The Adulterer's Handbook

by Sam Anthony

  “I honestly have no idea, Lee.”

  “I suppose you’re going to deny sending me all those photos and messages yesterday too.”

  “No. That was definitely me.” She smiles. “Did you like the photos?”

  “They arrived in the middle of our Sunday lunch!”

  “Yes, but did you like them?”

  “I was with my family!” I sound more and more exasperated.

  “That’s good. I hoped you would be.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought it’d be a thrill for you to receive naughty photos from your mistress in the middle of your family lunch.”

  Is she psychotic?

  I sigh. The anger is fading, to be replaced with despair. I lower my voice.

  “And what about the letters on my car windscreen? They must have been from you.”

  She doesn’t reply, so I continue.

  “‘I know.’ You’re the only person who knows about us apart from me. And again this morning, ‘If you don’t tell your wife, then I will.’ They must have been from you. All these stupid games you’re playing have made it pretty clear that your goal is for Tamsin to find out about us.”

  “We’ve already talked about this, Lee. I want you to tell her we’re in love and then leave her, so we can be together properly.”

  “You honestly want me to tell Tamsin about our affair? You’re mad! You must realise there’s no way I would ever do that.”

  “As I said in my letter, if you don’t tell her, then I will.”

  “She won’t believe you. I’ll just deny it. It’ll be your word against mine.”

  “What if I show her some proof?”

  “You’re bluffing. There isn’t any proof. We deleted or destroyed any evidence. Rule two, remember?”

  “You might have. I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  “I might have kept all sorts of evidence, just so I could convince Tamsin when the time was right.”

  “Like what?”

  “Emails, text messages, photos, receipts ...”

  “Those can all be faked. Anyone can produce an imitation email or text message. I don’t believe you’ve got any compromising photos of us either, but if you did, they can be tampered with too. I’ll just paint a picture of you as my crazy stalker and deny all your faked evidence.”

  I sound more confident than I’m feeling.

  “How do you know I’m not recording this conversation right now?” she says. “In the last five minutes, you’ve admitted we’ve made love in the past, you’ve described how my fingernails gouged your back on Friday, you’ve revealed that you had a shower in my house, and you’ve mentioned ‘us’ and ‘our affair’. How would you explain away a recording in which you freely admit all of those things?”

  “You’re not, are you?” I say, dry mouthed with fear.

  “Not what?”

  “Recording this conversation.”

  “I might be.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Who says I’m using my phone? Maybe I’m wearing a wire, like on TV.” She smiles and continues. “Would you like to frisk me or should I take all my clothes off, so you can check?”

  “No! Your clothes are fine where they are.”

  “Look, Lee. It’s time you realised: I’ve been controlling our relationship from the very beginning. I pretended to go along with your silly rules, but actually, I’ve been following my own rules.”

  “I don’t understand.” This can’t be right.

  “Remember the puncture I had the night we first snogged?” I nod and she continues. “I let the tire down myself.”

  “I did wonder about that,” I say.

  “It was my suggestion we begin an affair in the first place, but you didn’t exactly take much persuading.”

  “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’m regretting it now.”

  “I haven’t even got a cousin.”

  “What!”

  “You heard me.”

  I can’t believe this. “The whole cancer thing was made up? You lied to everyone at the office?” I’m aghast.

  “Yes. And it worked too. It got you back into my bed.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” I shake my head, bemused. “What do you want from me?”

  “I thought I’d made that obvious. I want you to leave Tamsin so we can be together.”

  “But that’s not what I want.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have said it was.”

  “I never said any such thing.”

  “You must remember, Lee. We’d just made love in the hotel, the second time, and I snuggled up to you and said, ‘I wish we could be together like this forever,’ and you replied, ‘Maybe someday we can,’ and then you fell asleep. I had to wake you up for round three if I remember correctly.”

  “I honestly have no recollection of saying that, Soph.”

  “Well, you did.”

  “Look, whether I said it or not, I didn’t mean it. It was just … post-sex pillow talk. Without wanting to sound insensitive, I simply don’t want to be with you. I want to be with my wife and kids.”

  “What about our kids?”

  “Huh?”

  “Lee, I’m pregnant with your baby!”

  The world stops.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t be. We always used condoms and you’re on the pill.”

  “I can assure you, Lee, I am pregnant.”

  “Then it can’t be mine.”

  “He’s definitely yours.”

  “He?”

  “I know it’s a boy. I can tell.”

  “I don’t think it works quite like that, but I suppose there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’re correct.”

  “I know.” She’s so calm.

  “It must be Joe’s.”

  “It can’t be Joe’s. On the few occasions we’ve had sex lately, I always used a diaphragm.”

  “I thought you were trying to start a family,” I say.

  “Joe was. I wasn’t. At least, not with him. I only wanted your baby. You’re the love of my life, Lee.”

  “I heard you and Joe have sex the other day. You certainly didn’t stop to put in a diaphragm.”

