Pay for things in cash. Don't keep receipts. Account for your whereabouts with half-truths. Give your lies an element of truth and they will be easier to maintain.
In her time as a private investigator, Simone had seen the same repertoire used time and time again, ad nauseam. Cheating husbands and cheating wives spinning webs of deceit and misdirections in an effort to, what? Feel alive again? Feel whole? Feel anything? What a joke. Her favorite part was when the cheater would say, "I never wanted to hurt you." Often enough, Simone had gotten close enough to hear the visceral hatred, contempt, and scorn these people had for the one they left at home. The worst one for her was indifference. No hatred. No love. Their spouse is just...there.
How do you reconcile that with watching someone with their partner, perhaps on a phone call spouting measures of love and desire and devotion. And the faithful ones, they believe it. Or they lie to themselves because the alternative means they're unloved...or unlovable.
Simone recalled a case where she was following the wife. She sat across the room from the woman and her lover and watched the woman pick her phone up and look at the screen. She rolled her eyes and showed the screen to the man. They laughed. It was her husband. The wife pressed a finger to her lips, instructing the man to stay quiet. The man moved his chair right next to hers. As the wife sweetly lied about what she was doing and who she was with, Simone watched the lover's hand disappear under the woman's dress. Her hand immediately moved to push his away, looking around the restaurant in case someone was watching. Someone was.
Simone fought the urge to look away. Her clients don't pay her to be modest. She was paid to be thorough.
The wife wasn't as chatty now, her "Honey, this" and "Honey, that" reduced to Mm-hmms and one word responses. Simone watched the wife's lover, the man literally invading the space between a wife and her husband, wedging himself between them, not unlike how we was currently wedging himself between her thighs. The wife closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, smiled, and Simone read the words, "I love you" on her lips before she ended the call. No guilt on her face. No remorse on his. She watched as he withdrew his hand from between her legs and brought the fingers to his mouth while the wife laughed about the "buffoon not knowing a thing." They laughed. Simone cringed.
That day, Simone ran her thumb over the base of her ring finger, feeling the cold metal band that encircled her soft tan flesh. Today that ring was gone, but her thumb reached for the same spot all the same. The sensation remained foreign to her and she wondered if she'd ever get used to it.
She resisted the urge to look down at the bare finger, the light band of skin still there a testament to how recently she wore the symbol of love, honor, and obedience. She didn't come here for self-pity. No, tonight she had a different mission, a more personal one.
"Looking for someone?"
The voice came from behind her unexpectedly. She didn't like people sneaking up on her. This guy was lucky her elbow didn't find its way into his solar plexus but he was bold. She could appreciate that. It was a different approach from the men seeking an introduction through the bartender by sending over a drink. It was also a definite improvement over those using that liquid courage to strike up a conversation with her. She turned in her seat and found herself looking in to the hollow of a strikingly muscular neck. Lifting her gaze, passing the way past 5 o'clock shadow on a chiseled jaw, her eyes connected with a pair of the lightest brown eyes she had ever seen. Set in deep olive skin and crowned with dark sable locks, Simone's train of thought jumped the track. The stranger lifted his hand in front of her, palm up and outstretched, and without hesitation Simone slipped her hand into his.
His head descended as his fingers closed around hers. She savored both the softness of his lips as well as the bristle of his stubble as he placed a kiss just between the index and middle knuckles. Savoring the warmth of his breath on her skin as he pulled away, she could not recall the last time someone kissed her hand. The slightest spot of his saliva remained, cooling in the air between them that grew more electrified by the second. She imagined the wetness between her knuckles mirroring the wetness growing between her thighs. He closed his free hand over hers and she understood one thing very clearly. Now that he had her literally in the palms of his hands, she would be hard pressed to get away.
A thought that never crossed her mind.
His name was Philip. Within 20 minutes, they shared their first kiss. She lied and told him she was a school teacher. Her hand landed on his thigh and squeezed, traveling up towards his crotch and then down again towards his knee.
Mergers and acquisitions, he mentioned, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear, tracing his fingers along her neck, across her collarbone, and along the fabric of her form fitting red dress. Simone's breath caught in her throat as his roaming finger gently grazed the aching bud, pressing against the fabric of her dress, screaming for attention. Attention he apparently was only too willing to provide. An image of the same warmth and bristle she felt on her fingers given to her breasts assaulted her and a smile spread across her face.
He mentioned an apartment his company keeps being just around the corner.
She paused and weighed her next move carefully. Deciding she had nothing to lose, she reached for Philip's own aching, she assumed, bulge just to make sure she wouldn't be disappointed once they got back to his place. There would be no problems there.
They both closed their tabs and, arm in arm, walked out into the night.
His building was barely a five minute walk away. Walking in the dead of night, alongside a stranger, past dark corners and abandoned alleyways, it was every woman's worst nightmare. And it might have felt like the longest five minutes of her life had Simone not had a history in personal security to grant her some peace of mind. Not surprisingly, people generally don't take the news that their loved one is unfaithful very well. Even when they were the ones that hired her to find evidence of said infidelity. The unfaithful also tend to not take the news that they have been followed, photographed, and videotaped very gracefully. Simone has had to subdue her fair share of enraged people. Mr. Philip Lonelyhearts here didn't look like anyone she couldn't handle.
But common sense was nipping at her heels. To avoid talking herself out of a one-night stand, she encouraged Philips attention again. He could keep that nagging little voice quiet. She bumped him with her hip and looked at him playfully. Immediately his arms wound around her body and pressed her backwards towards the nearest building. Hands cushioning the impact, his weight bearing down on her, common sense took a back seat to pure unadulterated passion.
