey. She was obviously distracted and less attentive to the kids and I. I wondered what had happened to her plan to self-check her behaviour. I knew we were entering the danger zone and vowed to be extra alert. Me. Well I kept up the charm offensive. Never late from work, always cuddly and caring.

I will let next week’s texts speak for themselves.

Monday 10.22AM. ‘Babe, have you decided where and when yet?’

Monday 12.23PM. ‘Checking out places after work today. Will let you know. Trace.’

I quizzed the kids that night. Tracey had picked them up from school.

Tuesday 9.37AM. ‘How are you fixed for tomorrow at 1PM? Just lunch, ok, don’t get your hopes up. Make sure you park around the back. I’m yours till 4.45. Love Trace.’  She gave the name and address of a place. I googled it and it was a four star restaurant and motel on the other side of the city, near the airport.

I rang Guy and asked if he and Gloria would like lunch on me. He agreed. I asked him if he thought Tracey would recognise him from the club. He thought not as he had worn a cap and kept his head down in the smoking garden. I also asked him if he could sit near them and possibly record their conversation. He told me he would do what he could. I gave him the address and time plus one final instruction.

The next morning I checked her handbag again. Nothing. I wondered if her desk drawer now had condoms in it. It wasn’t worth the effort of finding out. She was obviously going to have Mary pick the kids up. I wondered what excuse she would use. I didn’t think it would be working late as she knew I sometimes called in to the office or rang her at work. Probably meeting a girlfriend after work. I fully intended being home early to see what she was wearing when she got home and check her lying skills when I asked where she had been.

The phone call from Guy at 1.45PM was expected but his news wasn’t. He was at the restaurant and they hadn’t shown. I panicked. Were they in a room? I told him what car Tracey had and waited while he checked all the possible parking areas. Nothing.

I rang Tracey’s desk phone and was unhappy when Jenny answered it.

“Has Tracey gone home already?”

“No, we’ve got a lot on today, Larry asked us to stay till three. Tracey has just popped out for lunch.”

“Well, tell her I just rang to say hi please, bye.”

What was happening? I checked my phone. It noted a diverted voice call from Tracey to Mark at 11.02 that morning. I had been underground and had missed it. Tracey had broken protocol with the voice call. I imagined her making an excuse to leave the office for a few minutes to do it.

 I could only guess what had been said. Had she rung him and told him she had to work late. They might have made new plans but what were they? I took a punt and guessed they had just delayed twenty-four hours. I rang and told Guy. He said he wasn’t available but, after checking, told me Gloria and a friend could. I swapped phone numbers with Gloria and gave her some instructions. Nothing was certain but what else could I do.

There were no texts between the lovers so I had confidence my guesses had been right. Further confirmation came when Tracey rang my work desk phone at about 11.30AM asking me if I could sneak into town for lunch. Sorry darling, too busy. With assurance I wasn’t going to surprise her at work she left for her back stabbing tryst. I watched on the GPS tracker as her phone moved towards the expected suburb. I rang and alerted Gloria.

The next phone call was from Gloria.

“You were right, they’ve just turned up in separate cars and they’re in the restaurant. It’s quite comical, she parked next door out of sight behind a hardware store.”

I asked her where he had parked and she said right in the motel car park. I asked her for his number plate. She read it out then said the car had Thunderstruck Construction on the side. Gotcha! I urged Gloria to go into the restaurant so she didn’t miss anything. She told me her friend was already in there.

While waiting I looked up Thunderstruck Construction. I rang their reception and using my limited acting skills said I had met one of their employees and hadn’t quite caught his name. It was either Mick or Mark. She said they had two Micks and one Mark. She asked me to describe him and I repeated the description Guy had given me.

“That sounds like Mark Ashcroft, our Business Development Manager, would you like his cell number?”

I said yes and she read out the now familiar number. Five minutes and a phone book later I had an address for M and P Ashcroft. Eat your heart out Sherlock.

Gloria rang at 4.00PM. “They’ve just left in separate cars.”

I arranged to meet her at a coffee shop half way between the city and the mine and left.

I started off by asking what Tracey was wearing and she said it looked like a work uniform. I then asked if she had heard her use a pet name for him starting with L. Gloria said they had been at the table right next to them and had heard most of what was said and she’d only called him Mark. I then turned the floor over to Gloria.

