Revenge with Estrogen

Revenge with Estrogen

This is just a simple story of a wife who knows what she deserves and a husband trying to keep up.

There is no sex in this story.

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It was a Friday evening. I worked an extra hour to close a few files and then headed home. It was a cold night, and the mercury was falling. I knew that my wife Karen was out for a drink with some of her coworkers, but she'd probably be hungry when she got in, so I picked up some Chinese carryout on my way. A few potstickers and some General Tsao's chicken along with any of several spicy options always took the chill off a cold night. I'd become fairly expert at warming up carryout, so I left the meal on the kitchen table, changed into something comfortable, and settled into a chair to read while I waited for my wife to get home.

The wait was longer than usual. She entered unceremoniously, dropped her purse on the couch opposite me, and announced, "I'm taking a shower. I'll be back." It was about 9:30, late for her, and I waited to hear her explanation. Don't get me wrong - I've never been the type to demand an accounting of my wife's activities, but I thought I'd hear about her evening. I didn't. Instead, she returned wearing sweatpants and a flannel shirt, walked straight to the kitchen, and called out, "Why isn't dinner ready?"

I'd seen this side of her before and I was determined not to start a fight, but her attitude at that moment did not endear her to me. I walked into the kitchen to find her putting the food into the microwave, and I prepared for whatever was coming.

She was unnecessarily loud in her preparations, and I attempted to help.

"I'll do it!" she says and not in a pleasant way.

"Okay" I thought and busied myself setting the table and fixing something to drink.

Dinner that night was silently loud. What do I mean by that? I mean she had very little to say, but the plates took a beating as her fork poked and jabbed at her food. She was in a real mood and her unspoken anger filled the room.

There was stress written across her face and I knew enough to wait. It would come when she was ready.

Without looking up from her plate, she said, "I'm glad you didn't join us tonight."

That caught me off guard. I mean, isn't that what every husband wants to hear? "Well, I love you, too!"

The look she gave me was a mixture of that same fatigue and impatience.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

She thought for a moment and shook her head. "Not yet. I have too much to think about."

That was the start of it. She was distant over the remainder of dinner and often mumbled to herself that evening. In an act of self-preservation, I volunteered to do the dishes. I'm not sure that she said ten words to me that night after dinner and do I need to tell you that sex was off the table when we went to bed?

I was practicing fatalistic spousal detachment. What I mean is, I kept telling myself, "I'll find out when it's time, and there is nothing I can do about it until then, so I'll just ride it out!" That worked fine for about twenty-four hours until Saturday night at about 9 PM when she walked through the living room, picked up her purse, and announced, "I'll be back." Now that's the kind of thing that a husband notices.

Ten minutes later I called up the location of her cell phone and she was still on the move. I watched and waited and thirty minutes after she left her cell phone stopped moving. She was at The Hideaway. The name says it all. It's the kind of place cheating spouses go to avoid being seen, and if they are seen then nobody will admit it because they're doing the same thing.

Now I was pissed! Twenty-four hours of the silent treatment was something I could handle, but this was something I would not tolerate! I grabbed my wallet and keys and headed for The Hideaway. I spent the drive working to get control of my emotions and by the time I got there I knew that I needed to be careful. I wasn't going to storm in there and confront her. I needed information and that begins with reconnaissance.

I pulled into the parking lot slowly and found a parking spot on the edge of the lot. From where I parked, I could see her car and she wasn't in it. According to my phone her cell was still there and for a time I debated whether I should risk going inside and being seen. Then I saw her quickly exiting the front door of the place and then sit in her car. She was watching the front door of the place and hadn't noticed me. So for the next half hour I sat there watching her as she watched the door. When a couple came out, walking close together and having that private conversation that lovers have, Karen perked up. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been watching her, but I knew she saw what she was waiting to see. The couple got into a car and after a few minutes of playing tongue tag they drove off.

After they left, Karen left, and I remained trying to understand what I'd just seen. The man was about my age or a little older. There was nothing special about him, although I thought I'd seen him before. The woman was a few years younger than Karen and attractive; I'll give her that. What were they to Karen? I kept coming back to the same thought. Was he someone special to my wife and was Karen angry about him being out with another woman? That was the only idea I could come up with.

