by Matt Shaw
I saved her the pain of having to answer me, “You never did tell me what happened...How it started...”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“You owe it to me,” I snapped back. Getting angry won’t help. I tried to calm myself down. “Please,” I said in a calmer tone, “I need to know...”
“We exchanged phone numbers,” she said after a brief spell of silence.
I laughed. Not intentionally and not because she had said something funny but...I remember. She used to leave her phone lying around all the time, just as I do with my own handset but then, about mid-August, whenever she left the room she’d take it with her. Even if she were just going to the toilet, she’d carry it with her. I should have sussed something was wrong then.
She carried on, undeterred by my subtle - and short-lived - laughter, “We started with texting each other at first, organising when we could meet up for a drink and a meal...The texts were friendly but then got a little more racy as we got closer to the day we were supposed to be meeting up...”
“Your friend, Victoria.”
Hollie looked at me, a puzzled look on her face. She doesn’t remember. I do. Clearly. As though it happened yesterday.
“You said your friend had split up with her partner and was in need of a girly chat. It was a Friday. We were supposed to go out together...Our Date Night.”
Date Night was something we instigated early in our marriage to try and keep things fresh. Two Fridays a month, come rain or shine, we were supposed to go out together. Just the two of us. Phones left at home so we couldn’t be disturbed. Our special time. We’d go to the cinema, bowling, restaurants, even walks when money was tighter. Both of us came from broken families and we honestly thought this was a way of stopping ours from breaking too. How wrong were we.
I continued, “You blew me out to go on a date with him...”
She didn’t deny it. Another knife through the heart. I felt my eyes well up at the thought of this fresh betrayal. Don’t cry. Don’t let her see it. Don’t let her see you still care.
“You wore my favourite dress that night,” I said. “The little black number. I asked why you were dressing up and you said Victoria had wanted to go to the pub...you lied. You said she needed to get out of the house for a bit. That night I remember thinking how sexy you looked. How beautiful with your hair freshly dyed blonde again and tied up the way I like it. My favourite blue eye-shadow on...you looked a vision. It was for him. All of it...”
I wiped my eye before it had the chance to spill a tear.
“You must have had no feelings for me whatsoever. I could never have done that to you...”
She didn’t even make an effort to reach out to me with a comforting hand. Just sat there - her eyes welling up as though it was her who had been betrayed. No. Her eyes welling up because she had been caught out for the bitch she really was.
“Until Death do us part...That’s what we agreed...Did that mean nothing to you? You didn’t even try talking to me...you just agreed to meet up with whatever-his-name-was behind my back...”
“I’m sorry.”
Sorry she’s been found out, I’m sure.
“You didn’t come home that night,” I suddenly remembered. She looked away - too ashamed to hold my eye contact any longer, I guess. “You said you were going to crash on her sofa because you’d had so much to drink...and why wouldn’t I have believed you? I know you like a drink or two, at the weekends, and you hadn’t seen her for so long...Jesus Christ, I’m a mug.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No? Then tell me what happened that night. Tell me you really were with Victoria, sleeping on her sofa...” She didn’t answer me. “Well?! I can’t hear you...”
“You know I wasn’t,” she said. Embarrassment in her voice.
“So where were you?”
“You know...”
“Clearly I fucking don’t!” my voice raised again as the anger tried to bubble to the surface again.
“We went to a restaurant,” she said - panic in her voice, obviously shaken by the flash of anger I let slip.
“And?”
“And we talked! We talked! It was nice!”
“You threw your marriage away because it was nice? Nice?”
She started to cry again, “What do you want me to say?!”
“JUST TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!” I screamed.
VI
I tried to stay calm as I listened to Hollie explaining what they both had for dinner. Their fancy food in their fancy restaurant on their fancy date. Part of me wondering whether she’d be able to recall, so easily, what I had chosen for dinner on one of our many dates. Somehow, I doubt it.
“We chatted. We laughed...”
“I’m happy for you...”
“You wanted to know!” she said. She was right. I did want to know. “When the meal finished, we just sat there chatting. You and I were arguing so much, at home...This was nice. This felt new and exciting. Different.”
“So you were bored with me?”
“What? No. It was just nice to have an evening out which didn’t end in a fight.”
“Instead it ended with a fuck, hey...Tell me.”
