Zero Tolerance Ch. 02

I walked through the house in a daze and went out into the back yard again. I needed to try and eat something to settle my stomach and get my nerves under control while I waited for Susan to return. I was at the food table trying to decide what foods my stomach could handle when I heard a voice behind me. It took me a minute to realize the voice was directed at me. When I turned around I found Mr. Dyson standing behind me.

"I see you finally made it, Mark," he said. "Where is that lovely wife of yours? I saw her here earlier."

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't been able to find her."

"Did you try calling her? I know she had her cell phone with her."

"I forgot my phone so I wasn't able to call her."

Mr. Dyson pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to me and said, "Here, use mine."

I wondered why I hadn't thought to just ask someone if I could borrow their phone. I punched in Susan's number and waited nervously for it to begin ringing. I wondered where she was and what I would say to her when she answered, if she answered.

Susan answered on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Susan, where are you?"

"I am at Dyson's where are you?"

"I am here in the back yard but I don't see you." I said.

Then I saw her as she stepped out from behind a large oak tree about a hundred feet away from me.

You cannot believe the relief I felt when I saw her. I handed Mr. Dyson his phone and headed back to where Susan was waiting. When I got there I found that she had been sitting with two of the girls she works with and their husbands and to my great relief there was no sign of Fred. I couldn't believe that I had completely missed Susan sitting behind the big oak tree with her friends. If I had only had my phone with me I could have saved myself a lot of distress.

"I didn't see your car out front when I got here," I said.

"Brenda gave me a ride. She called me to ask when we were coming to the party and I told her that you were working and that I was going to come by myself and that you were going to meet me here. She said that she could give me a ride out here so we wouldn't have to go home in separate cars."

"That was nice of her," I said. "Now let's get a drink and something to eat."

I was suddenly feeling much better but Susan seemed a little uneasy. I asked her if she was all right and she said she had a bit of a headache. An hour later Susan seemed to be feeling much better and we had a good time during the rest of the party.

On the ride home I started thinking about how I had felt when I thought Susan might have gone off with Fred and I felt my stomach start to tighten again. Then I remembered being told that Susan was seen talking to Fred at the party and began to wonder about the blond that was seen leaving the party with Fred.

Could it have been Susan? Had she gone somewhere with him and returned before I got to the party? I was starting to make myself crazy. How was I going to find out without causing an argument? I had to know.

I waited until we were home before I carefully broached the subject.

"Did anything interesting happen at the party before I got there?" I said.

"No. I just walked around talking to people for a while and then I sat with Carol and Janice and their husbands.

"I didn't see Fred at the party. Was he there?" I asked.

"Yes, but he left before you got there. Why are you asking me about him?"

I was torn. I was angry with myself for even entertaining such suspicions but I was driven to pursue the answers to the questions that had been on my mind every since I had arrived at the party and couldn't find Susan. I had been trying very hard to act like I was only interested in what had gone on at the party but my next statement gave away my real intent.

"I was just surprised that I didn't find Fred at the party talking to you. That is where I usually find him if I leave you alone for a few minutes."

As soon as I said it I wanted to bite my tongue. I waited for Susan's angry reaction but it didn't come.

"I saw him right after I got to the party and we talked for a while."

There was something about the way she looked at me when she made that last comment that bothered me. It wasn't guilt that I saw. It was more a look of sadness.

"Really?" I asked.

Susan's expression quickly changed and she laughed at me and said, "Really. I sense that there is something still bothering you that you are not telling me. You are not still worried that Fred is trying to seduce me are you?"

There was no anger in her voice as she spoke. It was more like she was laughing at me but then I saw that sadness again. What the hell was that?

"Mark, why don't you tell me what's really on your mind," she said, "

"I'd rather not," I said, "I am ashamed of myself for what I thought."

"Now you have to tell me," Susan said. "I am not letting you get away with a statement like that and not tell me everything."

"You have to promise not to get mad."

"I'll wait till I hear what you have to say before I make any promises."

