The Crumpled Letter

I wonder if anyone has ever done a survey on how husbands find out that their wives are cheating. A suspicion that causes him to look into her activities? Something overheard at a social gathering? A good friend who tells him something that the friend thinks he should know? What percentage would be because the wife or girlfriend of her lover found out and dropped a dime on the couple? I'm betting that a survey would show that the majority would find out the same way I did - by accident.

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Madeline and I met in college, had a brief but very satisfying affair, and then went on our separate ways. Three years after graduation we ran into each other at a cocktail party, reconnected and started dating. Six months later I asked her to marry me and she said yes. Two years later we had a three-bedroom house, two cars and a cottage on a lake.

We had both decided early on that neither of us would be willing to give up our careers to raise children and in truth I don't believe that either of us would have been any good as a parent. So, in order to make our sex life more enjoyable and trouble free I had a vasectomy. To make sure that it took I went in once a month for six months and had my sperm tested. The first test showed that I was no longer able to procreate and the next five tests were just to verify that I stayed that way.

A couple of years went by and Mad and I climbed the corporate ladder, each of us doing well in our chosen fields. The higher up the ladder we climbed the more responsibilities we took on and eventually we both reached a point where travel became part of our jobs. It wasn't too bad for me; I only had to travel on the average of twice a month and was usually only gone for two or three days, but Mad was gone for a week to ten days when she traveled. Granted, she only had to travel once every six weeks or so, but I did hate for her to be gone almost two weeks at a time. Mad's trips were always to Boston and I once jokingly said she should find a place and set up housekeeping since she spent so much time there.

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We had been married a little over eight years when I made my accidental discovery. I had a lunch date with Madeline and I swung by her office to pick her up. Gloria, her secretary, told me that Mad had been called into a meeting and had left word for me to wait for her in her office, that she wouldn't be long.

The nice thing about Mad's tenth floor office was that she had a view. I walked over to the window and looked out for a bit and then turned to go back and sit on one of her office chairs. Madeline had one of those large calendar pads on her desk and as I turned my eyes swept the desk and I noticed that in large black letters she had marked Boston in the box for the 24th. She hadn't mentioned that trip to me yet.

With my eyes on the desk pad I wasn't watching where I was going and I bumped into the wastebasket and knocked it over and some trash spilled out. I bent over and bent to pick up the trash and put it back in the basket and one of the things I picked up was an envelope with SWAK printed across the back flap. I hadn't seen that since junior high and I wondered who was sending Mad things with the initials for "Sealed With A Kiss" printed on it. I turned it over and saw that it was addressed to Ms. Madeline Beckman, not Mrs., and it was sent to her work address and not her home address. I looked through the trash and found three crumpled sheets of paper with the same handwriting on them as the envelope and curiosity got the best of me and I put the three pages and the envelope in my pocket. I picked up the rest of the trash and went over and sat down in one of the chairs. My butt no sooner hit the seat cushion than Madeline walked in.

"Sorry to keep you waiting honey, but Brian got a wild hair up his ass over quality control and called a meeting."

"No problem. I just got here a couple of minutes ago. Shall we go or do you need to stick around?"

"No sticking around honey, I need to get out of here so lets go."

Lunch was leisurely and we talked about our plans for the coming weekend and talked some about the boat she wanted to buy for use when we went up to our cottage on the lake. I dropped her back at her office and then headed back to mine.

I sat down at my desk and took the envelope and three sheets of paper out of my pocket and spread them out on my desk. I smoothed out the sheets and noticed that the writer had obligingly numbered the pages and so I put them in order and started to read them. The letter started out, "My dearest Madeline," and I won't bother to spell out the rest of it. It will suffice to say that it was a love letter from someone named Trace. He wrote about how he could not wait to see her again and hold her in his arms and love her like she deserved to be loved.

My jaws got tighter and tighter as I read the letter and it was probably a good thing for Madeline and Trace that I couldn't get my hands on either one of them just then, especially after I read when I got to the top of page three.

