Revenge: a Dish Best Served Cold?

Warning : There is no explicit sex in this story! Sorry.

I like BTB stories, but wanted one showing the kind of damage an ordinary working stiff can do when he sets his mind to it. He is not some kind of special forces superman with close friends in the intelligence services and the ability to plant bugs and hidden cameras and break into hotel rooms. Don't get me wrong. I read all of those stories and enjoy them. Some are brilliant. A bit like a James Bond film -- you know he does not exist but you love the story anyway. I just wanted to do something different.

I am British and some of the spellings and idioms show this but I have tried to make it generic enough that you can hopefully imagine it to be taking place almost anywhere.

This has been sitting on my hard drive for a while as it is the first story I have written since I was at school. If there is enough interest I have started another story from the opposite end of the heat spectrum.

*****

"We need to talk" she said and after that I was only half listening. There was a roaring in my ears and the room looked out of focus. My chest was tight and I was having trouble breathing. I was dreading this.

We are Mike and Gail and if you were looking for the cliched couple who you would expect to be having this type of conversation we would have ticked pretty much every box. Mid to late 40s and recent(ish) empty nesters. Married for very close to 25 years. We were not supermodels but we had kept trim and fit. Gail still attracted looks from men of my age whenever we went out. Now that our son had left my wife had decided she wanted an affair. I said it was a cliché, but it is a cliché for a reason.

Having seen the signs I had been going all out by making lots of suggestions to try to spice things up. "Date nights" where we would dress up and have a romantic meal in a restaurant. Weekends away in a hotel. Visiting a porno cinema. Cooking her favourite food for her and having a night in with a romcom and cuddling on the sofa. All suggestions had been unceremoniously shot down.

So I had been expecting this but it still hit me hard. The only part that surprised me was when she complained about my spending so many hours in the office. Apparently this had caused her to doubt my feelings for her. The standard line of self-justifying bullshit. Even though she knew I was doing it to build up our savings for a special occasion and although I was as eager to make love as ever and she was the one who kept refusing, saying she was too tired. Yes, that old one. That was the point where fear turned to anger and I launched into my planned response.

"So," I said, "You want an open marriage."

Her jaw dropped slightly. "I want the freedom to explore my sexuality before it becomes too late. I want to experience all the things I missed by marrying young. I want to grow sexually and bring those new experiences back to settle down and grow old with the man I love."

"The man you love? Who's that then?"

She started to say "You..." but saw my face and bit off her reply.

I was not sure at this point whether she had already been seeing someone behind my back. If she hadn't I wanted to point out what she would be risking. If she had already started I wanted to make her suffer before I divorced her. Childish, I know but having been aware of the signs for a while now it had started to eat at me.

"I don't think our marriage would survive that, but if you insist on carrying on with your plan I will not sit meekly at home waiting for you to return after you have just been fucked by another man. If you go out and have sex with other people then I must have the freedom to do the same."

I continued to push. "Do you intend moving out and renting an apartment?"

"No. This is MY HOUSE!" That last bit was almost a shout.

"OUR house, dear. In which case we will have to arrange a fair way of paying for it. I won't make all the payments while you use our money to pay for dates and hotel rooms with your lover."

"Why would I need to pay for hotel rooms?"

"Because you won't be able to bring him back to our shared house. I will not be humiliated in my own home and if you try to do that I will immediately file for divorce."

She turned and stormed from the room.

This had not gone the way she had expected. She normally hits me with a statement of what we are going to do and I just go along with it. But I was prepared for this. My sudden assertiveness was out of character and that had surprised her.

I can sometimes be a bit slow working things out -- but I am not stupid.

Hold that thought. It will come back later to bite me.

*****

15 or so minutes later she returned...

Before I could say anything she started. "I think we can make this work."

"You are the only man I will ever love and I am the luckiest woman in the world to have you love me. But sex is not the same as love. I feel I have missed out on sex no matter how much our love means to me. I need this short, short break to explore my sexual side after which I will return to you and become the best wife you could possibly imagine. I will bring that back to our marriage and give you the best sex of your life."

Well in my book sex and betrayal kill love. But what do I know, I am only her husband.

She paused for a couple of seconds and continued, "I can see your point about an open marriage being the only fair way. For my part I will be very discrete. You will never see or know who I have chosen. I will never talk about them or compare the two of you. I will be coming home a bit later some nights but I will be showered and changed before I talk to you. There will be no trace of what has happened and I will expect the same consideration from you when you find a lover. Other than that, sex between us would be just the same as it is now. To all outsiders we would just be our normal married selves."

She had been thinking of her tactics during the last 15 minutes but this was laying on the "carrying on as normal" a bit thick. The rest would have been her calculation that she could do some quick fucking and then come back all sorry and weepy and reconcile before I had a chance to "cheat" on her.

So she got a shock when I replied. "I am not taking you to your company dance next week. Your boyfriend should be doing that. Oh, sorry, I forgot. Tom will be taking his wife won't he?"

All the colour drained from her face and I knew I had guessed right. It was a shame because I had met Tom a couple of times and quite liked the man. Not any more.

