Both before Ingrid Jamison entered the workforce, and at several different points during her still emerging career, she took a number of personality tests. Some were supposedly to tell her what jobs that she was best suited for, others to determine what personality traits that she had that were desirable, or that she needed to improve. She constantly scored well when it came to decisiveness, sense of justice, and punctuality. She also unfailingly was counseled that she was too impetuous, stubborn, and emotional. She didn't agree with a number of the negative assessments - maybe indicating that in fact she was "stubborn" - and blew them off. While the results of these tests likely did prevent her from getting two or three jobs, she ended up in a profession that suited her just fine.
One quality that Ingrid may have lacked was intuitiveness. This bit her in the ass during her first marriage. Her husband John turned out to be a philanderer, and apparently pulled the wool over her eyes for at least two years. Even though she initiated it, she was emotionally distraught by her subsequent divorce, and ended up pissed that she didn't receive any consideration for his cheating. She always regretted that she never ended up getting suitable revenge on that asshole.
Ingrid was fortunate to meet someone who had a similar situation to hers, who was understanding, and who she also was greatly physically attracted to. His name is Ben. Ben is smart, energetic, kind, and a great lover. During their first sexual encounter about a month after they first met, with tit play, tongue and finger action, and a very energetic cock, he brought her to four orgasms - she had never had multiple orgasms in the same session before. Since he had every quality that Ingrid found desirable in a man, despite her bad first experience she wanted to marry him after knowing him for only about four months.
Ben alleged that he been burned in his first marriage as badly as Ingrid had - although he no longer appeared to be preoccupied with a need for revenge on his ex - and had patience and contemplativeness as significant personality traits. Therefore he slowed her impetuousness down, and it was a full year after they had been dating before he asked her to marry him. He was twenty nine and she was thirty when they got married. He had intended to give her a thirtieth birthday party but wedding plans got in the way and it spoiled what was to be a surprise. Ingrid did throw a nice - though not surprise - bash for Ben when he turned thirty ten months after she did.
Ben and Ingrid had two kids within four years after they tied the knot, a boy and a girl, and the kids are the apples of their eyes. Ingrid sees her personality reflected in her son - which sometimes bugs the hell out of her, but other times makes her laugh - while her daughter has much more of Ben's personality. Both kids look like a perfect blend of Ingrid's and Ben's appearances.
Ingrid and Ben have a fair number of good friends in their suburban single family dwelling neighborhood, and their best friends, Bill and Pamela, were just one street down in. Bill is four days older than Ingrid is, and Pamela in a couple of months younger than Ben. Bill's and Pam's kids are almost the same age as Ingrid's and Ben's kids too, and the couples hit it off as soon as they met and became the best of friends about a year after Ingrid and Ben got married, and remained so for most of the nine years since then.
The couples sometimes laughed that Bill should be married to Ingrid and Pamela to Ben because of their personalities. Bill is as impulsive, impatient, and rash as Ingrid is, while Pamela is as stabilizing a force in their marriage as Ben is in his. In actuality because of their respective personalities to rational outsiders it would appear that it probably would be a disaster if they switched spouses - something that there is no indication that at least Ben, Pamela and Ingrid have ever actually considered even in jest, although Bill sometimes does seem to be a little too "appreciative" of - or at least "conscious" of - Ingrid's D cup rack.
It was getting close to Bill's and Ingrid's respective fortieth birthdays. At one point the four of them considered going on a cruise, or something like that, together to celebrate. Their schedules simply didn't work, however. Therefore Ben and Ingrid made tentative arrangements to take a four day trip, sans kids, about two weeks after her birthday, and Bill and Pam seemed to be set on taking a week-long trip - also without kids - about a month after Bill's actual birthday.
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Much to Ingrid's surprise, the normally punctual Ben didn't get home at his normal time after work one Wednesday evening. Ingrid called his iPhone with no answer, also unusual. Ingrid then called Bill and Pam's house to see if Ben's best buddy Bill might know where he was. Bill answered.
"Hi, Bill - how's it hanging?" Ingrid chuckled when he answered.
"Really low - I have to worry about getting it wet when I stand at a urinal," he snickered in return.
"You're the biggest bull-shitter I've ever met; I don't know how Pam puts up with you," she replied, this time actually laughing.
"You're not the only person with that question," he laughed back.
