Sunday July 26 Tunis
We're off the boat. It turns out things were far worse than I realized last time I wrote. It pains me to write about it, but you guys have been so supportive I feel like I owe you the end of the story.
Three days ago, we were crossing the Med towards Tunisia where we would get off the boat. The sea was rough. Marco gave me some tablets for seasickness. I felt so terrible I took three. The pills knocked me out.
I woke up feeling great. The boat was calm -- we were docked in Tunis harbor. The clock read 8pm. I was uncomfortable at the thought of them alone for the last 12 hours. Went up on deck. Mel was reclining on the bench, leaning back against Marco, her head nuzzled into his neck. He had an arm around her. She was in her bikini and topless. Her perfect nipples were standing up firm. Marco's hand was resting possessively on her belly. As I stood there staring at them, he slowly withdrew the hand, giving me a smirk. She sat up.
Marco said something like "Sleeping beauty -- welcome back to the world." I made some comment about a long nap and feeling better -- really, I was still stunned from seeing him so blatantly touching my wife in such a familiar way. The mate laughed and said he had never known someone to sleep 36 straight hours. It hit me -- it was Thursday evening, I had been asleep since Wednesday morning. Which meant... Mel and the guys had two days and a night without me around. That information, together with the familiar way Marco and my wife had been touching, caused a numbing awareness to spread through me. I told Mel I needed to talk to her down in the cabin. She said "Yes, we need to talk." The way she said it seemed like an admission to everything I was sure had happened.
In the cabin, she pulled on a thin top and hugged it around herself. We sat on the bed, facing each other. I was experiencing a storm of emotions -- fear, hurt, nausea. And the strangest thing -- this raging erection. It was like all these feelings of betrayal were also some kind of demented aphrodisiac.
She was quiet for a while. Then, "I slept with him." As she said it, tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her chest. Her admission hit me like a punch to the gut. I knew it had happened, but until she said it out loud, I could still deny it. "That's all you need to know. I cheated on you. Please don't ask me anything else."
My head was spinning, I thought I might pass out. "No," I said, "it's not going to be that easy. I want to know exactly what happened." I was in misery, but I felt I needed to know the full extent of her betrayal, or I was never going to be able to deal with this. I told her over and over that I needed to hear every single, painful detail. Slowly I dragged it out of her.
They were fucking, right under my nose, almost for the whole trip. The first night on the boat, when she slipped out for a shower and I passed out, she hadn't just seen him naked and rushed back to our room. She had gone into his room and sat on his bed. He didn't penetrate her that night, but everything else that could happen did happen.
The first time his cock was inside her was when they were skinny dipping. From then, she fucked Marco every time my back was turned, quickies three or four times a day. When I was in the shower, when I was sleeping, when I left her having a nap and went for a walk on the cay. Soon after I passed out from the pills, she had moved into his cabin. For that day and a half they were fucking constantly.
The truth about Taormina finally came out and it hurt the worst. He had set up the whole thing. While I wasn't watching, he took her up some stairs to a little apartment. It was his friend's place. He told her to wait for him, he would take care of me, then come back to her.
I realized he had intentionally put me at that café and then fucked her so I would hear. I asked if she knew I was sitting just outside the window. She denied it but something about the way she said it made me suspicious. Finally, she admitted that at one point Marco had brought her to the balcony where she could see me sitting below. He had fucked her from behind while she leaned on the railing. Sex in public was such a turn on for her but I wondered how she felt about doing it literally right behind my back. I asked her if that had made it more exciting for her. She wouldn't answer. Finally, tears running down her cheeks, she whispered "I'm so sorry."
I was livid. I wanted to throw up and this time not from seasickness. I don't know why but, I had the hardest erection of my life. I was ashamed of it. I didn't understand it, but hearing about what she had been doing, the anger and jealousy, my only thought was to fuck her immediately. But she wouldn't let me. She pushed me away.
"We're getting off this boat right now."
"Yes, you should go."
Another punch to the gut, "What do you mean 'you should go'? We are going now."
"I'm staying," she whispered. I was floored.
"I'm not leaving without you," I shouted.
Marco opened the door to the cabin -- he didn't knock.
"Bella, enough of this. The talking is a waste. Let him leave." He clapped me on the shoulder like an old friend, "You have a hotel booked, right? Go there now." He started to push me out of the room but I pushed back.
"I'm not going anywhere without her."
