Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

AUTHORS NOTE: This is not a stroke story. It's an examination of how an affair can affect people's lives and how different people can react in different ways. If your looking for a quick mindless read, then this is not the story for you.

I want to thank LadyCibelle for agreeing to edit this story. This was my first timing using an editor and her comments and graciousness made it worthwhile. I'm sure her suggestions helped to improve the story. As always, I look forward to reading your comments and criticisms. They can only help me get better as a writer.

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I watched with sadness in my eyes as my wife Jean strode through the kitchen on the way to the garage. The night before, she had asked me with some anxiety if I could watch the kids so she could get away for a few hours. Her excuse was that things had been really hectic at work and she needed time by herself to unwind. I asked her if she had any plans and she told me no, she just wanted to get out of the house and spend some time by herself.

Without hesitation I had agreed to her request secretly amused at her anxiety. At least she hadn't reached the point where she could lie to me easily. I knew what her plans were; she was heading out to meet her lover.

As I watched her drive away, I pulled out my cell phone and hit speed dial.

"Hi, it's me. "

. . .

"Yeah, she just left. Is everything set? Do you have a good view?"

. . .

"Great. Give me a call when they get there and you get the pictures. "

. . .

"Right. Hopefully, this will all be over with soon. Bye."

I hung up my phone and scowled at the wall. For the umpteenth time, I wondered how things had turned to shit so quickly. Jean and I had been married for sixteen years and together for almost nineteen. Until recently, she had never given me reason to doubt her. She had been a loving wife, a wonderful companion and a great mother to our two kids. Now, I wasn't sure if our marriage would survive until our seventeenth anniversary.

The thing that bothered me was I had no clue what caused the affair. We had not been fighting. I had reached a point in my career where the job did not control my life. Nor did we let the kids drive us apart. We spent a lot of time together doing thing we each enjoyed. We shared sports and hobbies and tried to get out at least once a month by ourselves for "date night". All told, I thought we had a strong happy marriage. I loved my wife and she couldn't claim that I was neglecting her.

Our sex life remained pretty good too. We weren't wild, but so what. We never had been. Sexually, we were active and I always thought it was pleasurable for both of us. We worked together to make sure it never got boring or stale. We enjoyed a variety of positions and we both enjoyed giving and receiving oral sex.

I tried to be a considerate lover. I was receptive to her needs and desires and didn't stint on foreplay or after sex cuddling. I always made sure she got her orgasms too. Hell, we still made love at least two or three times a week. From talking to some of my friends and co-workers, our sex life was above average.

I had been over our life in my head a thousand times. What could have caused Jean to betray me like this? How could she look me in the eye and hide what was going on. How could she function normally around me? Her behavior hadn't shifted dramatically and she remained as affectionate and loving as ever. If it hadn't been for a small detail, I might never have discovered her affair.

It had happened a couple of months ago. We had spent most of the night cuddled on the couch watching a movie playing around a little bit. When we went to bed, we were both ready to make love. Since it was a work night, I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary. We would have a nice, slow, leisurely screw and we would both have an enjoyable orgasm. Then we would fall asleep cuddled together.

It started out just like I expected. Jean didn't even bother to change into her nightie; she just grabbed it and left it sitting on the nightstand before throwing back the covers to help me remove my boxers. We cuddled a little bit and I spent some time caressing every inch of her that I could reach. As she got more aroused, I moved in and started to rub her mound and finger her clit and slit. I wasn't trying to give her an orgasm yet; I just wanted her nice and moist.

Sometimes it takes Jean a while to get off. I wanted to give Jean a head start before I entered her. When she started to huff, I shifted her onto her back and lifted her legs as I entered her from the side as we scissored our legs together. It's a favorite position of ours for long gentle fucks. From this position, I can easily reach her pussy and clit and can slide my hands up to capture both her tits as well.

