Chapter One - Suspicions
I am not sure exactly when I knew that Marie was cheating on me. I know that it has been months if not years. It is always the little things that give them away. I guess my first clue was when she started showing up once or twice a week an hour late from work. She told me that it was required overtime and of course, I had no reason to doubt that but since her paycheck was direct deposited into our joint account and the amount never varied substantially I began to suspect that she was doing something else with those couple hours per week.
The next clue was her dress. Normally when she would leave for work she would be dressed business casual. For some time, she had been wearing pants suits instead of dresses or skirts. And her footwear was blasé if not boring. I had always loved seeing her in heels and a short skirt because she had the longest sexiest legs in the world and heels just made them look even better.
Then shortly after her coming home late started her dress changed as well. The pant suits went back into the closet and out came the skirts. And even that didn’t set off any alarm bells since the skirts she chose were below the knee and cut so that they did not show off any more curves than was necessary. The blouses that she chose to wear changed just a little bit as well. Now they were made out of satin instead of cotton. And if I looked really closely I could just make out the outline of her bra that she was wearing under them.
And then one day I noticed she was wearing heels again to work. Oh, not fuck you pumps to be sure but not the two-inch square heeled things she had been wearing either.
And then the girl’s night outs began. The first time she informed me that she was going to go out with the girls, I thought that she looked away too quickly. It bothered me that she did not hold my eye contact but rather looked down at the floor.
That first night I waited up for her to come home. I watched a little television and had a couple of strong drinks. I kept checking the clock and with each passing hour, I became just a little more agitated. Again I did not suspect that she was doing anything wrong, it was just that if either of us was going to be out this late it was standard procedure for us to call the other and let them know what was going on. I remember checking the clock when I heard her car in the drive and it was 2:40 A.M.
She came into the living room where I was sitting up in my big easy chair. “I didn’t expect you to wait up for me.” I detected just a slight slurring of her words so I knew that she had a few more drinks than she should have and then drove home.
I thought some of reprimanding her for that but I really didn’t want to start something that late at night. And so I just asked her if she had a good time and all she did was give me a little smile and again looked away from my eyes.
I followed her up to our bedroom and watched as she went straight into the bathroom. She was in there for quite a while and when she came out she had changed into a long nightdress that covered her from her neck to the tops of her feet. I guess you could call it a granny dress. While she usually did not wear anything terribly sexy to bed that was a definite step down from her norm.
She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin and rolled over on her side away from me. I didn’t think too much of that because of the lateness of the hour and the alcohol that it was obvious she had consumed.
I awoke before her and since it was Saturday I did not bother to wake her. I simply went down to the kitchen and fixed the coffee pot and waited for it to finish dripping so that I could pour myself a cup. I guess it was maybe two hours later when I heard Marie moving around upstairs. By that time, I had cleaned up the kitchen and poured her a cup of coffee adding the creamer that she liked. When she came into the kitchen she was humming some old tune. It was something from a bygone era but I just could not put my finger on what it was called. But the one thing I was sure of was that Marie was in a better mood than I had seen her in some time.
I slid the mug of coffee in front of her as she sat down at the table. “So you never did tell me what your girls were up to last night.”
“Oh, nothing special, we just went out to a club and had a few drinks. I am sorry about that, I know that I shouldn’t drink and drive. From now on one of us will be the designated driver.”
She had effectively cut off any accusation that I might make and I wondered if that was why she had come out with her apology before I could raise a question.
I walked over to where she was sitting and gave her a little peck on the cheek. “I am glad you had a good time but I worry about you when you are out so late.”
“I know you do sweetness. I will try and remember to give you a call if I am going to be so late again.”
I left her there with her coffee and made my way upstairs to take a shower. I heard the washer running which surprised me since she had just done the laundry when she came home from work on Thursday night. Surely there could not have been anything that had built up to the degree that it would need doing in just the day and a half since then.
Nothing much happened the rest of the day. I had picked up a couple of steaks at the market and so I threw them on the grill while I washed and wrapped a couple potatoes to be put in the microwave. Marie fixed a garden salad and shortly we were enjoying an excellent meal together. She helped me clear away the dishes and we went into the living room to watch a little television. Nothing special is ever on Saturday night but we have several streaming services to choose from and so we were soon involved in a romantic comedy. Marie did something else strange at that point. She actually asked me to sit with her on the sofa. I put my arm around her and felt her snuggle down close to me and I thought that I might actually get lucky that night. It had been so long since we had been intimate that I was somewhat in a state of shock. I did, however, make all the right moves, putting my arm around her shoulders, kissing her neck a few times.
Everything was going perfectly but then her phone rang. I prayed that she would allow it to go to voicemail but she didn’t. She picked it up, looked at the screen and announced that she would have to take the call. I put the movie on pause and waited for her to come back into the room. Minutes turned to hours before she came back into the room and the look on her face told me that romance for that night had somehow gone by the boards. She apologized and told me that the call was from her mother who was worried about her father’s health and they had spent a long time discussing treatment options. And now she was too worried to continue with the frivolity of the movie.
Again she could not look me in the eye as she spun that tale. Deep down I knew that she was lying to me but I had no proof nor did I suspect why at the time.
Normally she would have left her phone on the sideboard when she went up to bed, but that was not the case that evening. She not only took the phone with her but she put it into her bedside dresser drawer. I probably would not have been suspicious enough to check the call log if she had not done that.
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