The Wednesday Couple

My deepest thanks to SouthPacific for his editing skills, this story reads allot better with his help. I had some real trouble deciding on a category for this one. The first page or so will lead you to believe it should sit firmly in one category, but when you read it to the end you will think it could well sit in another. Just a shame that it can't go into multiple categories! I do hope you enjoy your read.

*****

I thought I had it all - before I walked into the Paradise Hotel. A loving partner of thirteen years, if you include the three years we fucked like bunnies in college before we got married. The two children we had just seemed like the icing on the cake to me.

I'm an electrician by trade. It's not a job that's going to make me rich but, as my Dad always said, everyone needs an electrician sometime in their life. I was covering for Marty today; his wife called the office and told our receptionist Carol that her waters had broken. The scream we heard from the reception area made us all think we were being held up.

So Marty made tracks to the hospital, and I headed off to an emergency call from the Paradise Hotel, out on the very edge of town. I had only ever driven past it before, but just pulling up alongside the main entrance to the place made me realize that places like these had a tradesmen's entrance and I sure wouldn't be welcome up this drive. Security met me round back and I was escorted into the main security room. The place was wall to wall TV screens showing every aspect of the hotel and grounds.

I paused as my eyes tried hard to take in all the pictures on the screens. "Wow! Now that's hard on the eyes."

The security guy laughed and said that you get used to it. He told me what was wrong and I got to it; we chatted whilst I worked, and I genuinely liked him. He didn't fit the bill of the usual type of security I had to deal with in some of the buildings we had contracts with; this one did more than point and grunt, so it made the time go a little faster. Although I had to feed a new line through some tight spots he helped when he could, but I did find it odd that he kept looking at the time.

"Don't worry, bud," I said. "It's only going to take another couple of minutes - the hard stuff's done."

He just grinned and sat back in his chair. Once I plugged everything back together the last of the three screens came to life, and that's when my own blissful life turned to shit.

As I looked at one of the screens, my wife of ten years came strolling down one of the corridors, hand in hand with someone I had never seen before.

"Holy shit!"

Security looked at me, and then the screen I was looking at, and smiled.

"She sure is hot, isn't she? You can almost set a watch by them."

At least I had the calmness of thought not to bounce out of there and go looking for them. I watched as she disappeared off one screen and re-appeared on another, still hand in hand with the guy and heading for the elevator. It was plain to see by their body language that they had known each other for sometime. My fear was: how long?

"I thought a place like this didn't allow hookers; sorry, escorts?"

The guy was still smiling as he watched the happy couple walk into the elevator. He didn't seem fazed by what I had just said.

"Oh she's not a hooker; that's his wife. I've been with this hotel for the last seven years, and the guy I took over from said they had been coming here for three years before that. We have a nickname for them - they're the Wednesday couple."

Desperate to stall for time so I could compose myself more, I started to put my stuff away, taking calming breaths and not feeling very calm at the end of them.

I said. "Ok I'll bite. You call them that because they come here every Wednesday, I take it?"

He laughed and shook his head, walked over to the coffee pot, poured us each a coffee, handed me mine, and sat back down again. The happy couple emerged from the elevator on one of the other screens, turned left down the corridor, passed two doors and used a swipe card on the third. She hurried in and the guy she was with laughed as he closed the door.

"Nothing like that. The second Wednesday of every month and always the last Wednesday of the month."

My math wasn't anywhere near that quick, so I sipped my coffee while the wheels in my head turned. It was then I choked into my cup, causing coffee to dribble down my chin. The bitch had stepped out on me over two hundred and forty times! Security looked at me, concerned.

"You could have warned me it was that hot."

He laughed and placed his coffee down on the table, then started testing the equipment before he would sign for the work done. I decided I needed to know just a little more; it was just how to get that information out of him without making it look like I wanted it, so I giggled and shook my head. He stopped reading my paperwork and looked over at me.

