Paranoia

by Vandemonium1

This is a thinking person’s story. If you are looking for a shallow sex or a physical BTB story DON’T READ THIS. It does contain sex and adultery as well as some payback.

I think this is an original storyline. This was an attempt to write a story that was exactly opposite to ‘Grim Reality’.

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LISA MALLOW SAT at a table in the back corner of the coffee shop gazing lovingly at her boyfriend Frank Morecomb.

“God you’re beautiful Lisa.”

Lisa blushed demurely and looked down at the table. She felt like a teenager again. It felt good. Some of the happiest days of her life were when she’d been in her late teens. Being pursued by multiple men and getting to decide which ones were going to catch her. She felt the tingling in her groin. Oh yes Frank was going to catch her today.

“And I love your new boobs.”

“Ah, so that’s it, we have been working together one day a week for two years and you ignore me. I get a boob job and all of a sudden you’re interested.”

“I can’t help it if I’m shy Lisa. For two years I have lusted after you but your boobs are driving me crazy and I can’t help myself.”

Frank reached across the table and enfolded both Lisa’s hands in his own. “So beautiful, how about we skip the afternoon at the warehouse and find a motel?”

Lisa had guessed this would be the result of meeting Frank today. She quickly thought about when her next commitment was and decided she easily had five hours free. Enough for the leisurely lovemaking her excitement craved. With a tremor in her voice she said, “OK.”

At that precise moment her phone, lying on the table, gave the distinctive chime of an incoming text. Automatically she disengaged from Frank and read it.

‘What would your husband think of you holding hands with another man like that?’

In an absolute panic, Lisa searched the faces of all the other patrons. No one she recognised and no one paying her any attention. She walked out into the street, glancing both ways. Nothing. She thought to herself, “It must have been someone walking past who saw us.” Checking the view from outside, into the shop, she could see Frank at their table clearly. “Shit, how could I have been so careless?”

She walked back into the shop and sat down. Frank was reading the message on her phone. 

“Sorry Lisa, I know we agreed not to show any affection in public but I couldn’t help myself. Who is the message from?”

Lisa reads the message again. “Unknown number. Shit, my mother has an unlisted number.”

She quickly rang her mother’s house phone. “Come on, please answer.”

“Hello, this is the Jones residence, Shirley speaking”.

“Hi mum, I just rang to make sure you are still coming to dinner tonight.”

“Of course we are sweetie.”

“Is Dad there?”

“Yes, of course, he’s having his afternoon nap right now. Do you want me to get him to ring you?”

“No that’s fine mum, I’ll speak to him tonight, bye.”

With a sigh of relief, Lisa hung up. Now who else did she know with an unlisted number? No one sprang to mind.

“My wife has an unlisted number, you don’t think it could be her do you?”

“I don’t think so, how would she know my number or about my husband. Shit, if word gets back to Dave, I’ll be devastated.”

“You’ve never told me anything about your family. I know your sister works with us on Fridays, who else is there?”

Lisa talked about her 17 year old twins, Jason and Julie. How, to stop the bleeding after their birth, the doctors had effectively sterilised her. With no small amount of guilt she told Frank about her husband, Dave. How he was the one and only love of her life and she would be devastated if he discovered her feelings for Frank. Frank of course asked the obvious question.

“So why me?”

Lisa hadn’t asked herself that question. She paused for thought.

“Just boredom I suppose. After 20 years of being a housewife I just miss the thrill of being chased. Dave is a wonderful husband, father and lover but takes me for granted. I love how you make me feel, the thrill of something illicit. I suppose I wouldn’t get that thrill without some risk. I’ve been a good girl for 20 years and became just another invisible mother. After my boob job two months ago I became aware that men were looking at me with lust again and I wasn’t invisible anymore. It gives me such a buzz.”

They then talked about his family. His wife and two sons. The poor state of his marriage. How his wife’s father was rich and how Frank ran one of the small divisions of his father in law’s company. He felt like a figurehead and began volunteering in the charity warehouse out of sheer boredom. He didn’t reveal that he’d made two previous extramarital conquests from amongst the lonely housewives that made up most of the rest of the staff.

The text forgotten, Frank again suggested a motel. But with the mood broken, Lisa begged off with promises of phone calls and emails. At the very least they would meet again next Friday.

On the way home she pondered again who could have sent the text. She thought of every family member, friend and acquaintance and discounted them all one by one.

When she checked her phone next, there was a new message. It must have arrived when she was driving. Again it was from an unlisted number.

‘Well done.’

That night as she made dinner she prayed again that no one had told Dave. Their marriage was rocky enough as it was. The past six weeks particularly. That was when Dave first mentioned marriage counselling and when their sex life took a nose dive. The fact that it was six weeks ago that she and Frank stopped being acquaintances and started meeting socially outside the warehouse was not lost on her. She interrupted dinner preparations to send a text to Frank telling him she thought they should stop their friendship developing for a while.

During the evening, while trying to act completely normal around Dave, her parents and the twins, she surreptitiously searched Dave’s face for any clues. She almost panicked when she thought she caught Dave looking at her strangely when he thought she wasn’t watching. Her immediate conclusion was that someone had told him about today. It must have been today as she’d been careful never to be seen touching Frank before. No one saw Frank and her sneaking into a motel or one of their houses. It hadn’t happened.

She realised that no amount of thrill could possibly be worth risking her marriage and resolved to break off with Frank.

Over the next week there were several text and email exchanges between Frank and Lisa. Frank tried to break her newfound resolve but was forced to agree to cool it for a while. Lisa desperately thought of ways of testing Dave’s knowledge without admitting to anything. She couldn’t. With a history of blood pressure problems in her family, Lisa tested herself weekly. She noted she was up 10 points this week.

She wasn’t sleeping well and like many deprived people was getting obsessed with it. She told herself, the following Friday morning, that was why she’d knocked Dave back last night when he snuggled up against her in bed and started to caress her buttocks.

“For god’s sake Dave, just let me sleep.”

Dave then rolled onto his back, obviously angry.

Despite her fatigue, she was still awake 10 minutes later when Dave spoke.

“Do you know it has been over two months since we have made love? The last time was before your breast enhancement op. I thought it was supposed to make you feel sexier?”

“Christ Dave, do we have to go through all this again. You know the operation made me sore and the drugs they gave me put me off the mood.”

“This is about that country club membership bullshit again isn’t it Lisa. I told you, we can’t afford it.”

Lisa reacted angrily and automatically, rolling to face Dave.

“I’ve told you how important that membership is to me David. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the only person in my circle of friends who isn’t a member? Knowing I can’t be with them every Saturday when they all go there?”

“Yeah, like I’ve said multiple times, all your friends are married to doctors and lawyers. You chose to marry an electrician. I bought you a flash house, a flash car and took you on a cruise last year, all to keep up with the bloody Joneses. I drew the line at the country club so we could pump more money into the kid’s college fund. Using my refusal to deny me my conjugal rights is just plain emotional blackmail.” He stopped before his temper got out of control.

