The Bet

As she finished speaking, tears began to trickle down Sally's face. My aggrieved feelings disappeared to be replaced by a desire to comfort her. "Don't worry about the bet," I said. "He used unfair facts - he bamboozled you into it so it doesn't count."

Sally turned to face me and said sadly, "But it does count Phil. It is exactly how the majority of women do get seduced. You bet him that he couldn't seduce me and he bet that he could - he did it the only way open to him, but he did it and he won the bet."

"I don't care - you don't have to go," I insisted. "Nobody can make you, when you don't turn up the ship will sail without you and that will be the end of it."

Sally picked up my hand and held it gently between hers - it was the first time we had touched since before Damien arrived at the door at the start of the evening. "Phil. When we first met, what did you tell me was the most heinous thing that an honourable man can do - 'even worse than murder' you said?" she asked softly.

"To welsh on a bet," I said, hanging my head in shame.

My wife nodded. "I feel terrible about it too but there's no question about it - I have to go on the cruise with him."

"OK - you have to go on the cruise but that doesn't mean that you have to let him screw you," I said, clutching at straws.

"Yes I do," she insisted patiently. "Sex was never mentioned directly but it was implicit in the bet."

"Oh God," I mumbled sitting forward with my head cradled in my hands.

It was Sally's turn to console me. "We've been separated for three months before when you had to go to Australia and we got through that."

"But there wasn't another man poking you then - or at least I hope there wasn't," I countered bitterly.

She ignored the innuendo, "It's only sex and it doesn't mean anything."

Without lifting my head I made a dismissive sound and allowed myself to sink further into misery. Listen to me," Sally insisted patting my hand, "At the office where I work there are five other married women beside myself and three of them play around or cheat, whatever you want to call it. Well all of them insist that it's just a bit of fun and doesn't mean that they don't love their husbands. I didn't believe it but I do now. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't enjoy doing it with Damien because I did but it didn't make me love you any the less - in fact I love you even more because of what I have done to you."

I straightened up and kissed her briefly but softly. There was still a bitter taste in my mouth but her words had helped me to come to terms with the inevitable. Sally continued in an upbeat tone, "If I let him have me four times a week which I think is fair, that will only add up to fifty times during the whole cruise. If you set that against all the times that we have made love, it's just a drop in the ocean. Another thing love, you can't do without sex while I'm away so go with other women - it's only fair. I even don't mind if you go with prostitutes - we can afford it."

A short time later we went to bed but in contrast to almost every other night we lay inches apart instead of entwined. That does not mean that I had no inclination for sex because the very opposite was true. Images of what I had witnessed earlier flitting across my eyelids gave me an erection that was painfully stiff but I was unsure if Sally would welcome my attentions so soon after lying with the other man - for considerations of fastidiousness if nothing else. Granted her shower had washed away any external smell left by the other male but it was highly likely that some residue of the earlier passion remained secreted within her. We lay in silence for several minutes each concerned with our own thoughts until Sally said softly, "Do you want to make love to me?" I did not need a second invitation before turning to her. But I did not make love. Instead I fucked her almost brutally as if the only purpose of the shag was to eradicate all traces of the man who had insinuated himself into our lives. Sally reacted passionately to this different mode of sex and came with almost explosive force. My initial pleasure at having had this effect on her was dulled by the realisation that she was most likely simply giving vent to the orgasm primed by Damien that short time before.

The sailing date was nearly five weeks away and in that intervening time, apart from that first night, we did not talk about the cruise at all. Strangely I did not think about it much either. I suppose that it is a bit like death - you know that it is going to happen but you don't dwell upon it, as if there is some mental inhibition against morbid contemplation. I'm sure that it figured more prominently in my wife's mind because she had to be looking forward to the holiday if not the sexual obligation entailed. She also had preparations to make such as shopping for suitable clothes. Had we been going together she would have told me about each item purchased with exited anticipation and I could expect a titillating fashion show but in the circumstances her holiday clothing was brought into the house unannounced and surreptitiously stored in drawers and wardrobe. One day when I was alone in the house and unable to contain my curiosity, I mounted a scouting expedition to find out what she had bought. While the almost non-existent size of the bikinis did not bother me at all, I was perversely most distressed by the brief and flimsy nature of her new underwear.

We did tend to make love more often and with greater intensity, especially during the last week. When the waiting had come down to days I found myself growing very tense and at random moments throughout the day, I became prone to what are called panic attacks. Any unrelated event of bit of conversation could trigger me off and this could be rather embarrassing if I happened to be showing potential clients round a house.

The dreaded morning came. The sky was heavily overcast and fitted exactly with my mood. At breakfast we hardy exchanged a word and in the car on the journey to the port neither of us had much to say - everything had already been said or left unsaid. We booked in Sally's heavy luggage, retaining only a small suitcase to carry, and then, having just under half an hour to fill, went into a café for a cup of tea. Both of us remained introspective, I desperately did not want her to go and I could tell from Sally's face that she was badly torn. About the only significant thing said was my wife's instruction not to write to her, telling me, "I will write to you of course but letters from you must inevitably chase me all over the place, getting out of sequence and possibly lost. If you want to write just save all the letters up and I can read them when I get home - it will be something to look forward to."

