Author's note: This is an entry for the
Literotica April Fools Story Contest 2025
. And yes, I know Loving Wives is a tough-marking category for a comp entry, but it is what it is 😊 Thanks very much to the wonderful @
NoTalentHack
for taking the time to do a pre-read and making useful suggestions. All remaining errors and issues are mine alone.
The editorial meeting had gone okay. There were always tensions, of course. Brooke was the more junior reporter and tended to do the lighter, fluffier stories, but her stories got viewers, and she could never resist reminding Rebecca of that.
Never mind that Rebecca was ten years her senior.
Never mind that Rebecca was highly trained, hard-working, and also a great researcher as well as presenting brilliantly on camera.
Never mind the journalism awards sitting on Rebecca's shelf.
And never mind that Darryl, the Executive Producer, was Rebecca's husband, and they had worked their backsides off together to improve their ratings and keep the nightly news alive in this city. When Brooke batted her blue eyes at Darryl and tossed her blonde mane, she tended to get her way.
Rebecca knew better than to complain too much. "I can't let my feelings towards you interfere with my job," Darryl had said during their last argument. "I'm not saying yes to Brooke just because she's got great tits. But viewers love her and she does a good job, so I give her lots of the best stories. She'll head over to the competition in a heartbeat if we hold her back too much. It's no reflection on you."
"What if I got a boob job and went blonde?" Rebecca had asked, bitterly. She was dark haired, tanned, hazel eyes. She was attractive and (unlike Darryl) she kept herself in shape, but she knew she couldn't compete with Brooke, who was also seven years younger.
"Honestly? The viewers are superficial. They'd probably like it if you did. But I like you the way you are." Darryl had known that he was walking a fine line. Eventually they'd made love that night, but Rebecca had been quiet and had seemed to be going through the motions. Darryl, as usual, dropped quickly off to sleep afterwards.
Rebecca had stayed awake, thinking, while he snored.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The meeting was to plan out the next week before calling it quits for the weekend.
"Don't forget that April Fools' Day is coming up, too, the following week" said Darryl as they were packing up. "The opposition thrashed us last year with their stupid prank story. They got it all over the socials."
"I had a thought about that," said Rebecca. "But it's a bit edgy. We'd want to run it past Legal."
"Do tell, Bec," said Brooke. She seemed sincerely interested, and Rebecca knew why. There was a good chance that Darryl would give the story to her, because Brooke got all the 'fun' gigs.
"Well, I was thinking about all the moralists out there, banging the Bible to try and get elected. Raising their profile. Demonising everybody who's different. Closing down the clinics. And yet everybody knows that from the Archbishop downwards and right through the Government, they're all having affairs with each other."
"Fucking hypocrites," said Darryl, nodding.
"Hypocritically fucking," said Rebecca. "So I thought: what if we announced that there was going to be a public register of adulterous relationships, just like a public gifts register to avoid corrupting officials? We wouldn't put names and faces on it, but we could get Jacob to do up a graphic that looked like a realistic tree of all the declared relationships." Jacob was Brooke's fiancé, and head of tech at the station. It was a tightly-knit team.
"I like it," said Darryl, nodding. "The leaders of Government wouldn't, of course, but most of the viewers would think it was hilarious. They're sick of this moralistic crap."
"I like it too," said Brooke, smiling. "I can talk to Jacob."
"No, you're doing the story, Brooke, but Rebecca will do the research with Jacob," decided Darryl. "We want the research and graphics to look as realistic as possible, and Rebecca will do a better job of that: sorry Brooke. But Brooke you would present this better, because Rebecca doesn't do lighthearted stories. People will take her too seriously, and this needs to obviously be a joke story or we'll be in the shit."
Rebecca just nodded. She'd anticipated that split of labor: she had actually been counting on it.
"Some of us might be in the shit anyway," she said quietly to herself. The others didn't seem to hear.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
She and Jacob started work on the story the next Monday. Brooke didn't have to do much until Friday, when the filming would happen and the story would be packaged for legal clearance before the following Tuesday, April Fools' Day. In the meantime, of course there were a lot of other news stories to be getting on with.
Rebecca liked Jacob, and had often wondered how he had gotten together with Brooke. He was quiet, dark-haired and serious, much like herself. From what Rebecca had seen, Brooke tended to push him around a bit, talented though she was. He was happy being the technical wizard of the team, and he was well respected for it. He had already been here when Brooke joined, fresh out of some junior roving reporter's role interstate, and he had helped her in the background, polishing up her stories, giving her a place to live, supporting her growth into the station glamour queen. She professed to love him, but Rebecca wondered if that would last. Brooke was made for higher things. Or at least, that was what Brooke thought.
"I can mock up a web page that looks like an official adultery register," said Jacob. "We can even create it in real life, so that nobody else grabs the URL once we run the story. Just give me an idea of the real web of cheaters out there: that will help us make a fake one for legal approval. The more truthful it looks, the more relaxed Legal will be about any potential defamation issues. Maybe talk to Jeanette in Admin?"
"Good idea," said Rebecca, and flashed him a smile. Not the first time, she wondered what Jacob would be like to live with. Apart from being a hell of a nice guy, he was handsome, keeping his dark hair nicely styled, keeping fit, and wearing nice clothes. Not like most tech guys she knew.
Stop it, Rebecca,
she thought to herself.
You're meant to be researching a story about adultery, not fantasizing about it.
Jeanette thought the idea was a hoot, and threw her resources behind it. She was a bubbly, freckled redhead and a seriously good networker.
"There's a girls' lunch tomorrow," she said. "Half the Executive Assistants who matter in this city will be there. I won't let on about the story, but I'll steer the conversation that way. Leave it with me."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On Wednesday morning, Jeanette collared Rebecca and made her report. She proffered a small voice recorder and a sketch pad full of names linked together. Many of them had multiple links to various other people.
"I took a highly illegal recording and sketched this out last night. Everybody in this town and beyond is sleeping with each other. We can probably extend this to the President, the Pope, or the King of England if you like. I've never seen such a good argument for safe sex."