  “I was already pregnant by then. I took a test three weeks ago. Several tests, in fact, just to be sure. They all said ‘positive’. But I already knew. I could feel it. I just felt … different somehow.”

  “This makes no sense. We always used condoms ... Are you saying you made holes in them?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then paused for a beat.

  “Lee, I love you, but I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Another long pause. And then finally she continues, speaking slowly, choosing her words carefully, as she makes her confession.

  “After we made love – while you were in the shower – I opened the rubbish bag and used a turkey-baster to recover your sperm from the used condoms, and re-tied the bag before you came out. Then, as soon as you left, I … artificially inseminated myself.”

  She stops talking and looks at me anxiously, fearing my reaction.

  I’m open-mouthed with shock.

  “It took a few months to succeed, but we finally did it. We’re going to have a baby!”

  I can’t speak.

  “Please say something, Lee. Tell me you’re happy.”

  I’m stunned.

  My brain is trying to make sense of everything Sophia’s just told me.

  “P equals pregnant,” I say, my voice monotonic.

  “What?”

  “In your diary. The P stands for pregnant.”

  “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Plan

  I turn round and walk out of Sophia’s house, hopefully for the final time, not even replying to her question. I’m stunned, and the drive back to the office passes in a blur. I realise I’m in no fit stat
e to do my job. I just need time to think. This is a disaster. Is it even possible to get out of this predicament with my marriage still intact?

  I pull over to the side of the road, phone the office and inform them that I’ve come down with a migraine, and I’ll be taking the afternoon off. Then I silence my phone, drive to a quiet spot out of town, park the car, and settle down to consider the consequences of Sophia’s revelations.

  My initial thought is that Sophia could be lying to me. It’s evident that she wants me to leave Tamsin to be with her instead. That much is true. But the rest? Surely she’s not pregnant. Has she really collected evidence of our affair? Does she have a cousin who has cancer? Was she controlling our relationship from the start? Or is it all lies, intended to trick me into admitting our affair to Tamsin?

  I’m overwhelmed. I need to get to grips with what’s real and what’s fabricated, by thinking about these issues one at a time.

  The biggest bombshell Sophia has dropped is the supposed pregnancy. Can she really be pregnant?

  Yes. She’s of childbearing age and she’s sexually active.

  If she is pregnant, could it be mine?

  Before the revelations of today, I would have said no. We always used condoms, and Sophia told me that she was on the contraceptive pill. However, it’s possible she was never on the pill at all, but merely claimed so. It’s also possible that she retrieved my sperm from our used condoms and squirted it inside herself after I’d left her house. That would also explain why she often arrived back at the office much later than me on the Friday afternoons of our liaisons. I’m no expert, but I guess you could get pregnant that way, especially if you did it many times.

  Would she actually do that? Embark on a chronic and covert plan with the sole objective of getting pregnant with my child, against my will?

  Again, in the past, I would have said no. But that was before Sophia disclosed that she wants to have a family with me. Perhaps she believes I’ll be more likely to leave my wife to be with her if that family is already underway.

  Could somebody else have got Sophia pregnant?

  If she is pregnant, then she obviously hasn’t been taking the pill, so it’s possible that Joe is the father. I heard them having unprotected sex a couple of weeks ago, while I was uncomfortably ensconced beneath their breakfast bar. Perhaps that’s a common occurrence. She claimed she used a diaphragm whenever they made love, but did she always have the time and the opportunity to insert one beforehand without Joe becoming suspicious? Surely Joe is a more likely candidate for father-of-the-foetus than me.

  I doubt very much there are any other potential contenders. I know Sophia thoroughly enjoys sex, but I can’t imagine she’d sleep with anyone else. Would she?

  Could she be lying about being pregnant?

  Absolutely. She’s already shown herself to be a liar. Either she’s been untruthful with me since the beginning of our relationship or she’s lying to me now. She claims she’s taken several pregnancy tests, but I haven’t seen any evidence with my own eyes. She doesn’t look pregnant, but it’s much too soon for her to show. She hasn’t mentioned having morning sickness or any other symptoms. I want to believe that Sophia isn’t pregnant, but my instinct is telling me that she’s being truthful. The joy and conviction on her face as she broke the news seemed totally authentic.

  She might be lying currently about being pregnant, but that’s not the sort of falsehood that she could maintain for long. At some point, it would become apparent that her abdomen wasn’t swelling as it should be. The likely motive for Sophia’s pretence at this time, would be to provide her with a short-term emotional blackmail strategy conceived – literally – to convince me to leave Tamsin for her as soon as possible.

  My intuition is telling me that Sophia really is expecting a baby, as she claims. And if I’m right, and the child is mine, then what? Would I want her to have a termination?

