"Don't be silly, my dear," my wife Shrutika said to me as she pulled up her full-fashioned black stockings and attached them to her garter belt. "It's just a simple work dinner. I.. just want to look good is all."
I gaped at her openly. "But honey," I said, "You haven't worn stockings in over a year! Not since Valentine's Day last year."
Shrutika seemed distracted. "Really? I thought it was more recent than that. Didn't I wear them for you when we went to Greece on holiday." She was fumbling with her bra now, attaching it while twisting from side to side, looking at herself in the mirror.
"Shrutika, Greece was 3 years ago."
"Oh yeah, that's right; time flies doesn't it. Last year we went to Ibiza instead. Weren't the beaches great, dear?" We'd never been to Ibiza. Shrutika was now pulling up a pair of lacy, transparent panties I didn't know she possessed.
I walked up to her. "Baby," I said, placing my hands on her and gently rubbing her, "You seem very much on edge. Is everything OK? Do you want me to come to this work dinner with you?"
She seemed to shake herself a little bit. "Oh, don't worry about it my dear. I just have a lot of things on my mind now, with the new business we're trying to acquire and all." She turned to me and kissed me; her soft, bare skin rubbing against me, and then she turned back to the mirror and started putting on makeup.
I tried my best to come up with an explanation for why my wife of 4 years was getting herself more dolled up than she had since our very first dates. She donned a little black dress that left her upper thighs scandalously bare.
Half an hour later, smelling of perfume, Shrutika kissed me goodbye. "I'll be back around 11," she said, "Love you honey."
--
She didn't get back until 2 in the morning. I was lying in bed, clad only in my boxer-briefs, when I heard the sound of her keys at the door, then the door opening and closing behind her and the click-clack sound of the high heels she hadn't worn for years drawing closer to the bedroom. As she came through the door, my eyes met hers and scanned her beautiful body, it didn't take me long to spot the telltale signs - smudged mascara, crumpled dress, her slightly uncomfortable stride and was that a red bite-mark on her throat, just above the neckline of her dress? I clenched my fists under the blankets.
"Hi honey, you didn't have to wait up for -"
"How was your evening?" I said.
She flinched at my tone, looking at me uncertainly. "It was fine, baby. I met some people and had a nice time."
"I'll bet you did," I said, grabbing my phone and opening the photos section. "My friend Thiago sent me these photos. I saw someone familiar in them."
I showed her the photos as she bent closer to look. There she was, Shrutika, my wife, my love, sitting next to another man I didn't recognize, far too close, kissing him, his hands under her dress. Ten photos in all, the last one showing them walking away from the party.
"Thiago said that he couldn't take any more, because at that point you two disappeared into a hotel room and didn't emerge until the party was completely over."
I looked up at Shrutika. All the colour had drained from her beautiful face. "Honey, you must have be confused, that isn't me -"
The anger I'd been holding in for so many hours exploded with the force of a small bomb. "OF COURSE it is, you fucking bitch!"
I jumped out of bed in fury, blankets trailing on the ground behind me, yelling at Shrutika with a rage I'd never experienced before. I must have looked quite the sight, naked except for my underwear, shouting four-letter expletives at my shocked wife and calling her names.
"Stop it!" yelled Shrutika back finally, her eyes shining with tears. "Yeah that's the way you're going to get me to stop cheating on you, by being a total douche. I cheated, alright? And I'm not proud of it, but the way you just yelled at me, I don't even regret it! Not to mention I wouldn't even have needed to if you didn't have a pathetic little penis that can't go three strokes inside me without blowing its fucking load. Sometimes a girl just needs a big dick inside her and a good fucking, alright? So -"
She cut herself off, embarrassed by what she had said. At the same time, something very strange happened to me. I meant to be outraged at her for what she had said, but instead it hit me, truly, that my wife had been with someone else. She had been naked with someone that wasn't me, had let them touch her breasts, her ass, her pussy, had probably even sucked their dick. And she'd let them fuck her. And she'd done all of those things because mine wasn't good enough for her. And although every rational thought inside my head said I should be furious about all of those things (and I was), I felt a strange stirring between my legs. I was getting hard!
I looked up at Shrutika. She was looking at my underwear; she could see my erection too! She looked.. surprised. And confused.
There was an awkward silence between us, neither of us sure what to say. I broke the silence first.
"I'm off to bed. I'm going to sleep on the couch. You can have the bed."
And I brushed past her into the living room. It took me a while to calm the cocktail of emotions inside me and finally get to sleep.
--
We didn't talk for three days. Shrutika and I went about our business without talking to each other at all. I missed talking to her, but I was still angry at her for what she'd done, and the manner in which she'd thrown away our marriage. We would have to get a divorce of course, the question was just how and when. I didn't know how I would bring myself to sign the papers. Even after what she'd done, I still loved her.
Finally, one evening after I'd taken to my usual spot on the couch, Shrutika broke the silence between us. She emerged from the bedroom, and walked right up to where I was. I didn't initially react to her presence.
"Honey... I'm sorry."
I had planned to ignore her, but the genuine way in which she said it and the expression on her face softened me a little bit. I looked her in the eye and nodded.
"I'd say it's OK, but given the circumstances..."