"I have your appointment set up at the clinic for 10 AM on the 20th. I wish we didn't have to do this my love, but as much as I hate it I can see where you feel you must do it. I really think you should give some thought to having your tubes tied when they do the procedure so we won't have to worry about this happening again."

Trace thoughtfully included the clinic's phone number so Mad could call them if she decided to have her tubes tied. It didn't take a genius to figure out just what the "procedure" was that he referenced in the letter - Madeline was pregnant!

From the letter I gathered that Madeline and Trace had been seeing each other for some time and I remembered jokingly telling Madeline that she should set up housekeeping in Boston since she spent so much time there. It looked like she had gone and done just that. It explained why she always wanted me to call her on her cell phone instead of the hotel where she was supposed to be staying.

The evidence was there - lying on my desk - my wife was cheating on me. My wife was an unfaithful whore. The question was what was I going to do about it?

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I wrestled with the problem for the rest of the afternoon. I sat at my desk and stared at the wall as I rolled it over and over in my mind and I thought about it as I drove home. I loved Madeline, I really did love her and most of my thoughts were along the lines of how I could handle the mess and still have Madeline and I remaining together.

By the time I pulled in to my driveway I had come to realize that remaining together with Madeline was a pipe dream. There wasn't anyway I could remain with Madeline after finding out that she had cheated on me; I just was not wired that way.

Madeline usually beat me home and had dinner on by the time I got there and that night was no exception. There were candles on the table and a bottle of wine cooling in the ice bucket on the counter. I knew what that meant and sure enough Mad told me over dinner:

"I'm flying to Boston on the 19th and I'll be gone for two weeks so I need you to work your ass off sweetums. You have to give me enough to hold me until I can get home. You have plenty of vitamins I hope?"

I sat there, smiled at her and told her I would do my best as I ran through the scenario in my mind. Her calendar had said Boston on the 24th. Fly out on the 19th, go to the clinic on the 20th, use the 21st, 22nd and 23rd to recover and then report to work on the 24th.

Trace would no doubt fuck her the night of the 19th and probably one last time before she reported in to the clinic on the 20th. After that I didn't know. Having no experience in that area I had no way of knowing how soon after the procedure she could have sex again, but I was guessing it would be at least a month. Madeline always came home from her trips ready to drag me into the bedroom telling me that she needed to play catch up and I wondered what kind of excuses she would have for not wanting to have sex when she returned from her trip.

Madeline interrupted my thoughts when she said, "Come on sweetums, dessert will be served upstairs in the bedroom."

As I followed her sweet looking ass up the stairs I wondered what the deal was. Our sex life was great, at least from my standpoint, and Mad did not seem any less loving or affectionate so where had I lost her? And what was the deal with trying to fuck me to death just before she went on her trips? We went from our normal twice a night, three or four nights a week to every night as many times as she could get me up and she did it knowing that she was going to step off the plane and be fucking Trace before the sun came up the next day.

"You first sweetums," she said as she stood me next to the bed and started undressing me. "You first and then you can heat me up and then we will see how long you can stay with me."

The woman could give blow jobs. They were the best I'd ever had and I was definitely going to miss them when she as gone. She licked and sucked and played with my balls while a finger teased my asshole. She was looking up into my eyes as her head bobbed up and down and damned if I could see anything in her eyes that told me she wasn't mine anymore. I felt the build up and I tapped her lightly on the head. It was the signal that I was ready to cum. She always swallowed but she didn't like to be surprised. She sucked every last drop out of me and then she got on the bed and spread her legs wide.

As my mouth moved to her pussy I had a bad thought. Mad always loved oral sex before we made love. Did she fuck Trace before she left Boston and came home to me? When she got home was she still full of him? I know she always fucked me one last time before she left the house to fly to Boston. Did she have Trace eat her while she still had me inside her? Just the thought of me eating her after she had fucked him was enough to make me want to puke. I hesitated just a fraction and Madeline said:

"Come on sweetums, you know how much I like it."

