A Simple Case of Infidelity

Be forewarned:

First, this is not a BTB story.

Second, there's no revenge. Revenge is a troubling word isn't it. A spouse cheats. They get caught. A marriage and a happy home is destroyed. Can anyone ever really 'get even'? If you think so then stop reading now, because no one 'wins' no one 'gets even' here.

Third, can a man lose his happiness, feel sad, even cry, and still not be called a wimp?

Last, I write for myself first. If you think you can skim through this and get something out of it you'll be wasting your time. I'm long winded. If that bothers you, go no further.

*****

Joe Diffie got it right when he said he wished he could've been the 'Big Bad Wolf' instead of just another sheep in the fold. That's what I wish; it irks me that I've ended up just another sheep. I know what really irks me, but I didn't realize it until it was way too late. Now I know; I've been sheared, taken to the cleaners, cleaned out, mopped up, just name it, and it hasn't been about money either, it's been my life.

Look, I'm a good guy. I've always played by the rules. I did all the right things. I graduated high school. I belonged to the Forestry Club. I was a Boy Scout. I enlisted in the National Guard and used the support money to go to college where I majored in Forest Technology. I went to Grad School, got a job with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources with the forestry division and did it even right in my own home county. I got a part-time job teaching forestry at the local Community College. I even got married.

Name's Francis Campbell by the way; kind of skinny, wiry's the word. Got brown hair, brown eyes, clear complexion, and lots of determination, or I thought I did.

I'm no kid, not anymore; forty-five, been married twenty-two years, got two kids in high school, a house, sort of, on a small farm, two pick-ups, a jeep, and until recently what I thought was a pretty good life. Not quite so good anymore; but that hasn't been my fault.

The problems been my wife. What'd my dad tell me? God put two things on this earth to torment man; women and cars. I can handle the cars, but women, forget it.

My wife Leslie hasn't always been the disappointment she's become. Once she was the love of my life, but well, everyone knows, the same old same old.

Leslie was a great girl, intelligent, pretty, long brown hair, blue eyes, nice figure, taller than me. I'm 5'8"; she's 5'9".

I'm from the westernmost county in Maryland; Leslie's from the city, that's, ugh, Baltimore, for the uninformed. Leslie went to college just outside Baltimore. She majored in English Literature, and managed to wangle a job out here in the west. It's the west too; our largest town is Oakland! Don't believe me? Look it up.

We found each other right after she moved out. We met at one of the fall festivals. I was already employed and working a stand where I was explaining some of the intricacies of forest life. I had a glass case with a Timber Rattler. I had some pictures of Bob Cats, and a few other odds and ends for the tourists to gape at.

Leslie was new to the area; she had on a brightly colored lavender blouse and some very expensive, and very powerful perfume. She should have known better; it was October in the 'mountains', the queen wasps had already shut down and their little workers were out in search of anything good to eat. Nothing attracts those little yellow striped buggers more than vivid colors, strong aromas, and hamburger goo. Add to that an open soda can and you've got yourself a real invite to some particularly unpleasant company. Well our girl put that soda can to her lips without looking just one time too many, and one of those nasty little critters got her right on the upper lip. Poor girl, she swelled up like a balloon.

Lucky thing I was there. I rushed to the rescue. I popped her some Benadryl, slapped on some worthless salve, and tendered her with all the TLC an unattached twenty-three year old could muster. She wasn't happy, but I did my best and pretty soon, wasp's sting and all we were hooking up pretty good. It turned out to be the start of something that lasted more than twenty years.

She'd come out to the festival with several girlfriends, all new teachers. They'd taken one car, and ridden the commuter bus to the Festival. I had an old jeep at the time so I left my stand in the care of a partner and took the pretty young thing home to her apartment. I got her phone number, and set up a date for the next week. There was some pretty stiff competition for a while, but I fought them off, and the following spring we tied the knot. Two years after that Richard popped up, and a year after him little Victoria made her appearance. Leslie gave up her job and became 'Mamma Campbell'.

For the next eighteen years it was 'happily ever after'. Then the 'Big Bad Wolf' made his appearance.