"And if I know, you can bet most of the people you work with also know. So much for it being "discrete" and secret. If you think I am going to be there while everybody either sniggers behind my back or gives me those pitying "little does he know" looks then you are taking me for a fool."

"As for "our sex would be just the same" I can fully believe that as we have not had sex for the last couple of months and we haven't kissed or cuddled or had any intimate contact for much longer than that."

"It has not been a couple of months since we have had sex."

"Maybe not for you but it has been for me. I am moving into the second bedroom from now on. If our marriage survives, and I doubt it will, we will only get back together after you get full STD tests. I do not intend to catch anything from you.

Now she really did look stunned. Before she could say anything else I left the room and went to my new bed.

I was finally convinced that she had been cheating and I was not only putting the knife into our marriage but also giving it a twist.

*****

A couple of days of not talking later...

"What has happened to our bank account?"

"Good. You have received your new bank details then. Our shared account is still there and both our salaries are paid into it as they always have been. We will pay all of the running expenses for the house out of it. Repairs and maintenance, gas and electricity bills etc. After that what is left is split equally between us as spending money."

"What if I don't want to do that?"

"Then we sell the house and live apart. We remortgaged to pay for Jason's University and took another loan to finance his wedding. After we have paid those off the equity will not be much and the apartments we could afford to rent would not be nice. You said you wanted to carry on living here. Have you changed your mind?"

She thought it over for a few seconds. She probably realised that if we split the remaining pay equally between us she would get the better deal as I was bringing in more than her.

"All right. That will have to work."

She would find out later that she was wrong.

*****

Next day...

"What's with all the new furniture?"

"I am redecorating the second bedroom. You have the master bedroom which is furnished to a high standard. I am just bringing the second bedroom up to match."

"Who is paying for it?"

"It comes out of household maintenance."

"That's not fair! It is only you who is sleeping in there. It is not a shared room."

"I let you have the master bedroom because it is bigger and has more wardrobe space for all your clothes. If you want to save the money we can swap and you can have the second bedroom and I will have the master. Want to do that? (slight pause). Thought not."

She walked away muttering under her breath. I did pick up her saying "..this is getting fucking ridiculous."

*****

Two days later...

"I have cancelled your gym membership".

"What? Why would you do that? That is just being petty."

True.

"The gym is in my firm's building and I don't want you there. It isn't a big deal. There are plenty of gyms nearer to where you work and they all have new member offers where they almost give the first 3 months away so it won't be a big drain on your finances. Anyway, you keep saying this is only temporary. If we get back together I will reinstate it."

"I also won't be servicing your car. Admittedly I don't do much as it is one of those computer controlled engines, but you will now have to take it in to get anything done. You wanted a flash modern coupe and they will always cost more to run. I know you looked on it as a way of advertising how well we were doing and I can sympathise with that, but at the end of the day if you want to keep it you will have to pay for it."

Lots of small changes. Death by a thousand cuts.

*****

Later that month...

"WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY MONEY?" Not quite a scream of rage but not that far off.

"Well, there was the cost of the bedroom furniture."

"I fucking know that you moron! I have looked at our salaries and the amount you are paying in has gone down drastically. You cheating bastard!"

"Remember saying that part of our problem was my working too much? I decided you were right and stopped doing it, so of course my salary has dropped."

"You were doing that work to save up for our 25th Anniversary cruise."

"Oh, right. You wanted me to keep on working extra hours to pay for our big holiday and then you also wanted to use it as an excuse for our marriage breaking down and forcing you to have an affair. Talk about wanting to have it both ways. Anyway it doesn't matter as we no longer have a 25th wedding anniversary. We have a new open marriage. Let's see if we can celebrate that in 25 year's time."

I thought this may have been a step too far and we would now erupt into open warfare. That did not happen but she did start to flaunt her "dating" a bit more with each passing day. That was not unexpected but when I refused to react she started getting more brazen about what she was doing.

The next annoyance would use that against her.

*****

Later that week...

She looked annoyed. "Why is there no food in the house? I have just gone to cook myself something and there is nothing in the fridge or freezer."

"You have not been coming home until late so rather than eat alone I have been eating in the firm's canteen. The food isn't bad and there are people there I can talk to. Unlike coming home to eat alone while you are out slutting."

She gave me a filthy look, but did not rise to the bait. "I can't afford to eat out every night so I am going to have to eat at home more often."

"Then buy some food and cook it. I won't be eating it."

*****

By this time my daily routine had changed. I no longer stayed at home in the morning having breakfast with my "wife". I got up early, put on my sweats and drove to the gym. As it was in my office building and I was out the house early there was no traffic and my commute time was drastically reduced. After exercising I showered and shaved and went to the canteen for breakfast and then up to my office.

I had started to look better. I gained a small amount of muscle and had definitely improved my posture and energy levels. When the bosses came in I was already at my desk looking fresh and groomed and they noticed and actually started to talk to me. I got a small pay rise. The funny part was I had previously been working harder for longer hours but they all left too early to notice.