"You know, if I had thought about it a little longer I would have said you called them the Wednesday couple because they go into their room and don't come out again until the next Wednesday."

We both laughed as he shook his head and signed my paperwork, and I then handed him his copy.

"No; nothing like that. I got talking to his wife once - they work on opposite sides of town, and to keep their marriage fresh they have a nooner here twice a month. Romantic, don't you think? They will be here for a few hours at best, although they have stayed for a week before, so we couldn't get away with calling them that."

We walked back to the tradesmen's entrance and shook on it as I thanked him. I couldn't thank him for ending my marriage, but I thanked him anyway. Making it back to my truck was a little difficult as it was a bit tough, even on a nice sunny day, to see the damn thing through my tears. There seemed little point in leaving straight away, so I pulled further over to the edge of the car park and cried.

As question after question tumbled from my thoughts, the emotions that followed stuck to them like glue, many wanting answers. But the one question that I needed answering was the one that was going to hurt the most. I wasn't interested in why, or who he was, or anything like that. This had been going on for ten years! When Sarah was born my wife had turned to me and said "Enough! We have one of each, and both are healthy," so these would be the last little feet to pitter-patter around the house.

My own wife had betrayed me, and still to this day was betraying me, but had she committed the ultimate betrayal? Whose were the children? Even as I drove back to the office it must have been on auto-pilot. Carol told me with a smile that Marty made it to the hospital in time to see his daughter enter this world. All I could do was nod my head, and that alone saddened me.

Usually right about now would have been the perfect excuse to pull out pictures of my own two children, but the image of my wife walking down that corridor hand in hand with that guy was burned into my memory. The branding iron used to do it also seared away any emotion connecting me to the two little people that lived with us as well. With that one thought in my head I made it to the bathroom just in time to lose my lunch.

This morning I was in a happy place. I had a loving, very sexual wife, and two children any man would be proud to call his. Now, as I flushed away the evidence of my rebellious stomach, my mind told me I had nothing. My heart held onto a faint glimmer of hope, but that's only because my heart hid it from the rest of my emotions, occasionally calling for calm while my body went on its own rampage of self doubt, hatred and loathing over what my own eyes had seen.

A man who didn't know me, and therefore had no reason to lie, had told me a story. The look my own wife gave the guy the second before she dashed into their hotel room for the afternoon could do nothing other than confirm it. A piece of me died just then. As the door to that hotel room closed, coldness surrounded my heart, refusing to hear the doubts over what I had seen. The only voice I had heard was that of the Reverend Douglas Baker as he uttered those words on our wedding day - to forsake all others.

A thought occurred to me and I started to laugh. I actually laughed so much I was sick once again. Those dark thoughts took hold of a weakened mind. My heart had its own battles to fight and couldn't help as those dark thoughts took hold, and I just knew that this was my life now. This was the day trust had died, and the person who killed it was the woman I had loved so very much for the last thirteen years.

Again that thought stabbed at me, and I wondered at how I could even think so badly of a person I once loved yet now loathed. How the smile on her face as she looked at him just before they both entered that hotel room had my mind screaming - a mind I thought so kind and gentle to others, yet it screamed over and over one question I could never ask, for fear of knowing that the answer would indeed crush what little I had left in the way of dignity.

My stomach could not fuel its hatred anymore. It had nothing left inside it to offer. I actually wondered if he was at our wedding.

*******

Thankfully for the rest of the afternoon my standby status was just that. I knew I only wanted the answer to one question, and that involved the two little people of the house. Thirty minutes on the computer in one of the side offices gave me the answers; well, the start of this one anyway. A trip to the drug store and a five minute conversation with the guy in charge got me what I wanted. The look in his eyes as he handed me the little white bag left me in no doubt that he wanted to say more than he could.

Even as I drove home I knew that Mandy would know something was wrong. She wasn't the stupid one; it seemed I was. I was proved right within five seconds of opening the door. Mandy looked up from the kitchen counter, the knife half way to cutting the carrots, and stopped.