She described them as sitting opposite each other on a small, intimate table.

“Dave, I thought you said she was intelligent?”

I just raised an eyebrow.

“This guy is just a bastard, a smooth bastard but still a bastard. It’s so obvious that he’s playing her and she’s just falling for it all.”

Gloria then went on to tell me a summary of their conversations. He spent the first part telling her how beautiful she was and how much he wanted her. He was holding her hand across the table and she made no move to disentangle. I guess she didn’t consider this ‘in public’. Tracey did spend a lot of time glancing around the restaurant and out the windows. Several times she did drag the conversation around to me and her family or his family but he shut her down and changed topics.

She did slip in the fact that she loved me dearly and I was her soul mate so no one could ever find out about them. She apologised for all the precautions she felt she had to take but hoped he understood. She then went through the precautions he should be taking. He never spoke about his wife. He did ask the obvious question though. If she loved me so much, why him. Gloria said that Tracey never answered but got a real blank look on her face then changed the subject. The middle conversations were about favourite movies, books and interests. Shithead never missed an opportunity to tell Tracey how much they had in common.

The last hour was shithead gently ratcheting up the pressure interspersed with comments on how hot he thought she was. While holding her hand he was pushing her to take their friendship to the next level. Tracey kept trying to withdraw her hands and change the topic of conversation but he was insistent. He kept pushing her on how they could get together for more than one sly dance in three at a club or more than lunch. He asked her if she ever travelled for work, no. Did I ever travel, very rarely? Could she ditch the girls on girl’s night and go somewhere with him to ‘dance’ alone? She explained that she couldn’t risk one of the girls letting something slip. Could she pretend she was going on a girl’s night and just go out with him? No, same reason.

He was getting visibly frustrated by this stage so he threw it back on her. How did she suggest they got together? Tracey explained that really the only option was her pretending to work past lunch one day which gave them 1PM to 4.45PM, almost four hours. He made a comment that I must be a real suspicious character for her to be taking so many precautions. Tracey looked blank then said, “No, Dave loves me and trusts me.” Well one out of two isn’t bad.

Shithead then obviously decided it was ultimatum time.

“Maybe we can get a room next time, you know, fool around a bit?”

Tracey ummmed and errred for a while, insisted she just wanted the lunches but critically, didn’t shut him down. 

He said he wasn’t sure if he could continue with a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. Apparently Tracey looked worried. Mark was obviously an impatient character, three dance nights and one lunch wasn’t much. Looking at it from his point of view though, it had taken four months and all he’d got was two hand holding sessions and some arse groping.

According to Gloria the session ended well before 4.00PM with him saying he had to leave after his final application of pressure. He tried to pay the bill but when she found out he was going to use his personal credit card she insisted they used her debit card. She explained that it was an account I didn’t know about. The cheeky bastard actually told her he admired her thoroughness. He walked her to her car and they were invisible behind the hardware store for about five minutes. They couldn’t infer anything from his expression when he came back and got in his car.

Thorough she may be, but observant she obviously was not. Apparently the two ladies that had lunch together at the next table but didn’t actually talk that much, didn’t seem suspicious.

Gloria thought that a few of the afternoon’s events had seemed very strange. The main one was that Tracey was obviously way out of shithead’s league. What was a good looking girl with a nice body doing drooling over an average looking, short and weedy guy with thinning hair. That one I could answer. I explained to Gloria that Tracey had a poor body image resulting from a bitch of a mother. I also explained that despite all the previous efforts I had put in, I hadn’t been able to improve it.

I almost forgot to ask her about whether or not she had managed to record any audio. She pulled out her phone and played a few audio files but nothing was audible, just a general background murmur. She did show me three photos she had managed to take on her phone. The one of them holding hands hurt. I got her to forward them to my work email. She was right, he was a bit of a weed.

After thanking Gloria I arrived home half an hour later than usual. Nothing seemed different to normal except there was very little eye contact from Tracey. She was still in her work gear and her make-up seemed normal. That night I confirmed with the kids that the baby sitter had picked them up from school. I found an excuse to go outside after dark and found only the phone in the wood shed. A handbag search the next morning revealed nothing new.

