We think this one has a new discovery method but I'm sure you'll tell us if we're wrong.
This one started as Cliché 5, written by myself, but when I gave it to my wife, lover, partner in crime, and all-round beautiful person, she thought it was original enough to not deserve the title. And she was right. Once she wielded her magic on it, it became so much better than the original and hence the authorship changed.
Again, we urge you not to believe the dismal Jimmies here who say everything has been done. Put finger to keyboard and 'have a go' as we say in Terra Australis.
V1.
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If I'd known that today would be the last normal day in my life for many months to come, I might have made more effort to stop and smell the roses.
It was near 3:00 p.m. when my secretary came into my office to say there was a man to see me. I stood and walked around my desk as she led him in, but he ignored my outstretched hand. Well, ignored it for a handshake. He took advantage of my stance to thrust an A4 envelope into it with the words, 'You've been served'.
I may have been shocked into silence, but I'm not naïve; I'd read enough cheating wife stories to think I knew what was going on. Wife falls in love with another guy, or gal, falls out of love with the husband, and sneaks around behind his back. Prepares, plots, schemes, and betrays, until the hammer falls on the unsuspecting hubby.
I just couldn't believe it applied to my wife. Sure, after almost twenty-five years of marriage we weren't starry-eyed in love like we used to be, but what couples were after a quarter of a century together? I did think, however, that starry eyes and unbridled lust had been replaced by a deep-down respect and companionable friendship. That our inferno had mellowed to a warm, toasty fire. I thought she loved being the doesn't-have-to-work wife of a successful businessman, enjoying her roles in various church groups, being the chairwoman of our local school board, as well as having her finger in many other local society events.
I stared down at the envelope, stunned, and asked myself why. Nothing came to mind. She'd given absolutely no clues she was unhappy with me. Knew me well enough to know if she had a problem, any problem, she could come to me and discuss it rationally and calmly. Yes, I'd noticed she was a little worried looking in the last couple of days and refused to be drawn on what was on her mind, but she certainly hadn't acted like she was going to cut me off at the knees anytime soon.
Neither was it like she thought I was having a hot and heavy affair and was taking advantage of our recent empty nest status to dump me. I am and always have been a one-woman man and have never strayed, not even once, from our marriage vows, even though my secretary once told me in all seriousness that had I been single I'd be considered quite the catch. When I travel, which is extensively and on my own, I have plenty of opportunities. Opportunities I have never availed myself of, so I discounted that immediately. Besides, with my wife's legendary Irish temper, if she'd caught me cheating, she'd have been wearing my gonads as a necklace five minutes later.
I realised I was procrastinating. Delaying the moment my world was officially destroyed. Despite my realisation another minute passed as I stared at the envelope. Finally, one deep breath later, I tore at the edge of the package and pulled out the thick wad of papers. Reading the top, a huge sigh of relief escaped me. The letter wasn't headed, 'Petition For The Dissolution Of Marriage' as I'd anticipated but for something else I was being sued for.
I mentally kicked myself for doubting my wife's love and fidelity, vowing to pick her up a huge bouquet of flowers on the way home and maybe take her out somewhere fancy.
Still shaking with relief, I walked around my desk and allowed myself to fall into my chair to read the document properly.
What the fuck! It wasn't the business being sued, as I expected, but our homeowner's insurance policy. I was being sued on behalf of some idiot called Simon Rogers who had apparently fallen down my stairs four days ago and suffered injuries serious enough as to still be in hospital. The cover letter went on to say I was being sued for medical costs, loss of earnings, as well as pain and suffering. Let's just say that the amount the guy was seeking was enough to fund a minor third world country for a while.
I leaned back in my chair as I looked at the statements that accompanied the letter from Simon's ambulance chaser, a little confused by the whole thing. I only noted three things from the statements.
Firstly, Mr. Simon Rogers had been visiting my wife, Jennifer Brown, at the time the accident happened, the accident being him falling down the stairs after tripping on a protruding nail on the top landing.
Secondly, this incident had occurred on a day I'd been out of town.
And, thirdly, the time of the incident was 5:00 a.m. Just before dawn at this time of year.
I leaned back even further in my chair as I recalled the layout of my house. There was only one set of stairs on the entire property, those running from the ground floor to the first. From the living parts of the house to the bedrooms. Only bedrooms were upstairs. There was a downstairs toilet so that nixed needing to use one of the upstairs bathrooms.