I didn't want to, but I knew I had to; I had to keep Mad thinking I was just a stupid cuckold until I could figure out what to do.

I lowered my head, parted her cunt lips with my fingers and then I attacked her with my mouth. I fingered her pussy while I licked and sucked on her clit. She moaned and uttered little cries and pushed her hips up at me as I worked to bring her to orgasm. By the time her body trembled and she cried out, "Oh Jesus yes, yes" my cock was hard again and I moved over her and slid my cock into her cheating cunt. I fucked her hard, we both came and then we went sixty-nine after which I fucked her again. I fell asleep exhausted, but woke up in the middle of the night and laid there staring up at the ceiling, thinking and wondering.

As I drove to work the next morning I had the bare bones of a plan in my mind and I began to flesh it out as soon as I sat down behind my desk.

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The morning of the 19th Madeline woke me with a blow job and when I was awake she maneuvered into a sixty-nine and when I had her good and worked up she swung over me and lowered herself down on my stiff dick. She didn't know it yet, but it was the last time she was ever going to ride it.

After we were done she dressed and I carried the bags she had packed the night before out to her car. I kissed her goodbye and told her to have a safe trip and watched as she backed out of the drive. A final wave as she headed down the street on her way to Boston and out of my life. Well, not completely out, there was still going to be a messy divorce to go through.

Madeline's flight was at three and I caught the one that departed at five-forty. I was parked across the street from the clinic watching when Mad arrived at nine thirty-five in the company of a man who I assumed was Trace. He was an ordinary looking guy and I wondered what Mad saw in him that made her cheat on me with him. No matter, she did it and that was all that counted.

I didn't really need to be there, but for some strange reason that I'll probably never understand I wanted to see her enter that clinic with my own eyes. I glanced around to see if I could spot the private detectives that I hired, but they were good and I caught no glimpse of them. When the door closed behind her I started up the rental, returned it and flew home.

Mad would be gone for two weeks and I had a lot to get done in that time. I had four weeks vacation coming and I had made arrangements to take three of them off. When Madeline made her nightly check in call that night I let the answering machine take the call. By noon the next day I had started moving everything out of the house that I wanted and I let the machine take her call that night also.

Before I left for vacation I'd told my secretary what was going on and asked her to help me out and she agreed to do it. If Mad called my office Sheila would tell her that I was in a meeting. That would do for a day or two and then when Mad pushed (if she called at all) Sheila would mention that major changes were occurring in the company, that I was under a lot of pressure and she was sure that I would get back to Madeline as soon as possible. She would stall Mad for three days and on the fourth day tell her that I had walked out and no one knew where I was. I figured three days was enough time to get what I wanted out of the house, find an apartment and move in. I didn't really think Mad would panic and rush home when she couldn't reach me, but I still wanted those three days just in case.

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By the 24th I had found an apartment and moved in and I had stopped by the post office to arrange to have my mail forwarded. I called Sheila to let her know she could give Madeline the "walked out" story and Sheila told me that Mad had called seven times in the last two days and she was glad she could finally tell Mad I was gone.

"Tell her you were told I quit and that should keep her from bothering you any more."

Then I started doing all the things that would make the divorce nasty. I drained all the checking and savings accounts, cashed in the certificates of deposit we had and cancelled all the joint credit cards. We had an equity line of credit on the house and I maxed it out and put the check in a new account opened at a different bank than the one Madeline and I had been using.

Next I took care of the cottage on the lake. Madeline had always wanted a place on a lake so I had found the property on Lake Chaffee, bought it and surprised her with it on our fifth anniversary. She loved that cottage and went up there every chance she got. I kept meaning to put her name on the title, but never got around to it. I was forever getting calls from realtors telling me there was someone interested and asking me if I was interested in selling. I called one of them and put it on the market and I was not surprised when he called me two days later and told me he had an offer. It was close to my asking price so I told him to accept.