On a weekend drive by of his address I did spot his work car in the drive. There was also a tricycle and a swing set in the front yard.  

Almost daily texts from him the next week getting more and more insistent must have caused the dice to be put away as she finally relented and agreed to meet him on the next girl’s night. She insisted still on only dancing with him one in three as usual and told him she wouldn’t be going anywhere alone with him this time. I applied gentle pressure by saying I had to work till 10.00PM that Friday and asked if she could please organise the sitter. She didn’t blow him off but I bet there was no arse groping that night. I didn’t bother Guy. There was no unexpected movements from the GPS that night and the wood shed had an extra visitor that weekend.

The texts the next week were so aggressive that I thought they may actually break up. I didn’t want that as I knew I didn’t have the energy to watch her start from scratch with another guy which I was sure she would do. What could I do to prevent my wife breaking up with her boyfriend? I chuckled to myself as I thought, ‘I wonder if that question has ever come up before in the history of mankind.’

It was almost two weeks to the day of their first lunch date when she finally relented to another. I wondered if she was using the ten sided dice or the twenty.

Tuesday 9.40AM. ‘How are you fixed for lunch tomorrow? Trace.’

Tuesday 9.42AM. ‘Can’t do tomorrow, how about Thursday? Mark.’

Tuesday 10.01AM. ‘That works for me.’

She then supplied the name of another four-star motel well away from their first rendezvous point and a time of 1PM again.

Tuesday 10.10AM. ‘Do they have nice rooms? Mark.’

Tuesday 10.41AM. ‘Let’s just see shall we. Love Trace.’ I pondered the ambiguity of that last statement. Did she mean, they would see what the rooms were like when they got one. Or did she mean, they would see if they got a room when they got there? I immediately rang Guy and arranged to see him that afternoon.

We made a series of contingency plans and I told him I would give him what he needed for all of them Thursday morning. In case they did go into the restaurant that time, Guy was going to be the sole diner at the next table, I didn’t want to have to brief another stranger at this stage and Gloria wasn’t an option now. Gloria agreed to stay in the car outside with a camera.

I contemplated another office invasion Wednesday night but didn’t. I was just beyond caring. A handbag check Thursday morning revealed nothing.

Thursday at 10AM I made my deliveries to Guy and asked him to ring me as soon as he or Gloria had made them, if they did. I then begged off work and drove home. I went and saw Mary next door and asked if she could pick the lads up from school and keep them at her place until I came and got them. I told her I was planning a surprise for Tracey and not to warn her. Now that wasn’t a lie was it? She of course told me that Tracey had already arranged for her to sit that afternoon.

Thursday 1.10PM. Text. ‘They’re both in the restaurant, Guy in place. Gloria.’

At 2.20PM Gloria rang me and simply said, “Dave, the delivery has been made.”

I pushed the send button on the text that had been sitting on my phone for the last hour. Sent.

Winging its way from my phone to another, the number of which I was never supposed to know, was a simple message. It was received thirty seconds later by a sobbing woman, slumped on the ground outside a motel room. A wonderful mother and partner but a woman who I didn’t know if I could fully trust again.

‘Tracey, please just come home. Dave.’

Right after the message was sent, I dialled another number I wasn’t supposed to know. When it was answered I said, “Mr Mark Ashcroft of 12 Freeman Road?”

Only hearing a mumble in return, I continued. “My name is Dave, you know who I am. Just walk away right now and maybe your future won’t involve wheelchairs and facial reconstruction surgery. GO RIGHT NOW!” I didn’t have to fake any venom in that last piece. I hung up.

From Gloria’s perspective, as she told me later, this is what happened. At 2.15PM, Tracey got up from the table and went and paid the restaurant bill. Mark left the restaurant and headed towards the check-in desk. Guy threw $100 on his table headed out the door at speed pointing out the money on the table to the waitress. Once outside the door he sprinted to the car and told Gloria, “Showtime,” as he got the packages off the back seat. He waited for over a minute before walking along slightly behind the target couple but on the other side of the carpark. As the man stopped to insert the key in a room door Guy sped up.

Just as the door opened, Guy spoke from right behind Tracey. “Mrs Tracey Brown.”