I hadn't changed much, maybe a little more frost around the temples, but I'd kept my weight down and my muscle tone was good. Leslie had held up pretty well too, actually damn well. The two kids, the pregnancies, had increased her boob size, and her hips were a little broader, but she still had the old sex appeal. I liked to watch other men stealthily stare at her when she sashayed down the aisles of the supermarket. She could really swing those hips; I bet more than a few men went home and jerked off to thoughts of my wife. It was a great feeling; I had her, she was mine, and everybody else could just go home and pretend.

She was every bit as good in bed as she looked too. In bed, in the kitchen, out back in the yard, it didn't matter; we tried it everywhere. Leslie liked the doggy. She liked the old sixty-nine too. She kept her pussy well-trimmed, and I'd get down there and sop up those succulent juices that oozed from between her thick outer labia. She was like some mountain spring, only hot.

She did me too; oh could she do me. She liked to get down on her knees in front of me when the kids were in bed. She'd pull down my fly, reach in, pull me out, and take me in her mouth. She was a true artist. Oh yeah, she kept my motor running, and she kept it running for twenty years. And then...

I found out these things don't just happen overnight; it's not like Monday you're blindly bouncing away and Tuesday it's "not tonight Francis". I thought I was happily married. I thought my wife was happy. I thought we'd stay that way. I thought we'd grow old together. I thought I thought...

~~v~~

Usually, from the things I read on the Internet later, there's some kind of trigger; some sort of event or mechanism that stirs the evil engines of suspicion, the old 'something's fishy' metaphor. Like a fart in church I smelled something that just wasn't quite right.

Since my wife hadn't worked most of our married life handling the day to day chore of managing the budget had fallen to me. No big deal right? It was no big deal as long as there wasn't anything that looked like a big deal. I mean the checkbook, the bank books, the Mutuals, the mortgage, the VISA.

VISA? What's this with the VISA?

We didn't keep a gas card. All our credit expenses we kept on VISA; that included gas. Sure no big deal. I use about a tank every week or so. I had a state truck when I was on duty. Leslie uses a little less. Then when Victoria was up and about more, Leslie got herself a little part-time job at the town public library. OK, sure, two, three afternoons or evenings a week Leslie would be at the checkout counter stamping, or electrocuting, or tazing, or whatever it was they did when they checked books in and out. I guess that took a little more gas; still no big deal.

But it became a big deal when her gas bills almost doubled! Come on, four miles in and out of town three times a week didn't add up to an added $70.00 in gas costs. Something didn't smell right.

I started to give things some thought. For real, I understood it's not like we lived in an area where everybody gets married and stays married to the same person all their lives. What was the line in that old Alan Jackson song; a song I think he lifted from someplace else. How did it go, "Who's cheatin who, who's being true, and who don't care anymore? Who's doin right with someone tonight, and whose car is parked next door?" Not that I thought Leslie was up to something, but gee, that was a lot of gas. I had to look a little deeper.

Leslie has a GPS in her car, and she has an IPhone, but I didn't want to play with her stuff. Gosh what if I got caught? What if she'd been doing something nice? I sure didn't want to look like some creep spying on his wife. Not me. I went out and bought a second GPS and sneaked it in the back of Leslie's car down where her spare tire was. I wasn't being naughty, or nosy, and I sure wasn't spying; I just wanted to know where all the gas was going. I found out.

The gas, along with her car were going to Martinsburg every day or so. It looked like Leslie was getting Victoria off to school, and then slipping down to Martinsburg for a few hours. By the way our son Richard has a vehicle of his own but due to other early morning commitments Victoria had to ride the bus.

What was Leslie doing in Martinsburg? Sure we had friends down there, but twice a week? Besides there were 'other things' too. I'm not a suspicious person, but the gas, then the trips to West Virginia, well it got me to thinking.

We live in a log cabin. In wintertime that means the wood-stove, firewood, and a little dust. I cut, split, and stack the firewood. All Leslie had to do was bring in a few hunks once in a while if I forgot. We had the wood stacked in two places; one was a woodshed about fifty feet from the house, and the second was under the back veranda. We kept a tarp over the wood on the veranda just in case we had a windy rainy day. What's the big deal about lugging a couple pieces of wood fifteen feet in the house, and then making sure the stuff still on the veranda was covered? I didn't think I was being picky about that. Not a big deal; I never said anything.