The one thing I didn't do was see a lawyer. I would make Madeline do all the divorce proceedings stuff. By the time she got around to it the house should be in or very near foreclosure since I wasn't going to be making any payments on it. All the late notices and nasty letters would be forwarded to my new address and Mad would never see them. I had sent a change of address and phone number to the mortgage company so Mad wouldn't even get any of the phone calls. With any luck she wouldn't even know the house was gone until she got an eviction notice.

I had cancelled my cell phone contract when Mad flew off to Boston and the signed up with a different provider and got a new number. I wasn't at the office to take calls so all Mad could reach was the answering machine. I swung by the house once a day just to see what the current batch of messages sounded like and then I would delete them and go to my apartment. They started out upbeat:

"Hi sweetums, just checking in. Give me a call on my cell when you get home. I love you sweetums, bye-bye."

By the end of the second day it was, "Rob honey, give me a call." By the end of the third day it was, "Rob, are you there? Pick up Rob." The fourth day brought, "Rob, call me. I'm worried honey, no one seems to know where you are. Is your cell working? Call me Rob."

By the fifth day she was pissed. "Damn it Rob, where are you? What the hell is going on? My Visa was declined and I called them and they said you cancelled the account. Call me." An hour later it was, "God damn you Rob! What have you done? My Discover card and my Mastercard have both been declined because you cancelled them. Damn it Rob, call me!"

I smiled and turned the answering machine off and then I called and cancelled her cell phone contract. Then I drove up to the lake to spend a few days at the cottage before I closed on the sale.

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I stayed at the cottage until the day that Madeline was due back and then I packed up everything I wanted out of the place and left. When Madeline couldn't find me sooner or later she would think of the cottage and drive up and I didn't want to be there. I spent the remainder of my vacation playing golf and avoiding any place where I might run into Madeline. On the Friday before I was due back to work I called Sheila to check in and she told me that Madeline had been in to see Jerry (my boss) and she knew I hadn't quit, but was on vacation.

"I'm betting she will be here sometime Monday to see you."

It was what I had expected and I was prepared for it. I told Sheila I would see her on Monday and then I spent the rest of the weekend playing golf during the day and going to movies at night.

Monday morning I parked three blocks away and entered the building where I worked by way of the alley and loading dock. I went to my office and looked down at the parking lot and saw Madeline sitting there in her car. I could have come in the front door and had the confrontation and gotten it out of the way, but I wanted to turn Madeline's crank for as long as I could. I was just being mean. Mad kept looking at her watch and finally she started up her car and left so she could get to work on time.

Sheila came into the office and handed me a pile of correspondence and I told her she could expect a call from my wife in about ten minutes and to go ahead and put it through. Eight minutes later Sheila buzzed me on the inter-com and told me she had Madeline on line two. I picked up the phone and said, "Yes?"

She got out "Where the hell have you been and what the hell are....." before I hung up on her. A minute later Sheila buzzed me again and told me Mad was on line one.

"Yes?"

"Damn you Rob, don't ha..." and I hung up on her again. Two minutes later she was back on line two.

"Yes?"

"We need to talk Rob."

"Go ahead, I'm listening."

"Not on the phone Rob. If I try to talk to you on the phone I'll keep getting interrupted."

"Okay. I'll meet you in your parking lot when you get off work. We can talk in your car."

"Why not just come home?"

"I don't want to."

There was silence on her end for several seconds and then she said, "All right, my car at five o'clock."

In keeping with my desire to keep turning her crank I didn't show up until five-fifteen. As I walked from my car to hers I smiled inwardly to see that she was fuming. I opened the door and slid onto the seat and said:

"Okay Madeline, what do you want?"

"What do I want?" she snarled, "I want an explanation. Where have you been? Why haven't you answered my calls? Why is all your stuff gone from the house? Why are the bank accounts empty and the credit cards cancelled and that's just for starters."

"Easy enough to answer. I moved out, I didn't want to talk to you and I don't want to be with you anymore."

"What? Why? Is there someone else?"