When she turned to face him, with a quizzical expression, Guy offered her a bunch of lilies, her favourite flowers with the words, “Dave wants you to know that the children and he love you very much.” Guy had to drop his loads as Tracey’s face just lost every trace of colour and her knees buckled and she dropped like a rock. If he hadn’t caught her she would have hurt herself for sure.

Guy glanced at Mark and saw a dumbfounded expression on his face. He was unaware of anything else except a phone ringing until he heard Mark’s car burning rubber down the road.

Guy kept me informed over the next hour as Gloria helped Tracey. It took that long to get her to her feet and calm her down enough that she was safe to drive away. They both refused to say anything in answer to her questions. They reported that when she wasn’t crying, she just looked dazed. Just before they left her they had suggested she check the messages on her phones. She started sobbing again as the significance of one message sank in. The motel manager came out and asked if they needed an ambulance.

By phone, Guy brought me up to date on the conversation between the two love birds in the restaurant. Tracey had tried to make small talk but shithead had immediately started putting increasingly serious pressure on. No room, no future type comments. Or as we used to say in my youth, ‘on your back or on your bike’. Tracey eventually bowed to pressure but stipulated that she ‘couldn’t promise anything’.

Did she really believe that saying no, once they had a room, was an option?

The video clip that Gloria sent me before Tracey got home shows Shithead practically dragging her to the room. I finally got to see the famous blank expression on Tracey’s face.

So now I’m sitting at home waiting for my wife to get here. I’m sure it will be a very slow trip and maybe involve a visit to an office and some trash cans. I’m quite relaxed as I sip from a glass of my favourite Islay malt. Am I relaxed because I’m in ‘the mode’ I hear you say. No, I’m relaxed because I finally worked it all out.

It started Monday night. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop while Tracey studied. I was scanning a list of Literotica stories when one title caught my eye and triggered a memory. ‘A Smart Set of Cheaters’. I read it again and before I had even finished, the last piece of the jigsaw fell into my subconscious.  I now know, with absolute certainty, WHY. And it is rather sad. I had discounted the impossible, this was all that was left.

Tracey had spent almost her whole life thinking she was inferior to those around her, mother etc. She’d married a guy, me, who she believed she was smarter than. Suddenly it was thrust in her face, via several IQ tests, that she had been wrong. The last four months had been a subconscious power grab on her part. Succeeding in getting one over someone who was smarter than her would prove she was actually smarter. Secretly and cleverly having an affair and getting away with it would prove her superiority. She would have been satisfied with the emotional side of the affair, the physical side was an unfortunate necessity. The blank expression seen multiple times on her face was her psychologically separating herself from her actions. The whole episode was a compulsion in a damaged soul.

If she had chucked Mark out and tried again with someone less aggressive and just had an emotional affair or a limited physical one with someone else she could have finished her self therapy to her almost complete satisfaction. That was if she hadn’t been hijacked by one lucky mother fucker. Yes that’s me again.

I knew the cards in her desk were to hand out to prospective candidates at clubs. Which brings us to the mysterious L. Well, I reckon that stood for Lover. She didn’t have a candidate in mind when she wrote the list.

By Tuesday night I had made my decision on our future. I used a process that I had used in the past, quite successfully, but had forgotten in all the activity. It is an almost foolproof system for making hard choices and I will share it with you my friends. On two pieces of paper write two lists. On one sheet write all the arguments for the decision, on the other write all the arguments against. The next and critical step is to condense each list down to one or at most two words. Look at these words and usually the answer appears.

In my case, one page, that in support of forgiving Tracey, had family, influence on kids, wealth, almost normal love life, sex, no lawyers, almost normal life in general etc. The other page had pride, lawyers, shame, loneliness, loss of kids etc. The summary words and I’ll leave you to figure out which goes with which page were, FUCKED and ALMOST HAPPY. Fifteen milliseconds later the decision was made.

I took another sip and smiled. If I was a bastard I would invite my new friends Guy and Gloria over for a barbecue this weekend. I’m not a bastard.

Did anyone notice at the start of this story that it took me an extra year to get my degree? Until now I had regretted spending my first year on my primary career choice, Psychology. Not anymore. Once I had worked out the WHY, the WHAT was obvious. My whole campaign today had been aimed at psychologically permanently destroying any notion Tracey had that she was smarter than me.  From Guy and Gloria’s description, I had succeeded. I briefly empathised with her pain but what else could I have done.