I'd known Karen since our second year at the university. We were talking about starting our family. Everything I knew about her told me that she wasn't the type to cheat, and yet why was she here spying on this couple? Who were they to her and why did I feel like I knew him from somewhere?

My ruminations were getting me nowhere, so eventually I got myself together, started the car, and headed for home. When I got there, I found an angry, distracted wife who had decided to take whatever was bothering her out on me.

"Where have you been?"

"Out."

"Out? Out where? What do you mean 'out'?"

"I mean I was out. Where were you?"

She didn't seem to want to answer that question. "I went for a drive."

"Are you ready to tell me what's been bothering you?"

She just shook her head.

"Okay." I decided that I'd had enough and headed off to bed without saying another word. Whether she got the message or not, she did finally come to bed, slipped between the sheets, and lay still until sleep overtook her. I, on the other hand, found sleep elusive.

For the next three weeks she remained distracted. So metimes she got home on time, but she worked late more often than usual. Conversations were short, as was her temper. That behavior only fueled my imagination, and my imagination was ugly. I tried to avoid checking up on her, but there were several times when I called her over lunch, and she was out of her office. Then she would work late those nights. The weekends were long and lonely. At times I would find her muttering to herself, but I only caught a few words. The words I caught did not give me peace of mind. They were words like affair and cheat with a few F-bombs thrown in for good measure. The words betrayal and divorce caught my attention. All the while I was living in a cold house and sleeping in an even colder bed. Whenever I tried to talk with her about what was bothering her, she would shut me down.

I was about at the end of my rope when she called me at my office on a Friday afternoon, just three weeks after it all started. She asked when I'd be home that night and told me that we had to talk. For the first time in three weeks, I agreed with her. She arrived home early, and I wasn't very long behind her.

When I got there, she had already showered and changed. We sat at the kitchen table, and I prepared for the worst. She opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. I let mine sit as she drank hers in one long gulp and poured herself a second.

"I've been a real bitch, haven't I?"

I couldn't argue with her.

She looked at me expecting me to disagree, but I just waited for her.

"I did something I'm not proud of and I'm hoping you won't think too badly of me."

Again, I just sat and waited. I wasn't interested in making it easy for her and I wasn't going to redirect her train of thought.

"I probably lost my job today."

That got my attention and deserved a response. "What did you do?"

"I had a meeting with the director." That's what they called Henry in my wife's office. Henry was the big boss and he had department heads under him with project managers under them who ran individual projects. My wife was a worker, not a manager, but she'd caught the attention of management and there was talk of a promotion.

Again, I remained silent. She seemed prepared to tell me now and I just needed to let her take her time.

"I didn't get the promotion."

That's what this is about? She's sneaking around, going to cheater bars, and all she wants to talk about is her damn promotion?

"Carol got it."

That rang a bell. Carol Newsome was that young hottie that I saw walking out of The Hideaway three weeks ago. I had only met her once and just briefly, so I hadn't recognized her on the parking lot. Then I realized who the man was. It was Paul Jacobs, Karen's department head.

"Did you get an explanation?"

My wife looked at me like she wanted to kill someone. "I was told it wasn't my time. Then they promoted someone with three years less experience and a history of getting other people to do her work for her."

I was finally starting to understand. The cloud of suspicion and mistrust of the past three weeks was lifting. I muttered to myself, "That's what you were doing."

Karen spent a minute thinking and then her look softened. "Where did you go three weeks ago?"

I was taken aback.

"On that Saturday when I charged out of the house without explanation... You came home a few minutes after me. Where did you go?"

Okay, it was time for honesty. "I followed you."

"I thought so. You used my cell?"

I nodded and she chuckled. "I'd never make a very good cheater, would I?"

Now it was my turn to smile. "Thankfully, no, and I hope you never change."

"Why did you follow me?" She looked at me and the light came on. "You thought I was cheating on you?"

"I saw where you were parked and thought about how you left. I decided to see for myself."

She sat back and crossed her arms in front of her. "John David Parker, did you really think that I would ever cheat on you?"