“I told you my parents would give us the money for the membership.”

Dave cut in. “And I told you that it was my job to provide for this family, I won’t ask for or accept handouts from your Dad. Listen Lisa, 15 years of overtime paid for the house and car. 15 years of being tired and missing out on you and the kids. If we can be frugal we have enough money to put the kids through college and still retire early.”

“For fucks sake Dave, there you go raising that damned overtime again. As you yourself just said, it’s your job to provide for me so you have to provide. Well, I want you to provide me with country club membership.”

At this point Dave stormed out of the main bedroom and went to sleep in the spare. As a parting shot, he threw over his shoulder. “Lisa we really need to go to counselling before it’s too late.”

Lisa’s response was her usual, “Rubbish Dave, we’re fine.” The last thing she wanted was a counsellor forcing her to admit to Frank’s existence.

Dave was pissed, not only about the re-hashed argument and total absence of sex. No he’d wanted to raise something new tonight. A subject that had been increasingly on his mind for the last week, but she who must be obeyed robbed him of the opportunity.

In the master bedroom, Lisa cursed herself for her stubbornness in not letting the country club argument go. She knew Dave was right about the finances but couldn’t really understand why he wouldn’t accept help from her parents. They were rich after all. She couldn’t understand why she felt compelled to drive Dave away emotionally. If she hadn’t been in the grip of the early stages of a big hormonal changes she may have recognised the real reason. Emotionally she was divorcing her husband to continue her liaisons with Frank.

That’s why it was a bit strange that when she tried to solve her insomnia in the old fashioned way, she masturbated to images of the last time Dave made love to her. Frank never rated a mention. She hadn’t gone two months without sexual relief from a male since she was 18 so she was horny as all get out.

With a female’s ability to drop emotional conflicts at the drop of a hat, she rolled over onto her stomach and put her hands into her pyjamas. One hand caressing her sexy new boobs and the other searching for and finding her sex. Her mind wandered back two months to her birthday. They’d gone out to dinner and by the time they got home were both definitely in the mood.

Dave started, as he usually did, by slowly undressing her and caressing each piece of freshly exposed skin. When she was naked, he’d laid her on the bed on her stomach and spent at least 15 minutes lightly kissing her back, legs, neck and finally buttocks. Just like now her sex had been oozing evidence of her excitement.

She used her index and middle fingers to spread some of that moisture around her clitoris and in slow steady strokes, started rubbing.

Then Dave rolled her onto her stomach and attacked her front. Belly, legs and finally breasts. He loved her boobs, she was conscious of their smallness but that would change starting tomorrow.

After sucking on each nipple, Dave slowly started nibbling downwards again. She knew where this was going to end up and shivered with anticipation. He bypassed her pubic area and started licking the inside of her thighs. Impatiently, Lisa grabbed both his ears and dragged his wonderful tongue to exactly where she wanted it. Within seconds she was bucking her hips and squeezing his head with her thighs like a vice. Releasing the pressure only when she wanted Dave to move away from her clit to do that long slow lick starting at her anus and ending up back at her clit that he knew drove her crazy. Within minutes she experienced one, two then a third orgasm. Each one more powerful than the last.

With her eyes squeezed shut Lisa remembered that moment and with mounting excitement made her fingers speed up.

After her third climax Dave was still keen but impatiently she dragged him on top of her until he was in the position to slide his wonderful cock into her. Again, after 20 years Dave knew exactly what to do. Sliding and thrusting slowly, varying the angle of attack but concentrating on an upward pressure that hit her G spot just right. At the same time he gripped her buttocks with both hands and slid the ring finger of one hand into her slippery anus. Within a few short minutes she was raking his back with her fingernails as she bucked in the throes of another tremendous climax.

In the present, Lisa arched her back and moaned into her pillow as she came. As she descended from her high she remembered back two months.

After her fourth orgasm she felt very sensitive as she sometimes did. She forced Dave off her, turned her back and relaxed. Dragging Dave’s protective arms around her, she quickly drifted off.

In the present, Lisa realised that Dave hadn’t cum that night. She dismissed that thought. Dave always told her that her pleasure was his main priority.

Did she make it up to him the next morning? No. He’d woken her by caressing her buttocks but she’d turned him down. She wanted to be fresh for the hospital.

Back in the present, Lisa finally slept. If she’d been thinking rationally she may have wondered why she hadn’t thought of Frank at all during her session.

By the time she got up the next morning Dave and the twins had already eaten breakfast. The kids were nowhere to be seen, gone to their summer jobs. Inconsiderate pricks left their dirty breakfast dishes on the sink. Dave was acting a bit weird. Whether it was because of the tiff last night or, heaven forbid, the other thing, she just didn’t know. She decided to avoid him. At about 9AM he found her sunning herself next to the pool.

“I was going to take the day off but if you have nothing planned for the day I may as well go to work.” To her relief, he left.

Later, after a leisurely shower, she stood in front of the mirror caressing her new breasts. It was Friday and she would be seeing Frank again at the charity warehouse where they sorted donated clothing. She wondered again why she was risking her loving marriage for someone who was clearly way less of a man than her husband. Then she saw the crow’s feet alongside her eyes and remembered. When she’d left home for college, her mother was an attractive, virile looking woman. Three years later, when she returned home, her mother looked like an old lady. Then she remembered the adrenalin rush as Frank held her hands last week. If she was careful and not caught then risk = 0.

Without her knowledge her hormones quietly took control again and she returned to bed to relieve some more pressure. If she’d been honest with herself she would have realised that she considered Dave to be, ‘in the bank’ and she had a golden opportunity for more. Her subconscious knew more than her. They sensed the approaching change and were driving her to breed before it was too late. But not to breed with her husband. No, the drive was for a bit of genetic diversity.

She spent the rest of the day with Frank at the warehouse. He respected her request to just act like acquaintances for the day.

With some trepidation but mounting excitement Dave re-entered the house just after 6PM. He was pleasantly surprised to see Lisa coming down the stairs dressed to kill.

“Oh good, I see you remembered”, he said.

“What are you going on about Dave, I’ve got to snap myself out of this funk I’m in. I’ve arranged to go out with Linda and the girls.” Linda was her divorced best friend.

Dave stared at her for a full minute before her eyes dropped to the floor. Then he walked into the kitchen, checked the oven, stove top and fridge before coming back to stare at Lisa again.

“I’m sorry for not telling you Dave. We’ll just be down the Empire if you want to check on us. I’d invite you but, you know, it’s just the girls going.”

Without changing expression, Dave grabbed his coat and walked back out the door he’d come in with such hopes just five minutes before. Pausing at the door but not turning around he spoke very quietly, Lisa strained to hear his words.

“I guess I’ll just have to find someone else to celebrate my birthday with then.”

