by Daniel Hurst
But I do worry about Megan. That’s why I installed this special software on my mobile phone. It allows me to see exactly which websites my wife is browsing on from the computer at home. Not only that but I have linked it to her mobile phone too so that I can see every single thing she is doing on there.
It’s not snooping if you have a good reason to do it and I certainly have that.
Megan is my wife, which means she is my responsibility. I have her best interests at heart which is why I need to know what she is doing at all times.
How can I keep her safe if I don’t know what she is up to?
This software allows me to see every single keystroke she has ever made, which means I can see all the jobs she has applied for today, as well as all the emails she gets in return. Then there’s the Google searches she types in, the social media accounts she scrolls through, as well as all the things she is spending my hard-earned money on in the retails stores online.
She hasn’t bought a new pair of shoes today.
But it’s still early.
At the moment, she is still browsing through all the job vacancies that this lame website has to offer. I remember when finding a good job was all about networking and displaying aptitude and initiative. Now you just click a button, and your CV drops into some HR Manager’s inbox. This new world is breeding a bunch of lazy people.
Not to worry. This is the world Megan is now operating in too, and I have no doubt she will be looking for a job for a very long time. But eventually, the lack of responses will dampen her enthusiasm, and she will go back to doing what I wanted her to do all along.
Sit at home. Watch television. And wait for me to come home.
There’s no skill or talent required to do those things.
That is why Megan is perfect for the job of being my wife.
5
MEGAN
I think I’ll call it a day on the jobhunting. I’ve been sitting in front of the laptop for several hours now, clicking, scrolling and reading and my profile page tells me that I have applied for seventeen jobs.
Only time will tell whether I hear back from any of them.
Looking at the time, I know that Craig will be home in two hours, which means I better start thinking about what to prepare for dinner. It’s not that he demands that I have a meal on the table for him when he walks through the door every night, but I always make sure that there is. It’s the least I can do when he has been out working so hard all day, and I’ve just been sitting at home.
Heading into the kitchen, my eyes are drawn to the wine rack in the corner of the room that is currently housing three bottles of Merlot. It’s tempting to open one of the bottles now and pour myself a glass, but I will hold off until Craig is home. I slipped into a bad habit of daytime drinking a couple of years ago, and it wasn’t exactly easy to get out of it.
I was never an alcoholic, I was just bored, but maybe that’s what they all say.
Pulling open the fridge door, I scan the packed shelves for inspiration for tonight’s meal. There is some chicken that needs using so I could do something with that. But after three years of cooking dinner every night, there aren’t many things that I haven’t done when it comes to chicken.
We could always get a takeaway tonight instead. I could go for a Chinese right now, and I’m sure Craig wouldn’t object if I sent him a text message and asked him for his order. He keeps himself fit with his active hobbies, so he allows himself a little indulgence now and again. But then again, I have been noticing a few pounds creeping on over the past few months, so maybe a takeaway isn’t the most sensible option for me right now.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a problem if I used the treadmill that is currently sitting in the garage to get my daily exercise, but that’s a nonstarter. Craig bought it for me a couple of Christmas’s ago, telling me that it would be a good way of keeping fit and replacing all the steps that I used to take back when I was in the working world. I appreciated it, and it was a good idea. The problem is that running on a treadmill is just so damn boring. Craig uses it far more than I do, which makes me feel bad, but I’ve never been much of a runner, and I don’t think I’m going to start now.
Deciding that I will scrap the takeaway and use the chicken to make fajitas, I close the fridge and look at the clock on the wall. It’s too early to start cooking yet, and it’s still too early to open one of those bottles of wine. So now the question is, what am I going to do to fill my time until Craig gets home?
It’s a question I ask myself daily and is the main driving force behind me deciding to try and find a job. But until somebody reads one of my applications and decides to give me a call, I’m not going to be any closer to getting out of this comfortable but boring life. I miss the buzz of a busy office. I miss chatting with co-workers about what we watched on television last night. And I miss being so busy that the days fly by and it’s the weekend again before I know it.
Every day is the weekend now, which might sound good, but soon becomes tiresome. I miss the thrill of a Friday night when you know that you are suddenly free for two days and can drink with abandon. I miss the luxury of Saturday mornings when you can have a lie-in without feeling guilty about enjoying a little extra sleep. And in some ways, I even miss the dread of a Sunday evening when another week of work looms, because it’s that dread that makes the joy at the end of the week even sweeter.
At this point, I’m willing to do anything to get back into the working world. I want to be productive. I want to have a purpose. And I want to make some friends so that I can get a text message from somebody other than my husband every now and again.
I know it’s a tough job market out there right now, but I have to believe that somebody will see my CV and ask me to come in for an interview. I have skills, even if they are a little rusty, and I have the experience, even though I could undoubtedly have more.
