It was a good thing that I had stopped my venture into my wife's closet when I did; right as I closed and locked the door, I heard the front door opening and the stomping footsteps. My daughter running to show me the brand-new sneakers she got at the mall. We spent the rest of the day having family time β board games, and coloring books galore! After a nice homemade dinner, we put Veronica down for bed and got ready for the week ahead.
We premake a stack of pancakes to cover a few days of the week in the likely chance one of is running late or can't fix Veronica a full breakfast β this week was my turn to do it. I enjoy doing menial busy work like that so it's never unwelcomed, it gives me time to remember things I forgot and forget things I should probably remember.
As I was cleaning the last of the pans Victoria walked in wearing her pajamas β a simple grey wife beater and white fitted sweatpants (a luxury I'll never understand β Costco brand is just fine). I couldn't help but watch her hips and ass sway as she walked by to get a glass of water.
"Hey EARTH TO JIM!" I hadn't realized I had totally zoned out, but snapped to attention with what had to be the dumbest face in human history.
"You'd think after like a decade of marriage you'd get used to this," she said cocking her hips as if to punctuate her jab.
"Uuuhhhβ" I tried really hard to come up with something approaching clever but it just didn't happen.
"... Riiiiight," Victoria began "well as I was saying, while you were tuned into the ass channel over there, do you think you can take Veronica to school tomorrow? I've got to pick up donuts for a meeting tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah, no problem. What's the meeting for? Donuts are only invoked if you gotta impress someone important."
"You got that right, if this deal goes through it'll probably be one of the top three money makers for the company, so all of the stops have been pulled out."
"Nice, who's gonna be handing over the 'fat-stax' on this one?"
"Well you'll just have to wait till that's on the books, Mr. Accountant. I signed the 'fattest stack' of an NDA a few weeks ago. Though I will say if we get it, we'll probably never have to pay for another phone or computer again." She was beaming, clearly proud to be apart securing a deal with what I'm going to assume is Apple. She wore that proud smirk all the way out of the kitchen and down the hall. Swaying her hips like Jessica Rabbit as she did.
"You can stop looking at my ass now!" She softly called down the hall as she reached the threshold of our room.
Needless to say, I was proud of her, she hadn't been back in the professional world too long but was already killing it. Not only as a businesswoman, but as a mom too, she still somehow finds a way to take on handling our doctor's appointments, soccer games, schoolwork etc and still deal with me (ha).
As I was thinking about all of my wife's positive traits my mind drifted to the sexy traits β and more specifically last night. Amidst my replaying of the hottest night of sex we've had in at least a few years I couldn't shake the niggling feeling that something was off.
The intense blowjob from nowhere, locked closet, the old phone, the lingerie β the lingerie... I racked my brain to remember my previous snooping session. Retracing my steps, I remembered a few of the sets in her hidden box, but only two or three and I distinctly remember each of the five sets. What happened to the other sets and pieces? I didn't remember them in her drawers either.
Was she wearing them to work for some reason?
... Was she wearing them FOR someone else? I felt my face go numb at this thought. It was adding up and I couldn't deny it as a possibility. Especially now that I presented that as a possibility, I could feel myself zeroing in on it. I took a second to gather myself and pull it together.
As I walked to the threshold of our bedroom, she was already deep in sleep. I stared at her phone sitting on her nightstand and my investigator's curiosity briefly took over. I turned off the lights and quickly snatched it and hid the screen as it disconnected from the charger. Retreating into the safety of our bathroom I put in her passcode. The screen shook and flashed red β I tried again β same shakes plus "3 tries remaining."
The warning scared me off and I returned the phone to the charger. I got in bed, bewildered. I didn't know what to think. Why the security? Maybe she just wanted to make sure Veronica couldn't mess around with her phone... maybe she wanted to make sure I couldn't see evidence of a lurid affair. Maybe I'm paranoid... Maybe she's a cheating slut.
Sleeping wasn't easy that night with my thoughts running at a hundred miles a minute. She lay next to me sleeping peacefully in the darkness of our room, right next to the flurry of suspicions mentally tearing me apart. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I always come to in matters that are unsolvable β or too difficult to be brought to solving β I said 'fuck it' I'll deal with it tomorrow, and mercifully passed out.
...
The week went by and I was watching my wife with a level of intense scrutiny that would make Sherlock Holmes call me excessive. Every little move she made and word she said was mentally catalogued and reviewed by the squad paranoid little gnome detectives in my head.
Was that skirt tighter and shorter than usual? How low-cut are her tops usually? How much mascara is too much? Certainly, that was too much makeup, or was it? The high heels seemed higher and her hair looked... darker? Okay, that last one was definitely true.
"Hey, honey did you do something to your hair?" I asked her one night as I was going over some bills and she was looking through some coupons.
"Hmmmm? What was that?" She asked looing up and lowering her reading glasses.
"Your hair, it looks different." I said trying to hide my slight bewildered suspicion.
"Oh yeah! I had it dyed darker than usual when I went to get a trim. Do you like it?" She said brushing it and fluffing it, pantomiming a shampoo commercial.
"Yeah... looks very... sleek." She stared at me with a smirk of mild amusement; like a cartoon cat staring at a hapless mouse that was completely unaware of its impending doom.
"What?" I asked defensively.
"Nothing, just looking at you. Husband of the year over here, noticing his wife's hair."
"Ooooh-kay" I said rolling my eyes and returning to the exciting world of bills.
Did her boyfriend tell her to dye her hair darker? I pulled up some papers to hide my brooding face as I dove deep into the bottomless rabbit hole of my suspicions.
Later that night as she was getting in the shower, I knew I'd have to be quick with my expedition into her closet. Right as the bathroom door shut, I sprung from my post on the bed, and straight to the closed closet door. I went straight for the jewelry chest and grabbed the outdated iPhone.