He continued through the door slamming it so hard that the clock fell off the wall. By the time Lisa could react Dave was in his truck and gone. Frantically she tried ringing his cell but he wasn’t picking up. Then she grabbed her keys and ran to her car. She’d never forgotten Dave’s birthday before and had even forgotten to remind the twins the week before as she normally did. For someone trying to improve her marriage, it was a disaster.

She spent an hour driving around to all their favourite haunts looking for his truck. Belatedly she tried to find an open shop to get a present. Everything was shut. Finally, about 9PM she joined her friends at the Empire and as quickly as possible drank herself into a stupor. Her friends carried her home and poured her into bed.

She staggered awake well after dawn. There was no sign of Dave. She couldn’t tell if he’d been and gone or hadn’t come home at all. All she knew was that she had some serious ass kissing to do. She rang Frank and filled him in on everything. Her suspicions, missing Dave’s birthday, the lot. He was no use at all.

After that she rang her mum. Her mother told her she was babbling, was worried and was coming over. The next thing Lisa knew she was waking up at the hospital. Both kids and Dave were there looking worried. The doctors ran a battery of tests but all they could find was an abnormally high blood pressure. They recommended she stayed there until her medication brought it under control which took all day.

At home her family couldn’t have acted more loving and caring if they’d tried. Dave took the week off to look after her. He snuggled her to sleep every night, just like the old days. He did, however gently rebuff her half-hearted attempts to get him to make love to her.

“Hush Lisa, get all better first.”

It was two weeks later when Lisa returned to the warehouse. As soon as she saw Frank, her previous resolve evaporated. He asked her to lunch again but she was nervous about being observed. If Dave was suspicious, he might be keeping tabs on her. Where could they go where there was no possibility of being seen by anyone in her family? She smiled at the irony of the solution. The country club. Her parents were not even members. Her father often remarked that the truly rich were normally quite friendly people. But the club was populated by snobby, self-centred nouveau riche pricks that disgusted him.

They hid her car in a popular shopping centre carpark and travelled to the club in Frank’s car. Safely ensconced in a back corner, Lisa scanned the sparsely populated dining room for familiar faces. None. Their conversation today was about the future of their relationship. Frank had just made it plain that he would drop his wife like a hot potato to marry Lisa. That was far from what she wanted but basked in the glow of his attention. ‘Yes’, she thought, ‘I’ve still got it’. However she did value their relationship and was searching for a way of letting him down gently. Now she thought about it, Frank was rich, what better fall-back option was there if things went belly up with Dave? At least he could keep her in the style she thought she deserved. Physically it would be a downgrade but what the hell.

This time they were sitting side by side and Frank was soon caressing her knee under the table. Lisa flinched as her phone beeped. She couldn’t not read the text.

‘Will your Jason and Julie forgive you if your marriage breaks down over this?’

Lisa stood up shocked, Frank’s hand falling from her leg. Once again she desperately looked around the room. No one was paying her the slightest attention. She looked at the text again and noticed that it displayed a number this time rather than, ‘unknown number’. With beating heart she hit the buttons.

It answered after three rings with a female voice and an obvious New York accent, “Joe’s Pizza Parlour, East 24^th Street, how can I help you?”

Already in an agitated state, this completely threw Lisa.

“Who is this and why are you texting me?”

“Listen lady, you rang me. Now do you want to order a pizza or not, we close in half and hour?”

Totally confused, Lisa rang off looking at every other dining table. No one had a phone out, no one was looking her way, in fact, and no one was paying her the slightest attention. Confused, Frank grabbed her phone, pulled up the text messages and looked at the latest one. His face fell and he joined Lisa in looking around the room. This time there were no windows and no view from the outside.

Lisa rang Dave’s office number. When the receptionist answered, Lisa asked where her husband was and was told he was in the workshop. Lisa asked the girl to check. She told her she’d got a sudden premonition that something had happened to him. Five minutes later the receptionist said that Dave was alive and well and buried inside an electrical switch box. Lisa rang off, lunch forgotten.

“Just take me back to my car Frank.”

“Sure thing Lisa.”

They hurried out to the carpark and sped away. On the way back to town they brainstormed who was spying on them and how they were doing it. They favoured direct observation. They’d discussed having lunch via phone and email during the week but hadn’t decided where until this morning. It couldn’t be Frank’s wife, otherwise he would have got the texts. They were baffled until Frank decided her handbag could be bugged. Lisa frantically emptied everything and checked inside every item. Nothing.

When they got back to her car, Frank tried for a kiss but Lisa just threw open the door, got in her own car and screeched off.

She drove straight home and decided to spend the afternoon doing some research on the internet. She turned the computer on then decided to check its history. The last time the computer connected to the internet was Wednesday morning. That would have been the last time she sent an email to Frank so no one was checking on her from this machine.

She decided to type in ‘spying on wife’. She’d just typed in sp when one of the suggestions, prompted by earlier searches, caught her eye. She deleted the p and read the suggestions. Top of the list, ‘signs of a cheating spouse’. Fuck, it WAS Dave. He had found out and was spying on her. Almost on autopilot she clicked on the link. Highlighted in purple were three websites that’d been visited. With growing dread she visited all three.

Within an hour she’d written a list that Dave must have already deduced himself.

Dress/behaviour changes, sudden disrespect, refusing sex, hickies, make up awry/fresh, wet hair, smell of soap, credit card bill/phone bill, phone tap, talking about another person often then stopping, guilty conscience, changed sexual behaviour.

She pondered this list. The sudden disrespect, hickies, make up, wet hair and credit card references were obviously not factors. She did realise that she’d been dressing more carefully on Fridays recently. She’d never mentioned Frank to Dave. Had she behaved differently to Dave on Frank days? She was sure she hadn’t.

Unbeknownst to Lisa, she’d glossed over the most critical item on the list. Her consciousness refused to recognise her recent behaviour as extreme disrespect to Dave. Those who lose respect for themselves, rarely respect others.

In Lisa’s mind that left refusing sex, changed sexual behaviour, phone and internet records. She checked an old phone bill, it wasn’t itemised to numbers. So it wasn’t that. She and Dave both used different password protected email accounts on the computer. Lisa’s password wasn’t written anywhere and wasn’t guessable.

The references to a changed sex life was ringing alarms but that made no sense. The sudden drop in sex happened about eight weeks ago. Her new relationship with Frank hadn’t begun that long ago, had it?

A terrible possibility occurred to her. Had Dave become suspicious after their sex life plummeted and started spying on her and accidentally stumbled on Frank? That made sense. She pulled out her phone and looked at the three anonymous texts again. ‘What would your husband think of you holding hands with another man like that?’ ‘Will your Jason and Julie forgive you if your marriage breaks down over this?’ The second one could have been worded by Dave but the first one was just the wrong language. Was Dave smart enough to deliberately confuse things with wording? Yes, Lisa thought, Dave was smart but never cunning or deceptive. The first text did sound like her mum though. Two different source phone numbers, two different people? Two coincidences?