Gail did not join a gym and put on a few pounds. To be honest it looked good on her, but she started complaining that her clothes no longer fit. She had always loved her designer clothes and this was a big blow to her. That I was looking better only made her mood worse.

Then something totally unexpected happened.

*****

One of the girls from work stopped by my desk and asked me about my open marriage. I don't know where the hell she had heard it from as I had not mentioned it to anyone.

I enjoyed flirting with her and by the end of the week she was almost demanding I take her out. I was a bit wary as she was 20 years younger than me but I had a really good time and I think she enjoyed herself because she wanted to do it again. It was not about sex, though that was where we eventually ended up. We slept together a couple of times then she started seeing a man of her own age and we parted as friends.

Gail was a beautiful woman for her age but could not compete with a 25 year old. I hadn't had so much fun in years. Now I was the one stopping out late and Gail was the one at home.

Then other women showed an interest and I went through a similar time with a couple of them. None of it was ever going to last. Because of the age difference we did not have many interests in common but I was not complaining.

Gail was hinting at a reconciliation. I was not listening.

*****

"Did you know Gail and Tom had split up?" This from one of the women at work. Again, how did she know?

Tom's wife had found out what was going on and it was either a messy divorce that would have left him penniless or he would have to never see Gail again which meant quitting and getting a new job. Gail's new supervisor had quickly found out what she and Tom had been up to and had suggested treatment in kind. Gail threatened to report him for sexual harassment. It made their relationship at work strained to say the least.

I was overjoyed. I had won.

*****

Remember my saying that I was slow but not stupid? I was wrong. She filed for divorce.

*****

The divorce went through quickly with no arguments. We split the money equally but there was not much of it. Gail rented a cheap apartment. I put down a mortgage on a small dilapidated house. If I say the house was a wreck, I mean it was going to be a struggle to stop it collapsing on top of me - but it was all I could afford. I had a good set of tools (part traded in the divorce against her better car) and was good at DIY.

One of the earliest jobs was to rip out all the plumbing. Gym membership meant at least I could shower every morning and use the toilets there and at work. I kept a chemical toilet in the garage just for night time emergencies. The big advantage of using the garage was that there were so many holes in the roof it was always well ventilated.

Repairs took up almost every minute of my spare time so I had completely stopped going out. I was exhausted but some of the neighbours had become friendly and appreciated the work I was doing and the improvement it made to the area. Knowing that people had noticed was nice to hear and lifted me up a bit when I was at a low ebb.

*****

Jason had been coming around fairly regularly and one night mentioned he had been helping Gail redecorate. I went ballistic. He was happy to help the slut who had destroyed our family? I shouted at him while he sat there completely calm and just waited for me to finish. He was so like me it was uncanny.

As soon as I had finished, he started. "She did not destroy our family. The two of you destroyed your marriage but our family still exists and you thinking otherwise is just arrogance on your part. She has explained her side to me and while I think she has glossed over certain of her actions, from what I know of both of you I think it is reasonably accurate."

"She had started having an affair with Tom some weeks before she told you. At first it was exciting but the excitement soon wore off."

I interrupted. "It was more like months. I saw her change and the excitement does not wear off after a few weeks."

He continued, "Yes, that is what I had thought and why I said I thought she had glossed over her actions."

"The problem they were having was that people had started to suspect what was going on and Tom was worried that his wife would find out. Mum wanted to break things off but Tom wanted to continue, but discretely and less often. Mum's plan was to tell you she wanted an affair, let you start to sulk and then, after a couple of days, say she had changed her mind. That way if you heard anything you would think that what they saw was her building things up but not actually going through with it."

"She knew she was wrong the moment you reacted the way you did. Everyone thinks you are really calm but she immediately realised you were going in to what we have laughingly called your "war of attrition" mode. Destroy everything and see who is left standing. You completely ignore big, important things and then treat something trivial like it was the end of the world. The problem is because you have only ever done it over small things it caught mum completely by surprise."

"At that point she walked away worried about what might happen. Did you think her having an affair was just a small thing? But she realised that she still had to keep to her original timeline and keep this running for a couple of days before saying she had changed her mind otherwise what was the point. She had no choice except to agree to your open marriage. She knew you would not rush out and sleep with anyone so she still had time to salvage things. When you changed the bank accounts she knew she was in trouble but by now there was no going back."

"Tom was, by her account, now shitting himself as the chance of his wife finding out was increasing by leaps and bounds but Gail started using him to punish you and kept pushing him further and we know how that turned out. Tom's wife found out and their marriage might not survive much longer. Tom had to leave a job he loved and start all over again in a new company so you certainly got your revenge on him."

"Mum feels guilty because Tom's marriage problems were caused by her selfish actions. As a by-product of Tom quitting she now has a supervisor she hates. She knows she destroyed your marriage, the thing she always thought she valued most. She lost a home she loved and thought she would be in for the rest of her life. Your dating younger girls just made her feel old and made everything so much worse."

"So I have been helping cheer her up a bit by visiting her regularly and helping her spruce the place up, but for the next job I have planned I don't have the right tools and you do. mum and I can not afford to hire any help. I could manage to do the work with some difficulty, but I would appreciate your coming over and lending a hand."