I wouldn’t tell Tracey how I had caught her. Keeping her guessing should maximise the chance it never happened again. Maybe, I should tell her I was a mind reader.

There was no doubt that Tracey’s immediate future included counselling. The topics would certainly include our intelligence issues, her confidence issues and her body image problem. I would try to help out as best I could with all of those but I haven’t had much luck to date. If the body image counselling didn’t work out to my satisfaction then some sex therapy might be needed.

An onlooker might have been surprised, knowing my situation, five minutes before Tracey slowly drove down the driveway, to see me actually laughing. I had finally found my list that had triggered this whole process off. Remember the one that had taken me months to compile. I had finally found it tucked in a pocket of my briefcase where I had put the bloody thing. Knowing that mothers going back to work after the kids started school was a hot spot for cheating and the dumb shmuck husband was usually the last to know. I had written a list of the signs of a cheating wife. I might be a dumb shmuck but I was a lucky dumb shmuck.

I was laughing because I had two things on my list that weren’t on Tracey’s. She had one on hers that wasn’t on mine. I’ve always loved irony. If I had only looked for the signs on my list I would never have caught her. The only thing that may have worked would have been the bluff approach. I had respected her way too much to ever insult her by accusing her of cheating just to see her reaction.

I knew I was going to be magnanimous in victory.

I stood to give my wife a big hug as I saw the car coming down the drive and started the rest of my life.

EPILOGUE

A post crisis, midnight office invasion a month later found a completely innocent bottom drawer. I made no comment when Tracey’s old iPhone 2 was replaced one day with an iPhone 4. Examining our bank statement one day showed an unaccounted deposit of $652.

Guy never billed me for his services. Remember, he was a security guard, not a P.I. His life consisted of twelve hour stretches of battling to stay awake. He had loved the excitement. Besides he and Gloria both said that they had both enjoyed it and it had somehow helped them bond better. I did insist on paying expenses though. When he announced he was selling his business later that year I gave the soppy old golf nut a gift voucher redeemable at the town’s biggest golf shop. The value of the voucher, $652.

A month after things settled down it was obvious Tracey was too embarrassed to even mention girl’s nights out. I insisted she go on the next one. After checking with her counselor, she agreed. I also invited her to bring a friend into her confidence if she wanted a female shoulder to cry on. The one condition I put on it was that if she saw Mark at a club then she was to ring me. Three months later she did ring. I quickly went next door to ask the sitter to be in our house in case the kids woke up. I drove to the Star Bar and quietly asked Tracey to point out shithead for me. Right when she was pointing to him, he glanced over and saw us. As I quickly approached him on the dance floor, on pure reflex he dived out the nearest door. Yes, you guessed it, the one into the fenced off smoking area. The one with no exit. I grabbed him by the neck with one hand to choke off any shouts. The mining industry doesn’t breed pussies. While waiting for him to stop struggling I politely asked the three incumbent smokers to leave as I wanted to talk to this gentleman who had tried to fuck my wife. They obliged, two even had huge grins as they walked past me. No one likes a prick. I then scanned the area for cameras. The mode was serving me well once again.

When he had settled down I growled at him with all the pent up fury that still hadn’t found an outlet.

“Listen, shithead, if Tracey ever reports seeing you ever again, or if I ever find out you have disappointed your wife and kids in any way, the first thing that will happen is that copies of all your texts to Tracey will be sent to your wife. I will give her my contact details if she wants copies of the photos I have. The second thing that will happen is this.

The sound of all the breath leaving his body as my fist hit him just under the diaphragm was almost as satisfying as the sight of him writhing on the floor searching for the breath that just wouldn’t come. The kick in the nuts was probably a bit unnecessary. All right, so I am a little bit of a bastard maybe.

I walked back into the club to give Tracey at hug and a kiss. She asked, “Am I going to have to post bail later?”

“No, dear, we’re both way too smart for that.” I then walked out the front door, less than three minutes after coming in, leaving Tracey to answer the quizzical looks on her friend’s faces. I thought of that old saying, “Beware the fury of a quiet man.”