"Honey, you look like shit. What's happened?"

All I could do was shrug my shoulders and tell her I must have eaten something bad for lunch. Excusing myself, I headed for our room. The children interceded before I got there, both hugging me, and that's when I came oh so close to crying. The love I had for these two bundles of joy had simply gone. It felt like I was cuddling someone else's children, and that both saddened me and scared me at the same time.

Mandy came in an hour later with some soup, placed it on the cabinet next to my side of the bed, sat next to me, kissed me on the forehead, and even whispered in my ear that it looked like she wouldn't be getting any loving tonight. That thought alone, after what I had seen and heard about the Wednesday couple that afternoon, sent my stomach into revolt once again and I had to run to the bathroom. It had nothing to offer other than a disgusting looking white mess, and my wife gently patted me on the back, telling me to get back to bed and try and eat something later.

With the click of the bedroom door telling me she had left, all I could do was slump to the floor in front of the bathroom and cry once again. This time I really didn't want to do the math as my mind kept screaming "sloppy seconds." My heart remained silent, knowing it had no place in this mess anymore. None of this was of my choosing; I never asked Mandy to step out on me. When she finally had Sarah, said that two was enough and that she was going to get her tubes tied, all I could do was admit it was her body and go along with it.

In a relationship where I actually thought I was an equal partner, all I had been reminded of all day was that I was only a passenger along for the ride. Had my love for this woman made me that fucking blind?

*******

It was still dark when I woke. Mandy was curled up into me, the bowl of soup now gone and the lamp on low in case I had another run to the bathroom in mind. As I moved to sit up, Mandy woke and asked if I was OK.

"I'm just going to check on the children and kiss them both goodnight. I know once they reach double figures and cop a load of attitude I'm not going to be able to do that any more, so I want to get as many days of them being children as I can."

Mandy giggled, and said "I'm sure they will always love their dad, even when they're teenagers."

That was the trouble with what I saw that afternoon. Everything this woman said to me from now on always seemed to have a double meaning for me. I'm sure I grunted some response before she turned over as I opened the door of our bedroom, glad that she couldn't see the new tears as my mind analyzed what she had said and screamed its own response. The white bag came out of my coat pocket, and so began that lowering of the flag in our marriage.

Oh, I held out that faint glimmer of hope that I was wrong. But something that the security guy said to me had stuck and, as I slowly ticked off the days in my memories, I had figured it out. He said that "the Wednesday couple had stayed for a week once." When my Dad died, Mandy told me to take the children with me so that my Mom would have something emotional to keep her from thinking too much about my Dad as I organized the funeral, and she would come down on the day.

It kind of made sense, and to be honest it worked as well. Mom lavished so much love on those two for the whole week while I got the funeral arrangements sorted that I even got an "I told you so grin" from Mandy when she turned up and I told her about it. Sadly Mom passed away six months later; it seemed she really couldn't live without him.

So, while I was away for a week sorting through the funeral, Mandy was with him doing whatever floated their boat. My mind refused to let my imagination conjure up pictures of them naked together. Insanity was only half a step behind if that ever happened. I also now understood what people meant when they said "with a cold heart."

I was brought up to believe that our hearts glowed with love; more so when we married because we then had someone to share it with and, when children came along, then your heart just grew with pride. Mine was cold that evening as I held one, then the other, kissed their foreheads, gently took a swab from the inside of their mouths and placed it back into the container. I followed all the rest of the instructions and placed it all into the envelope and back into my work coat.

Surprisingly I even went through the routine of returning to bed, but the futile attempt at sleep still had me watching the sun come up as my mind kept replaying a loop of the happy couple walking hand in hand down that corridor. Mandy woke seconds before the alarm went off, but I feigned sleep for a moment before deciding to get up. There seemed little point in staying home since I had to send off the package anyway. Mandy simply shook her head and repeated that I should take the day off.