The wood was a small thing, something miniscule, but what about other stuff. Leslie always kept the beds, filled and emptied the dishwasher, tidied up around the sink, kept the bathroom rugs clean and in place, occasionally she'd run the vacuum over the floors, made sure there was plenty of coffee in the cabinet, saw that the dogs got fed, the cats got let in and let out. None of this involved some Herculean effort, and they weren't just Leslie's jobs. Everybody pitched in. But lately, more and more, I was doing it all, I mean all the pitching in.

Sure that was little stuff, but there were other things. Leslie had her cell phone. I didn't call much, but until lately I was always able to get her. Why now was everything going to voice mail? Another 'bigger' thing was dinner. Leslie was a great cook. She prided herself on some of her meals. Sure there was pizza every now and then, and maybe once in a while we'd eat a 'bought' casserole, but most of the time it was steak, fish, spaghetti, homemade lasagna, venison, rabbit, mac and cheese, meatloaf, maybe even a roast. Honestly, I was starting to get tired of throwing something in the microwave because she was out someplace. Where was this 'someplace' anyway?

There was something else I noticed too. Victoria had been in a car wreck when she was thirteen. Leslie had been driving. It wasn't her fault. She got T-boned by a 'druggie' running one of the only two red lights in the area. Poor Victoria got her legs broken pretty badly. We were in a panic getting her back and forth to hospitals first for operations, then follow up care, the periodic checkups, and the therapy.

Our girl was coming along fine; she'd missed a year from school, but she was back in the saddle. She got good grades, worked hard, and she belonged to a couple really neat school clubs. Of course, staying after for clubs meant someone had to be there to get her when the meetings were done. Richard, Leslie, and I all switched off. This got me; twice in the last month Leslie missed her pickups. Victoria was outside, one day in a misty rain, waiting for a mom who never showed. She called me and I got her both times. Leslie never really had a reason. That pissed me off.

Actually it didn't piss me off; it made me feel sad. Victoria's a sweet kid. A really sweet kid. Missing a pickup was like beating a puppy.

I've got a story about Victoria's innocence I like to tell when I want to embarrass her. She was in the ninth grade and an older kid came to school drunk. Victoria got home and told us how Dillon had been drunk on Va-di-ka. Leslie asked, 'Va-di-ka?' Richard laughed and said she meant Vodka. I thought that was precious. I mean how could anyone forget and leave a girl like that out in the rain?

The second time Leslie missed her pick-up Victoria and I had a little talk. Little was an understatement. I asked Victoria if she had any idea what caused her mom to forget. Victoria got all teary eyed and replied, "Oh daddy...you're so thick!"

I asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Victoria said, "Ask Richard," well I asked him.

Richard didn't give me a straight answer. All he said was, "Just check out mom's new clothes."

I was blind. I never thought. I started watching what Leslie was wearing. Sure she had the job at the library. She needed a few nice things. But I wasn't stupid. Well no; I guess I was. I looked at what the other ladies wore. I checked my wife's wardrobe. She had great legs, but why was she the only one with miniskirts that were mid-thigh? They looked kind of tight too. I loved her new blouses. I stopped in one day. I remembered when she left that morning her pretty white blouse was buttoned almost to the top. Why were the top three buttons undone, and where did the 'push-up' bra come from?

She always had thick brown hair. I never noticed the pierced hooped earrings before. I never noticed the three inch high heels either. Christ the other women at the library wore tennis shoes! Who was Leslie trying to impress?

~~v~~

I thought maybe it was time to look a little further. It wouldn't be that hard. I had the kind of job that enabled me to move around, plus I had plenty of vacation time, taking a day off here and there wouldn't be a problem. It was winter, the right time of the year; there weren't a lot drunken hunters on the loose, it was too soon for canoeing, and the parks were all closed. I checked Leslie's work schedule and her recent travel activities.

My first couple days didn't turn anything up; then on my third free day, a Thursday, the lights went on. I decided instead of driving to Martinsburg or drifting around town I'd just pull off to the side of the road near our house to see if anybody showed up. We live on a small farm but our house is near the road. Across from us are two other houses, an old clapboard with some renters, and an old Victorian style with a widow by the name of Venica Hastings. Her parents had died a few years back. She'd been an only child; the house she lived in was the same one she'd grown up in. I'd known her a long time.