“The waiter told us the restaurant was closing. We’d been chatting so long we hadn’t noticed everyone else had left. We were the last ones there. Richard asked if I wanted to carry the night on...I didn’t think, I just said yes. We ended up going back to the hotel where he was staying. Sat in the bar drinking...Before we knew it, it was two in the morning and the hotel bar was closing too...”
“You could have come home.”
“He offered for me to stay with him, said he’d take the floor and I could have the bed - seeing as it was so late...”
“The perfect gentleman...”
She continued, “I felt tipsy and agreed. That was it.”
“He didn’t make a move?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“You made a move?”
“We slept together,” she said.
“So who made the first move?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You told me, in detail, what the two of you had for dinner and you can’t remember who made the first move? Bullshit. If you couldn’t remember the sex you sure as Hell wouldn’t have seen him again...And I know you saw him again. And again. And again. And...How many times was it exactly?”
Again, she didn’t answer.
“For the last time, who made the first move. I want to know...”
“I kissed him...”
Another metaphorical knife through my heart.
“And then what...”
“He kissed me. One thing led to another...”
“How?”
“Why do you want to know all this?”
“I want to know what killed my marriage.”
“Brandon-”
“I want to know.”
“We were by the door, he had asked me if I wanted a drink from the mini-bar and that’s when I kissed him. He was in the middle of his sentence. I pulled away, embarrassed, but he pulled me close to him again and kissed me...Whilst kissing, he pushed me back towards the bed. We laughed as we stumbled and fell onto it...”
“And you carried on kissing?”
She nodded, “For a while longer before...”
I stopped her by raising my hand. In my mind I could already see it. Already see her kissing him whilst clumsily, perhaps even in a drunken state, fumbling at the buttons on his trousers...Sliding her hand down to his cock. I could even hear her moans in my imagination...My imagination growing more and more vivid by the minute - spurred on by the details she has already provided. I wish I hadn’t asked. I wished, more than anything, that I could take it all back. Block it out. Everything. Even forget that I even discovered this dirty little secret of hers. It hurt so bad that it was taking everything I had not to scream out and start cursing her.
I pictured the two of them fucking. Her facial e
xpressions showing how she feels and loves every thrust of his penis - the same expressions she once shared with me. Her moans and gasps as he expertly hit all the right buttons. Having only met him once, I’m surprised how easily I can picture him too...His face as he penetrates my wife. His expression as he enjoys the wetness of her vagina...
“I feel sick,” I said. I climbed from the car once more and wished a car would speed by and accidentally run me over. No such luck. No sign of any traffic still.
“Are you okay?” she called from the car.
I wish I could just shut my eyes and make everything go away but I can’t. The sight of them still vivid when I close my eyes. I need to keep them open. Need to stop myself from seeing.
The following morning when she came home...she looked as though she hadn’t slept a wink. I presumed she was hungover. I remember trying to give her a hug, when she walked through the door, to let her know I missed her but she dismissed it. She just pushed past me and dashed upstairs for a shower...by the time she came out of the shower I had had to leave for a meeting. I wonder whether she waited until my car was out of the drive before texting her new lover.
She called from the car, “Are you coming back?”
I didn’t want to. I just wanted to start walking to the nearest village. I knew it was miles away but, now, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away from her. Get away from the movie which was playing on repeat in my mind - the pair of them in bed.
VII
“You wanted to know,” she said when I got back into the car. Couldn’t argue with her, I did want to know. I asked for the details and now they’re mine to haunt me for the rest of my days. “Look, let’s just not talk about it anymore...Yeah?”
No. I don’t know everything yet.
“Did he cum inside you?”
“What?”
“You heard,” I said. “Did you let him?”
“No!” she nearly yelled. No Hesitation either.
I wish I could believe her. In my mind...he came inside her...her pussy. her mouth. Over her. In my mind, he even ejaculated in her ass.
She continued, “We used protection.”
“How often did you see him?” I asked. There was no point arguing about whether they used protection or not. No matter what she’d say, I wouldn’t believe her. She didn’t answer. She turned away and looked back out of the window by her side. “Hollie, you might as well tell me...I know pretty much everything now...”
“Once a week,” she said. “Recently, it’s been more often.” She turned back to me just in time to see the look of shock on my face.