So I told her the whole story about how I couldn't find her when I arrived at the party and how I was told that she was seen talking with Fred. I told her that someone told me that they saw a tall very attractive blond leave with Fred. I told her about the panic I felt and how sick it made me. Then I waited for the anger but it didn't come. Again, I saw the brief look of sadness but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. I wasn't even sure if I had really seen it.

"You thought I might have gone off somewhere with Fred?' This Susan said not with anger but with impatience. "I told you before, Fred doesn't mean anything to me. I just get a kick out of the way he is always trying to flirt with me. It hurts me that you actually thought that I might have been with him today. Fred is no threat to you. I can't believe you still don't trust me."

"You're right. I shouldn't have doubted you," I said.

"Well, it should make you happy to know that Fred came to the party with a date. She was tall, blond, attractive and married. They only stayed for a short time."

Susan kissed me and said, "I guess this is partly my fault. I knew you didn't like it when Fred flirted with me and I should have been more sensitive about your feelings. I'll make a deal with you. If you don't act jealous anymore I will stay away from Fred. Okay?"

I agreed.

"Why don't we go upstairs," she said, "and you can thank me."

Thank her? I wasn't sure what she meant by that.

As I followed Susan up the stairs I couldn't help staring at her wonderful ass in her tight shorts. It was right in front of my face. When we got to the top of the stairs I pulled Susan's shorts and panties down and stuck my tongue between her nicely rounded globes. I took her right there at the top of the stairs and then we went to bed and made love again very slowly.

Afterward as we lay in each other's arms we began to talk.

"Don't you think it's time we started a family?" Susan asked.

"I am ready if you are," I said. "You're the one that has wanted to wait."

"I know but I am ready now," Susan said. "I stopped taking my birth control pills last week."

"You did? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't tell you because I wanted to wait until I was fertile again, like I was tonight," she said. "So it may already be too late for you to change your mind about wanting a baby."

I kissed Susan and said, "I hope it is too late."

*****

Sunday morning I went out to the garage to put the seats back into Susan's van when I noticed that the passenger side had a lot of mud splattered on it. I decided to take the van out to the self-service car wash and clean it up for Susan. She hated to drive the van when it was dirty. I could have washed it at home but I had another reason I wanted to slip out of the house.

I went into the house and found Susan doing laundry and she looked up at me as I approached.

"Why don't we ask Ed and Linda to come over for drinks tonight?" Susan said.

"That's fine with me but remember I have to go to Atlanta in the morning so they can't stay late."

"I almost forgot about your trip," Susan said. "How long will you be gone?"

"If everything goes well I'll be home Wednesday night, if not Thursday night," I said. "Why do you ask? Are you planning to take a lover while I'm gone?"

"Only if I can find one that is better in bed than you." Susan was laughing as she said that.

As I headed back out of the house I called back to Susan, "I'm going to take the van out to get it washed. I'll be gone a couple of hours."

"You don't need to do that. I was going to clean it myself later," Susan yelled.

I pretended not to hear and I left Susan to deal with the dirty underwear and I headed out to run my errand. In addition to washing the truck I wanted to stop by the mall and buy a gift for Susan. The gift was to be part apology for thinking that she might have gone off with Fred and it was part thank you for understanding my feelings about Fred and finally agreeing to avoid him in the future. It was also something I wanted to do for the mother to be even if she wasn't pregnant yet.

The stop at the mall didn't take very long. I already knew what I wanted to get. It was a pair of diamond earrings that Susan had said she liked. I also stopped by the Hallmark store and bought a card to go with the gift. With my purchases made I left the mall and headed off to the car wash.

I pulled up in front of the vacuum cleaners and started with the front seat and when that was done I opened the side doors to clean the back. Behind the drivers seat I found a bag from MacDonald's. The bag was lying on its side and there was a wet spot on the floor around it. Apparently Ed and Linda had stopped at MacDonald's when they went to pick up their antique desk. I wished that they hadn't left the bag in the van. When it tipped over the melting ice in their drink cups spilled out and soaked through the bag. I just hoped it didn't leave a stain on the carpet.

