A Rich Fetish

(A co-authoring by Vandemonium1 and CreativityTakesCourage)

HI. MY NAME IS MIKE and I love my kids more than anything else in the world. I'd do anything for them without a moment's hesitation. Yeah, I know every parent says that, and words are cheap, but I believe it down to my bootstraps. Not many men are presented with the chance to prove that statement.

I was, and I proved it beyond a shadow of doubt.

The only pity is; I'll never be able to tell my children.

Confused yet? Please, allow me to shed some light on the subject.

*****

HAD YOU ASKED ME last week, I'd have told you I was in the middle of a nigh on perfect life. Good job, nice house, a loving and beautiful wife, and three of the most perfect children you could ever imagine. The youngest of the latter was sitting in the back seat of my car as we leisurely drove toward our favourite park. Sweet, innocent, little nine

teen-month old Cindy.

It always sent a little shiver through me when Cindy spoke. She was just learning, you see. I'd been through it twice before, of course, with her brother and sister, but as much as I loved and enjoyed my children, if I had my way, Cindy would be our last. So, the knowledge that this may well be the last time I'd experience the magic of all those firsts as a father added an extra bittersweet nuance.

"Daycare, Daddy."

"That's right, sweetie. That's a daycare centre."

Whoa. What the f...?

It was indeed a daycare centre we'd just driven past. But how the hell did Cindy know that? She was smart, but she certainly couldn't read yet. The mystery preoccupied me for the next two blocks, giving me an awful sinking feeling.

I process things quickly and, if you believe my friends, have an uncanny ability to take a bunch of facts and see every possibility very, very quickly. Two blocks later, the only possibility I saw was that Cindy had been to this particular daycare centre enough times to recognise it.

Problem is, my stay-at-home wife had never mentioned putting Cindy in daycare. In fact, we'd agreed to wait until she was two before doing that. This I had to sort out.

As soon as it was safe, I reversed direction and parked in the carpark attached to the centre. Any parent will tell you how long it takes to get a toddler out of a car seat, needless to say, today I was not the exception. It didn't help that my mind was confusedly racing the whole time.

As I approached the doors, I planned how I could do this. "Hi, my name is Mike. Do you recognise this little girl?" might take some explaining.

In the end, the decision was taken out of my hands, when the young lady behind the reception counter smiled at the bundle in my arms.

"Hello, Cindy. What are you doing here on a Tuesday? You normally come on Wednesdays, though I can't remember seeing you in our book for tomorrow. Hi, I'm Martha, you must be Cindy's dad. Sarah has told us all about you."

How I engaged in a normal conversation when my mind was whirling is beyond me. I think I told her Cindy saw the place when we were passing and wanted to say hello to her friends. After a couple of minutes of polite chat, I excused us and went back to the car. Further processing was impossible as I drove Cindy home.

Sarah and I had been married a decade and we were as rock solid a couple as they came. The knowledge she'd been keeping at least one secret from me for some time tried to lever into that statement, but I pushed it back. There must be a legitimate reason for the secret. I just didn't know what it was yet. Frustratingly, I couldn't just ask her. Sarah was on her annual cruise with her favourite aunt and would be incommunicado until Saturday at the earliest.

Anyway, as I was saying, I married Sarah twelve years ago, after a two-year courtship. Talk about two peas in a pod; that was us. Soulmates in every sense of the word. Neither of us were overly ambitious but we both knew what we wanted from life; see the world and have two kids. So, after four years of travelling and loving the shit out of each other, she went off the pill and within a matter of months we were expecting.

When we met, Sarah worked as a secretary for the owner of an electrical components manufacturer. Shortly after we married, there was a slump in the economy and she was asked to take every Wednesday off, unpaid. That was fine with both of us.

Life for us became complete when James was born. Sarah happily became a stay-at-home-mum and I happily became the sole breadwinner; a designer working for a bunch of wankers who wouldn't know a good idea if it was shoved up their fat

... No, don't go there again, Mike. One day you'll have enough saved to go out on your own and then you'll be the one calling the shots.