Just one chance, that’s all I need.
Come on, pick up the phone and give me a call.
I’m willing to work hard.
I just need an opportunity.
6
CRAIG
No one is going to give Megan a chance, not with a CV like that. In my position at this bank, I see dozens of CVs every year from hopeful candidates looking to join the company, so I know what it takes to make a good one. Namely, it’s an established work history, relevant skills and plenty of facts and figures to back up the claims made within it.
Unfortunately, Megan’s is lacking any of those things.
I can see that she has applied for seventeen positions today, so her desire to find a job cannot be doubted. The problem is that employers aren’t looking for desire; they are looking for the best person for the job, which means my darling wife is all out of luck. Of course, I won’t say any of this to her. Instead, I will pretend to listen with interest when she tells me all about the exciting vacancies that she has found today and how she is so sure that at least one of them is going to give her a call in the near future.
She’s always been naïve. That’s one of my favourite things about her. It’s an endearing quality but it’s also one of the main reasons why she finds herself in this position today. She continues to assume that I have her best interests at heart, and that is where she is wrong. It is also why she will now struggle to get a job. Because she listened to me when I told her to leave her last role, and she continued to listen when I told her to stay at home.
The only question now is will she listen to me when I tell her not to worry that she hasn’t heard back from any of these applications and that she should just learn to enjoy her present situation more?
I had rather hoped that the treadmill would fill at least some part of her lonely days, but she hasn’t gotten much use out of that since I put it in the garage a couple of years ago. It wasn’t cheap, which is why I force myself to get on it at least once or twice a week, but Megan isn’t able to motivate herself to even go running for ten minutes a day.
With that lac
k of drive, how does she ever hope to hear the words “you’re hired?”
Maybe I could suggest a personal trainer for her because then she wouldn’t be able to slack off on the exercise. But it would have to be a woman, and then there is the risk that she becomes friends with her, which I wouldn’t want.
I am Megan’s only friend in this world, and I want to keep it that way.
I will be patient with her over the coming days, letting her be excitable about the possibility of finding work before the reality dawns on her and she stops talking about it. Then she will go back to filling her days with online shopping and bad television, and I won’t have to concern myself with what she is up to with her time.
If people think my day job is hard, then they should see what I do in my spare time. Running a bank is one thing. Keeping a wife shut away from the world is another. But without doubt, the hardest part is not letting Megan know what I am doing. To her, I am the perfect husband. Caring, compassionate, ambitious, driven, not to mention good-looking and athletic. But if she really knew who I was, then she wouldn’t consider herself fortunate to have a ring on her finger and my name beside hers on the marriage certificate. But she doesn’t, and so my little game will go on.
The little game I call love.
7
MEGAN
I don’t believe this. Somebody has already responded to one of my job applications, and they are asking me if I can come in for an interview next Wednesday!
At first, I thought it was a hoax, and I refreshed the page on my emails twice to prove to myself that it wasn’t. But it’s real. Sally, the recruitment officer in charge of filling the vacant role at a company called Papier Projects, has sent me a message, and she wants to meet with me next week.
It is time to open that bottle of wine.
Heading into the kitchen with a spring in my step, I pick up the bottle on the top shelf of the rack before going in search of a glass and corkscrew. As my hands do the necessary work to get the bottle open, my mind is racing with all the thoughts of what I am going to tell Craig when he gets home.
I expect he’ll be delighted and will want to hear all about the position that I applied for, so I will hand him a glass of wine and tell him all about it. How it’s mainly just an administrative role, but it’s a foot in the door of a large and growing company. How the money isn’t great, but it’s not really about that anyway, although it will be nice to be able to contribute more to bills or little luxuries. And how I’m just so excited to have a purpose again, being able to get out of bed at the same time as my hard-working hubby and maybe even catch the same train as him into London. Then there will be all the new people I will meet, the after-work drinks I will enjoy and hopefully one or two new girlfriends who I can socialise with on a regular basis.
It’s all very exciting, and I wish Craig was here now so I could start to tell him about it. But it’s still another hour until he is due home, so I will sip my glass of wine and wait patiently for him to return.
I could send him a text message, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise. I could see how surprised he was when I told him I was looking to get back into work this morning so I can only imagine what he will be like when I tell him that I’ve already landed myself an interview.
I’m aware that he might be a little apprehensive about my return to work, but that’s only because he wants the best for me, and he thinks that means having my feet up all day at home. I adore him for working so hard so that I don’t have to, but the time has come for me to get back out there and join the working masses. I’ve had a taste of being a housewife and while it certainly has its perks (online shopping is fun!), I know I don’t just want to stay like this for the next thirty years of life.
