It is said that the best hiding places are in the open, and my wife would have done better if she had followed this philosophy – I would never have noticed any of the things that I found in the autumn of last year if they had been in their normal places.
I wanted to install a network cable from my router in the study to the spare bedroom, but I didn't want the cable to show. I had an idea to pass it through the wall to the kitchen, up inside a tall cupboard, through the floor into my wife's wardrobe in the main bedroom and then into the roof space, across and down into the spare room. As she had gone to the nearby city for the day, with her friend, on a shopping trip it seemed a good opportunity to do it.
The plan worked out well and I was standing on some steps to pull the cable through a gap behind the top shelf of the ceiling-height wardrobe, but there were a variety of boxes that were in the way, so I took them out and stacked them on the bed. As I went to climb the steps, the pile of boxes started to topple over and I managed to catch them, but not before the top one had spilled out. I cursed, climbed down, and started to repack it, but then I stopped and looked at the contents.
There was a new, smart black dress. Nothing unusual there, except that it was in the box instead of hanging up, but then I found some stockings, a black suspender belt, bra and knickers – my wife never wears stockings. There was also an envelope from a private clinic, containing a letter dated a few weeks earlier, which started by saying that two copies were enclosed and went on to give a comprehensive list of sexually transmitted diseases, with 'clear' written against each. There was only one copy.
I carefully re-packed everything in the box and finished the cabling work, thinking about what I had found. I took care to shake the boxes up a bit before putting them back on the shelf in a haphazard way, making it obvious that I had moved them to do my work.
I thought that she had been spending a bit more time on the internet lately, so I decided to have a peek in her user area on the computer, and it didn't take me long to find a series of eMails that were hidden away in a folder with ones from the friend she was out with.
I started with the oldest, reading the ones she had sent and then the reply. She said that she had been given their website URL by a friend, going on to say she had been intrigued by the site, then asking for a login. The reply told her to read the conditions, then if she still wanted a login, to ask again. She acknowledged and they gave her a temporary login valid for a specific time, with a URL to the site. Naturally I was straight onto the site for a look, although I couldn't get into the 'members' area of course, and the summary was certainly intriguing.
The conditions said that logins would only be given to women and that to get one, she would have to appear naked on a webcam chat with them to prove this. I couldn't imagine her agreeing to that, but the next message was there, with the full login details and a comment about how much they had liked her body.
I logged-in and found that the site was run by two black guys, who looked - from the naked photos - to be about 30 and were well built, but not overly muscled, and certainly well endowed. It described how they offered unique sexual experiences, no strings attached, no charges or payments, on a one-off or regular basis; it said they were choosy but did not discourage older women; it gave the name of the private clinic where prospective members would have to go to be tested for STDs – a copy of the 'all clear' letter would be needed; it said that all sexual encounters would be broadcast live to the other "members", on the website; it made it clear that the women were solely responsible for contraception but that they should not bring condoms.
I went to the webcam pages and found that I was looking at a bedroom. They were streaming very high quality video, from what must have been a fast internet up-link, so it was a good job I had a fast download connection too. There were a selection of webcams to choose, showing the room from different angles and from above looking down on the bed, which was unmade – presumably from the night before, as it was Saturday. I downloaded a video clip from one of the other pages and watched them with a white woman. Back in the eMails, I found some recent ones where my wife had answered a variety of questions, including the dates of her period, and they had offered her a weekend next month, or in three months time, both to coincide with the middle of her cycle as she had told them that she is at her most aroused then and for the last couple of years had been fantasising about doing something about it. She had accepted the date for next month.
When she got home, I explained about the cable and showed her it running up the back of the kitchen cupboard, where I had jumbled up the boxes and appliances to show that I had moved them, hoping that she would think the things in her wardrobe were just the same.
Later, she told me that her friend (that she had been shopping with) had asked her to go on a weekend to a health club, next month, for some 'girlie pampering'. They had done this before, so it wasn't unusual, and I told her it was fine.
The weeks passed very quickly and it came to the weekend she had planned.
On the Friday, she had gone before I got home from work, as expected. It was about an hour's drive to the location the black guys had specified, and they had said 7pm. I looked in the wardrobe and the clothes box was empty.
I could feel my heart racing as I was watching the screen, the webcam images showing the empty room, its soft furnishings dominated by the king size bed that was visible from various angles by selecting a different camera, including the one mounted in the ceiling looking down and one in the headboard. I looked at the clock in the corner of my screen and it was already past the time she should have arrived. Just as I was about to go and get a drink from the kitchen – my mouth was dry – I saw the door open and the first black guy backed into the room. He was standing in the doorway, with white arms wrapped around his back, caressing his skin and he was kissing a woman I couldn't see behind him, then I saw a glimpse of breast as he cupped it in his hand. He turned towards the room, holding her hand, and my wife followed his lead into the room. She was wearing a smart black dress, cut just above the knee and with thin shoulder straps, only one of which was still on her shoulder; her breasts were nicely framed by the top, apart from the one that had just been fondled, whose nipple was poking out, and she was carrying one of her small handbags on her arm and a large, almost empty, wine glass.