I volunteered to take the children to school since it was Mandy's day at the insurance office. It didn't take that much to persuade her that I was best suited to get them there and on time, since her office was the other end of town. The boss kept me on stand-by as cover for Marty, so sweet-talking the receptionist was easier. I needed to get the results delivered, and it couldn't be at home since I couldn't guarantee I would be there for the post.

Lying had been unfamiliar territory to me a day ago yet, as I stood in front of Carol and told her that the delivery were tickets for an anniversary, she just smiled and sucked it all up. The trouble was going to be my boss - he was the closest I had to a father now mine was dead. I genuinely liked the guy and, while my head was in a dark place all the time now, I just knew I needed his help and advice.

The knocking on his door was the easiest part. Saying "Boss, have you got a minute?" was the hardest, because I knew I now needed to put into words the dark conclusions which my mind had already reached.

*******

For two hours we sat and talked, only getting up for a coffee and to use the bathroom. He was smart and offered little in the way of advice. What I did get from him was a perspective on what was going on, and two scenarios to work with dependant on what the results of the tests were. Many times he shook his head as I detailed what I knew, what the guy at the security office told me, and where I suspected she was the week I took the children with me to Mom's.

"Know this, son; I'm taking you off stand-by and putting you on special projects. Let's face it, your head isn't here and, if I were in your shoes, I can't say mine would be either. I have a few things you can do here for the next few days until the results come back, plus I will also sort out the details needed for both scenarios. But, and this is the biggie, you have to decide for yourself if this is what you want to do. OK?"

Even as we shook on it we both knew. He hoped of course, but that elephant in the room was just too big to ignore. The last lingering doubt was the children. Could Mandy be so evil, so conniving and manipulative to do something as despicable as what I believed she had done? I suppose my boss had to see it with his own eyes; after all, how could someone play the loving wife and mother card for so long, and get away with being a cheating whore who had palmed off her lover's children onto her blind husband?

It was easier now. A train-wreck relationship didn't seem like such a national disaster when I came out of my boss's office. Oh, I could still see the end coming but, either way, I knew I actually had someone in my corner. God, how I missed my folks.

The next week was ... difficult. I could say that it was downright fucked up. Mandy decided I had got over the bug I had and she wanted some loving. Ever seen a woman who couldn't get her old man up with a blow job? Just seeing her in my mind, hand in hand with her lover and the way she skipped into that hotel room, worked better than drugs. Her passing shot as she finally gave up after her own ego had taken a kicking was that I needed to see a doctor, since something was clearly wrong with me.

The urge to laugh was so hard to fend off I had to bite my own lip, the taste of blood telling me to let go before I did some real damage to myself. Something else I noticed about myself was that I looked at the calendar more often. Usually I looked up to the weekend and stopped right about then. My eyes watched the third and fourth days go by, while my mind seemed to want to work out how many days before the Wednesday couple met up again. I can sure tell you that this lifestyle was NOT conducive to a happy marriage.

My boss caught me as I strolled into work, a week to the day after posting my hopes and dreams wrapped in three vials and a padded envelope. The look on his face told me everything I needed to know, and yet I still followed him into his office. He refused to say anything until I was sitting down, and only then did he slide the envelope across the table to me.

It took an age to make my hand move from my lap and hold that envelope; my world teetered on the edge as it was, and now came the day of reckoning. The first page was a lot of legal words that meant shit to me, but exonerated the clinic for everything from snow in the managing director's office to the girl in the canteen catching a cold. It was the second page that dropped my life into hell and slammed the gate shut on the way through.

Mandy was systematic about everything. The children's school had sent us a letter a couple of years back telling us to get our children DNA tested, so that if something "bad" happened we would have closure. It took me a New York minute to agree to this; I wanted my damn kids covered for every eventuality. It took Mandy a day or so to agree, and it's probably the one real argument we ever really had. She finally agreed, and told me she would take care of it.