Still confused Lisa went back to her original search idea and compiled another list. Some of this list must be how she was being spied on.

Phone tap (house phone), hidden transmitter on cell phone, GPS and/or microphone in car, emails read, followed, private investigator, hidden cameras, surveillance of bank statements/credit card bills, key logger on computer.

Strangely all this activity excited Lisa. She didn’t wonder why. If she had, she may have concluded that one of her motivations for Frank was plain boredom.

With her list complete she sent a quick email to Frank telling him of her findings and informing him that she was almost certain Dave was spying on her. She attached both her lists. They would definitely have to cool it for a while. She couldn’t risk losing her husband. She loved him too much. After hitting send she deleted it from the sent items box then the deleted items as she normally did. Then she changed her password for good measure. 

She was just closing the computer down when the twins came home followed within minutes by Dave. She panicked when she realised she’d done nothing about dinner. That is maybe why she didn’t greet Dave the way she normally did. She just asked him to go out and get takeaways. She missed Dave’s resentful stare at the back of her head as she turned away.

Driven by anger and guilt she avoided Dave for the rest of the evening. Anger because for two weeks she’d been waiting for Dave to apologise to her over the latest country club argument. If he just apologised then they could re-start their love life. Anger also that he was spying on her. And guilt, well she didn’t know what that was all about. So, he maybe knew she’d had lunch and coffee with another guy and maybe been told she was holding hands with him once. Did he think he owned her or something? Still, she knew she couldn’t afford to look him in the eye.

The kids chatted with their mother and father throughout the meal. Dave was speaking.

“So, how’s the job going Jason?”

“Great Dad, we’re doing some painting up at the country club this week.”

Lisa felt cold icicles moving up and down her spine. She tried to catch Jason’s eye to see if they gave away anything. But all night he behaved absolutely normally around her.

Lisa was lost in her own thoughts all evening. Was it Dave or was it Jason. If the latter, had Jason told his father. The only one acting weird was Dave. She tried to initiate sex that night but Dave was already asleep when she got to bed and didn’t respond when she tried to drag him on top of her.

The next day Lisa woke late to a quiet house. There was a note on the kitchen table that simply said, “Overtime.” She smiled. It looked like that country club membership was in the bag.

With the house to herself she went back to her lists. She started by looking at the two house phones and found on each a black device separating the phone from the wall plug. She removed them both and looked at them. Written on the sides were written ‘Blitzengard’. She was wild. What right did her husband have to bug her phone calls? At the same time she desperately thought back and tried to remember if she’d said anything compromising.

After she calmed down she pulled her cell phone apart. She’d no idea what a transmitter looked like but everything but the battery and SIM card seemed to be nailed in. She then virtually pulled her Lexus apart looking for a microphone or GPS tracker. Again she’d no idea what they looked like but thought she would know when she found them.

Next she hit the computer. After checking she was the last person to access the internet, Lisa downloaded and ran an application that looked for evidence of a key logger program. Nothing. Following that she got the last six months of bank and credit card statements out, looking for large, unaccounted for payments. Again nothing.   Next she searched all the commonly used rooms for hidden cameras. Either they were really well hidden or there were none. So, just the phone taps then.

She spent the rest of the afternoon buying two new throwaway phones. One for herself, one for Frank. Fifteen minutes later, the text and call history was deleted from her old phone. Just before Dave got home she sent a quick email to Frank telling what she’d done and what she’d found. Then she settled down to wait for Dave.

Once he entered the kitchen she slammed the two telephone bugs on the table and said, “What’s this shit?”

Dave picked up one of the black devices and read the side.

“We bought these a couple of years ago, remember. After that news story about a woman that was deafened when lightning hit the phone line while she was on a call. These things stop that. See, Blitzen is the German word for lightning. What did you think they were, did you think I was checking up on you or the kids? Why would I do that?”

He came around the table and tried to hug Lisa.

“Look Liss, what’s wrong with us. Can’t you see we need help? Can we please go to counselling?”

Embarrassed, Lisa pulled out of his arms and ran to her room. Dave slept in the spare again.

That week Lisa’s blood pressure had risen another 15 points despite the medication.

That pretty much set the tone for the next 10 days. Dave stayed out later at night, coming back either just in time for dinner or missing it. They were both stubborn and waiting for the other to apologise. Lisa missed charity Friday the next week, it was Linda’s birthday. Relations were just starting to thaw a fortnight later. Dave reluctantly moved back into the master bedroom but there was no loving.

Then like a moth to flames, Lisa decided to return to Frank. She was still not certain who, if anyone, was tracking her. She certainly didn’t know how they were doing it. 

Frank knew to behave himself in the charity sorting room, especially when Lisa’s sister Sharon was there like she was today. He did however manage to whisper in her ear, “I’ve missed you.” Then at one of breaks they made eye contact. He subtly moved his head to indicate the storeroom at the back and sidled towards it. After checking Sharon was nowhere in sight, Lisa followed and slipped inside.

As soon as the door closed she was in his arms and they kissed like there was no tomorrow. It was a good as she’d imagined it would be. It must have gone on for at least four minutes when she felt the vibration of an incoming text from her pocket. With dread she uncoupled and pulled out the phone.

‘Did your parents raise you to carry on like this?’

Stunned momentarily, Lisa recovered quickly and tapped in Dave’s cell number. It was answered after four rings. She said, “Hi honey, what are you up to?”

“Oh just on my lunch break. How are you?”

“Oh, you know, just slaving at the factory. What would you like for dinner?”

“Well I’d love to try that new Mexican place after Julie’s thing. What do you reckon?”

“Sounds great sweetie, you’ve got a date. See ya later.”

She rang off really confused now. Either Dave was the best actor in the world or it wasn’t him.

She rang Jason’s mobile. He was having lunch with his Grandma, Lisa’s mother.

“What are you doing at Grandma’s Jason?”

“Well, the guys at work were telling me about POETS day. You know, Piss Off Early Tomorrows Saturday.”

Jason chuckled at his own joke. Lisa didn’t get it.

“Are both Grandma and Grandpa there?”

 “Yes mum and Julie as well. She said to remind you about the play tonight.”

“What play?”

“You know, the one she’s in. They’ve been rehearsing it for weeks. Mum, what’s going on? I know you’ve been distracted lately but we talked about this last night?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right, the play.”

Lisa desperately wracked her brain for memories. She remembered Julie had been rehearsing but had absolutely no memory of it being mentioned last night. She hastily rang off. So it wasn’t her parents, husband or children stalking her. Who the hell was it?

