Note: Many thanks to Tatelou for all the help with editing this story.
Scott and I have been married for a little over 20 years. We were high school sweethearts. Then just after my eighteenth birthday, I got pregnant. Being from a medium sized town in the South that still held a lot of southern conservative values, we quickly got married. I gave birth to a son that we named Darren. We had to quickly learn how to be adults and parents. Two years after we were married I gave birth to a daughter we named Kelly. So in a period of less than three years, Scott and I went from being carefree high schoolers to married parents of two kids trying to make our way in the world.
As with most young couples our first few years were a struggle, both financially and emotionally. The emotional and personality changes that people go through in the time from late teens to early twenties can be drastic, but we made it through.
Scott has many old fashioned values. He really wanted me to be a stay at home mom even though money was very tight, but that wasn't an issue, because I wanted to stay at home with the kids anyway. Too many kids are raised in daycare, or by a baby sitter. We wanted our children to be raised by their parents.
Scott accepted an entry level job with a pharmaceutical company. There was room for advancement and Scott liked the company, so the plans for the future were set in place. Over time, Scott did advance and he now holds down a very well paying job as a regional sales manager. I never went to work, and I never regretted it. The kids and the duties of the house hold were always a full time job, and I had the satisfaction of being the one to raise my children.
The only drawback to all of this was the amount of time Scott spent on the road for sales calls. Sometimes he would be gone as much as 2 weeks of each month. It was at times difficult to handle everything by myself, but I took pride in my abilities to run the house, raise the kids and be mom, dad, caregiver and disciplinarian.
Darren is now 19, and has left for his freshman year of college. He has always been a wonderful child; never bad, never running with the wrong crowd, no rebellious phase that teens usually get. He's the kind of son that every parent would wish for.
Kelly, on the other hand, isn't quite the same. She's very rebellious and headstrong, but basically a good person. She has a wonderful personality, loves to laugh and has a kind heart, but she wants to do what she wants to do. She's a very attractive girl, and over the last several months she has begun to use her looks to get what she wants from the boys.
My biggest fear was that she would resort to using sex to get what she wanted and that she would maybe wind up as a teen aged mother, just as I was. I have had several conversations with her about sex and she assures me that she hasn't had sex with anyone. Part of me believed her, yet part of me didn't. The more I tried to talk to her and keep tabs on her, the more secretive she became around me. If I would walk into the room, while she was on the phone, I would hear her voice change and immediately change the subject. The more this behavior went on, the more suspicious I became of her and what she was doing. It was my impulse, of being a nosy mom, which led to the writing of this story and a complete change of life style for me.
The secretive phone conversations were driving me nuts. Kelly had been hanging around a boy in her class who I was sure only had one goal with her. I didn't like this boy, and let her know it on several occasions. Every time I would try to talk to her about him, she would get completely defensive and we would wind up in an argument. I always suspected it was him she was talking to on the phone, on the occasions I walked into the room. I suspected, but I didn't know for sure, and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about.
Then, one day while shopping, I went into an electronics store and stumbled across the way to answer my questions. There in front of me was a small tape recorder that had an adapter to plug into a phone jack. It was all automatic. Plug this thing into an empty phone jack and it would automatically turn on and record whenever any phone on that line was lifted off the hook, and record until the phone was hung up. I purchased the unit and went home to set it up.
When I got home I was surprised to see Scott there; he wasn't due home for two weeks. He said he was just stopping through on his way to Miami, and explained he would be gone for the next two weeks. He would be leaving in the morning. I had never told Scott of my concerns about Kelly. He knew she was going through a rebellious phase, but she was still Daddy's little girl. Besides, I didn't want to have him worry about her, while he was on the road.
Scott went about his business, getting all of his papers in order for the remainder of his sales calls. I took the recording device and set it up in Darren's bedroom. No one ever went in there, so no one would notice a strange device plugged into the phone jack.
Kelly got home from school later that day and we all had a nice dinner. After dinner she went to her room and Scott went to his study to finish his work. I spent the evening doing what I normally do. The phone rang a couple of times and I smiled secretly to myself, knowing if Kelly was scheming anything with her boyfriend, I would know too. Everything was being taped. Scott would be leaving early in the morning and Kelly would be going to school. I would listen to the tape tomorrow while the house was empty.
The next morning, after everyone had left, I listened to the tape. There was a call for Kelly, from one of her friends – nothing there, and another call from the same friend. Then came a call for Scott, from Bob – a close friend and one of his salesmen. Just as I was about to fast forward the tape I heard Bob say, "Are you going to see Sharon while you're in Miami?" I was stunned by this, so I listened to the rest of the conversation.
Scott's reply was, "Hell no. All I wanted with her was sex and now she's trying to get serious". Bob asked if Sharon would cause any trouble for him. Scott explained that he had never given her any legitimate contact information, other than a yahoo e-mail address and a cell phone number, which she wouldn't be able to get any information from. Bob told Scott he was doing the right thing by breaking it off, Sharon had always seemed a bit clingy to him. Scott agreed saying that the last thing he needed was a clingy mistress.
Then Bob got serious and asked Scott, "Why do you even take the chance cheating on Anne like that? Anne is great looking, has a nice figure and has always treated you right, why take the chance of blowing your marriage?"
Scott was silent for a minute, then said, "You are right. Anne is all of those things. I know this sounds weird but I really do love her. I wouldn't want anyone else, and I don't want to lose her. The other women are just about sex. Sometimes I need something different. They actually make me better in bed with Anne. Maybe the guilt of what I'm doing makes me try even harder to please her, as a way to make it up to her, even though she doesn't know about it. It actually makes my marriage better in certain ways." From that point on, they talked about the job, then hung up.
I was devastated. I spent the next several hours alternating between crying, rage, self doubt and self pity. After some hours had passed I had calmed down and sorted things out in my head. There was only one option of things that I could do... Revenge. I would do to him what he had done to me.