When I picked the bag up the wet paper split open and two drink cups, two Big Mac wrappers, one super sized French fry container with a few fries left in it, two used napkins, four empty ketchup containers and a tissue spilled out onto the floor of the van. I was cursing Ed as I used one of the cups to gather up the trash that had fallen out of the bag. I had everything in the cup except the tissue, which I really didn't want to handle because I figured one of them had blown their nose in it. I carefully picked the tissue up by the corner and I got a real shock when a used condom fell out of the tissue. Luckily, the condom had been tied to keep its contents from leaking out but that didn't make finding it any less disturbing.

I was a little pissed at Ed and Linda. I didn't really care that they had a quickie with their lunch in the back of the van but they should have had the decency to get rid of the evidence. Susan was almost obsessive when it came to keeping her van clean and I was sure she would have a fit if she knew what Ed and Linda had done in it. I decided to keep the condom and give it back to Ed that night as both a joke and a subtle hint that they should have cleaned up after themselves.

I used the tissue to carefully picked the condom up and drop it into the empty drink cup and put it under the driver's seat and then I got rid of the rest of the trash. After that I finished cleaning the inside of the truck and then washed it. Later, when I got home I didn't mention my discovery to Susan. No reason she would ever have to know about it.

At six o'clock that evening I went up to my room to pack for my trip. Once I had my bag packed I wrapped Susan's gift and I was getting ready to sign the card I bought when I heard her coming upstairs. I quickly hid the gift and the card in my bag just before Susan came into the room.

She had a strange expression on her face when she came into the room but she didn't say anything. She just stood there looking at me as if she expected me to say something.

"What?"

"You better get changed. Ed and Linda will be here in about a half hour," she said and then left the room.

I was sure that something was bothering Susan but I had no idea what it might be. I quickly washed up and changed. I went back downstairs and found Susan fixing some snacks. When I entered the kitchen she looked up at me as though she was again waiting for me to say something.

"Is something bothering you?" I asked.

"No. Should there be?"

"I don't think so but you keep looking at me as if I smelled like dog shit." I said.

Susan laughed.

"No, you don't smell like dog poop. I was just wondering if you were going to make love to me tonight. Just in case we didn't make a baby last night."

"It would be my great pleasure to make love to you tonight," I said.

Susan seemed to have returned to normal. She was smiling and relaxed as she continued to fix the snacks.

Ed and Linda arrived a few minutes later and we all went out onto the deck where I had an ice chest full of beer and we sat around and relaxed. There seemed to be two different conversations going on all the time. I would be talking to Ed and Susan to Linda and then it was me talking to Linda and Ed to Susan and only occasionally were all four of us talking about the same thing.

After finishing two beers I went into the house to use the bathroom. As I stood there relieving myself I decided that saving that used condom was a little sick so instead of returning to the group on the deck I slipped out to the garage to get rid of it. I opened the side door and reached under the driver's seat but the cup wasn't there. I put my head on the floor so I could look under the seat but couldn't find it. I thought that it must have slipped out while I was driving so I searched the whole inside of the van but still could not find the cup.

I thought back over my actions and tried to remember for sure what I did with that cup. I was absolutely certain that I had put it under the seat. Then it occurred to me that Susan must have been in the van looking for something and found the cup. I hoped that she had tossed it in the trash without looking inside. I opened the trashcan in the garage but neither the cup nor the used condom was in there. That's when it hit me that Susan must have seen the used condom. She knew I took the van to the car wash so there shouldn't have been any trash left in the van. Susan must have wondered why the cup was hidden under the driver's seat with a used condom in it. Then she probably would have wondered why it took me two hours to get the van washed.

Those odd looks she had been giving me earlier suddenly made sense. Susan must have wondered if the used condom in the van belonged to me. Could she have been thinking that I had been messing around with someone in the back of the van when I was supposed to be at the car wash?

