"i'll See You in the Morning."

This tale was inspired by George Anderson's excellent 'February Sucks.' and the many spin offs it created. I don't think this scenario has been covered before, but there again I have not read all the stories on Lit so I'm sure someone will have done it.

Many thanks to AnAverageGuy61 for picking up my errors. All mistakes are mine.

This is longer than I normally like to write, but it took on a life of its own. I just hope you enjoy it.

It has a British flavour to it. But please keep in mind it is fiction. There is no sex in this story.

"As you walked away from me you looked over your shoulder and said, 'I'll see you in the morning. It's just one night.' You did that on purpose just to humiliate me in front of your friends. You chose him over me on a day you organised for us. And those friends of yours just sat there smiling."

We were at for our first meeting with the Counsellor, and he had just asked me about my feelings.

The Counsellor warned me, he said. "I'm going to be playing devil's advocate here." He looked at Linda. "Did you want to humiliate your husband?"

I thought that was a strange question to ask, but there again since that night I haven't been really thinking straight.

She looked at me, not him. "No, I didn't, it wasn't meant to humiliate you, it was to let you know I will be back with you in the morning."

"That wasn't how it looked from where I sat, with my wife walking away with another man's arm around her waist. Just for fucking once look at it from my point of view."

She looked down into her lap, then she looked up at me. "I have and I'm so ashamed of what I did."

Since the incident we'd hardly spoken, I only said the barest minimum of words to her when I needed to. Just to give her the cold shoulder would have been positively balmy. I was in deep freeze cold shoulder mode. But I did try to talk to her when the children were around, just to try and give them some sort of normality, and I was failing miserably. I completely ignored her whenever I could. We slept in the same bed because there were no others. If she touched me during the night, I would get up and leave. If I had the choice she would sleep in another bed, by having sex with him she had left our marital bed.

"My name is Doctor John Campbell, you can call me John, Doctor John anything you wish."

Linda said, "I'll call you John."

I replied. "Doctor Campbell."

He looked at me and said, "I'm going to let Linda go first. Jim, Is that Ok?"

"It's Mr Northover. I don't care." I got my phone out and laid it on the table. I set it to record.

"I hope that's not recording?" Dr Cambell said.

"It is, and if you object, I will leave right now." I said standing up.

Linda quickly gasped. "Please let him, he has the right after what I've done."

The Doctor nodded his head, I sat down.

I'd had a long chat with my solicitor, she convinced me it was what I had to do, if only for the sake of the children. I don't know where Linda found this counsellor, I don't really care. It wasn't going to change the eventual outcome, but it might help me deal with the kids. I was worried about the kids, if I didn't manage to handle this, it would affect them. I knew I needed some help and I agreed to this. I had a plan; I would stay married until Sean reached 18 or until he left home before that.

I wasn't impressed so far, but then I was never going to be. I even refused to shake hands when we arrived.

She went first pleading with me that she would make it up to me. It was just one night. She was sorry she did it, it was wrong. She admitted she was weak, selfish and she thought she could make everything alright.

"No, you didn't realise how far reaching what you did would be." I thought to myself.

When Linda finished, she was crying, there was nothing there that I'd not heard before.

Dr Cambell looked at me. "Your turn Jim, tell me how you feel and how you think you can get past it?"

Get past it! Now he was showing his true colours, it was my fault she fucked that twat.

I looked at him and said, "I think you mean Mr Northover."

"Sorry Jim, Mr Northover."

I looked at her. "Right in no particular order here goes." That was probably the longest sentence I'd said to her since that Sunday she came home just over a week ago.

"It might have helped if you had come back at a reasonable time like 7:00 or 8:00 o'clock in the morning, and in a taxi or an Uber. Not driving up in his flash sports car at nearly one o'clock and getting out of the car whilst he held the door open for you."

