Cheater

by B Jaye

  “Why were you there?” she asked innocently.

  “In prison?” He grunted. “I was dealing.”

  “But you’re not doing it anymore, right? You’re not doing anything so dangerous, I hope.” She sounded every bit the concerned girlfriend.

  “Nah,” Miguel said. “Drugs are a sucker’s game. Sooner or later they’re going to catch you, because someone snitched, or because one of those fucking dogs smelled something on you. No, I’m too smart for that.”

  Not smart enough to stay out of prison in the first place , Josh thought to himself.

  “So what are you doing now?” Emily asked. “Because I know you’re not looking for a regular job.”

  Miguel gave her a suspicious look. “What’s with all the questions?”

  Emily hugged him close and let the soap drift a little lower, just beneath the surface of the water where its slippery surface would be gliding over the tip of his manhood. “I want to feel close to you. I don’t want there to be secrets between us.”

  At the sound of the word “secrets” Josh’s eyes opened wider and his heart gave a thump. Tiffany had spoken of Miguel’s secrets, too. He wondered if Emily was following up on that lead.

  The feeling of a sexy, wet, naked woman wrapped around him was too much for Miguel to resist. His suspicion gave way to bragging. “You don’t need to worry about me, baby. I’ve got a big score coming.”

  “It’s not drugs, is it?” Emily asked. “Tell me it’s not drugs.”

  He chuckled. “It’s not drugs. My new thing, it ain’t even a thing.” Then his caution caught up with him. “I want to tell you everything, chica , but we need to get married first. Then they can’t force you to testify against me.”

  Emily’s hand holding the soap was moving gently up and down beneath the surface of the water. Josh could guess what she was doing down there.

  “I’m already married, silly,” she said.

  “It’s time that I did something about that,” Miguel said in a voice so casual he might have been discussing the weather. “Leave it all to me.”

  Emily might have said something then, but Miguel didn’t give her a chance. He swiveled in the tub, sending a wave of hot water over the side, and took her in his arms, kissing her hard. Then he lifted and maneuvered her so that she was facing away from him, her arms on the side of the tub and her ass sticking up in the air and pointing in his direction.

  He fished in the water until he found the bar of soap, then he started rubbing it on her puckered asshole. Emily, knowing what was coming, released a long sigh and let her head drop. When Miguel pressed the head of his now-hard cock against her asshole, she spread her legs wider and arched her back, making it easier for him to get inside her. Unlike the first time, she offered no protests, meekly submitting to his assault.

  Josh had no interest in watching Miguel fuck her ass a second time. He had already seen them do this, and in any case he had something more important to think about. Miguel had said that his new thing “wasn’t even a thing,” and Josh thought he knew what Miguel might be talking about.

  16

  IT was easier than Josh had been expecting to get into Miguel’s apartment. He had read about jimmying a lock with a credit card, and he was surprised how easy it turned out to be. Mentally he made a note to add a better lock to their door, then he slipped inside.

  Getting into Miguel’s laptop was not much harder. It was password-protected, but he took Miguel for the sort of person who would use a very simple password, and on his third try—“password12345”—he was in. From there it was an easy matter to download remote access software from the Internet and configure it so that he could access the laptop from anywhere, so long as it wasn’t powered down.

  Then he hurried out of the apartment, making sure that the door locked behind him. The last thing he wanted was for Miguel to come back while he was still in the apartment. That sort of mistake could very possibly prove fatal, and he was counting on Emily’s skill in bed to keep the other man busy long enough for him to get out.

  Back at his own laptop, he checked the video feed again and found Miguel asleep and snoring in their bed. Emily was lying beside him, Miguel’s outstretched arm resting over her bare breasts, and she was nervously checking the clock. He could tell that she was worried that he’d come home early and find her in bed with another man, but his mind wasn’t on her.

  He looked at the image of Miguel on the computer screen and spoke to him as if they were in the same room. “You think you’re so tough?” he asked. “Well, you’re a total wimp when it comes to computer security.” Then he winced, realizing how dorky that had sounded. He was grateful that only the cat was there to hear him.

  He booted up the remote access software and logged into Miguel’s computer. He wasn’t sure, exactly, what he was looking for, except that he felt certain that Miguel was using his computer to do something illegal. He knew that there were parts of the dark web that were dedicated to the sale of illicit drugs, but that seemed a little too sophisticated for a man like Miguel to master. Whatever this “big score” was, he felt certain that he’d find some sign of it in Miguel’s email or browser history.

  Thirty minutes later, Miguel was still snoring away in his bed and Josh was getting frustrated. Some of Miguel’s email sounded like he was arranging a deal, but it was far too vaguely-worded to make sense of it. His browser history, meanwhile, was full of sports sites, Spanish-language television listings, and a huge amount of porn. Josh spent some time trolling Miguel’s taste in erotica, and he came away shaken and afraid for his wife. Miguel liked the rough stuff—BDSM that was bordering on rape—and some of the girls in the videos looked suspiciously young. None of it really surprised Josh, but the ugliness and intensity of the videos turned his stomach.