Sarah took to motherhood like a ferret spotting an open trouser leg. We were soon the happiest bunch around; well, outside of work that is. We experienced a minor health concern when little James was about three months old. It seems Sarah was having trouble producing enough milk. On doctor's advice, and mutual problem solving, we fixed that with a combination of supplementing her supply with formula and a day of enforced rest for her. I organised for Sarah's widowed mother to take Jamie from mid-morning on Wednesdays to give Sarah a break. Sarah either stayed at home or did adult education classes. That's when she re-kindled her childhood hobby of sewing.

Soon after, she was kept even busier co-ordinating the design and construction of the house we commissioned built. Sarah loved it, revelling in an outlet for her artistic side. She delayed fully weaning little Jamie until he was nearly two. One or two hiccups delayed the completion of the house, but we managed to move in just in time for the arrival of our number two, Jenny.

Yes, Jenny popped out when James was little over two-and-a-half. Life just got better and better. The only time I didn't devote every non-working moment to the kids, was when I showed Sarah just how much I still loved her.

Jenny was another easy child. We were half expecting milk supply problems and knew exactly what to do when they arose. This time, Sarah fully weaned our little girl when she was about eighteen months old. When I proposed getting snipped, we had our planned two after all, Sarah surprised me by suggesting a third. I resisted, I have to tell you. We'd made a plan and having another child would put it back. In the end, Sarah convinced me with some easy logic. If two perfect children were good, how happy would we be with three? Cindy entered our perfect world two years and six months after Jenny.

I don't want to paint a picture of absolute utopia, though. I had to work on getting my clothes actually into the laundry hamper instead of just around it. Sarah; not clog the sink with her hair. Long hair is nice, but I must admit to being amazed how much of it comes out every time Sarah brushes hers. And we had an ongoing battle with razors—she kept using mine on her legs and blunting the blade. Those were but a few of the minor irritating habits we worked on to keep harmony. I heard a saying once that said something along the lines of; it's the little things like not putting the lid on the toothpaste that erode the love in a marriage because most couples had already tackled the major issues like religion and politics before tying the knot. I believed that saying, and so did Sarah, and so we made the effort to minimise the little annoyances.

Sarah and I also had the occasional more serious dispute. The first non-minor one was when James was about sixteen months old and over the stupidest thing. I'd come home to find Sarah had used some tinted hair mousse to colour Jamie's hair ginger red. She gave me an idiotic explanation about wanting to celebrate her Irish heritage by dressing Jamie up as a leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day. I had no problem with the idea but drew the line at her chemically changing our son's hair colour. After a heated argument, one where I yelled at her for the first time, we agreed that, in the future, anything like that had to be discussed and agreed upon beforehand.

Another happened about a year ago, shortly after the sudden death of her mother. Sarah suggested putting Cindy in daycare on Wednesdays, so she could still have a completely child-free day. I opposed the idea strongly, not being able to stand the thought of Cindy being cared for by strangers and upset by the separation. Besides, now the elder two were in school or pre-school, Sarah would only have the one to look after, six hours a day. Like all good couples, we compromised. I would consider daycare when Cindy was two and emotionally strong enough for the exercise. Plus, I offered to look after the brood one day every weekend, so Sarah could be free. I was relieved that she hardly ever took me up on the offer, because after working all week and all the have-to's that came with home ownership, I admit I wanted to play with my kids, not organise them. Besides, her lack of asking proved, in my mind, that she could live without the break.

Another source of angst was Sarah's hints since Cindy's first birthday that she would be amenable to child number four. Strange, when you consider we'd discussed it early in our marriage, deciding we'd aim for two and had already stretched that to having three. For a few months, Sarah brought it up at every opportunity. She was worse than a used car salesman. Funny, because she couldn't give me a convincing reason when I asked why her major change of mind. Discussions were ongoing, but I intended sticking to my guns this time. Thankfully, she'd eased off in the last few weeks. Hopefully, that meant I'd dodged a bullet. I was one of six children and my dad died just after I, as the youngest, left home. Poor bugger worked his whole life and never got to relax at the end of it. I didn't want to suffer the same fate.

Just then, as we were driving through the little shopping area near our house, I saw something which jolted me. It was the new electronic sign above the service station, boldly telling everyone that didn't know it already that it was Tuesday the 1

st

May, along with the time and the temperature.