Slowly, we made love as we murmured our appreciation of what was going on. I had my thumb working on her clit thrumming it in counter point to my strokes. As she reached for her climax, she began to shudder and tighten up the muscles in her pussy. I sped up my strokes and as she gasped her release, I filled her with my load and grunted my satisfaction.

That was when things got weird. Typically, when we make love like this, Jean will lie back and recover for a few minutes as we cuddle. I try to keep in her as long as possible. But that night, Jean moved almost immediately and moved down the bed to start to clean me off. The problem was that she had never done this for me before.

For a few moments, I just laid back and enjoyed it. I was still sensitive and her tongue felt marvelous as she cleaned my shaft carefully of our mingled juices. But then I started to wonder what was going on? She had never done this for me before. When your wife comes up with a new trick in the sack after years of marriage, it does raise some flags.

My suspicions grew when she moved back up to cuddle. I know my wife. When she surprises me with a "new treat" in bed, she reacts in a certain way. She gets all giggly and playful as she gauges my reaction. We had played that game before to our mutual enjoyment. But, not this time. She just cuddled into me like a thousand times before. This may have been new to me, but not for her.

"Wow." I exclaimed she cradled her head into my arm. "Where did that come from?"

"What do you mean?" She asked sleepily.

"How did you come up with the idea to clean my cock off like that? It felt great." I responded curiously. I was watching her face carefully. I wanted to see her reaction.

Jean's eyes widened and she flushed. She was reacting like she had just gotten caught doing something wrong. She looked away guiltily and stammered a response. "That. . ., oh . . .well . . . ah . . , one of the girls at work showed me a Cosmo article about tricks you can use to please your man. I thought I would try it. So, how did you like it?"

Jean tried to shift into her flirty game mode, but we both could tell it was forced. I mumbled a reply and rolled over onto my side facing away from her. Suddenly, I didn't feel much like cuddling. Jean tensed and tried to snuggle up behind me but I didn't respond.

After a few minutes she gave up trying, pulled away and put on her nightie. Jean realized she had made a mistake and I had caught it. I didn't call her on it, but inside, I was in turmoil. It hit me like a ton of bricks that something was going on.

Neither of us got a lot of sleep that night. I don't know if it was her guilt, or just fear, but Jean tossed and turned for a long time before she finally fell into a restless sleep. As for me, I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling for a long time. I was replaying the events of the last few months to see if I could detect anything unusual.

The longer I thought, the more things jumped out at me. There had been some changes, but they had been so gradual that I hadn't noticed them occurring. The occasional moods and unexplained moments of anxiety on Jean's part that I had ignored or explained away. Her clothing was definitely a little sexier. Her skirts and tops were a bit tighter and skimpier. Her bras and panties had also gotten slightly racier and the new nightgown she had gotten was sexy as hell. It might have just been the change to a spring wardrobe, or they could have been changes made for me, but I couldn't be sure.

I was suspicious, but I had nothing concrete to go on. Hell, I didn't even have enough to confront her. I had a good handle on the finances and I hadn't seen any new extraordinary expenses. Her work hours hadn't changed and we were spending the same amount of time together. If she was having an affair, it wasn't really taking her away from the house. I couldn't see where she had had the opportunity.

Nevertheless, because of her reaction, I suspected something was up. I decided to do some checking. I felt a little guilty for not trusting her, but justified it by telling myself that checking was the only way I could get rid of my fears. I knew that if I didn't get an answer, my fears and mistrust might destroy our happiness regardless of what was really happening.

The next morning, I did a cursory search of her purse and our bedroom while she was in the shower. I was looking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing turned up. No condoms or unexpected sex toys; No slinky new lingerie that she hadn't worn for me; No receipts or matchbooks from unknown bars or hotels; No mysterious notes from her lover; Hell, even her cell phone log turned up empty. I was beginning to think that I was imagining things. But I decided to check one other thing.

A few years earlier, we had bought our two kids personal computers for their bedrooms and set up a home network. Jean had commandeered the computer in the bedroom and I used my laptop or the computer in the study. So we each had our own primary computer that we used.

