It was late Monday afternoon when I felt the bump of the aeroplane's wheels landing on the concrete runway of Geneva airport. It was late afternoon but when I had come home from Tony's after our last ever fuck and booted up my laptop it was the only flight I could find that would get me there the following day.
My husband Pete would have been at the conference since Friday evening; nearly three full days would have elapsed by the time I arrived. I hoped and prayed that he wouldn't be angry that I had broken our agreement and come to see him before the two weeks had ended.
Before leaving home, I had shaved myself all over and dressed as I believed Pete would like best; black panties, low cut bra and stockings beneath a tight, short, dark blue dress. It was as sexy as I could manage but still, I hoped, the right side of sophistication.
My husband already knew I was a slut; I didn't need to remind him.
I had no idea how Pete would react when he found me at his hotel and was very anxious. For all I knew he had already replaced me for the week with a 'Conference Wife'; some young and impressionable trainee from Eastern Europe who was dazzled by his reputation. In that event the unexpected presence of his middle-aged, unfaithful wife might be highly unwelcome.
But I couldn't wait until the following Sunday. With another five days of temptation and knowing how far I had fallen under Tony's spell, Pete could be forgiven for finding an alternative.
This couldn't be allowed to happen; I wanted my extraordinary husband back.
***
My psychology students would have had a field day if they had seen me when I had finally returned home from my now ex-lover's apartment the previous evening with Tony's thick, messy semen oozing from my sore, poorly lubricated vagina.
After dropping my secret phone into the rubbish bin, I had gone straight upstairs. There I had stripped, bathed and showered as if subconsciously trying to cleanse my body of all traces of Tony's presence, scrubbing between my legs until my vulva was a sore, dark red gash, let alone a Pretty Pink Pussy. I had brushed my teeth for five full minutes to rid my mouth of the taste of him.
To my dismay, my neck and boobs still bore the marks of our wild, angry copulation but only time would remove those.
Afterwards I had dried my sore body on a clean towel and dressed in clothes I hadn't worn since my affair had begun all those months ago, as if by dressing as I had before I became an unfaithful wife, I could recover some of the innocence I had so spectacularly lost.
I even threw my semen-soaked knickers into the wood-burning stove, watching them shrivel and steam as the last gobs of Tony's sticky semen I would ever see went up in slightly acrid fumes.
All no doubt interesting psychology but useless from a practical point of view; no matter what I did, I still felt dirty, used and stupid.
Once I had done all I sensibly could I returned to the place in the house that reminded me least of my former lover; the kitchen. There I sat on a tall stool, took several deep breaths and booted up my laptop, opening a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and sipping impatiently as the machine clicked and whirred.
When the pc was finally ready I scoured the net for flights to Geneva.
It was bedtime when I finally booked my seat but with my mind buzzing, the early night I knew I needed was out of the question. The only possible distraction seemed to be my writing. Fortunately the horror of my situation proved inspirational too; I wrote like a woman possessed, page after page flowing out of my twisted, guilt-ridden imagination. More chapters of my long-term stories formed themselves in my mind, along with stranger, darker plotlines that were frightening in their intensity.
Most involved cheating married women getting what they deserved.
As one o'clock in the morning approached and exhaustion finally drove me to bed, I had been writing for three hours without a break, the anger within me pouring into hard, angry stories that could only be published after a great deal of censorship.
Once in bed I slept deeply but without satisfaction, waking early with dark bags under my eyes to match the fading hickeys on my neck.
The manufacturers of concealer did well that morning and I went into work but soon found that my concentration was shot; after two hours and for the first time in my life I lied to my team and returned home, feigning illness. It made me feel guilty but nothing compared with the importance of the task ahead of me; the saving of my marriage and my family.
I packed my bag carefully then spent the remaining time desperately trying to keep myself occupied. As I left home for the airport, the house was spotless, the washing and ironing done and flowers were on the tables. Upstairs the bed had clean sheets and the room was ready with candles for what I desperately hoped would be my husband's happy return.
But I had no illusions; it was up to me to make the running. It was me that had opened the wound; it was up to me to try and heal it.
I just hoped I wasn't already too late.
***
It was early Monday evening when my taxi pulled up outside the large, smart, city-centre hotel in which the conference was taking place. When I had called the night before I had been told that all rooms were booked so I went straight to the check-in desk, told them I was Dr. Peter Barker's wife and asked if I could be let into his room to await his return.
To my horror, at first they were suspicious, seeming to think I was some kind of ageing prostitute trying to visit a client - so much for my sophisticated choice of dress - but after a careful inspection of my passport they finally accepted who I was and gave me a spare key card to Pete's room.
Refusing help, I carried my own meagre luggage to the floor on which his room lay, let myself in, closed the door behind me and took a deep breath. I had arrived without a clear plan; I just knew that if my marriage was to be saved, I had to be wherever my husband was. I needed to be close to him physically if I was ever going to be close to him emotionally again.
I dropped my bag and looked around the room. It was quite large, very anonymous but pleasant with an over-sized double bed against the far wall. For a moment an image flashed through my mind; of an unknown woman's naked body on that smooth counterpane; of her legs spread wide; of a familiar male bottom rising and falling between those open thighs as my husband fucked the life out of her.
A bolt of pain flashed through me when I remembered that thanks to my deceit, Pete did now know what it was like to have sex with another woman; that only a few days ago he had spent the entire night in bed with my closest friend Julie, a woman with an apparently spectacular sexual appetite.
What was worse, my husband appeared to have satisfied her well. A wave of jealousy washed through me; if he could give her orgasms why not me? Whatever the truth, I had to know.
I began to search the room frantically for any sign of female occupation; cosmetics, clothing, even used condoms in the waste bins but to my relief, neither the dresser, the bedside table nor the bathroom yielded any indication that anyone other than my husband had been there.
There was a box of condoms in the drawer beside the bed but for the moment it was unopened. This didn't mean he hadn't slept with another woman; they might have used her room of course and they might not have used protection but at least one possible disaster had been avoided.
I looked at my watch; just before seven o'clock; the last seminar of the day should be ending right then, leaving an hour's break before the formal dinner began at eight. Pete would normally come back to his room to freshen up and change his shirt before joining the others in the bar for pre-dinner cocktails.
This meant that, if he came at all, he would probably arrive within the next fifteen minutes. I had to see him before he saw me to have any chance of being the wife he wanted me to be. I had to look for any signs of his having replaced me.
I went into the bathroom and adjusted my make-up and clothes to make sure I was looking my best; I wasn't sure what competition I would have for that precious place in his bed.
In the large, unforgiving mirror I saw a skinny, flat-chested, middle-aged woman in a very pretty but too-short dress that revealed a more of her rather bony thighs than it should. She wore too much make-up too but as the alternative was showing the dark patches under her eyes and the fading hickeys on her neck, this was unavoidable.
