A Wife's Revenge
The words from the Godfather kept running through my head: "The women here are more dangerous than shotguns." While I wasn't Sicilian, I was Italian and my blood boiled quickly. The chilled chardonnay swirled between my fingers as my mind tried desperately to quell the storm brewing in my heart. My name is Brooke. I am thirty-one years old and married to a man, if you want to call him that, named John. We had married after he graduated from Law School almost five years ago. I'm 5'7" and since the only action I get is on a stair climber, I'm in pretty good shape.
John and I had been through high times and low, but more recently they become flat. Our relationship was a machine. Kisses hello and goodbye, sex on the weekend, maybe, and countless dinner functions filled with fake laughter and awkward handshakes. We were more testy roommates with boring benefits, than the passionate couple we were years ago.
My hand reached past a pair of flimsy lace panties that weren't mine and I picked the golden liquid up to my lips and drained the glass. I had found them in one of John's suit pockets, another in the growing list of obvious signs he was cheating. Grabbing the half-empty bottle, I filled the glass back up. I looked at the clock: 10:32pm. The green numbers blinked at me from the clock on the stove. His job afforded us a beautiful house, in a great neighborhood. We had vacations, expensive cars, world class wine but most of all we had everything he wanted us to have so he could make partner at his firm.
My phone rang. It was him. My hand trembled slightly as my mouth tried to find my voice.
"Hey," it was a simple answer. I didn't want to show emotion, at least not now.
"Yeah...uh, I'm sorry it's so late. I uh...I think I'm just going to crash at the Plaza tonight. The Sullivan case is killing, and I think I might be here a while." It sounded rehearsed, almost like he was reading.
"Ok." My hand squeezed the phone as my teeth grinded silently. "So, when am I going to see you?"
"I'll be home tomorrow, right after my afternoon meeting, alright?" He almost sounded annoyed that I had asked him.
"Yeah, ok." I was just about to hang up.
"Oh, and don't forget about that dinner with Will Masters. We're meeting him at Gino's at 7:30. He's a partner so try and wear something nice. Night babe." He hung up.
I didn't know what to say. I knew about the dinner, but to tell me to wear something nice. Fuck him. I had been basically living at the gym and the spa the past year, working out and primping trying damn near anything to get him to notice me. I didn't want to be a pent-up, frustrated housewife, but that's what I had become. I had become a stereotype. My shoulder-length jet-black hair was always perfectly styled. I lived in my yoga pants, form-fitting tops to see if he noticed how hard I worked. Not only was I in shaped, but I was training to run a half marathon with some of my friends.
Wear something nice? If I wore something nice, he wouldn't know what to do. I stood up and walked down the stairs to our basement. Living in the Denver area, we had converted our basement to an entertainment space which had an elegant 'man cave' feel to it. The room was designed with warm woods, rich brown leather couches, and huge TV, but right now what I was more concerned about, a fully stocked wine cellar.
Opening the glass door with a wrought iron vining design, I focused my attention on the area where we kept the wine to open to impress people. John opened it for top-tier clients, other partners he wanted to kiss up to and every once in a while for a dinner party to highlight his wealth. I grabbed a bottle of Grand Cru Chablis, and walked back out. God knows what, or who he was doing right now, but at least he not being here bought me some time.
I went upstairs and walked through the double doors to our room. Half stumbling already, I felt like my feet would slur if they could talk. I put my glass down, popped the bottle and drew a bath. The steam began to rise as I poured myself a heaping glass of world class wine.
How did things get this far? Where had we gone wrong? Was it my fault? I pulled the black sweater over my head, and then pulled my uniform black sweat pants down. I stood, naked in front of the mirror with a glass in my hand as I waited for the bath to fill about half way before I got in.
My pale skin contrasted my dark hair, accenting the bright pink nipples that were getting hard from the cold Denver air. My breasts were a full B, small C depending on the bra. After years of work my stomach was taut and my legs toned. The small tuft of black hair just above my pussy looked like a smear of chocolate, at least that's what one guy I was dating said year ago when his head was buried between my legs, so I always kept it like that.
I took a long sip of the outrageously expensive wine. Somehow it just tasted better with the smell of Lavender Vanilla bubble bath thick in the air. I lowered myself in to the bath, and with the bottle within hands reach, I began plotting.
When my mother told me revenge is a dish served cold I had always thought that it was just a saying. Not until the alcohol began to fuel my creative planning did I understand. I would wait until the opportunity presented itself, and then, I would make sure John understood what I was feeling.
The night passed filled with dreams of young blonde sorority girls stealing my clothes and the keys to my house and hiding them. I didn't need a psychic to tell me what they meant. I was hurt. I was scared that the last decade of my life had been lived for nothing. John was throwing away our marriage, friendship and along with it, my self-esteem. I couldn't control most of that, but I could take back the reigns of my own life, but how?
My thoughts started racing faster as the morning light filled my house. As I sipped my cup of coffee I was painfully aware of the silence throughout the large house, making me feel more alone than I already was. I needed to get out. Since I really didn't feel like talking about it with any of my friends just yet, I figured the gym, like a safe harbor, would be the best thing for me.
I kept telling myself to wait. Like a Mantra... "Wait, the opportunity will be there. Be calm." I pulled on my work out clothes and stepped into my brand new luxury SUV. I had talked John into buying it a month ago as an anniversary present. I wasn't going to get anything anyway, so I figured why not get something I wanted and would enjoy, not some piece of jewelry that I picked out myself.
The doors of the gym opened and I was greeted by Bobby, the dark-haired trainer every woman had their eye on.
"Hey Mrs. Jacobs, how are you doing?" His eyes quickly looked me up and down. He was quick enough to not linger, but every man thinks he won't be caught, but they always are. The woman's reaction to the prying eyes depends on how much they enjoyed your eyes undressing them. So, I said nothing. But his attention did lift my spirits a bit.