When we arrived at the ship, Damien was waiting at the bottom of the gangplank. He raised a hand in greeting but made no move to join us. I put down the suitcase and the next moment my wife was in my arms. We kissed passionately until Sally moved her mouth to my ear and whispered fiercely, "Phil I love you so much." I crushed her to me and when I released the pressure she said, "Remember, you have got to go with other women while I'm away. I don't mind - after all it's only fair."

Trying to control my emotions I made a joke of it saying, "If you insist."

Sally too was near to tears. "Just don't fall in love with any of them - you hear." She threw herself back into my arms for one last frantic kiss then tore herself away.

Picking up her suitcase she walked quickly to where Damien was standing. I saw him smile but he made no attempt to touch her. Their hands briefly touched when he took her suitcase and there was another slight contact when he steadied her elbow at the bottom of the gangplank but apart from that it was as if Damien was studiously avoiding any impression of having taken possession while in my sight. Even at the top of the gangplank when Sally moved to the rail, he remained two or three paces away from her and further back so that only his head was visible. She waved and I waved back.

I could not stand the thought of standing about for possibly another fifteen minutes until the liner cast off and moved away - to wait and wave occasionally, knowing they were now together. Steeling myself, I blew a kiss to Sally putting all my love into in, then turned and walked away. I should have kept on walking.

There is some perverse urge in life that causes men to torment themselves unnecessarily. To the right of the door I passed through there was a flight of stairs. Without thinking I ran up to peer eagerly in the direction of the ship through the first window I came to. I was almost at deck level so I could see both of them clearly. Thinking I had gone, Damien moved forward to her, she tilted her face to him and he gave her a long lingering kiss. Then, slipping his arm round her, he shepherded her out of my view and possibly out of my life. The pain that I felt was intolerable and the trauma remained with me unabated for the following five days. I was operating like a Zombie, just going through the motions at work, wandering the house pointlessly at home and hardly bothering to even cook for myself. Time and time again I cursed at the greed that had caused me to become involved in that stupid bet but not once did I mentally reproach Sally for letting him win - given her very kind nature, in the circumstances she could not have acted in other way.

Then the first letter from Sally arrived. It was a long letter that began 'Missing you terribly already' and went on to reminisce tenderly about our life together. Towards the end she told me about the ship and how luxurious it was. 'I was expecting a pokey cabin with bunk beds but the cabin is actually rather spacious and very posh. The food is excellent top hotel standard but at the moment only I think so. We hit bad weather not long out of port and Damien has been very poorly with seasickness for three whole days although it didn't affect me at all. Damien can't understand it, claiming that he has never suffered like this before and therefore it must be something he has eaten. The letter finished, 'Love you with all my heart, Sally.'

Her words did me a world of good. I would have preferred not to know about the lack of bunk beds but on the other hand I was more than a little pleased to know that my rival had been suffering. Most heartening of all was the news that Sally was missing me, not to mention her declaration of love. This effect lasted for two or three weeks even though subsequent letters were not as good. In fact they deteriorated steadily until for the latter half of her holiday I only received a hastily written postcard.

I reread her communications constantly and towards the end when reviewing the series I realised that the first letter was the only time that she had mentioned her companion by name - she actually never referred to him at all, even in passing. The only times that she used the word 'we' was in a context that could mean the passengers generally and in other places used instead phrases such as, 'Leave ship tomorrow for seven days solitude on the first island - so your next letter might be a little late." To me it seemed she was at pains to give the impression that she was cruising by herself. I tried to convince myself that she was deliberately doing this to save my feelings but my gut feeling was that she was hiding something. Words of affection also grew few and far between, with her letters little more than travelogues talking of nothing apart from weather and sights seen.

The way that she closed the letters distressed me the most. The second ended 'Love you so' then came 'I love you'. This trio were the best because the following in progression were 'Love you lots', ominously 'I still love you', a couple saying just 'Love you' and from then through the post card phase just 'Love, Sally'.

After the first two week of abject loneliness without Sally I began to feel a bit more upbeat. Reading a magazine article about the freedom of open marriages, I started to think, "Why not - having a bit of illicit nookie myself might just be what I need to get everything into perspective. At the office where I work there is an attractive eighteen-year-old. She had never made much impact on my consciousness before but now my eyes tended to follow her as she flitted about. One day I was standing by the coffee machine clutching my plastic cup when she came up for refreshments and had to spend some time urging a bit of recalcitrant change out of the slot, allowing me an unrestrained view down her very tempting cleavage. When she glanced up at me I looked away guiltily but, unaware of my carnal thoughts, she smiled and said kindly, "You've seem rather unhappy the last couple of weeks - is anything wrong?"

"No - everything's fine," I lied.

She stood up clutching the retrieved cash, hesitated for a long moment then gave me an absolutely ravishing smile before moving away. On the spur of the moment I called after her, "Debbie - are you doing anything special tonight?"

She turned, gave me another smile and said, "I'm meant to go be going out to dinner with my fiancée - did you want me to work over Mr Pope?"

