Btw... Burn That Witch

Jerry Bigelow comes home early one day and sees a strange car in his drive. Going inside he hears voices from upstairs. A bit concerned, he sneaks up the stairs and hears the voices coming from the master. He sees male and female clothing discarded around the bedroom, with a cell phone sticking partly out of a man's trouser pocket.

The giggling sounds are louder now in the bathroom. Jerry walks quietly over to his wife's sewing desk and directly to a dish full of thumbtacks she uses to pin cloth down on her pattern board. He picks those up.

He recovers the man's phone with his other hand; it's the same model Apple as his own, so he knows how to open the camera function. He steps into the bathroom quietly and clearly hears them talking...sweet talk.

Jerry remains still and quiet as he eavesdrops. He learns that his wife, Teresa, and the person with the masculine voice have been hooking up frequently, at least for some months. The man talks trash about Jerry and she completely fails to defend her husband. The guy is obviously a macho-man alpha type. Part of the conversation he overheard:

Teresa: "God that feels so good lover. Don't stop."

Macho: "We got time for another one?"

Teresa: "No, cutting it too close. He'll be back in an hour. I will still be thinking about that last one when I am trying to fall asleep tonight." Sound of lips smacking.

Teresa: "Tomorrow it should be good. In fact, hubby will be out of town overnight. Does that give you any ideas, sweetie?"

Macho: "If pencil dick's away, you're mine to play, sweet pussy."

Jerry very quietly sprinkles the thumbtacks around the floor outside the shower door and sprinkles half a bottle of shampoo over them. Then he lines up the camera and slams open the opaque shower door, clicking away and getting lots of shots of both naked. Mr. Macho roars and jumps out of the shower in a blind outrage. Prepared for that, Jerry jumps back and zips out of the bathroom, phone in hand.

Macho slips immediately and lands hard on the tacks on the floor. He squeals in pain and puts his hands down to help himself get up. That hurts even more. Jerry laughs and races out of the house.

Later, in a nearby coffee shop, Jerry examines the man's phone and text histories. The owner's name was difficult to find on the Apple phone, but he was finally able to suss it out of some of the previous texts; apparently Macho's actual name is 'Tony'. It was a bit easier to find out that someone named Cassy was Tony's mother. A lucky find was a group-text listing which named Cassy, Warren, Marny and Billy which looked like it might be a close family group.

At this point, Jerry ordered the "Blast From the Past" burger special and another glass of white wine.

The next text he reviewed was from 'Rev. Rimes' who must be from the guy's church and two other threads are to and from female names that, based on textual content, were clearly lovers. Yet another was a man who would seem to be his boss from work.

Last, but way not least, was Teresa with a phone number he knew by heart. Perfect.

Jerry looks at the photos on the phone, while he starts into the big burger. A couple were too blurry or cut off to be useful but the rest of them, a dozen, he forwarded to each and every one of Tony's phone contact numbers, including Teresa's. He also forwarded the pics to his own cellular device. He had been careful to include clear head-shots of the man and his shower partner, as well. It absolutely would be clear that the two had been showering together.

Jerry looked back on the texts and wrote on a napkin the names and numbers of the two females Tony had apparently been screwing. He might want those later. He more thoroughly reviewed the texts between Tony and Teresa.

God, they had been deeply into it. Messaging each other more days than not. Almost all had explicit references to their sexual activities, recent and prospective. He found hooking up logistics corresponding to the dates of his last two out of town business trips. But air silence for the actual days of those trips. It certainly appeared like they did not need to text then because they were living together at the time.

Then Jerry took the battery out of Tony's phone and put that in his pocket. It would save him some money when his own battery started to fade. He rubbed his handkerchief over all the places he might have left his prints on the I-9 and, as he left the coffee shop, he left the phone on the outside windowsill for anyone who might get confused and think it belonged to themself.

Sitting over a 3rd glass of wine, he ponders his next step. The pics he had already sent went only to Tony's contacts and would embarrass and hurt only him. He knew that what he was contemplating next would stab at his wife and thus make it nearly impossible to save his marriage, but what the fuck!

There was absolutely no way he could get the images on his camera out of his mind. Or the recent memory of hearing the creep refer to him as 'pencil dick' while his very own # 1 didn't say a word in defense of him, while she eagerly makes another date for tomorrow. Not only would he never reconcile with that uncaring witch, he hoped never to lay eyes on her again.

That resolved, he picked up his own phone and cued up the pics from the shower. He unhesitatingly forwarded them to a shortlist of phone numbers from his own phone...his own parents, and Teresa's mom, brother, and two sisters who were all on a group listing he happened to have from some logistical chatter around their Xmas visit. Also, two of Teresa's girlfriends whose numbers happened to be on his phone because Teresa had borrowed the phone once some time ago. Done and done. He felt relieved.