She used all three names. That's not good. "Well, you have to admit you've been very distant lately."

She was pissed, but she was still logical and could see how her actions had led us to this point. "I would never do that to you. That Friday when I came home in a bitchy mood it was because my friends told me that Carol was earning my promotion on her back. All the other department heads listen to Jacobs and Jacobs thinks with his dick."

Yeah, that's about the way I had him figured. He was a hound, but thankfully my wife was immune to his questionable charms.

"So what you're telling me is that Carol is fucking her way to the top?"

"Yeah. They announced her promotion this morning and I went in to see Henry before lunch. I told him what I knew, and I gave him my resignation."

This sounded like my wife. The idea of her cheating on me never seemed like her, but this was her to a T. "How did he take it? I mean, it's basically just office gossip, right?"

That was when I saw embarrassment in my wife's face. Thankfully! The three weeks of anger were wearing a bit thin.

"They've been getting together over lunch, and I've been following them. I have time and date stamped photographs of them going in and coming out of motel rooms and a whole lot of them trading spit."

"I assume you gave it all to Henry?"

"I did worse than that."

"What could be worse?"

"I also gave it to his wife."

It took all of my will to keep the smile from breaking out on my face. All I could think to say was, "I sense a disturbance in the force!"

That brought a guilty smile to my wife's face, but only for a moment, and then the sadness returned. "They have small kids. I may have blown up their marriage."

I shook my head. "No, he blew up his marriage. If I were in her position, I would thank the person who told me." Remember, I'd spent the last three weeks being suspicious of my wife's behavior. I suppose my remark was partly intended to remind her.

I got a look that said, "Message received, jerk!"

"So you handed in your resignation today, did you?"

She nodded. "Henry told me to come back Monday, and we'd talk."

"Well, that's good."

"I don't think Henry is the type who likes a stool pigeon."

That wasn't how I viewed things. "I may be wrong, but I don't think Henry likes a cheat. If I were in his position, I wouldn't want to promote an undeserving employee who was fucking her way to a promotion..." I thought about the next bit and decided to say it. "...and I wouldn't want to retain a department head who would promote someone that way."

It may sound odd, because Karen was genuinely discouraged and thought that she had lost her job, but that was the first good weekend we had in three weeks. We hung out, talked, laughed, went to dinner, and basically had fun together until the past three weeks were just a memory. Oh yes, and the bed was discernably warmer.

I spent a lot of time that weekend reminding myself, and being reminded by my wife, that I had married an honorable woman. Cheating just wasn't in her nature.

We both headed off to work Monday morning. Karen fully expected to be unemployed, and I waited for the call. The call came late in the afternoon.

"I'm getting carry out tonight. Don't be late."

That wasn't what I was waiting to hear. "Are you going to tell me how your meeting with Henry went?"

She just laughed and said she'd tell me all about it over dinner.

It turned out Henry and I looked at these things in much the same way. He first needed to meet with his lawyers to check his options and then he needed to meet with the other department heads privately so that everyone understood the chaos he was about to unleash on the office. Paul was demoted and transferred. There was a rumor running through the office that his wife kicked him out, but nobody knew for sure. Carol was told that she had declined the promotion for personal reasons and would be reassigned. Her future promotions would require long-term rehabilitation, or at least that was how Karen explained it. Once all of that was out of the way, it was announced that Karen had been offered the promotion and had accepted it. She did apologize to me and said that she'd spent much of the afternoon getting up to speed on her new job and only later realized that she'd never called me. That was an apology that was easy to accept.

It was widely recognized that Karen had earned her promotion and she immediately became one of the most popular project managers in the shop. It came as no surprise to me as she has a strong work ethic and believes in respecting her coworkers.

All of that was a year ago. Tonight Karen informed me that I'm going to be a dad. She has told Henry that she will be taking maternity leave when the time comes, but she promises she will come back. Henry seemed genuinely happy, and I think he has come to view her as the daughter he never had.

So that's the story of the one and only time that I doubted my wife's fidelity and how I learned that an estrogen fueled revenge may look different from what I'd expect from a man, but it is no less effective when it comes.