When we got the kid's computers I had invested in a snoop program. As concerned parents we wanted a method to monitor the kids' internet usage. Through the program, I had the ability to monitor and track the use of any computer on the network. I was the computer geek in our family and I had set it up. Jean had the ability to access the kid's usage from her computer, but the program itself resided on my computer.

As far as Jean knew, the only thing the program did was provide us with a copy of the kid's internet history. That was the only portion of the program I turned on. What she didn't know was that the program had other features that I now intended to use. The program could be set up to log every key stroke and to capture emails on network computers.

I was going to use the program to monitor Jean. Jean was an emergency room nurse and her computer usage at work was strictly limited to business. She couldn't even access the internet from work. So her computer at home was her interface with the world and she would often spend an hour or two each night checking her email and browsing the web.

Before going to work that morning, I went into the study to reset the parameters of the snoop program. I left the tracking of the kids' computers alone, but had the program also log and capture every keystroke on the network as well as record every email sent or accessed. These results were routed to an encrypted file that I could access through my laptop.

Things were a little frosty that morning. I wasn't rude to Jean, but I was preoccupied with my suspicions. Jean watched me anxiously. Even the kids noticed the tension between us. For the first time in our marriage, I was glad to escape the house and get to work.

Jean's schedule gave her about a half an hour at home alone in the morning after I left for work and the kids left for school. If Jean had been spooked enough last night, I was thinking that she might take the chance to email or phone her lover. I was planning on checking her emails and getting another look at her phone log that evening. Hopefully, nothing would show up and I could put my fears to rest.

That evening was parent hell. The family was in crisis mode as our daughter raced to finish a school project and our son had a ton of homework he couldn't understand. So, Jean and I didn't have to interact too much. I was helping our son while Jean raced around picking up the supplies our daughter forgot to tell us about. It was ten o'clock by the time I finally had a chance to escape to the study to check the computer while Jean helped my daughter with the finishing touches on her sugar cube diorama of The Coliseum.

Unfortunately, I hit the pay dirt I didn't really want to find. That morning, Jean had signed on to an email account "dreamyjean@yurmail.com" that I knew nothing about. Apparently, this email account was her private conduit to her lover. The snoop program gave me her password and I signed on to check it out. It was empty. She had deleted everything that she had received and that she had sent.

When I checked the address book for the account, I got another surprise. There was only one email address listed with no personal data. The address was for bm37@yurmail.com. This address was not one with which I was familiar.

Closing out of the email program, I checked the snoop log to see if it had captured any emails. I only found two on the dreamyjean account. The first was an email that Jean had written that morning. It was short and to the point: "

Bert, I can't do this anymore. Hal's getting suspicious. I don't want to lose him. I'm not going to risk ruining my marriage for you."

I was numb. Her email left no question that she had been involved with someone else. I just didn't know the details or for how long. But at least now I knew who "bm37" was. I only knew one guy named Bert and coincidentally his last name started with the letter M. I had discovered the asshole that had poached on my wife. The name of the asshole screwing my wife was Bert Morgan.

She was having an affair with the husband of my co-worker Kay.

Kay was still Kay Adams when she started to work in my office about eight years ago after the death of her first husband. About five years ago she had married Bert Morgan. The office rumor mill suspected that Bert had gotten to her while she was still grieving her first husband. Kay was a few years younger than I and took a lot of kidding for being the office baby at 35. She was a great co-worker and a lot of fun to be around. We had worked together on a number of projects and she was one of my closest friends at the office. In fact, she and Bert had been over for a barbecue just a few weeks earlier.

If I hadn't seen the email, I would never have suspected Bert Morgan as the guy Jean was seeing on the side. He just didn't seem like her type. Because Kay and I were friends, the four of us did socialize occasionally. The only reason we didn't socialize more was Bert. To put it bluntly, Bert was an obnoxious bastard that I barely tolerated for Kay's sake. It's not that I was rude to him or anything. I just didn't like him and didn't make much effort to hide it. When we got together, I tried to keep a polite distance, but we all knew I wished that he wasn't there. I had never been able to understand what Kay saw in the guy. Now, it seems he had gotten to my wife too.