  He was just about to call it a day when he stumbled on a folder hidden away inside Miguel’s documents. It was a collection of video files, and at first he thought they were downloads from the porn sites, but then he opened a few of them and realized that he was looking at something very different. Miguel had been using the webcam on his computer to record videos of him having sex with different women. The audio and video were both well below production standards, but apparently Miguel had kept them as trophies.

  Josh checked the date stamp on some of the videos, and opened one that had the right date on it. Sure enough, he was treated to the sight of Emily on the bed, Miguel fucking her hard. That had been the day he’d forced her to suck his cock.

  Josh shut off the software. He hadn’t seen anything that he didn’t already know, and the entire enterprise left a bad taste in his mouth. He was learning that the closer he got to Miguel, the less he liked it.

  The cat crawled into his lap and Josh idly stroked its back. He felt utterly deflated. He had looked everywhere he could think to find Miguel’s secret, and he had come away empty-handed. For the first time he allowed himself to consider the possibility that he might fail. The thought was devastating.

  He checked back in with the video feed. Miguel was finally gone, and Emily was dressed and busily making the bed. She cut it close this time , he thought. On most days he would already have been home by now.

  The image struck him of what it would be like to lay down in those sheets. Emily hadn’t changed them, probably because she was afraid of getting caught in the act. Would his pillow smell of another man? Would he still be able to smell the scent of their bodies?

  It was too much. He pulled out his phone and dialed Emily’s number. “Hey,” he said when she answered. He watched her on the video stream as he talked to her.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice a little too cheerful. “Are you on your way home?”

  “It’s crazy here,” he said. The cat rolled over on his lap, purring. “I’ll be working really late. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “Oh,” she said, and she sounded so lonely in that moment that he nearly changed his mind. “OK. Promise me that you’ll eat something healthy.”
/>   “I promise. Good night, sweetheart.”

  Josh spent the evening staring off into space, trying and failing to come up with a better plan. He made a point of coming home late, after he’d watched her on video get into bed and turn out the light. Even then he waited another hour, until he was sure that she was asleep. Then he let himself in and snuck into the bed beside her. He felt ashamed of himself every step of the way. It felt like he was the one who had been having the affair.

  The next morning he woke at sunrise and snuck out before Emily was awake. He didn’t bother coming up with an excuse to explain his behavior. He didn’t feel like he was capable of coming up with any more lies. It felt like everything was coming down around him.

  17

  LATER that afternoon he was watching Miguel poke around on his computer. He dearly wanted to port into that computer to see what he was looking at, but if he did a notification window would have popped up on Miguel’s screen, and then the jig would be up.

  Josh was at the point of despair. He felt like the coach of a baseball team that was down to its last out in the ninth inning. He felt certain that Miguel was hiding something big, something that could send him back to prison and get him away from Emily for good. It was becoming increasingly clear, though, that the incriminating evidence was going to stay hidden until it was too late.

  He had been checking in on Emily periodically. He wasn’t so much interested in what she was doing as he needed the reassurance that she hadn’t changed back into lingerie for another hook-up with the felon who lived downstairs. She had gone out on some errand an hour before, and he hasn’t bothered to try to figure out where she went. Now, as soon as the video feed flickered into life, he saw her coming back inside with a brown paper bag in her hand.

  He watched Emily walk into the living room, then she opened the bag and pulled its contents out. When Josh saw what she was holding, he shouted a curse and leapt up from the couch. The cat hissed and scurried away in alarm as he rushed out of the apartment.

  Emily stared at him in astonishment when he burst through their front door. “What are you doing home so early?” she asked, very obviously hiding something behind her back.

  Josh marched up to her and pulled her hand out from behind her. “What are you doing with a gun, Emily?” he asked.

  She looked down at the steel-grey handgun she was holding. He could almost hear the gears in her head turning as she searched for a plausible excuse. “There’s something I have to do,” she said at last in an unhappy voice.

  “What are you doing with a gun?” he repeated. He still held her arm in his hand, just in case he needed to physically restrain her.

  Emily opened her mouth as if to say something, then her face crumpled. She let the gun drop to the ground and started to cry. “I have to stop it,” she sobbed as he gathered her into his arms. “I went to a pawn shop and bought that thing because it has to stop!”

  Josh guided her over to the couch and sat down next to her. Emily was still sobbing quietly, and seemed unwilling or unable to look at him. He could only imagine what she was going through, now that she thought she’d been found out.

  He let out a sigh. The moment of truth. “Emily, I know.”

  She looked at him with a puzzled look on her face. “What? What do you mean?”

  For just a moment he considered offering her a half-truth, then he relented. “I know you’ve been having an affair. With Miguel. I saw you together, and I wanted revenge, so I hid cameras all over the place. I’ve been watching you for days.”

  She stared at him silently, her mouth working but no sound coming out. “What?” she asked again.