"Then walking up the path with that red dress that you bought for me. He wanted to rub my nose in it. 'I've had your woman, and there is nothing you can do about it because I'm a star'. And I've got a big, posh expensive car. So not only did you betray me in front of all your friends. Notice I said your friends, you let him show me up in front of the whole street. And you came back at the busiest time of the day just to rub it in more. The ice cream van was there with a queue of our neighbours, he held the door open for you, and you let him help you out. At least he only kissed you on the cheek you proffered. And you walked past the queue at the ice cream van with a smug smile on your face. And they all had their cameras out videoing my humiliation of you getting out of lover boys' car. It was all over the fucking internet in a bloody flash"

"No, no it wasn't like that, I didn't even see the ice cream van, I was thinking of you." Linda said through the tears.

"Shut up, you've had your turn, now it's mine."

I thought he would have a go at me for being rude to Linda, but he didn't, he held his hand up and said gently to Linda. "He needs his time; you will get a chance to answer him."

"You said, "I'll see you in the morning." but it wasn't, was it, it was the afternoon."

"But darling I do love you." Linda muttered, I ignored that.

"How can I believe you? As you walked away you said. 'Just one night. I love you.' How can you say, 'I love you' and then walk away with another man? I didn't know if you were coming back to me at all. And now I wish you hadn't.

"As you walked away, I stood up to go after you, but Dee was in front of me. 'It's just one night she'll be back in the morning.' she told me. I tried to push past her, then I felt hands grabbing hold of me. I had to use my heels and elbows to get free, I pushed past Dee. I got halfway across the dance floor and there were two of his mates with their hands up to stop me. "Just let it go, it'll only be one night, and we will stop you," they said to me."

"I tried to push past them, but they pushed me back. I managed to dodge round them, but some bastard tripped me up and I went flying face first onto the floor. I scrambled away and got to the door, and I saw a set of car tail lights disappearing. I looked at the bouncers. They looked sad, they looked at me and just shook their heads. This obviously wasn't the first time he'd done this. I phoned you but it went straight to answerphone. You must have turned it off. How would I contact you if anything happened to the children? So, you dumped the kids as well.

"I tried to fight for you, but everybody got in my way."

I was in full flow now and it all came out.

"And I can't touch the bastard. Because if anything happens to him, I will be the first person the police will call, and when they find out it wasn't me, they're going to look at the next husband of the wife that he had a fling with and so on. When they don't find anyone they will come back and start all over again. So, I've got to make sure I have an alibi for every minute of every day. I've got the whole house wired with cameras so you can see where I am all the time. I've even mounted an action Cam, with a tracker in the car looking at me as I drive. I know work has video cameras that we record people coming and going, so you see I am covered 24/7/365. And I have to protect myself so you don't come off to me for abusing you or the children."

She looked aghast, "Jim sweetheart I would never do that."

"And I never thought you'd run off and have sex with another man, but you did!" I could tell that got to her.

"If he had just dropped you off, that would be better. No, a big flash car which sounded loud drawing attention to everyone, and you just let him.

"I can't go out in the town without someone shouting "cucky" at me. If I go out, I must go out at night so nobody can recognise me. I have to do my running at night. I can't even go to the pub, I've been barred from there, probably because I poured my beer over John Simpson for calling me cucky.

"And Fred Smith got a formal warning at work because of what he left on my desk, then when I went to sort it out with him, he pushed me away, so I got a formal warning and suspended for two weeks without pay for punching his lights out. I got off pretty lightly, probably because I'm the best designer they've got, but I did lose the promotion that I'd earned. You know the one we were out celebrating when you did this. And whilst I'm about it, Darren Jones won't be calling me cucky for a while with his jaws wired together after coming in contact with my cricket bat. So, that's another thing you can go running to your boyfriend or to the police and tell them what I did."

Dr Cambell opened his mouth to say something, I pointed my finger at him.

"You, Mr Counsellor, you told me it was my turn to have my say. So shut the fuck up!"

He closed his mouth and indicated I should carry on.

"How do you make that better; how do I recover from that night? I might just as well move to a different county. Or I could just disappear and let you survive on your own, and let you pay the mortgage. If I divorce you, I lose half of what I've worked and studied for, yet you're the one that cheated on me. At the moment, I feel like killing you and your boyfriend and spending the next 25 years in prison. I might get out in 15 years with good behaviour. Just about the only thing stopping me doing that is I don't want the kids to have a murderer as a father.

