The Birthmark Ch. 01

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"I'm heading off to work!" I yelled as I walked out the front door holding my briefcase. Truth be told I'd been fired for absenteeism several weeks ago when I discovered my wife was being unfaithful. It really didn't matter because the discovery of my wife's adultery so preoccupied my thoughts that I was basically useless at work anyway. However, in order to 'get the goods' on my cheating wife I had to maintain the ruse that everything was normal in our lives so every morning I left for work at my normal time.

The useless Private Investigator I'd hired had turned up nothing definitive in his weeks of surveillance and I needed concrete evidence before the inevitable confrontation. I fired him and undertook to conduct the investigation myself. As I drove along I absently wondered how I was going to pay the exorbitant fee for his services but realized the issue would be moot as soon as I had completed my own investigation. I would kick her to the kerb, close the bank accounts, cancel the credit cards and let the chips fall where they may.

Parking my car at the local YMCA and going inside I completed my morning ritual by touring the swimming pool, shower room, sauna and hot tubs before returning to the locker room. There I opened my briefcase and removed the fake moustache and beard. A ratty baseball cap, thick glasses and salt and pepper wig completed my disguise. I returned to the parking lot and jumped into the innocuous rental car I'd leased and returned home.

I parked half a block down the street and waited for my faithless wife to leave for work. She worked as a receptionist cum office manager in a medical office complex. There was enough traffic so that I could seamlessly blend clandestinely into the landscape and conduct both long distance and close order observation with little risk of discovery. After following her to work I parked discreetly across the street, raised the camera and focused the telephoto lens on the offices and began snapping photos.

As I surveyed the cars coming and going I reflected on the cost of running all the license plates of the cars in the parking lot through the DMV database and cross referencing the names of the registered owners through the NCIC. It cost a pretty penny but it was worth it. Not because the information proved damning; in fact I found nothing useful in those reports but it served the purpose of compiling a list of potential suspects. Any one of these men might be my wife's paramour. Any one of the women as well if my wife had more than one lover.

My name is Mason Youn. I met my wife Carrie in college and after months of dating we moved in together and eventually married. The years treated us well as we bought our first home, progressed in our careers and social lives and eventually began discussing our plans for a family. That is when the proverbial shit hit the fan.

Our intercourse became less spontaneous as an 'ovulation calendar' now decided when we would have sex. After months of trying we still had no bundle of joy. Because Carrie worked in a complex of medical offices it was easy for us to set up an appointment at a fertility clinic. Many uncomfortable tests and conversations later it was discovered that my swimmers needed a little help. Out went my 'tighty whities' and in came bloomy boxer shorts followed by vitamins, diet and exercise, 'special pills' and no more 'flogging the dolphin'. Finally all the hard work paid off and we were pregnant.

Nine months later our beautiful daughter Amanda was born. Carrie took leave from work for a year and stayed home with our newborn and our life pretty much revolved around our infant's schedule. Amazing how such a little person can dominate the lives of two full grown adults. The delivery was not particularly easy on Carrie and that combined with a colicky baby ensured our sex life dropped to zero. The good news was that I could return to my preferred style of undergarment, stop watching my diet and exercising, and best of all there were no more restrictions on the flogging of my dolphin.

At the end of her maternity leave Carrie was eager to return to work. The healthy baby checkups cleared the way for her to feel comfortable about Amanda going to daycare and the medical offices were overjoyed to have her back. The checkups showed Amanda was fit as a fiddle but they did uncover one disconcerting fact that stuck in my mind; however, I didn't put the pieces together until later.

Amanda had a small birthmark and although the pediatrician assured us that it was normal and probably would fade in time, it nagged at the back of my mind. No one in my family had a birthmark as far as I knew and subsequent subtle inquiries into Carrie's family history turned up a similar and somewhat suspicious lack of birthmarks. I began to realize that something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

I went online and ordered a DNA do-it-yourself kit and had it delivered to a post office box I had rented specifically for this operation. Getting my own DNA and that of Amanda was relatively easy; the hard part would be getting some from Carrie without arousing her suspicion.

The test kit required a saliva sample and Carrie was not exactly hocking loogies into spittoons around the house. I hatched an ingenious plan to swab her while she slept but so far my attempts had been foiled. Carrie was a enthusiastic reader and usually before bed she would sit up with her Kindle devouring books for a couple of hours to wind down after her day. Several times I'd tried to outlast her but so far she'd thwarted me. Perhaps she suspected my intentions and purposely stayed awake until I fell asleep to prevent me from obtaining proof of her adultery. I would have to put my thinking cap back on to outwit my crafty wife now that she was wise to my suspicions.

My mind churned on this problem as I contemplated my dilemma; if the DNA test proved she was Amanda's mother I would have to discover the identity of her bull. Clearly it would be someone with a birthmark but that was scant evidence indeed. My surreptitious daily examination of the men at the YMCA had yielded a few phone numbers and come hither glances but no evidence of birthmarks similar to Amanda's.

If the DNA test proved Carrie was not the mother my entire investigation would be thrown into disarray. The myriad complications of such a development would cast doubt on all my suppositions and force me to return to square one. I could not bring myself to contemplate the ramifications of such a discovery.

"Excuse me sir," came a voice from the window, startling me into nearly dropping the expensive camera. Looking up I saw a uniformed policeman staring down at me as I scrunched in the front seat of my rented mid-size sedan.

"May I see some identification?"

Thinking quickly I produced my wallet and asked "Is there a problem officer?"

He studied my ID for few moments before looking at me again, then studied the ID some more and stared hard at me for long moments. Sweat appeared on my brow and on my moustached upper lip.

"What are you doing out here sir?" he inquired, glancing at the telephoto lens on my camera.

Trembling, I managed to blurt out the entire sordid tale; the low motility of my swimmers but eventual conception, the birth of Amanda and discovery of her birthmark, the loss of my job and my subsequent ruse, the hiring of the PI and the difficulty in obtaining a DNA sample from Carrie. At that point he abruptly cut me off.

"Listen sir, there have been some complaints so I am ordering you to go home or go anywhere else but don't let me catch you hanging around out here again," he said and tossed my identification back in my lap. I babbled some 'yessirs' and 'thank you sirs' before managing to start the car and drive away. Oh well, so much for my stakeout operation.

At least I still had the hidden cameras, voice recorders, telephone taps and the GPS tracking device on Carrie's car; my investigation had suffered a setback but the fat lady wasn't singing yet.