Bert Morgan was the type of guy I always loathed. When I first met him, we had played golf together a few times. I soon discovered that I couldn't stand his jokes, his bragging or his attitude. He was obnoxious and rude to the women that we saw and didn't respect anyone but himself. He was your classic self-absorbed frat rat who laughingly would brag about his affairs. He openly admitted that his rule for dealing with women was the four "F's". You know, "Find them, feel them; fuck them and forget them." The only reason I had never told Kay about his bragging was because I thought he was full of shit.

I was wrong. I failed to recognize how slimy he really was. I had assumed he was blowing smoke because I couldn't see how any woman could get past his attitude. I was one of the people who believed that he had only gotten Kay to marry him because she was vulnerable after the death of her first husband.

But that bastard was a predator. Since I avoided him as much as possible, I had never focused on how his demeanor changed when he was around a woman he wanted to impress. When he was after a woman, he could be as charming as hell. His return email to Jean showed me what I was dealing with. It was complete bullshit; full of flowery language and fake sympathy for her anxiety and concerns.

But it all boiled down to one thing. He wasn't going to accept her answer that it was over. He was going to work on her; try to change her mind. He claimed to understand her concerns, but suggested that she wait a while before making her decision. Maybe they could just "cool it" for a while until my suspicions went away. Then they could decide together what to do once it was safe. He didn't want to lose the special connection that they had made.

When I went to bed that night, I was angry. Jean tried to cuddle up to me, but I wouldn't let her. I couldn't stand to touch her or for her to touch me. I told her curtly that I wasn't in the mood and deliberately turned my back to her. When she tried to curl up around me, I pulled away and told her no. She stiffened and moved back across the bed. Once again, both of us had a restless night.

My mind was going a mile a minute. I had to decide how to respond. Hell, first I had to decide what I wanted the outcome to be. I was shocked and hurt to discover her affair. I was angry with her and felt betrayed, but I was conflicted. Jean had been the love of my life for a long time and I couldn't imagine my life without her in it. Was there any way I could get over what had happened and forgive her? I didn't know whether to pack my bags and move out or confront her and try to work things out.

There were some things that I had discovered that bothered me a lot. The existence of the private email account told me that this wasn't just a fling, but a full-blown pre-meditated affair. But when and how had it started; more importantly, why? I didn't know enough about what was going on. I needed more information. I knew that she had been having an affair, but I needed to get the details before I was ready to decide what to do.

I thought about confronting her, demanding answers, but rejected the idea. I wasn't ready to trust that Jean would tell me the unvarnished truth. I was sure she would confess when confronted, but would that be enough to overcome my doubts about her? All I would end up with is tears and pleas for forgiveness. Would I ever really know if she really regretted her actions or just getting caught? Would I be able to tell if she really loved me or if she just didn't want to lose the security of our marriage? No, I wasn't ready to accuse her just yet. I needed to find out more.

As the night went on, I made some decisions. I wanted to teach Jean and Bert a lesson that they wouldn't forget. They had to learn the consequences of having an affair. I needed this for my own self-respect regardless of whether my marriage would survive.

I also needed to talk to Kay. This affair affected both of our marriages. I wanted to let her know what was going on and maybe coordinate our responses. Besides, she might be able to help me get the details I wanted.

One thing I was sure of. There was no way that I was going to allow Bert to ever sleep with Jean again, at least not while we were married. Now that I knew what was going on, I was sure I could figure out ways to stop them from meeting. I may not have been ready to confront her, but I wasn't going to sit by and let her continue the affair either. Fortunately, from Jean's email, it looked like she was spooked and was intending to end her extra curricular activities. But, I wasn't going to let up my vigilance. Bert was still on the prowl and I just knew he would keep sniffing after her.