The exhibition
My beautiful new watch buzzed on time and I sneaked out of bed. I should have been groggy, what with only four hours sleep and a hundred and fifty mile drive yesterday. Adrenalin is wonderful stuff; I was as wide awake and on edge as a sprinter in the blocks.
Carol was still out of it. I set the motion sensor on the bedroom camera to wake me if Carol moved. I had a quick coffee and got to work with blue tack plastering the walls and doors of the living room and kitchen with my poster pictures of her debauchery and choice words from her laptop.
It took me an hour. Carol, without even knowing that was my plan, was still fast asleep. I moved to my office and allowed myself a cat nap, setting my watch to wake me in twenty minutes; long enough to feel refreshed and let some of the adrenaline wash out, but not too long, I didn’t want to wake up thick with sleep.
When I woke Carol was till asleep.
I set my phone ready to pick up the feed from the cameras in the house so I could watch her from anywhere and set out things for breakfast. I didn’t risk cooking but put bread in the toaster ready to go and her favourite cereal on the table. I let the clock roll around to seven and set the coffee going. The living room door was shut so the coffee aroma was unlikely to wake Carol.
I three-quarters filled a jug with coffee and took one cup on a tray. As I crept up the stairs I couldn’t help lifting the lid and looking at the surface of the coffee in the jug, trembling a little but nothing crazy. I was a little wired but calm enough.
“Morning sleepyhead,” I said, laying the tray at the bedside and pouring a cup for Carol. “I brought you coffee,” I said as she woke up, “I called your work and left a message saying you were ill.”
“What?”
“You were really tired last night, too exhausted to have sex with your husband who’s been away since the weekend. I figured you needed more rest.”
“No, no, I’m okay.”
“Honey you’re not. Your big boss was in early and picked up the phone. He thinks you’re important, but he doesn’t need you till next week. We both thought you should get some rest.”
“What the hell’s gotten in to you?” she said. “You shouldn’t do that.” I clocked the irritation in her voice, that wasn’t part of the plan, she going to have a bad day, I didn’t mean it to start right away but it couldn’t be helped. I hated doing it but I had to do it.
Tough love is probably the wrong word for it but it was done out of love. Sure I was mad at Dean and Jay, and I had plans for them too.
Carol was a completely different issue. I had to know if she really wanted this slutty life. If she did then I’d have to live with it or lose her. I had to be absolutely sure and I had to understand it or I’d make wrong choices.
I know some guys would just kick her out, but intellectually that is so unsatisfying and I might spend the rest if my life wondering if I’d made the wrong choice. Being sure might be painful, actually pretty tough on Carol as well as me, but I couldn’t see another way.
I did my best to look put out at her response.
She relaxed a little.”Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be crabby.”
“Don’t fret,” I said. “It just goes to show that you do need some time out. I’ve been up since five and I’ve made a surprise for you downstairs.”
“Oooh,” she said. “Should I shower first?”
“Yeah you need to be wide awake. Drink your coffee and there’s a couple of painkillers on the tray. I thought you might need them.”
She sat up in bed, blinked a couple of times, frown lines appeared and she screwed her eyes up. “That was a good thought,” she said.
“Take the pills now, let them get to work while you have your shower. I’ll be down in my office.”
I got myself downstairs feeling like a heel. I know she’s been cheating on me for months and I have to do this but did anyone really deserve what was coming? I shut the door behind me and flipped my computer to the camera feed. At least I could watch her shower before the world blew up.
Seeing her naked in the bathroom was a sort of shock. I’d been obsessed with pictures of her for 36 hours but I’d been so into editing mode I hadn’t spent any time appreciating Carol. It dawned on me that she’d been hiding from me for months. Not exactly hiding but I’d hardly seen her naked in that time. We’d had sex, under the covers in bed, we’d hugged and kissed half dressed occasionally but one way or another, if you’d seen a movie of our lives you’d conclude that it had been edited to suit a family audience.
She must have been working out and dieting without telling me—another sign of trouble I guess. For two minutes I relaxed and let myself enjoy watching, it might be the last chance I got. One thing it did teach me was that I still fancied her something rotten.
She took ten minutes in the shower. I watched her moisturise her shaved pussy, fun to watch even though I hadn’t experienced it. She towelled off and I watched her move around. She grimaced at the headache a couple of times, but apart from that she was moving well.
I was curious about what she’d wear. Would she dress or come down in a bath robe. She stretched in front of the mirror and saw a bite mark on her breast and scowled at it. She stared at it for a few second and ran her fingers over it. Watching her face was a picture. I could see her remembering how she got it and feeling guilty about it at the same time.
She turned around, looking back over her shoulder, checking for any more evidence of the last thirty-six hours. I half wished that Dean had been into S&M, a few whip marks would have really added to the drama that I had planned. She dabbed a little concealer cream on the hickey, closing in on the mirror to check the effect. Filming the whole thing was too good to be true.