The only name that came to her rattled mind was Sharon. That made sense. Her whereabouts were unknown during the first two texts but she was certainly around today. Lisa opened the door a crack and scanned the main floor for her sister. She was nowhere in sight. She strode out the door to find Sharon for the confrontation. Just as she got out the door Frank grabbed her arm and tried to pull her back. He was even more confused than she was. Lisa looked around again, right into the eyes of Sharon striding towards her. Sharon’s face looked like thunder as she looked at her little sister. Arms locked with a man, lipstick smeared and hair awry. Well it didn’t take Einstein to get the answer to this 2 + 2.

“What the fuck is going on Lisa?”

She grabbed Lisa and dragged her away from the bewildered Frank. Right out the door and across the road to a coffee shop.

“Right Lisa, spill the beans. Are you having an affair with that creep?”

“Yes….no….sort of” sobbed Lisa. We were just kissing….we’ve met a couple of times….we’re just friends.”

“Bullshit Lisa, friends don’t kiss each other hard enough to smear their lipstick. Friends don’t go into the stock room and hold hands. Please tell me why you’re doing this to Dave.”

She waited while Lisa stopped sobbing and slowly regained some of her composure.

“Why Lisa?”

Lisa groped at the first excuse that came to mind.

“After getting my boob job I just started feeling so sexy. Frank came on to me, said all the right things and I just let it get out of hand. Honestly nothing has happened except two meetings for lunch and a bit of kissing and groping today.”

She then went on to unload to Sharon about the texts and her resulting confusion. When she finished, it was Sharon’s turn.

“Tell me Lisa, how much did that boob job cost?”

“A little over 20K.”

“And Dave paid for it right?”

“Yes. I suppose so.”

“And you repay him by cheating on him.”

Lisa reacted violently to that.

“I did not cheat on Dave!”

“Lunch with another guy, kissing and groping. Sure sounds like cheating to me.”

Both sisters considered their next move. Sharon was quicker.

“So I presume that if your new boobs are making you feel sexy then Dave has been getting pounded into the mattress on a regular basis?”

Lisa was at a total loss for words. Eventually she whispered.

“No, Dave and I haven’t made love since my operation.”

Sharon’s face went completely white and now it was her turn to be lost for words. Eventually she spat.

“Lisa, you bloody fool. You know my ex-husband caught me cheating and divorced my ass. Well, after it was all over I realised that from the time he suspected me till the time he caught me he didn’t have sex with me once. It’s what men do. Listen Lisa unless you do something, and damned fast, you’ll end up like me. It’s no bed of roses I can tell you. Sure I got the house but it’s awfully lonely and I can tell you for nothing, I’ll never be able to afford a boob job. Stop this crap now. Stop before it goes too far and you’re caught. Go home and screw Dave’s arse off. Shove his cock so far down your throat that he gets stomach acid burns on his little head.”

“Don’t be vulgar Sharon, you know I don’t do that disgusting thing………. You won’t tell Dave about today will you?”

“You can be assured I won’t Lisa. But only if you promise to stop this madness.”

“OK Sharon, I will.”

As if she wasn’t having a bad enough day, when she got back to her car it had a flat. She would normally call Dave to fix it but this time she called the auto club and within half an hour the breakdown technician arrived. As he was putting the flat back in the wheel well, the tech reached in and pulled out a small box. “What’s this?”

Lisa now knows what a GPS tracker looks like.

She drove home in a daze. Everyone was there already, getting changed for the play. She had no time to think.

Lisa drifted in and out of awareness throughout the play. She was barley aware when Julie strode on stage for her role. She snapped out of her reverie when Julie spoke her first lines, in a passing impersonation of a New York accent. Lisa’s blood ran cold. All she could hear in her head was “Joe’s Pizza Parlour.”

She fumed throughout the rest of the play. When it was over and the actors retreated to the dressing rooms, Lisa stormed back stage. She found Julie with a bunch of her friends, grabbed her arm and dragged her into a corridor. Nose to nose she almost screamed in Julie’s face.

“What do you know about me and Frank?”

“Mum you’re scaring me.”

Lisa stared into her daughter’s frightened eyes then turned tail and strode down the corridor towards the exit. Before she reached the door, she threw over her shoulder.

“Stay out of my bloody business.”

Julie shouting down the length of the corridor yelled, “Mum, did you like the play?” But her mother was gone.

Dave took the kids and his in-laws out to the restaurant. It took most of the evening to bring Julie back to normal. Julie didn’t mention her mother’s question so no one had a clue what triggered her quiet mood.

When they got home Lisa was already there, locked in the master bedroom and refusing to open the door or acknowledge their words. Dave slept in the spare bedroom again. Lisa’s disappearance after the play just one more mystery.

In the morning, Dave again tried to talk Lisa into coming out and helping her distraught daughter. When she still hadn’t emerged after Jason and Julie left for the day, Dave went out as well. Why the fuck not, he thought.

Lisa thought of her conversation with Sharon and the GPS tracker in her car.

For the next few weeks, Lisa was a good wife in public. While Frank was still going to the charity warehouse, Lisa made sure there was never anything but polite interaction and definitely no coffee afterwards. She knew her sister well enough to know that it would be a big mistake letting her see anything inappropriate. By email and throwaway phone when the house was empty however, it was a different story.

After a month, everything was practically back to normal, apart from their sex life, when Dave announced he was to travel out of town for two days and one night the following week for a training course. This was unusual enough to cause Lisa to be suspicious. That was the subject of multiple emails to Frank. Was it a trap or not? There was never a question raised by either of them on whether they were going to take advantage of Dave’s absence or not. It was just a matter of how. Together they hatched a quite elaborate plan.

The day Dave left, Lisa got him to ring her when he got to his motel to make sure he’d arrived safely. Then at 7PM, after she’d organised dinner for the twins, she rang her parent’s house phone on some invented pretext, being careful to speak to both of them. She did notice her mother was unusually brusque. Next she rang Sharon on some other pretext. The final call was to the motel number Dave had given her. Dave picked up straight away and she launched into the conversation she’d prepared. All totally legitimate stuff. Convinced all bases were almost covered she went into the garage and with great effort removed the spare wheel then the GPS tracker. She put it on a shelf. She’d previously warned the twins she had a girl’s night arranged with Linda. When she left they were both doing something on Julie’s laptop.

Finally, close to 8PM she left. She meandered around for a while, trying to spot any cars following her. She wondered again why she was going to all this trouble. At the same time, she recognised the excitement that all the plotting engendered. 10 minutes later she drove past the house and noted Jason’s car was still in the driveway. Julie didn’t have a car. Preparations complete, all bases covered, she drove across town to the motel Frank was already booked into.

Frank was already there and opened the room door. Lisa quickly slipped inside. Again they kissed, then Lisa finally pulled him over to the bed and they both fell on to it. They continued kissing and Frank moved his hands up to stroke her left breast.

This time Lisa literally screamed when the text warning beep sounded. She pulled it from her handbag but was too scared to look at the screen for over a minute. She was vaguely aware that Frank’s phone was also ringing. She finally looked at the screen.