  This is a delicate issue. I’ve always been pro-life when it comes to abortion; Jake and I have discussed it at length and we agree on this matter: once the parental DNA has been exchanged and recombined to create the blueprint for a unique new human being, who has the right to destroy it? But this time it might be my child potentially having its life prematurely terminated. My moral code says let it live; my evolutionary imperative to pass on my DNA says let it live; but my overriding compulsion is for self-preservation. This insubstantial embryo could destroy my marriage and thereby my whole life. A future trouble-free existence, as selfish as it may be, is my only objective.

  If Sophia was to say to me, “I’m having your baby, but I’ll bring it up myself and nobody will ever know it’s yours,” then I might be persuaded to go along with that.

  If she was to say, “I’m having your baby and I want us to bring it up together,” then that would undoubtedly lead to the end of my marriage, and my preference would be a termination instead, contradicting my previous convictions.

  I realise this sounds heartless, but I’ve already got a family and they are my priority.

  Of course, there’s no way I could force Sophia to have a termination, so it really doesn’t matter about my preference.

  ◆◆◆

  Looking back over our affair, I realise I don’t really know Sophia at all. I suspected she might have faked the puncture, but I didn’t mind that at the time. I knew she’d been the one to suggest having an affair in the first place, and I was fine with that too. I thought we were on the same page when it came to planning it, though, and that simply wasn’t true. If Sophia is being honest with me now, the whole procedure was designed to get me to leave my wife and family, and begin a new life with her. The rules I’d so carefully constructed meant nothing to Sophia, and she only acquiesced in order to get me into bed. I’m going to have to re-evaluate our whole relationship from a different perspective: knowing that her ultimate goal was not just to have some high-quality extra-marital sex, but, in fact, was to tear asunder two marriages and for us to set up home together.

  It terrifies me that Sophia might have spent our whole affair collecting evidence she can present to Tamsin in order to wreck my marriage. If this is the case, what evidence does she have, and is it refutable?

  Can I simply deny all of Sophia’s accusations and belittle any spurious evidence? Can I portray her as a delusional, psychotic stalker? Would Tamsin believe me if I did? Possibly. But what about Jake? Jake knows the truth. He’s the one person to whom I’ve admitted my affair. He could contradict all my denials.

  My one redeeming thought is that, at this moment, Tamsin doesn’t know anything about the affair. She’s still blissfully ignorant of my infidelity, so my marriage is still intact.

  I intend to do anything in my power to keep it this way.

  Anything.

  ◆◆◆

  I can’t help deducing that all my problems would go away if Sophia was dead. What an appalling thought! Obviously, I’ll try to reason with her first; but what if she won’t listen to reason? I’m definitely not going to actually murder her. That would be crazy. But if I was, how would I do it? Make it appear like an accident? There must be a way to kill someone and get away with it. There are probably a few thousand websites designed with that very purpose in mind. To be clear, though, I’m really not going to do it. It’s just a thought experiment.

  At this stage.

  Possible methods for murdering Sophia:

  Poison her coffee at work.

  Hire a hitman.

  Make it appear like a mugging gone wrong.

  Sabotage the brakes in her car.

  Push her off a tall building.

  Buy a sniper’s rifle and shoot her from a safe distance.

  Fake her suicide.

  I can’t do it. I’m not that guy. I’m the guy who can commit adultery, not the guy who can commit murder. That’s several steps too far.

  ◆◆◆

  If Sophia’s latest revelation is the truth, she’s been manipulating me since before our affair even began,
and she now considers herself to be close to achieving her goal: starting a new family with me. I just hope I can convince her to do three things: keep our affair secret, dispose of any evidence she may have of my infidelity, and not tell anyone that I may be the father of her unborn child. That’s a lot of convincing. I’m not confident.

  I drive home and try to relax, but the knot in my stomach is worsening. I feel physically sick and I can’t concentrate on anything other than my predicament. Every time my phone vibrates, I expect to hear more bad news.

  The evening goes by relatively peacefully. Tamsin has remarked that I look pale and sweaty and she’s convinced I’m going down with the flu. I showered as soon as I got home, and again before bed, but I can’t seem to eradicate the stench of fear and despair.

  ◆◆◆

  I wake late on Saturday, after another disturbed night, to discover that Tamsin has already gone shopping. There was a time when I’d be resentful that another weekend morning had passed without us having sex, but today I’m just relieved she’s not here. If I’m honest, it’s highly unlikely that I could have managed an erection anyway.

  My phone vibrates and I know, even before I look, that it’s going to be a message from Sophia.

  “I’ve been thinking about baby names! Xxx”

  I reply straight away.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “My current favourites are Ben, James, Thomas, Daniel and Mark. What do you think?”

  “You have to stop, Soph. This is crazy.”

  “Very traditional, I know. Biblical too, I guess. But I don’t really like more modern names.”

  “I’m never going to leave Tamsin, so just stop.” I run my hand through my hair and notice several strands drop to the carpet.

  “I hope he has your nose. You have a particularly regal nose! Xxx”

  “Have you even seen a doctor to get the pregnancy confirmed?”