"And whilst I'm talking about the children. I got a call from the school, it appears Sean got into a fight, someone called you a name and Sean hit him. I had to plead with the school to not expel him."

"Your one night of passion has fucked the rest of my life, I hope he was that good. Because now you've shown you're an unfaithful hot wife every Tom, Dick and Harry will be after you. And as far as I'm concerned, they can have your pox ridden body. So that one night of passion has fucked my life, your life too, and that of the kids, so you will have to live with that.

"So, after your one night of passion how the fuck are you going to sort that lot out? Or have I got to sit around and wait for you to run off with the next celebrity that catches your eye."

Linda just sat there shaking her head, saying, "I won't, I won't, it's too painful I promise I won't."

Then I got really nasty, "you also promised to forsake all others. Look how that fucking worked out."

Her whole body was shaking with the sobbing.

The counsellor turned round and said to me, "If you don't try Mr Northover, you will never know."

I looked at him, "Why should I take that risk? The only reason I'm sitting here is because of the children."

I actually felt better after my rant, I took a deep breath and I think I calmed down a little. It was the first time I had let out all out in one go.

It was Linda's turn. "I'm sorry sweetheart, I didn't see the queue at the ice cream van, honestly. I was coming home to you that is why I was smiling; I had a horrible night. He made me come but it wasn't as good as you, he just rolled over and went to sleep. I felt so ashamed. I realised I made a massive mistake, but you love me, you would forgive me, and I would make it up to you for the rest of my life. I was thinking of the things that I could do for you to prove it, and it brought back happy memories. That is why I was smiling. And I've been tested, I should get the results this week."

The Doctor said. "Well, that's given us a lot to think about, until next week."

As we got up to leave, I looked at the Doctor and said. "And even your bloody receptionist is in on it. She has a signed picture of him on her desk and she turned it round so I could see it. I don't think I'll be coming back here if that's the way I'm going to get treated.'' That was it, session over, I walked towards the door.

The Doctor got there before me, he held it open for Linda and she left. He looked at me and said, "That was unprofessional, what she did. Let me sort this out, please bear with me."

He walked to the back of the office and turned on a monitor and he beckoned me over. "For safety we record everything that happens in these offices." I saw him rapid rewind the video in the outer office. He saw his receptionist turn the picture around, although you couldn't tell what the picture was. He walked to the office door, I followed him. He walked up to her desk and turned the picture around and saw who was on it. He spoke to her. "Which temp agency do you come from?"

"Mercers, why?"

"Because if you're the standard of receptionist they send I won't be using them again, now get out." She gathered her stuff including the photograph and left.

The doctor turned to me and said, "I'm sorry about that, and it shows me some of the depth of the problems you're having. By the way, if the police asked me about your incident with Darren Jones, I will have to tell them I have doctor patient privilege. Which means I will tell them that I know something. But I won't volunteer anything otherwise." He held his hand out, I shook it this time and left.

We'd arrived separately as Linda came from work, and I came from home because I was still suspended. I went to the other side of town and sat beside the river nobody would recognise me here and I wouldn't get called cucky.

I thought back to the events that led up to this.

I got home after work on Wednesday two weeks ago and Linda said to me with a broad smile on her face. "Sweetheart, to celebrate your promotion, I've booked us a room in the Red Hart, one of those with a four-poster bed, I'm sure you know what we can do on that, and they've got a bit of a dance on, we can make an evening of it." It sounded good to me, that would be something to look forward to.

We got to the hotel and we were running a little bit short of time for the dinner she'd booked. She went into the shower first, there wasn't room for the two of us, otherwise that is what we would have done, save water, you know. I saw the lingerie she had laid out, it looked good. It doesn't take me long to shower and shave.

I came out of the bathroom and she was getting dressed, her hair piled magnificently on top of her head. She had on her long line suspenders. It's almost like a waspie. It's one of my favourites. She had a lovely red dress laid on the bed. She was picking up the bra, I reached over and took it off of her, and said to her. "As it's just us tonight, how about letting the girls go free?" She just smiled at me and took the bra from me and put it on. I poked a grumpy face at her, and she stuck her tongue out at me. I helped her into the dress. As I'm doing up the zip and coping a quick feel. I look at her and she looks fantastic, and I say to her. "My darling, you are the most beautiful woman in this town, and I love you so very much."