‘I hope you locked your car, that motel is in a bit of a rough neighbourhood.’

Lisa could feel herself getting dizzy and see blackness appearing in her vision. She slumped back on the bed. She watched Frank heading out the door.

“Frank, where are you going?”

“That was my wife on the phone. She said she’d got a text saying I was in a motel with some woman. I told her I was just finishing a business dinner but she told me that if I’m not home in 15 minutes, she’ll kill me. I’m off.”

With that he ran to his car and burnt rubber.

Unable to go home as it would blow her cover story, Lisa really did go to her best friend Linda’s house. Totally befuddled Lisa broke down and told the whole story to her. As smart as she was Linda could offer no more advice on who was stalking Lisa or how it was being done. The only thing that they hadn’t discounted was some sort of surveillance in her handbag. With a sharp knife they absolutely destroyed the bag. Lisa regretted doing this. She’d carried that bag for years. But she must know.

It wasn’t until they removed the last of the bag’s liner that they found it. A small printed circuit card that looked exactly like one of the SIM cards that came in the first generation of cell phones. Both Lisa and Linda stared down at the offending item. After a minute, Lisa gestured for Linda to follow her to a bedroom where she shut the door.

“What do you think it is Lisa,” she whispered?”

“I’m sure it’s a combination voice recorder/homing device. Probably transmits everything in real time by satellite. The rotten bastards.”

“I dunno Lisa. It looks too small and surely if it does transmit stuff it would need a power source.”

“Believe me Linda, this is it, this is the cause of all my problems. Think about it. Whenever I’ve planned anything on the phone or in person, that thing has picked it up. Whenever I’ve gone somewhere, like a motel, that thing has shown them exactly where. I still don’t know who is doing it but I’m going to have fun fucking with them.

At 11.30PM Lisa went home with the outline of a plan already forming in her mind. She would have felt less smug if she’d known that same mind was developing a large fracture.

Dave came home the next day and appeared perfectly normal. The kids seemed perfectly normal. Everybody was fucking normal, except Lisa. She was the only one not normal and was having trouble hiding her growing insanity.

Over the next week she put all three elements of her plan into action. The first element was a decoy weekend trip to the beach with Linda. She purchased two new handbags, very similar to her old one and carefully hid the device in the lining of one of them. Then with bag in hand she elaborately planned to meet Linda and drive to the beach town. She told Dave, the twins, Sharon and her parents all about the trip early the following week. She made bookings at a hotel in the beach town on her old login on the computer. Meanwhile, all the real arrangements for a dirty weekend with Frank in a city two hours flying time away were completed on a brand new account she’d set up.  While on the phone to him she made sure the bag with the bug in was well away. All real plan communications were done via email and house phone. Frank suggested she scan for key logger programs again. She did that the next day when the house was empty.

All arrangements, both decoy and real, were in place by the weekend before the trip. Time to put the third part of the plan into action. Operation ‘fuck my way back into marriage harmony’. She recognised that her marriage may still be in trouble. Dave hadn’t mentioned counselling in a while but was still working tons of overtime. She wasn’t sure if this was for money for the club or to keep away from her, although she was 95% sure of the former. She just didn’t know. Lisa was now certain that her stalker wasn’t Dave. She knew he’d been in an amateur dramatic society in his youth but shit, Russell Crowe couldn’t pull off the act he was if it was him. No, prime candidates were her parents and the twins. Sometimes she caught both kids looking at her funny when they thought she wasn’t looking. As for her parents, her mother was still being extremely short with her and their weekly visits had dried up. In fact Lisa couldn’t remember the last time her parents visited.

Providing unlimited sex for Dave would not only buy time for the marriage but fill an insatiable urge. After all, it was over four months since she’d experienced an orgasm with a man’s penis buried where nature intended it to be.

Well the operation lasted one night and backfired badly.

When Dave came home on Saturday it was to the smell of his favourite meal and a very sexily dressed Lisa. She explained that the kids were away all weekend and lavished attention on Dave all throughout the meal. Afterwards she took his hand and led him to the bedroom. She stripped. Dave just stood next to the bed with a kind of neutral expression on his face.

“Come on lover, get nude.”

“I dunno Lisa, this feels kind of strange to me. It’s like you’ve been using sex or the lack of it as a weapon for months. Doing this kind of feels like I’m being thrown a bone for being a good boy. I just feels wrong and far from sexy.”

Lisa stood in front of Dave, squeezed her breasts together and rubbed them against his chest.

“Come on lover, these babies need some loving. Besides all that old stuff doesn’t apply any more. We both know why you’ve been doing all that overtime lately.”

“So I was right, this is a reward for being a good boy.”

“No Davey, I really, really need you.”

“I dunno Lisa, I’m just not in the mood. Maybe if you were to try to change my mind.” With this statement he unzipped his fly and waggled his eyebrows.

“What do you mean David?”

“I would have thought it was obvious babe, I’m suggesting a little oral warm-up on your part.”

“Don’t be disgusting Dave.”

“Well, you had no problems doing it before we were married. What are you proposing, just lying there or leaving me hanging like you normally do?”

With that, Dave zipped up again and turned to leave throwing over his shoulder. “I told you before Lisa, any money from overtime I’m working goes straight into the kid’s college fund.” He left.

Relations were very strained for the rest of the week.

The following Friday the new elaborate plans went into operation. Lisa bade her family goodbye as they all left for work in the morning. She finished packing and drove to Linda’s house. The two conspirators following the prepared script as they kept busy removing the GPS tracker from the Lexus spare wheel well and putting it in the trunk of Linda’s car where it was joined by Lisa’s handbag with the chip in it and her regular cell phone. Lisa waved goodbye to Linda as she left on her all expenses paid trip to the beach. Lisa then called a cab to the airport on the disposable phone.

An hour later, about five minutes before the flight was called, Lisa’s phone buzzed. Expecting it to be from Frank, she pulled it out.

‘If you get on that plane I WILL tell Dave about how Frank is on the other flight at 2.05PM and about the double room booked at the Desert Vista Motel.’

It didn’t register on her that this text came to her disposable phone. The one only she, Frank and Linda should know the existence of.

The airport security guard came over and asked if she was all right when she threw her phone at the floor hard enough to smash it to pieces then slumped back in her chair. She was still there all throughout the numerous calls over the airport speakers but didn’t recognise the false name she was using for this trip. She was still there when Frank arrived and flew out from a different gate.

Many hours later she recovered enough to leave the airport and take a taxi to a motel where she stayed until Sunday night brooding. She then collected her car and drove home. With one phone ‘accidentally’ deliberately left in a car trunk, two hours away, and the other smashed and in an airport bin she was free from Frank’s influence for two days. In two days she came to a decision. It was one that a less stubborn person would have made weeks ago. She would dump Frank and put all her effort into her marriage and family. She came to realise that she loved Dave with all her heart and the thought of losing him filled her with dread.