“Recently, when I’ve wanted to...you know...you turned me down. You said the timing wasn’t right...The timing was fine, wasn’t it? You were just saving yourself for him...All the time I’ve been making more of an effort, these past weeks...you were saving yourself for him. You never had any intention of making things work between us, did you?”
My sexual needs were met, early in the mornings, whacking off in the shower because she said she wasn’t in the mood for intimacy or because it was her time of the month and yet, in reality, her needs were being fulfilled elsewhere - with him.
“When were you going to leave me?” I asked. Knowing how much she’d been seeing him, especially recently, and how often they were...Well...I thought the answer would have come to her easily.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“You’re not sure?”
“No.”
“You must know. Surely he’s been pressurizing you into leaving me...The way he’s been chasing you...He must hate it when you left him to come home to me. If it were the other way round, I wouldn’t have wanted you going home again at the end of an evening. I would have wanted you to stay. I would have - ”
“We’ve never discussed it...” she cut me off mid-sentence.
“You must have discussed it,” I said. How could they not have talked about it? They were meeting more and more frequently. Surely the next step would have been to move in together and get it on properly.
“We didn’t. It wasn’t about that...”
“Then tell me, because I really need to know, what the fuck was it about?!”
“I don’t know,” she said. She was getting teary-eyed again. The amount of crying she had done, anyone would have thought it was me who had been cheating.
“You must know!”
“He made me feel good! That’s all!”
“You climaxed with him?” I asked. “Did I not hit the spot?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Then tell me what you meant!”
“We were always arguing...You and me. He never argued with me! We just met up, laughed...Cuddled...”
“...Fucked...” I interrupted.
“Yes.”
“We could have done all that!” I argued.
“But we didn’t! Every time we spoke...every time we were together, we’d just argue.”
“I’ve been trying recently,” I said. I had been trying. I had tried to get close to her. I had tried to rekindle things between us but she kept pushing me away - all the time. Still, now I know why. “Perhaps if you tried too...”
“I’m sorry!”
There it was again - the apology. It’s like she can only take so much of a conversation before feeling the need to dish out yet another apology. Shame I find it hard to believe her.
“I know I’ve been a dick to live with recently,” I admitted, “and I’m sorry. Truly I am. I know it’s most likely my fault we’re in this position now...”
“No...”
I ignored her and continued, “...But recently I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying to make amends - to make things better between us and you ignored my efforts to continue having your secret fling. That’s what hurts the most...I realised there was a problem between us and I went out of my way to try and fix it but you didn’t care by that stage. You were just happy to carry on, behind my back, with your little fuck buddy.”
“It’s not like that...”
“Yes, it is. It’s exactly like that.”
“I’m sorry!”
The apologies are getting more and more frequent. Does she not realise the more she says it - the less effect they have?
“I suppose it is my fault though. Had I made the effort sooner...before it had gotten to the stage where you had met him...before you had...well...no sense dwelling on it really. What’s done is done, as they say.”
“You never told me how you found out,” she said, changing the subject.
VIII
I’ll never forget the conversation I had with a mutual friend of ours. Well, I say that but...I guess they were more of a friend to me than to her. Otherwise they’d have never told me how they saw Hollie coming out of a restaurant - hand in hand - with another man. They’d have kept it to themselves. Minded their own business. I’m not sure if I’m grateful to have been told. Is it better to live in ignorant bliss than have your whole life turned upside down?
“Well?” she pressed. “I’ve told you everything - surely you can tell me how you knew about us.”
“You were seen,” I said.
“Seen?”
“A friend of ours saw the pair of you together...holding hands...she asked me a couple of days later who it was. She presumed it must have been an old friend of yours...you know, someone you hadn’t seen for a while...an old, close friend and that’s why the pair of you looked so comfortable together.”
“Who was it?”
I didn’t answer. She didn’t need to know. No sense ruining a friendship as well as a marriage. Besides, I don’t want our friend getting any comeback. In the long-run, it was good for her to tell me what she’d seen. She didn’t deserve any grief for it. To begin with, I had even given her grief. I went into denial. Told her she was mistaken. Told her it must have been someone else...But, deep down I knew. Hollie was acting strange...Especially in the way she’d always keep her phone so close...
“When
she told me what day it was...I didn’t believe her. I thought she was mistaken because you said you had to work late at the office. It was a Wednesday - just over a week ago. You remember?”