"Listen, Bill, the reason for my call is that I can't get ahold of Ben and he's a half hour late. You haven't heard about any traffic jams, have you?"
"No, as a matter of fact, as you know, I take almost the same route home that he does for three quarters of our commutes, and the traffic was unusually light and free flowing today. It's strange, but I was about to call you to see if Pam is there because she was supposed to be home forty five minutes ago."
"Maybe they're having an illicit affair," Ingrid giggled.
"There's one way to find out," he chortled. "All four of us have iPhones with locator apps so we can check where their phones are."
Actually, he was right. It was a feature that Ingrid had only used once before about nine months earlier, and she had forgotten about it. "Are you so paranoid that you check up on Pam all the time?" Ingrid giggled.
"Hell no - I've never actually used it, but I know that I can figure it out. Just for fun why don't we both do that and call each other once we do," Bill suggested.
"Suits me," Ingrid replied, and then hung up. She was surprised at how easy it was to use the app - she had remembered it being more complicated. When using the app, Ingrid got a gray dot - indicating the last location that Ben's iPhone had been before being turned off - on the map illustrated on the screen of her iPhone. The gray dot was near the intersection of Grand and 55th, a location that Ingrid wasn't familiar with but knew was roughly about halfway between Ben's office and home. She called Bill back.
"Hey dude," she greeted him as soon as he picked up on the second ring," I know where his phone was turned off."
"How do you know that it's off?" he asked.
"Because the location dot on the map is gray. If it was green it would be on," she replied, feeling like a real techie.
"OK - let's see; I'm having a little trouble - let me put the land line phone down a second," he responded. About a minute later he came back on. "Eureka - I've got a gray dot too - around Grand and 54th, a location about a mile from Pam's office."
That was an "Oh Shit" moment for Ingrid. She was silent long enough that Bill said "Are you still there Ingrid?"
"Yes...yes I am Bill. Ben's phone was last turned off at 55th and Grand," she snarled as much as said.
Now it was Bill's turn to be silent. "What the fuck?" were his first words.
"If those bastards are cheating on us there will be hell to pay," Ingrid almost screamed into the phone.
"You got that right," he roared back. "We can't let on to them about our suspicions until we investigate this further, though," he said with a rare display of patience - or was it just intelligence. "I'm afraid that we'll find out that it is what it seems, though," he continued.
"Let's each do a little research. I'll try and find out what's near 54th and 55th on Grand, and check for any unusual expenditures. You look for unusual payouts too, and see if you can talk to some people at Pam's office - I know that they always work late there - and see if you can find out when she left work," Ingrid impulsively spat out.
"Gotcha," Bill retorted then hung up.
Ingrid immediately did a Google maps search to see if she could locate any interesting buildings near 55th and Grand. After about ten minutes of searching, she located one - a Hilton Hotel at 5459 Grand. Just then the kids came barging into the den with a minor crisis, so she made sure to turn off the computer and then tended to them. She would have been seething and unable to actual normal around Ben when he got home if she hadn't been distracted by the kids.
After Ingrid dealt with the crisis she made dinner - even though it was Ben's night to cook - and tried the best that she could to calm down. She actually was more interested in killing Ben than talking to him when he finally arrived seventy minutes late, but suppressing her impulsiveness and exercising the best self-control in a decade, she was able to pass her obvious angst off as problems dealing with the kids.
"Hey, Hon - I'm really sorry that I was late," were Ben's first words as he sheepishly came into the house through the garage. "Something smells good; I'll take over dinner for you the next three times you're up," he said, as he gave Ingrid a hug and peck on the cheek.
"Why so late?" she asked, trying to sound non-confrontational.
"The traffic was a bear - there was an accident, then I got a flat. My hands were greasy so I walked to a nearby fast food restaurant and washed them off so that I didn't track any grime into the car or house," he said.
"Obviously a lie," shot through Ingrid's mind, but she continued to suppress the impulse to blast him.
During dinner Ben could tell that Ingrid was upset, but when she explained to him the minor crisis with the kids, and lied that she was somewhat delayed and had to pick them up a little late, he bought it.
Ingrid went to bed early, complaining of a migraine - and she wasn't fibbing. The locator app information, the Hilton Hotel location, and his lies had actually given her a mild one - which she fortunately took medication for to cut off before it became debilitating. The mediation also helped her sleep - and she needed help with that.