How did I feel? Kind of superior I guess but not in a totally good way. I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy hurting her and I wished it hadn’t come to this. If she’d talked to me, picked up on any of my hints then we wouldn’t be here.
I know I’m kind of an intellectual, too cerebral maybe, rational to a fault even. If we’d talked about things from the start… well who knows, but I like to think we could have found a way. Right now all that was out of the window, I was fighting for my life and was determined not to lose.
When she was happy with her concealment Carol sprayed a little perfume, flicked a brush through her hair, wrapped the bathrobe tight around herself and headed out of the bedroom.
I watched her slink down the stairs and flipped to the living room view to see her walk into the room. She had what I call her haughty sexy superior face on. What did that face mean? Was she planning to somehow be superior, to not be surprised at my surprise, or was that me feeling ground down and inferior? Maybe she was pumped about having three men to play with. Well fuck that, I thought—just you wait.
It could all be down to the bite mark, if she was feeling guilty and not ready to own up, or planning to bluff it out… yeah, if that was a bluff it out face then that bluff was about to be called.
One step into the room and it all collapsed. Total panic took over her face. She spun around as if she expected me to be coming through the door behind her. The door’s on a spring so it shut itself. The back of the door had a poster that said:
“I’ve never been fucked so hard.”
Two inch high letters, with the date in smaller print to add authenticity.
Real panic was setting in by then. She took a step back away from the door and that meant she took in more of the display. Next along were three pictures together— her body across the middle with her tits hanging down and slightly blurred. On the right her arse with most of Jay’s balls very visible while his cock was buried in her pussy. On the left you could see her face half on to the picture with Dean’s cock half way down her throat.
Across the top it said:
“You guys fuck me so good.”
Along the whole wall that was now confronting her were two-foot high pictures of her in a series of the most debauched poses I’d been able to find.
She staggered back three more steps into the middle of the room and she’d turned enough to see that she was surrounded on all sides, every wall was covered with graphic details of her as a porn star. I was tempted to run in but I hung on watching the monitor.
She almost fell onto the sofa. For a second I worried she might have a heart attack but when she hit the sofa she still had her eyes wide open and she was breathing, panicky gasping breathing, but looking very alive.
I kind of liked the view from there because right ahead of her on another wall was a great three-quarter shot of Dean naked on that same sofa with her on her knees in front of him. She looked sexy, but on that clip he looked like an arrogant bastard. He had a glass in his hand half full of what I knew was my best whisky and the smirk on his face sure looked as though he only cared about what he was getting out of it.
I kept watching, wondering if she could see that trait in his face, or was I fooling myself? I left her sitting for what must have been six or eight minutes and when I was about to weaken and come in to face whatever was going to happen she got up. She looked awful, there were tears streaming down her face—agonising to see someone you love crying like that but I thought it was a good sign, a reaction, raw emotion, everything stripped away.
Why did I think that was good? because it had to be genuine, there’s no way anyone could fake that. There was going to be nothing but truth from now on.
At that moment I hit the buttons to play a video on the TV ten feet from where she was sitting.
The track opened with the sound of Carol in bed with Jay and then being interrupted by the phone ringing. Carol reached out from under Jay and grabbed her phone, looked at the screen and said
“It’s Chris,” she said in a panicky voice. Jay rolled off her. The camera tracked back to show them on the screen and me holding my phone.
I was proud of that movie clip because it was absolute proof that Carol was cheating; fucking in our bed with a naked man, a man who was doing his best not to laugh at me, or at least the situation, while Carol was talking.
Carol wasn’t actually lying to me—I didn’t specifically ask her if she was in bed with another guy while I was away. She was deceiving me, there was no question about that, talking as though she was having a normal evening at home.
When she saw that clip she knew that I’d known for a whole day. I guess she could say that I had deceived her too. A minor sin I would contend, given that she had been fucking two guys for a while before I phoned, and she hadn’t even had the good grace to use the spare room.
“Oh fuck,” she said, staring at the screen and probably for the first time seeing the sly mockery in Jay’s face. “Oh fuck, what have I done?”
It’s funny how people say such mundane things in a crisis. Actually I may be being unfair because for the next five minutes Carol had her head in her hands muttering things my bugs couldn’t pick up; maybe those were deep words of wisdom. The clip stopped when she the call ended and the screen went blank. Carol got up and glanced around the room at the rest of the exhibition and then turned into the kitchen. There was breakfast laid out on the counter, with her plate on top of an almost life size picture of her in action on that actual counter, but across it in even bigger text was my one message:
“I STILL LOVE YOU.”
I’d been forcing myself to wait until she saw that before I opened the door and snuck in.
I stood in the room for a few seconds before she saw me. I could feel my heart racing. It’s one thing to spy and scheme and plaster the walls with incriminating stuff, but face to face with someone you love, who is hurting right there in front of you—that’s a whole new ball game I can tell you.