  He stood up, crossed the room, and fished the camera out of the television cabinet. He returned to the couch and handed it to her. “I’ve been filming you. I was going to use it against you, but now I don’t care about any of that. The only thing I care about is why you thought you needed to buy a gun. Were you planning on threatening him?”

  She looked completely bewildered. “He was threatening you. I couldn’t let him hurt you. You installed cameras so you could film me ?!” As she spoke her voice rose until the final words came out in a shout.

  “Yes!” Josh shouted back. He was getting angry now, too. “Yes, I did, because I came home one day to find you on the floor with another man’s dick in you! And yes, seeing you together hurt like hell and made me want revenge. I was going to divorce you, and when I did I wanted to have undeniable proof of every way that you violated our wedding vows. But somewhere along the way I stopped wanting revenge. I even started to feel guilty about it, except now I’m glad I did install the cameras because that gave me a chance to stop you from doing something really stupid!”

  At first it looked like Emily was going to hold onto her anger, but then she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, my God,” she muttered. “Oh, my God. You saw all of it?”

  He sat down beside her again. “I think so. I didn’t film all of it. But I saw you with him. And with her.”

  She shot him a glance, then covered her face in her hands again. “Oh, my God,” she repeated. “I have never been so humiliated in my entire life. You must think I’m a complete slut.”

  He didn’t answer at first, until he realized that his silence could be taken as an answer of its own. “Not a slut,” he said. “I know that it was mostly Miguel’s doing. For the most part, as far as I could tell, you just went along with it. I fucking hate that guy, and I am disappointed. The thing is, though, I think I’m more disappointed in myself than I am in you.”

  She looked at him, her eyes and face still red. “Why would you be disappointed in yourself?”

  He shrugged. He didn’t want to say the words, but he knew it would be worse to keep silent. “Because I’m not man enough to keep this from happening. I’m not man enough to stop it from happening, or at least stop you from enjoying it. I know you liked it, Emily,” he added quietly.

  She stared at him in silence, her eyes wide. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and started to cry again. “I never wanted to hurt you. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. What I did to us. And I won’t contest the divorce. Just tell me what you want and I’ll agree to it.”

  What do I want ? Josh asked himself, but he didn’t find a clear answer. All he knew for sure was that he wanted her to stop crying.

  He turned the conversation back in a direction that felt safer. “You thought that you could threaten Miguel with a gun? He’s an ex-con and you’re a social worker and freelance writer. What made you think that was going to work?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t think of anything else! I told you I wanted to move, but that will take weeks, and he’s been saying some crazy things.”

  “I know,” he said. “I heard. He said he’d get rid of your husband.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “You heard that? There’s a camera in the bathroom?!”

  He smiled apologetically. “There are cameras everywhere.”

  “Even in Miguel’s apartment? How did you get in there?”

  “Actually, it’s outside his apartment, but I’m glad you mentioned it. Yesterday I did get in his apartment, and I put some spyware on his computer. I thought maybe I’d find something incriminating on his computer, but so far I haven’t been able to find anything.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Isn’t installing spyware on someone’s computer illegal?” When he didn’t have an answer for her, she shook her head in exasperation. “I always wondered what he had a computer for. What does he do on there?”

  “Mostly look at porn.”

  “Really? Ewww.”

  “You have no idea,” he said. It felt good to be confiding in her. It made it feel like they were a team again. “He has a taste for some really nasty stuff.” Emily’s eyes widened again. Belatedly, he realized he was talking about the turn-ons of a man she’d been having sex with. Then he remembered what else he’d found, and the vengeful part of him could not resist a chance to twist the kn
ife a little bit. “He also has videos of you.”

  “Me? What do you mean?” Despite everything, Emily was still innocent enough not to understand what he was implying.

  “I mean he has videos. Of you. Fucking him.”

  She closed her eyes. “Of course he does. Men and their goddamn videos. Show me.”

  18

  JOSH went next door to retrieve his laptop, then brought it back home and, while Emily watched, he booted up the video feed from Miguel’s apartment. They could see him lying on his bed, watching television.

  “It’s no good,” Josh said. “If I open a connection to his computer now, a window will open up on his screen. He’ll know that someone’s snooping.”

  Emily thought for a second, then grabbed her phone. “Give me a second.” Her thumbs flew over the screen.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. On the screen, he could see that Miguel had taken out his own phone and was staring at its screen.

  “I’m suggesting that if he shows up at a certain motel, I might be there waiting for him.”

  Josh gave her a look. “And what happens when you don’t show up?”

  She put away her phone and shrugged. “I kept it vague enough that I’ll tell him that I was at a different motel. I’ll pretend to be mad at him for standing me up.”

  Josh snorted, then snorted again in amazement at the sight of Miguel leaving his apartment. “You have scary powers,” he said, then opened the necessary software.

  “Why did you install this on his computer in the first place?” Emily asked, watching while the software tried to connect with its remote counterpart.

  “I was trying to get rid of him,” Josh said. He felt self-conscious, saying the words aloud for the first time. “I wanted to get him out of your life, and if I could find something that would get his parole revoked, that seemed like a pretty good way of doing it.”