Dave and the twins were already in bed when Lisa returned home. She slipped into bed and snuggled up to her wonderful man. She gave Dave his first blowjob in 18 years. He never completely woke up but just grabbed her head and shot his load deep into her mouth. She swallowed the lot. Even in the semi darkness she could see the satisfied smile on his face and at peace with herself she snuggled up to him and went to sleep.

The next morning she was up early cooking an elaborate breakfast for her family. She gave Dave a huge kiss when he appeared but when he started to describe the fantastic dream he’d had the previous night she shushed him with a finger on his lips.

“That was no dream, lover, let’s just call it a down payment on things to come.”

Two hours later Frank rang the house phone. When it became obvious Lisa was dropping him, he rang off telling her he would be over in half an hour. She prepared a fresh pot of coffee.  

When Frank arrived they were sitting in the kitchen and Frank was droning on about something but Lisa wasn’t listening. She was concentrating on her phone. Waiting. Right on cue it beeped. With no surprise at all she picked it up and read the text.

‘Surely you aren’t going to fuck that man in Dave’s bed.’

She carefully put the phone down, grabbed Frank’s arm and dragged him to the door. “I’m sorry Frank, it’s over, just accept it please.” She shut the door in his confused face.

Frank sent her nine texts during the rest of that day, the last one at after 11PM. There was obviously an unresolved issue still there. She turned the phone off. Lisa’s period also started later in the day. Sex was off the menu but that wasn’t going to stop her from being as loving as she could be to Dave.

Lisa’s plan for the next day was entirely consistent with her new attitude. She showered and went out. It wasn’t until the third lingerie shop she found exactly what she had in mind. After a long grocery shop and visit to a specialty deli for the things she wanted, she drove home.

She sat in the driveway and rang Frank. She wanted him to accept they were done and stop trying to contact her. The last thing she needed was for Dave to find out about Frank now. She noticed that she’d forgotten to turn her phone on this morning. She was surprised when a woman’s voice answered Frank’s mobile.

“Hello, can I speak to Frank please?”

“No he’s still in the hospital. I’m his wife. Is this Lisa?”

“Yes it is, wha….what happened?”

“Frank was badly beaten up last night. Someone attacked him with a baseball bat. His nose is broken as are a few of his ribs. One kneecap is smashed and don’t ask about his balls. Let’s just say he won’t be sitting down for a month or so.”

“That’s terrible, I hope they catch the mongrel that did it.”

“Gee I hope not, it was me.”

The sheer calmness with which that last statement was delivered made it hard to sink in to Lisa’s brain. 

“Which hospital is Frank in, I’d like to go and see him?”

“I don’t think you should.”

“Why not?”

The response was anything but calm.

“Well for a start slut, if I ever set eyes on you, I’ll cut off those fake tits of yours, wrap them in the prenup agreement I have with Frank, the one that leaves him with only the shirt on his back, and ram them down your cheating, lying throat!” The line went dead. Lisa headed into the house stunned. It was just after 4PM.

Sitting in her lounge room were her parents, Sharon and the twins. They watched her silently as she walked in. Confusedly she took a seat in the only vacant chair. Her father opened the attack.

“Lisa, what is it going to take to get you to stop all this shit?”

Lisa’s mother put her hand on her husband’s arm.

“Hush Herb, I’ll handle this.”

“Lisa, we know everything. Julie originally saw you in the coffee shop. She rang me wanting to know what to do. I sent you the first text. Then we organised a family meeting to set up some surveillance just in case the first text didn’t guilt you into stopping. You’ll never know how disappointed we all were when you went to the country club with that snake. Sharon followed you to the club and Jason told us when you started behaving inappropriately. He rang me and I texted you on the new disposable phone we’d bought. It was very naughty of Julie to put on that fake New York accent when you rang.” Jason took over the narrative.

“After that it was easy to put a GPS tracker in your car, bug the phones, install a key logger and divert your emails. We knew all your plans before you did. We kept an eye on your purse when we decided you would probably respond by getting a disposable phone. We tampered with that one as well.” Sharon interrupted.

‘I kept an eye on you at the warehouse and when you disappeared into the stockroom I rang mum. And in case you’re wondering, no I never broke my promise not to tell Dave.” Julie spoke next.

“We couldn’t believe it when you went to that seedy motel. We just tracked you with the GPS and Grandma texted you after your car stopped moving and we’d seen the address.”

Lisa jumped on that. “No that can’t be right. I found your stupid GPS tracker in the spare wheel well and left it here before going to that motel.”

Everyone exchanged glances with each other. There was a common theme of confused looks. Jason broke the silence first.

“What are you talking about mum, I put the tracker in a hole in the chassis.”

“But I checked all the phones for bugs and ran an anti-key logger program on the computer twice.”

“Yes mum that was very clever. But it wasn’t smart to tell Frank what you were going to do via email first. It gave us plenty of time to remove everything first then reinstall it later. That’s how we knew about the decoy trip to the beach and the real plane trip. The key logger caught you setting up a new email account.” Sharon interrupted again.

“And I was watching the house when Frank turned up here yesterday. I took a photo of him at the door.”

“And I printed it out with copies of the emails and put them in Frank’s letterbox”, said Julie.

“But that can’t be right”, said Lisa, “I found your bug in my handbag and made sure you heard all kinds of false information.”

“What bug mum?”

While they again looked at each other in confusion, Lisa went and got the offending chip. Jason looked at it and said, “This is just a SIM card mum. Have you ever lost one?”

Lisa suddenly remembered about five years back when her phone came apart in her bag. She never found that damned SIM card. She felt such a fool.

Everyone paused for thought. Lisa’s mother kicked the attack off again.

“Why Lisa?”

This was the question that still largely confused Lisa. What remained of her rational mind tried to justify what she now subconsciously knew was unjustifiable.

“Our sex life got very dull. I thought some extramarital stimulation would put a spark back in it.”

Her mother again became the main spokesperson for the group.

“I can’t believe that was the first excuse that came out of your mouth. Your dad and I certainly didn’t raise you to have morals like that or to show the same common sense as a pissed off Rattlesnake. Besides, your sister tells me that you weren’t overly adventurous in the bedroom department at home. Tell us Lisa, what did you do to spice things up a bit? Did you buy something sexy or make any effort on your appearance?”

“But Dave hardly ever approaches me for sex anymore.”

“And why is that Lisa? Could it be that most times he did, he got knocked back? That can really affect a guy’s confidence. He responds by stopping asking and hoping like hell that you restore it by suggesting it to him.”

Lisa knew her mum had a point there but wasn’t about to admit it.

“But he was always so tired.”

“No shit Sherlock. Could it possibly be because he was working 60 to 70 hours a week to afford to be able to buy you this huge house and that flash car of yours. Did it ever occur to you to go out and get a job so you could afford all the fancy things and he could reduce his hours? Did it?”