We stood there looking at each other for a while. I was determined not to speak because I knew I’d say something weak— say I was sorry or something. The note on the table said I still loved her, what happened next was up to her.
She kept looking at me, wiping tears and scanning my face as though I was a stranger that she ought to recognise but couldn’t quite place. It felt like forever before her breathing had calmed enough to speak.
“God, I’ve underestimated you,” she said eventually, “unbelievable,” shaking her head as if she was clearing cobwebs, trying to wake up.
“I guess so,” I said. “What exactly did you think of me?”
She sat down on one of the breakfast chairs. “I don’t know.” She stopped for a second, looking at the table, moving her plate to one side to stare at the picture. “I um… I kind of took you for granted, you filled up a predictable Chris shaped space in my life.” She shook her head again. “Oh fuck…”
“What? You were going to say something.”
“No…”
“Say it. I have to know.”
“It’s not fair.”
“It’s not been fair for months, that’s water under the bridge. It’s what we do next that matters.” I resisted saying we’re even now. “Say it Carol. Whatever it is say it. I have to have the truth.”
She took a deep breath. “I treated you like furniture, like a sofa or a bed or something, a safe place to come home to.”
“That’s not so bad,” I said.
It could have been worse, right? She could have said she hated me. “People can get very attached to comfortable furniture.”
She raised her eyebrows and half smiled.
“I’ll stick with the good words,” I said, “Safe… come home to… that’s better than a lot of things.”
“How did you know?” she said.
“I read your laptop, and then I bugged the house.”
That got me a sidelong glance.
“Okay, so I was suspicious for a while—little things, lots of little things.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, “yeah, I can guess.”
“So I spent half an hour finding your password.”
“And all this?”
“There are people who know how to do things, you pay them money, they show you how.”
“Fuck,” she said.
“You made it easy, you ought to get a better password. Once I read your laptop I knew what to do.”
“I was careless.”
“Mmmm.”
She wiped her eyes again.
“You were careless before that too,” I said. “If you want to play away it’s better to not to neglect your husband when you get home. I got suspicious. Don’t beat yourself up too much, I should have said something when it was beginning to bother me.”
“No,” she said, wiping her eyes again and then breaking down completely for a minute. “No,” she said eventually, “you did try, and I got offended and shot you down.”
“Like you said, careless. I may be wrong,” I said, “but I think there was some guilt in there too. That’s why you shot me down. If you didn’t feel defensive you’d have laughed it off. I like to think you didn’t want to hurt me, so you put yourself in a bind. Fun with guys at work, it’s hard to give up—but hurting husband at home is tough to do—so you walked the tightrope. Anything that might have knocked you off balance got short shrift”
She sat shaking her head.
“I think the guilt made it more exciting for you,” I said, filling the time, talking so she could get her breath back, maybe trying to be kind. “Being taboo, living dangerously, all that is full of adrenaline but there’s no way to win, if you can be cool with all the deception it’s not so exciting. No one has a dull affair.”
I stopped. No sense in getting too clever. I strolled past her and set the coffee going again. She was still sitting with her head in her hands. I put a steaming mug on the table close enough to reach but not so close she could accidentally knock it over. I took a risk then and massaged her shoulders. She has spots that get tense and my fingers found them in seconds.
“Why this?” she said. “Why not just change the locks and serve the papers?”
“I’m married to a woman that other guys want, I’d be crazy to dump her unless she didn’t want me.”
That got me a kiss and a hug. A very long hug.
“What now?” She said eventually, hesitating, pulling away enough to get my face in focus.
“Can you tell me why? I can sort of guess but it’s best if you can tell me. I know we’re both too busy and and all that, but why? We could have worked on it.”
“It was easy,” she said. “Too fucking easy.” She looked at me, full on total eye contact. “I guess you’ve never been tempted, maybe you’re better than me.”
“No.”
“It was just too easy,” she said. “Too many opportunities… and I was too stupid. I should have said no and talked to you, but I couldn’t face doing that.”
“And I might have said no…”
“That would have been okay but I just couldn’t do that to you. It would make it seem like I didn’t love you.”
“So was it because I’m no fun?”
“No love, don’t think like that. At home, our life… we have to make an effort to make time for each other and then we don’t paint the house, or don’t do the garden or don’t buy groceries… and all that stacks up against us and we don’t make that time.”
“We do those things for each other…”
“We do, I know, but they’re not fun… well no, not the same kind of fun; they’re not escapist. This was handed to me on a plate when I had nothing else to do. All it cost me was a little lost sleep.”
It made some sense, I nodded, unsure what to say.
“I should have said no,” she said.
“But then you’d never know what you might have missed?”
“Yeah, something like that.” She took a deep breath and made sure to meet my eyes again, trying to smile a little.
“I’m so sorry Chris, I never meant it to be like this. What do we do now?”