I should never have brought that used condom home with me. In order to convince her that the condom wasn't mine I would have to tell her it was Ed's and then I would have to explain why I had saved the used condom. What kind of sicko keeps someone else's used condoms?

My one hope was that Susan didn't look inside the cup but just took it out and threw it in the trashcan outside. I wondered if I should just keep my mouth shut and wait to see if Susan said anything. I knew that wasn't a good idea. If she didn't say anything I wouldn't know what she was thinking and I didn't want to leave town for three or four days if she was thinking that I might have cheated on her. I was going to have to address it with her as soon as Ed and Linda went home.

When I went back out on the deck Susan gave me another of those looks.

"Where have you been?" She asked. "We were beginning to think you fell in."

Somehow I sensed that she knew what I had been doing. She knew that I had gone out to check on the prize I had hidden under the seat. I decided then to hint at what Ed and Linda had done in the van and hope that Susan would catch on.

I started by asking Ed about their trip to Concord.

"How was the trip up to Concord yesterday?" I asked.

"It was fine," Ed said.

"Did you have any fun on the trip?" I asked.

"Fun? What kind of fun can you have on a trip to Concord?" Ed responded.

It seemed to me that Ed was determined not to admit to anything and when I looked at Linda I saw no sign of embarrassment on her part. If I didn't know better I might have thought that they didn't leave that condom in the van.

It's funny how we move through our lives. We make decisions about where we want to be years from now and then make plans on how we are going to get there. Everything moves slowly and you always think there is plenty of time but them something happens that changes everything in the blink of an eye. That's what happened when I asked my next question.

"Did you have any trouble getting the desk into the van?"

"Oh, we didn't use the van. I wasn't sure if the desk would fit in your van so I had my father-in-law drive me up to concord in his pick up truck."

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Susan was looking at me. When I looked up she turned away but before she did I saw that she had the same expression on her face as she did when she came into the bedroom as I was hiding her gift.

I felt sick for rest of the evening. I just wanted Ed and Linda to leave so I could talk to Susan about what I found in the van.

Ed and Linda finally left around 10:15 PM. Susan started cleaning up the kitchen while I got rid of the empty bottles and took some papers down to the trash can. I looked around quickly to see if Susan could see me and when I was comfortable that she couldn't I made a quick search of the trashcan. There wasn't much in it, just a few food wrappers and a Macdonald's cup. After another look to make sure Susan wasn't looking I reached in the can and pulled out the cup. The condom was not inside. I looked around inside the trashcan but there was no sign of that condom. I wondered what Susan had done with it.

I went back into the house full of trepidation. As hard as I tried I could come up with no reasonable explanation for finding that condom in Susan's van.

When I walked into the kitchen Susan gave me that look again. Was it guilt? Was she waiting for me to ask her about the condom so she could start confessing her sins? I knew that I was going to have to pick the time for this conversation. I had to make sure that I was calm enough to handle the answers to my questions. I was still holding out hope that there was an explanation that would not destroy our marriage.

I decide that I would wait until we got upstairs and then say something like, "Did you throw away the cup I had under the seat in the truck? I found it while I was cleaning out the van. Do you know how it got there?" The question wouldn't be in the form of an accusation. It would give her a chance to answer me calmly. Then it would be up to me to decide if she was telling me the truth or not.

While Susan was filling the dishwasher I headed upstairs to the bedroom. I was getting nervous when it seemed to be taking Susan longer than it should to finish loading the dishwasher. I listened at the top of the stirs for a few minutes. I could not hear anything for a while and then I heard the squeak of one of our kitchen chairs as Susan got up. I guess she had been sitting there trying to decide how to handle things.

Finally I heard Susan approaching the stairs so I ducked back into the bedroom and pretended to be finishing my packing when she came into the room. Susan stood at the door looking at me with that strange expression on her face again and then without saying a word she came over and kissed me.