Grim Reality

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 land line 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 aringing!

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 bigtime." "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.