Tuesday today. Wednesday tomorrow...

Wednesdays.

For the first five years of our marriage, Sarah worked every weekday, except Wednesdays.

After James was a few months old, Sarah had her mother look after him. On Wednesdays. That continued until her mother died last year.

Now, I find she'd been putting little Cindy in daycare once a week on, yes, you guessed it, a Wednesday.

Net result; my wife had about six hours free, every Wednesday, and that had been going on for about ten years.

There must be a simple, innocent reason why I was being deceived by a woman who, to this precise moment of time, I thought completely incapable of guile. Something, some instinct, told me it was about more than having a day off from motherhood. I cursed my gut instinct because now a huge and growing seed of doubt was germinating in my head, and I hated it.

I wanted so much to just pick up the phone and ask her what that reason was. Put my mind at rest. Napalm the burgeoning sapling inside me. But I couldn't. Sarah was incommunicado until Saturday.

Let me explain. Even before we married, Sarah took off once a year to visit her aunt who lives in England. Not that she went to England every time. Usually, and every time for at least the last eight years, Sarah flew somewhere to join her on a cruise. The Mediterranean, West Indies, Alaska, she'd done them all. I remember once asking her how much it cost but she explained that the aunt was quite wealthy and paid for the lot. At the time, I'd wondered if the annual trips were to keep in the aunt's good books and maximise the chance of an inheritance. I'd dismissed that out of hand almost immediately. Now, I wasn't so sure. When the kids came along, she juggled the trips around them. Freezing expressed breast milk and leaving me fresh tins of formula. The timing of her recent weaning of Cindy had been, in part, because of her current trip.

I'd never met the aunt in question, just spoken to her on the phone a few times. Did I resent Sarah being away from the family a week a year? Hell, no. She deserved it. I took the week off and the kids and I had our own whale of a time. Because I work to live, not live to work, I spent the week playing house-daddy, doing school runs and making dinner. I enjoyed it, so giving up one of my four annual leave weeks wasn't an impost. Besides, after she'd recovered from her inevitable jet lag, it was well worth my while, if you know what I mean.

According to Sarah, they would be floating off Antarctica about now, where phones definitely didn't work.

Hmmm. Isn't it amazing? Catch someone in one lie and everything they'd ever said to you was suspect. How did I know she was on a cruise liner off Antarctica? Because she'd show us the photos when she returned and regale us with stories. That was inarguable, wasn't it? There was an easy way to find out. I remembered Sarah calling her aunt a week ago on the home phone. I went through its memory and found an English number. Without a thought, I hit redial. It rang about six times before the time difference came to mind. It was around 1:00 a.m. there. I was just about to hang up to minimise my extreme antisocial behaviour, when message bank cut in. "Hi, you've reached the Simpsons. Pete and I are cruising off Antarctica at the moment. You can get us on my mobile from the third of May."

That was good, wasn't it? She really was on a cruise. Trouble was, this newly suspicious character wondered who the hell Pete was and why was there no mention of Sarah? Then, of course, there was the matter of the aunt being back on the third and my wife not being due back until the sixth. I ached to stop the gnawing feeling in my guts. Sarah and the kids are my life, but the mystery was like an itch I just had to scratch. I couldn't leave it alone. I was desperate for answers.

The photo albums.

On the album shelf were separate little books with the annual cruise photos in them. I picked out last year's and opened it. There was the beach in Cancun, there was her aunt in front of a huge ship in Barbados. There was her aunt dining at the officers' table, surrounded by blinding white uniforms and gold braid. Flipping through every page, I didn't find what I was looking for.

Anxious for proof of Sarah's truthfulness, I grabbed a second album, then a third, then a fourth. There was not one single photograph showing my wife. If I was the suspicious sort that would have struck me as very odd. Guess what? Why had I never realised this salient fact ever before? Because I'd never been suspicious before.

Desperately wanting to prove my growing doubts unfounded, I wracked my brain for another way of proving Sarah innocent of all charges.

Her car.