I got out of the embarrassment by saying that my work could wait because I would not dream of spoiling her evening - but the failure of my clumsy pick-up attempt did not deter me. That Saturday night found me dressed up and at a night-club reputed to be nothing more than a knocking shop. Despite the reputation of the place, no female approached me and there were none that I really fancied (I told myself having failed to find the nerve to initiate anything).

My next foray into attempted foray into extra-marital sex was a one hour kerb crawl round a notorious red light district. I was on my third circuit and had almost found the courage to speak to a long legged hooker in a red mini-skirt when a police car loomed up in my rear view mirror. I accelerated away, drove home in a cold sweat and that was the end of that. For the rest of the time that Sally was away, I lived a celibate life - except for the inevitable (and possibly excessive) self-abuse. As well as abandoning all thoughts of infidelity, I gave up on life altogether. Apart from managing to maintain a minimal smartness for work, I turned into a complete slob. For weeks I existed on takeaways - when I could be bothered to eat at all. The kitchen sink became filled to overflowing and the house reeked from the piles of discarded pizza cartons and Chinese meal containers piled high on every available surface.

A fortnight before Sally was due to return I pulled myself together, cleared the accumulation of dirty dishes then washed and ironed several weeks' worth of soiled clothes. I also restocked a severely depleted larder. The last communication to arrive from my wife was again just a card that stated little more than date and time that the ship would dock in port. All the same it motivated me and I conceived the idea that I would have the house absolutely perfect for when Sally arrived home. The trouble was that I had left it far too late to reasonably complete everything that needed to be done. But that wasn't going to stop me. I worked myself to the point of exhaustion, more than once falling asleep downstairs, lacking the energy to make it up to bed. By lunchtime on the day before she was due back I finally finished but instead of relaxing, I was unable to sit still, constantly glancing at the clock and thinking, 'This time tomorrow.'

It was eight o'clock that I got the cable from Sally saying that the ship had been delayed for several hours by engine trouble and was having to put into a different port nearly a day late. She asked me to pick her up at midday from a railway station, naming the largest city near to where we live. The disappointment was more than I could bear and I admit that I sat and cried uncontrollably. Later, midway to drinking my way to oblivion, I saw sense, telling myself 'what did a few more hours matter after three months - she was almost home and that was all that mattered.'

I had planned to arrive at the railway station early to be there when Sally got off the train but silly things managed to delay me until I set off with the prospect of getting there just in time. About three minutes from my destination I passed a low slung metallic blue sports car going fast in the opposite direction. I shook my head and told myself it couldn't be. Next I encountered a diversion due to road works, which delayed me by over five minutes and caused me to grind my teeth in frustration at the knowledge that I was going to be late.

My wife was standing alone in the middle of the concourse with her luggage piled on a trolley. She was staring in the wrong direction and drawing close unobserved I could see she had acquired a very nice tan, was more beautiful than ever and that she had picked up a kind of glow that I did not remember from before. The moment Sally turned and saw me she ran to fling her arms round my neck and smother my face with tiny kisses, then, oblivious to the passers-by, we really kissed in a passionate embrace during which time seemed to stand still. Eventually, reluctantly we broke apart and pushed the trolley to where I had left the car. During the journey home, in almost a mirror image of our last day, neither of us spoke - I was content simply to have her back with me.

Back at the house, while I made a cup of tea, Sally wandered about fondly running her fingers over old treasures. "Glad to be back?" I asked. Having just returned from the holiday of a lifetime, I half expected some reservations but she answered, "YES," with a ferocity that surprised me. I waited but she said nothing else. Logically she should have volunteered something about her holiday, asked me how I had managed while she was away or just complimented me on how nicely I had maintained the house. "I know you have just got back from travelling but I hope that you are not too tired for a quick lie down," I asked hopefully.

Sally immediately jumped up, gave me a big loving smile and said, "No matter how tired I was, how could I possibly say 'No' to that after being away from you for three whole months. As I followed her up the stairs, I had the definite impression that Sally would far rather make love than conversation. I wasn't grumbling - hell, I felt exactly the same way myself.

The sex was fantastic, absolutely fantastic but having said that I have to make the following observations. It was like making love to a different woman. No matter how innovative or adventurous, if together for some time, a couple develop a natural progression in lovemaking that they are both happy with. That had gone completely - in fact more than once Sally started to do something that had obviously been part of their routine, before remembering and abruptly stopping herself. It didn't matter - what if she still had some traces of Damien about her, she was back and from her actions, words of love and the look in her eyes, I knew that she still loved me. Floating in a sea of contentment, I reached out a finger to idly trace the outline of her breast, saying happily, "I've been such a fool. Reading your letters I convinced myself that I was losing you. I thought that you had fallen for that guy and you don't know how much of a relief it is to know that I was mistaken."

Sally abruptly sat up, swivelled round to face me and took my hand between hers and said, "You never were a fool Phil and you weren't mistaken. I got so crazy about Damien that I didn't think I could live without him. It was something that I tried desperately to hide in my letters to you but you could tell anyway. I got so that I hated having to write because it made me feel so guilty. There are two things that you have got know - I didn't want to spoil today so I was planning to tell you tomorrow."