Venica's a nice person. She was maybe three years younger than me. Her husband had been a great guy. He'd worked for a private contractor, but he got Hodgkin disease. I didn't and still don't fully understand it except that it attacks the lymph nodes and can be very aggressive. The guy felt bad for quite a while. He'd had some undiagnosed discomfort, got down, and died within a short time. Except for his life insurance he left his wife high and dry. Now she was forced to work all sorts of shifts at the local Denny's to keep her head above water. I'd known her a long time and I liked her.

Well I was parked in a wooded spot about twenty feet from the road listening to talk radio and trying not to laugh when I saw this black Lexus pull out of my house's driveway. Whoever it was must have been parked around the back. I didn't know who it was, but I saw that it was a man, and my wife was home because her car was out front. I couldn't get to my cell phone to take a real picture, but I got a good mental image. It had Virginia license plates. Of course that meant nothing; it could have been a rental.

For sure I'm no detective, no sleuth me, and I sure wasn't trying to spy on my wife, uh huh, but it was my house. I got my jeep moving and parked around the back of my house. I thought, 'what the fuck.' I parked in my usual spot. I didn't try to hide that I was coming; it was my house wasn't it? I got out. Slammed the door, and walked up the back veranda to the door.

It was unlocked so I went straight in. As I stepped in the kitchen I hollered out, "Leslie I'm home. Whose car was that out there?" I heard some shuffling around in the front of the house, and saw Leslie seated on the sofa.

Leslie looked surprised, and kind of chagrined, peeved maybe, a little guilty too. She had on a pretty aqua colored blouse. I noticed the top three buttons were undone. And she was wearing a pretty nice looking pair of dark brown slacks. Her hair was up; maybe a little mussed, and she had a ton of makeup on. The makeup looked smudged up a little. If I was a betting man I would have bet that those pants and that blouse hadn't been on fifteen minutes ago.

We live in a log cabin. I went past Leslie to the kitchen counter. The whole downstairs of our house was one big room; living room, kitchen, dining room. I went to the sink, got a glass and poured a glass of water. I turned to Leslie, "What did you do with the dogs?"

We had two dogs, a yellow lab and a beagle; both were for hunting. I liked to hunt. As I drank my water I thought I bet I knew someone who's been doing some hunting right here behind my back.

Leslie was up and she walked toward the back door and looked out, "They're outside," she turned back to me, "You're home early?"

I finished my water, "Was in the area and thought I'd stop in. Aren't you supposed to be at the library?"

She replied, I was surprised at how easily she'd regained her poise, Then again this was Leslie, she said, "I was just on my way out when that man drove up. He said he was a representative from someplace, an oil company or something. Fracturing he said. He was lost and stopped in for directions."

God was she a liar! I grinned, "That's nice."

I put my glass in the sink, walked over and kissed my obviously befuddled and incredibly stupid wife on the cheek, "See you later. Hope you have a good day. Don't forget to pick up Victoria," I didn't wait for a response. I left the way I came.

I went out back, scratched the dogs, got in my jeep and drove back the way I came. It was the only way out. I didn't go far though. I simply drove across the street to Venica's. I figured I'd give her a call. I sat in the car and thought a moment first. I had some serious things to ponder.

First I acknowledged I truly and deeply loved my wife. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for her. We'd been together for more than twenty years. She gave me two beautiful children. All the time we'd been married she never given me any reason to doubt her. Up until lately, really up until today, I'd have sworn infidelity had never crossed her mind. She was a beautiful human being, pretty to look at, warm and loving toward my parents and our kids, well liked in the community, she sang in the choir, taught Sunday school for years, and she was affectionate in bed. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe that guy had stopped in for directions? Maybe the moon really is made of green cheese?

I got out of the car, saw Venica's late model S-10 Blazer was there, went up the walk, and knocked on her door. The porch looked terrible; loose and partly rotted floorboards, chipped and peeling paint everywhere, the screen door was half off and the screening was filled with gaps and gashes.