For as long as I can remember, Sarah had always caught a late-night flight to wherever she was meeting her aunt. That meant she caught a cab to the airport or, as was the case this time, took her car and left it at the airport in long term parking.

I hit the filing cabinets and dragged out the folders for Sarah's personal savings and credit card accounts. Luckily, the dates were on each photo album, allowing me to zero in on the relevant weeks fairly quickly. From personal experience, I knew the long-term carpark charged $85 for seven days parking. After ten minutes, I'd identified no amounts anything like that on either statement. I was up to the fourth last trip, working backward, before I noticed something else odd. For the eight or nine days she was gone, there was not one single, solitary charge on any statement. I knew auntie paid for everything, but not a single cup of coffee while in transit? Suspicion was growing. I had to know.

By this time, Cindy was awake. I distractedly rang my sister and asked if she could look after her for a couple of hours. As usual, she was delighted to agree. I dropped the chirpy mite off, promising myself she would never know she'd been instrumental in the only time I doubted my wife. Hopefully, after today, I'd be able to erase it from my own memory as a slightly embarrassing episode in a long and happy marriage.

I headed for the airport. Luckily, we live in a small, regional city. I parked in the short-term carpark, sandwiched between the two long-term lots. There was a time it had all been sheep paddocks, now, cars were parked in rows for hundreds of metres. Picking a direction at random, I began my walk. To cut a long story short, forty-five minutes later I knew Sarah's car wasn't there. So where was it?

On the way back, all sorts of plans entered my head. Was I suspicious enough to contact a lawyer to confirm what I suspected already? Namely, that I'd be screwed in any divorce on any horizon. I've realised something for a while now. I must be the only citizen in my country, Literoticaland, if you're interested, who didn't have a friend who was a lawyer. Bummer.

Facts. I need more of them. And quickly, before the sapling of doubt in my head grew so big it burst through my scalp.

Arriving home with an hour to spare before I needed to collect the kids from their respective schools, I did the only thing I could think to do—search the house from top to bottom. What for, I wasn't sure, but maybe something would leap out at me as being not right.

Sarah loved the house. She'd worked closely with the architect on its design, then supervised the builders. It was technically three storeys tall. Built on a steepish bank, you entered the main level where the kitchen, guestroom, dining room, main lounge and one bathroom were. Upstairs was the family room, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Due to the layout, there was ample room under the house for a storage room and Sarah's sewing room. These were accessible from the rest of the house via a steep, narrow set of stairs. As her sewing room was the only space in the house that was uniquely Sarah's, it was the obvious place to start.

By the time I had to leave for the school, I knew one thing—there was nothing at all suspicious in her sewing room. Everything in there was standard for a hobby room. I even checked the sewing desk for secret compartments, feeling a little silly.

Leaving Sarah's sewing room, I glanced in the storage room, accessed by a short corridor, but realised searching it would have to wait until the next day. I noted, being half a basement, how dark the area was even in the early afternoon.

I was distracted as I picked up my three treasures and cooked them dinner. Not my usual self at all. When everyone else was in bed, I resurrected the old baby monitor, put it in Cindy's room, and, carrying the mobile end, accessed the lower level again. In the storage room, I moved and opened every single box. Still nothing out of place or the least bit suspicious. Returning upstairs, I checked on the kids before settling into my favourite chair, staying up late into the night, brooding.

*****

I WAS STILL EXTREMELY unfun the next morning when I dropped the two eldest to their respective schools and Cindy to daycare. Yes, you heard me right. Cindy seemed to like it, so off we went. A different lady at the desk showed some surprise we were there but checked and said it was okay. Some subtle questioning by detective Mike confirmed Cindy was normally collected around two-thirty and had been attending for the last seven months. My almost-rage at my wife's deception was growing and growing. I wondered what excuse she would have concocted if Cindy ever blurted out the word 'daycare' to me when I asked about her happiness one day.

I sat in the car, my head on the wheel. What else could I do to get to the bottom of Sarah's apparent deception? There was no way I could wait for Sarah's return to confront her. My lack of answers was driving me far too crazy to wait that long. I hadn't found anything when I searched the house, but maybe I'd missed something. There had to be something that would explain everything.