"Please don't wait up for me Richard. I am putting in some overtime and I don't know what time I will be home."
It was the fourth time in two weeks that my wife Sharon had worked overtime. I really could not protest because we needed the money. The school where I taught for over ten years had been forced to cut back and I became another victim of the downsizing craze that seemed to be sweeping the island.
"So how are you getting home? I can come and pick you up when you are done."
We were the proud owners of a fairly new Suzuki Vitara jeep which had been bought cash three months before I was downsized. I had used up most of my savings to buy the jeep so I was cash strapped. The severance pay I receive from my job went to clear off most of our outstanding bills.
My unemployment cheques went straight toward paying our monthly mortgage leaving me as broke as the Greek economy. Compounding my situation was the fact that the depressed economic times we were living in did not hold out much hope of a new job in any hurry.
My wife Sharon was being forced to shoulder more and more responsibilities each month. She is not the kind of woman who complained about money matters but I knew that I could not expect her to bear such heavy financial burdens indefinitely.
My frustration with the situation was showing up in some innocuous ways so far but I knew that things in our home could eventually turn toxic if the situation did not improve in a few months. The words of a popular calypso kept ringing in my ears about the relationship between love and money.
Sharon did not share much in common with the woman in the calypso song who incessantly berated her man for his lack of ability to provide for her. You can't love without money was the repeated refrain of the woman. Who could disagree with the woman when she reminded the man that you can't make love on a hungry belly?
We were nowhere close to the hungry belly stage but I was beginning to notice some faint changes in Sharon bedroom decorum. Slowly but noticeably the sexy t-strings were being replaced by what I like to call utility panties. Negligees are becoming like Hailey's comet. I am being forced to wait a long time to see them and when they appear they fill up the night for a brief period.
Sharon hesitated before answering my question.
"We have a lot of work to do here which will take us well after ten o'clock. I will get someone to drop me off when we are done."
I could remember the early days in our marriage when I camped out a few nights in the parking lot of her work place waiting to take my new bride home. It was a pleasure back then and it would have been a pleasure now as well. Truth is I love Sharon madly.
Born into a family of privilege, most of her friends thought she was having a nervous breakdown when she announced her plans to marry me. Sharon stuck to her guns and dismissed all the concerns of her friends and relatives as inconsequential. I was the man of her choice and that was the end of it. Anyone who objected could plant their lips on her rear end.
What's not to love about a woman like that? I can truthfully say I have no regrets marrying Sharon. To date she had given me no reason to doubt her sincerity or her fidelity.
Sharon had literally gone out on a ledge for me and I was willing to do the same for her. If someone were to tell me that Sharon was cheating on me I would doubt them until I saw the evidence with my own eyes. I was not being naive in trusting my wife implicitly she simply was so above petty deception.
Sharon had always struck me to be the type of woman who would be very open if she ever decided to have an affair. She had once joked about having a man over and forcing me to watch her getting fucked. I must confess that the thought of another man fucking Sharon terrifies me.
Daily she is surrounded by all those high flyer alpha male types who would no doubt consider it the highlight of their fucking careers if they could get between Sharon's legs. We sometimes joke about some of the most outrageous offers made to her by the men she worked with.
"Babes are you sure you don't want me to pick you up? You can call me when you are done and I will come for you."
Under normal circumstances I would have let it go but I was feeling a little insecure and vulnerable. Maybe if she had mentioned a female friend as the one who would have brought her home I would have agreed and let the matter rest. The thought of a walking cock driving my sexy wife home in the dead of night did not inspire me with the greatest confidence.
"Richard, I said I will be alright. There is no need for you to break up your sleep or for you to leave home at that hour when I can easily get a ride home."
In our five years of marriage I can count the number of times Sharon has called me Richard. I was Ritchie to her except on those few occasions when she was either upset or something serious was about to go down.
In my mind I was simply being a good husband to my wife. There was nothing for her to become upset about. For the first time in our married life I got the feeling that something bad was about to happen. I decided right there and then that I wanted to find out what my wife was up to.
Spying on Cathy was not the kind of thing I would normally do but I could not shake the feeling that she was being less than forthright about her plans for the night. My favourite television shows were all detective shows so I was well schooled in the fine art of stakeouts and surveillance.
Being a technology buff, I had invested or as Sharon would say, wasted hundreds of dollars in all kinds of high tech equipment. I had spent fifteen hundred dollars on a high definition digital camcorder that could record is near darkness. The digital zoom lens provided excellent night vision allowing me to record events from a distance.
A Chinese site on the internet had offered an irresistible deal on a multipurpose night vision monocular with 1X zoom. I had tested both my toys at the beach one night and was more than impressed by the clarity of the vision and the night recording ability. If Sharon was up to anything tonight I had the tools to help me see anything she might want to keep hidden in the dark.
"Ok babes since you won't be in early I may go by a sports bar and watch some football to kill some time. I will see you when you get home."
An old friend once told me that I should never become too predictable because predictability made it easy for people to plan their strategy against you. I wanted Sharon to know that I would be on the streets so she would have to figure that into whatever plans she might have had.
It was approaching 8:00 pm when I dressed and headed over to the home of my best friend Michael. We had agreed to switch vehicles for a few hours to facilitate me in my surveillance activities. There were friends who would help you move and there were friends who would help you move a body. Michael fitted in to the latter group in my books.
He greeted me at the door with a large grin on his face.
"You must think you are James Fucking Bond going to spy on Sharon with all that night vision shit you have in that bag."
In a twisted way I was happy for the opportunity to give my surveillance equipment a real test run. I did not know what I would discover as the night progressed but I consoled myself that knowledge was power and any knowledge I gained tonight would help me should I have to make any hard decisions.
"Don't give me that crap Michael. You have followed Margaret on more than one occasion to see what she was up to."
Michael went on the defensive. His wife Margaret had left him over two years ago. She had been cheating with the principal at the school where she and I worked until the downsizing. It was ironic that I had been the whistle blower bringing the affair to his attention.
"If my memory serves me correctly, you were the motherfucker who put me up to following her cheating ass."
I had been monitoring Margaret's movement at school for weeks prior to sharing the information with Michael. Margaret and the principal would leave school together at least twice a week. I had followed them a few times and had become familiar with some of their lunchtime tryst hideouts.