I hold out my hand and she takes it and we go to the restaurant, we are too like two young lovers, I fed her dessert. I couldn't be happier.

We finished dinner and headed towards the ballroom. As we walk in I saw a small table in the corner, it's quite dark and I head towards it. Linda pulls me in the opposite direction to the far side of the room. I groaned, as sat there were six of our friends, well mainly her friends. I play golf with Dave and Ed occasionally. Stephen isn't into golf, he's not very good at it, he is a social member of the Golf Club and is a member of the entertainment committee. They are with their respective wives Dee, Jane and Denise. I didn't like Dee much, too much of a gobshite, but she and Linda had been friends since Primary school.

I pulled on her hand and I turned her around. "This was just the two of us?"

"When Dee heard what I had planned they started inviting themselves, I can't stop them. But we won't be here long, I promise."

"So that's why you wouldn't let the girls free, you knew they would be here. Right one hour and that's it we're off to finish celebrating properly, just me and you."

"You've got it," she said smiling at me.

I tried to make nice with the friends. We danced a bit, mainly the slow ones. Dee kept on asking me to dance but I refused. All my dances were for Linda, I kept telling her.

When the hour was up I held my hand out to Linda and said. "Sweetheart we have places to be." She stood and took my hand and we bid our goodbyes with lots of knowing winks and nudges, as we turned to leave. He was standing there.

"The most beautiful woman in the whole town is leaving so soon. Can I have one dance?" I vaguely recognised him; then it came to me, he was a local championship league team football player. She looked at me and said, "Just the one sweetheart please, it's Marcus Vale."

She'd done so much for me. "Okay just the one, no more, you and I have plans."

I sat back down; Stephen asked me if I wanted a beer, I thanked him and said 'no' it would only be one dance. Dee slid in next to me. "Oh, come on don't be grumpy, it's only one dance and anyway it's Marcus Vale."

"I don't care, he didn't have the decency to ask me, he talked straight to her ignoring me. He's an arrogant twat."

That's when Dave stepped in. "But he's a brilliant football player, we stand a chance of getting into the Premier League next year if he carries on doing his stuff with his left foot."

"I don't care, this is our night." It went unnoticed that whilst we were arguing there was another dance, and I couldn't see them on the dance floor. This dance wasn't as fast as the other one. I left the table and walked round the edge and there they were in the corner; I made my way towards them when all of a sudden two blokes I took to be mates of his turned up in front of me and I couldn't get past.

One of them grabbed me by my jacket and said to me, "I can see you're upset mate, go and sit down at your table and we will bring her to you."

There were two of them and one of me, so I headed back towards the table, I saw one of them head towards Linda and Marcus. I got back to the table and got some banter from the boys, and Dee gave me one of her sly grins. There was another dance, and they hadn't got back so I stood up this time I was not going to be stopped. As I stood up, they appeared in front of me, she had her arm wrapped around him. His is arm was round her waist.

She looked at me and said, "Just one night sweetheart, and then I'll be back with you for the rest of your life." She turned and walked away with him, as she left she looked back over her shoulder and said. "I'll see you in the morning. It's just one night. I love you."

I was about to go after her when Dee leapt in front of me, and hands grabbed me from behind. "It's one night, just let her have one night and she'll be back, she'll make it up to you. It's Marcus Vale."

With the use of my elbows and heels, I managed to get myself free. I rushed across to be met by his two mates again, one placed his hand out onto my shoulder and said. "Leave it, she'll be back tomorrow none the worse for wear, I promise." I didn't know this twat, so I didn't believe him. I pushed past him to find myself being tripped and flying and landing on the floor. Thinking there might be some other shenanigans going on I leapt up and rushed out of the ballroom and through reception. I remember something about bouncers. And all I saw was the taillights of a car driving away. I pulled out my phone to track her, she must have turned her phone off because there was nothing there.