He comes home with stories from work, and I want to be able to do the same. He goes to the pub with colleagues and clients, and I want that too. And he sees a big chunk of money going into his account on the same day every month, and while I won’t be making anywhere near that amount, I have missed the thrill of a regular payday.
Before I know it, my glass is almost empty, so I top myself back up before opening the kitchen drawer and rummaging around for the menu that I know is in there somewhere.
I was going to make fajitas, but the good news has made me decide on takeaway. Okay, so I haven’t got the job yet, but you have to celebrate the little victories, don’t you? Hopefully, we will be having another takeaway next Wednesday to celebrate me getting the job. Or maybe we could go out for a meal in London after my interview. Once I’m earning, I can go out for a lot more meals in the capital. I love London, and I’ve missed being in the hustle and bustle of the city. Being out in the countryside is peaceful, but it can be too peaceful sometimes. I can’t wait to get back to where the action is.
But one thing at a time. I haven’t got a job yet. But at least I have an interview.
I’m halfway there.
And I can’t wait to tell Craig.
8
CRAIG
I can’t believe that Megan has managed to get herself an interview. Who the hell is Sally, and why does she think that my wife’s CV is worthy of calling her into the office for a face to face meeting?
They can’t be that desperate, can they?
This is ridiculous. My blood is boiling. Now I’m going to have to go home and listen to Megan tell me all about it while pretending that it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
What a fun evening this promises to be.
My mood isn’t being helped by the fact that the train before mine was cancelled, which means that my carriage is full of a lot more people than it should be right now. Commuting is never fun, but I can usually get myself a seat which at least makes the journey more bearable. As it is, I’m currently standing in the aisle of this train that is trundling out of London, and I’m feeling grumpy.
I always make sure to keep tabs on Megan’s emails to see what it is that she is up to. Usually, there is nothing more interesting in her inbox than order confirmations and delivery dispatches from all the clothes and shoes she has been buying with my money. But a quick check before I left the office tonight told me that she has an interview next Wednesday for one of the roles she applied for earlier today and to say it was a shock was an understatement.
After seeing the state of Megan’s CV, I hadn’t expected her to hear anything back from any of them. At best, I thought she might get a polite rejection and a promise to keep her record on file should a more suitable role become available in the future (which it never does). Yet somehow, this woman called Sally has seen something in my wife’s CV to warrant calling her in for an interview, and that is just not what I wanted to read after a long day at work.
My wife belongs at home, behind closed doors, not in London sitting in meetings, making friends and flirting with guys in the office. This was not the plan when I married her, so I am going to have to make sure I steer her back on course.
I will be subtle about it, but I must also be firm.
I will tell her how proud I am of her to get such a quick response and how it is proof that she is somebody who could be in demand if she needed to be. But I will also tell her how I think she should reconsider her desire to get back to work, citing numerous reasons, a nightmarish commute like tonight’s being one of them. I will gauge her reaction to my suggestions, seeing how easily persuadable she is, before deciding whether to make my wishes clearer or easing off and letting her come to the right decision herself.
There is nothing to suggest that I won’t be able to make Megan see things from my point of view. Everything else up to this point has gone the way I wanted it to. This is just a small bump in the road of what has otherwise been a smooth relationship.
I have always been aware that the best way to keep Megan under my control is not to have her know that she is under my control. As far as she is concerned, I am just a loving husband, and that is the way I need it to stay. The second she begins to suspect that I am manipulating her life and cl
osing her off from the world is the second when the illusion breaks down.
And that is when I will have to get serious with her.
If that day comes, then she will long for the good old times when I just used to allow her to sit in the house and play with my credit card, because there will be no more shopping sprees then. Nor will there be any bottles of red wine opened in the afternoon or takeaways enjoyed in midweek. What there will be in their place will be more substantial restrictions, making her life as it is now seem like a long-lost dream.
There are many reasons why I chose to buy a big house in the country miles away from anybody else, but one of them is because it is my contingency plan should Megan ever disobey me and force me into showing her who I really am. If I have to lock her away, then I will. I imagine she won’t find the treadmill so unappealing when it’s the only thing in the room with her after I have shut her away in the garage like the possession that she is.
The problem with locking her away means that I’m not leaving myself with many options if she ever tries to escape, even though I know how our relationship is going to inevitably end.
If I have to kill her, then I will.
It’s not as if I’m short of places to bury her out in the country.
But I’d rather it didn’t come to that, not yet anyway. I still have much to accomplish without that added distraction right now. I’d rather we keep things as they are, with her as the isolated housewife and me as the perfect husband. I’d rather she decides not to go to this interview on Wednesday. But it’s not up to me.
Only Megan can decide what happens next.
As the busy train leaves the bright lights of London behind and heads into the darkness of the English countryside, I can’t help but feel a little excited about what decision Megan will make.