“But mum, it’s his role…”

This time it was her dad’s turn to break in.

“I can’t believe this shit. It is your role to help him in any way you can and to live within the means he can provide.”

“But Dad, I just want the nice things that you and mum have.”

“And the poor bastard almost killed himself trying to give them to you. Did you know Lisa, that Dave came and saw me about a year after you were married? He asked me to stop giving you money, said it was his job to provide for you now. You’ve got to love a guy that has the pride to do that.” The look that Lisa’s mother gave her father demonstrated to everyone that this was news to her.

“Dave was taking me for granted.”

Her mother took over again.

“Who was taking who for granted Lisa? Think for a moment, what special things have you done for Dave lately. What did you buy him for his birthday this year? No, that’s right, you forgot all about it didn’t you. Even after that you didn’t rush out and buy anything did you? Did you plan an evening of unbridled make-up sex, no you went right back to planning your next smooch session with Frankie.”

Lisa knew she was scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses.

“Yes and what about Valentine’s day, I just got a lousy card and box of chocolates this year.”

“Oh yes and what did you get for him?”

Lisa knew she was on firmer ground here.

“Come on, everyone knows that Valentine’s Day is when men show their girls how much they mean to them.”

“No Lisa, Valentine’s day is when ‘lovers’ show each other how much they love each other.”

“But I’ve never done anything for Dave.”

“And yet after 20 years he is still buying you cards and chocolates. I’ll give him one thing, he’s a lot more patient than I am.”

For some reason this point finally got through to Lisa. After some pause she said.

“I’ve been a stupid, selfish bitch haven’t I?” Her calm tone belied the fact that she was skating on the very thin ice of her sanity.

To their credit, none of the five members of the jury showed any indication that they agreed with her.

“Please tell me you haven’t told Dave anything that you know………..please.”

Lisa’s mother looked around for any signs that she was about to tell an untruth. Four blank looks.

“No Lisa, as far as we know he is totally clueless.”

“So that training trip he did wasn’t to try to catch me out. Then why has he been refusing to make love to me in the last two months or so. And why was he checking ‘signs of a cheating spouse’ on the internet?”

Sharon broke the ensuing silence.

“Oh my god, I have just thought of the other reason why men stop sleeping with their wives. It also explains the GPS tracker in the wheel well and the internet search.”

Everyone stared at Sharon, awaiting an explanation, although one or two of them suspected they knew the answer.

“If he was thinking of leaving the marriage and had already met Lisa’s replacement he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. It would feel like cheating to him. He might put a tracker in her car to see if she was following him. He might have looked at signs of a cheating spouse on the internet to cover his tracks.”

Everyone, including Lisa could see the inevitable truth of all this.  Her father broke the next silence.

“Thank god you haven’t gone too far with this shit Lisa. If you’d already slept with this guy then what small chance we have of saving your marriage would be history. Not to mention losing the respect of all of us.”

The benign rift in Lisa’s mind, loosened by Sharon’s last words, now ripped asunder. She leap to her feet but her eyes stayed glued to the floor at her feet. The fracture became a chasm.

“I DID!”

“It was before you all caught me at the fucking coffee shop. Frank took me into the stockroom at the warehouse one day when Sharon wasn’t there. He forced me to my knees then pushed his cock in my mouth. After he’d come he bent me over a filing cabinet and fucked me. It was lousy sex and I wish I hadn’t done it but I did. It made me feel excited and alive. There are you happy now?”

Despite the obvious distress Lisa was in, all five members of the audience slowly stood, shook their heads at her then filed out the door leaving what was left of Lisa to slump to the floor.

After two minutes of silence Dave stepped out of the shadows near the back door.

“Well that explains a lot. To think all these months I’ve felt bad about stepping out on you when all the time you’ve been screwing around on me.”

He took Lisa’s continued silence as a prompt to keep explaining.

“Before you ask Lisa, yes it is too late for us. Your disrespect, constant demands, total selfishness and rationing of your love and sex just pushed me over the edge. I met Sarah the week before you forgot my birthday. She’s beautiful on the outside and on the inside and doesn’t give a shit that I’m an electrician. She doesn’t demand I do what she wants, when she wants it and doesn’t withhold her love when I don’t do something. We haven’t slept together yet, I would never do that to you Lisa.”

“I haven’t been doing any overtime Lisa, I’ve been around her place. That’s when I’ve been seeing her. Then and the fake training trip I did. She’s a bit younger than me but we’re both comfortable with that. “

“That’s where I was this afternoon actually. We went to have lunch with her father and sister. Her sister’s husband was supposed to be there as well but he was hospitalised last night, someone beat him up pretty good apparently.”

“Oh and lastly Lisa, please don’t destroy the last shred of respect I have for you by threatening to take my house, retirement and kids off me in the divorce. I don’t give a shit. Sarah is rich, very rich and I’m sure our kids will chose wisely when it comes time for them to decide who to live with. I reckon they voted with their feet tonight, don’t you?”

This was a fine speech by Dave but one totally wasted on Lisa. The darkness had slowly engulfed her eyes. She didn’t even register Dave’s next words.

“Ambulance please.”

“Yes send one quickly please. I think my wife is having a heart atta………”

The end

————————————————————————————————————————————–

Don’t try and understand Lisa’s motivation. No one understands a truly disturbed mind. I will leave it up to you to decide when she went over the edge. What I will say is that on the other side of insanity is a state of serene calm that looks like sanity to the sufferer. Decisions made while in that state seem perfectly rational to the sufferer, totally insane to everyone else. Take it from one that has been there.

Most of you probably don’t believe a woman would act so irrationally and obsessively with single minded focus then justify it to herself with unbelievable self-delusion. Fair enough. I married one. Yes, I am Dave.

Yes I know the character of Dave is totally undeveloped. It was deliberate.

To a subset of annonys. Please keep the death threats coming. To butcher an Oscar Wilde quote, the only thing worse than getting death threats is not getting death threats.

Now I have a serious question aimed at any ladies reading this. It is genuine and I would love an answer via comment or my profile. If I get enough positive answers it may be the basis of another story. In most cheating wife stories the wife’s motivation is either missing or unconvincing. I reckon that is because they are written by men and try as we may, we’ll never understand what makes you tick. It’s complicated so I will ask it as best I can. Q: Could a motivation for a continued affair with a lover be a bad first experience with that lover. Imagine a woman’s first extramarital sexual experience where the sex is unsatisfying. She is feeling guilty. Would she keep going in the hopes that next time it was better? Would her guilt be less if the sex was good. i.e. I’ve risked my marriage for good sex rather than bad sex? So the affair continues while she hopes for good sex. To justify her cheating. Like I said, it is a serious question and I would love serious answers.

Psychotics build castles in the sky.

Neurotics live in them.

Psychologists collect the rent.

The author.