I was struck dumb once again as within the space of ten minutes I'd gone from thinking my wife was cheating, to being embarrassed and ashamed about not giving her the benefit of the doubt, to knowing what I now know. Some guy I didn't know fell down the stairs from our house's bedrooms in the early hours of the morning when my wife was home alone. Or not alone, as it turned out.
The memory of how I felt mere minutes ago when I thought I'd unjustly accused Jennifer of cheating stayed any further thoughts about possibilities for the moment. I needed facts and the packet told me which hospital the answers could be found in. Telling my secretary I'd be out for the rest of the day, I headed to the hospital, via picking up a gift basket of fruit. By the time I arrived my rampant emotions were back under control... for the moment.
It was visiting hours and the staff at the nurse's station were very helpful, pointing me to the right ward. It was a two-person room with only one current occupant. I turned on the voice recorder app on my phone, slipped it into my top pocket, and opened the door.
Simon Rogers, from what I could see under the bandages, traction devices, and plaster casts, was considerably younger, taller, more muscled, and fitter than me. He idly glanced at me entering his room, looked a little confused for a few seconds, then his eyes opened wide as he either recognised me or put two and two together. I leaned toward the former because he had that slack-faced look of the not-too-bright and there was certainly no shortage of photos of every member of our family throughout the house. He did what was probably the slowest lunge in history, his target the nurse call button. It must have hurt but his pain was for nothing. I beat him to it by about two minutes and placed it well out of his reach.
He now knew why I was here and how helpless he was. I deliberately let my eyes travel ever so slowly over all the wires and contraptions holding him in place, or torture devices as we both knew they were. He cast one more longing glance at the well-out-of-reach nurse call button and mentally collapsed.
"I'm sorry, man, real sorry. What do you want to know?"
"How long have you been fucking my wife, Jenny Brown?"
"About six months," he admitted quietly. I was stunned. Six months and I didn't have a clue. It lined up well with our empty nest though.
"Who came onto who?"
"I came onto her. I'm the janitor at the school where she is a board member." An embarrassed look came over his face. "I've got a... um, thing for older women, you know, especially ones as well put together as your old lady, I mean..."
He stopped talking real fast as my hand grabbed one of the wires attached to his leg. He pleaded with his eyes, realising he'd elaborated too much.
"Once you started chasing her, how long did it take to get her into bed?"
"About two weeks, I reckon. Yeah, about two weeks."
I stayed silent. With some people, it is best to just stop talking and they keep going to fill the uncomfortable gap. He was obviously, 'some people'.
"I mean, she let me know she was hot to trot pretty much straight away, then it took about another week or so for her to get me to understand and accept her rules, and then, um..."
"Yes?"
"Another week for you to go out of town on business."
At last he stopped yabbering and in the silence that followed I settled on the next question.
"You mentioned rules just then."
"Yeah, man. She had a bunch of them. About twenty rules I wasn't allowed to break. There was one..., hang on, pass my phone, she texted them to me so I wouldn't forget any." I handed him his phone from the bedside table. He unlocked it, found a text thread, scrolled to near the top, and handed it to me. The first thing I noticed was that the number the texts came from wasn't my wife's regular number. A burner phone I suspect, probably kept in the safe I didn't have the combination to. The safe the 'school insisted' she not let me see inside of.
There were Jenny's rules, all neatly laid out in her distinctive language.
- No public displays of affection or even acknowledging each other's existence in public. If you see me at the school, just keep walking.
- You will furnish me with a clear STD test before our first time.
- We will just be having sex, not making love, no affection, no kissing, just sex.
- We will only ever meet at my house when my husband is away on an overnight trip, and then only after I confirm he's where he says he is. I don't want him ringing the landline with me not there, it might take some explaining.
That explained why, when I was away on business, I was expected to use the hotel phone to call our house landline between 8.30 and 9.30 p.m. Jenny's reasoning for insisting on a landline call? Because, according to her, long phone calls on cell phones were linked to brain cancer.
- You will always supply and wear condoms. You'll bring a new, unopened box of five every time.
Five? Holy shit! When was the last time we'd had sex five times in a session? Had we ever? I looked at the man in the bed, bandaged and in traction. What was he? A machine?
I continued reading.
