Grim Reality

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 knew 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 knew 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 PI. 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 councillor, 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".

At the risk of feeding his notoriety, I can't wait for Finishthedamnstory's response to this story. I'm interested to know if Tracey's body, buried in quicklime is ever found or where Mark's headless corpse was found. No offence FTDS, I think it was Oscar Wilde that said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about".