Curiosity Killed the Cath

Curiosity Killed The Cath

by Vandemonium1

I believe this one has an original discovery method and an unused response from the cheating wife. It has been independently rated at 3.5/5 pickaxe handles on the rating system that you can find via my and CreativityTakesCourage's joint profile, SemperAmare.

A big thankyou to Charlie for the review and, of course, the love of my life, CTC, for translating my demented gibbering into English.

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IF YOU KNOW how to, all the technology available to the average Josie in the twenty-first century makes private investigators and high-priced surveillance equipment somewhat redundant, especially if your husband, like mine, still lives in the twentieth.

Why would I need surveillance, I hear you say? Why, to prevent my husband from discovering I'm not at a work seminar in Brisbane like I told him, but actually in New Zealand with my lover, of course.

Pete is in the bathroom right now and I'm lying on the bed in a five-star hotel awaiting him, wet with anticipation over our first lovemaking session not taking place in an empty office or storage room at work.

I won a week-long trip to the land of the long white cloud, including flights and accommodation, in a local competition, not that Dave, my husband, knows that. As far as he's concerned, I'm at the aforementioned seminar in Brisbane. If he were to ring the hotel there and ask for me, the call would get put through to my friend, Betty, who's booked in under my name. She is then under instruction to warn me. Pete and I have literally left no stone unturned to prevent our spouses finding out we aren't where we're supposed to be. That would be unthinkable.

Of course, I have to rely on a few things, like Dave not knowing how to use a find-a-phone app on my cell to show it's not where it's supposed to be, but that's a certainty. Dave only got a smart phone two years ago. Prior to that he'd owned an ancient clam shell one and talking him into giving it up had been like trying to wean a toddler from a pacifier--a nightmare. Even then its replacement was only a second-hand, ancient iPhone 5 because he couldn't see the point in spending a small fortune on a phone when he knew he'd hardly use any of the features. No chance.

I could rule out Dave jumping on a plane and surprising me in Brisbane. Well, not surprising me in Brisbane. I'd deliberately picked this week as he was wrapped up all week negotiating the sale of his business. We were retiring soon.

Could he find out I'd taken annual leave for the week rather than being on the clock? Again, no. For that he would have to have access to my electronic timesheet and he was computer illiterate. With the last of the kids having left the nest five years ago, and Dave being so busy growing the business to increase our retirement, we hadn't been on more than a couple of long weekend breaks in years. I would get all my annual leave paid out when I retired soon. Dave would never realise I was paid out nine weeks instead of ten.

I was sure looking forward to Pete coming out of the bathroom. It had been a long day. Dave dropped me at the airport at 7a.m., flight to Sydney before a three hour wait in the international terminal and a four-hour flight to Auckland. Taxi to hotel, the check-in and handing over voucher for five nights accommodation and a quick shower to freshen up. Of course, Pete wanted a quickie before dinner but after I pointed out that with the time difference, we only had thirty-minutes before the restaurant closed, we headed straight there. In the end, the hotel restaurant was full so we went next door to a little seafood place.

After we'd eaten, we found out the restaurant didn't take AMEX, which was the only credit card Pete carried. I was forced to use my Mastercard, which was linked to my main savings account. I shared the account with Dave and I knew the transaction would show on the statement, but as I handled all the family paperwork and finances, the risk was infinitesimally small. I paid and we returned to the room and the time this story started.

I lay there dripping with anticipation, reviewing my security arrangements for the umpteenth time and finding no flaws. All I had to do was call through the closed bathroom door for Pete to stay in there until I'd finished on the phone, then lie back and enjoy Pete's attentions. He said he had a very talented tongue. I was curious to see if that were true.

I tried my phone but it didn't work. Visions of Dave knowing about my affair and cancelling my phone plan flashed through my head, spurred by the innate guilt and deep worry about my activities, I suppose. Then I kicked myself. I'd forgotten to enable international roaming on my cell. Relieved, I fired up my laptop, went to my phone provider's website and changed my status. Then rang and briefly told Dave that after the day of travel and seminar registration, I was bushed and going to bed early. Caring as always, he urged me to ensure I ate properly and asked what I'd had for dinner, I told him that Betty and I had eaten at a seafood restaurant.

I'm aware that liars need good memories and mine was as fallible as any late fifties woman, so I'd judged it good practice to stick as close to the truth as I could when lying to Dave. If he ever asked me again what I'd done for dinner that first night, I could just say I went to a seafood restaurant, and not have to memorise a lie. We exchanged 'I love yous' and both meant it. He was normal and I relaxed.

You might ask why I could do what I was doing and still love my husband to distraction. Why I was guilty and still cursed with a little deep-down worry? I put it down to my curious nature, or should I say, my natural curiosity. Dave was the only guy I'd ever slept with. I was curious what another guy would be like. I was curious if infidelity was as exciting as some of my acquaintances said it was. I knew that within a decade my libido would shrink and eventually die and I knew that once we retired and lived in each other's pockets, the opportunities to experiment would be very limited. I was curious to know if men other than my husband still found me sexually attractive. That's why I'd pursued Pete.

Ask Dave about my curiosity. He'd learnt over the years to only buy my Christmas and birthday presents at the last moment. Once I knew he'd bought them, I hounded and hounded him until he got sick of it and told me what it was. I was curious as to how things worked, where they went, why things were done a certain way. I must have been a horror of a child with my need to know everything. Oh yes, curiosity was a very powerful driver of my behaviour.

That night satisfied my curiosity. It was almost as good as I'd built it up in my head to be. Pete was an adequately endowered and considerate lover. He got me off on his tongue before entering me and didn't stop until I was satisfied, as a gentleman shouldn't. I did miss the emotional connection of cuddling afterwards, though. Neither Pete nor I had any delusions there was any romantic side to this trip. We made love again in the morning before heading out to see the sights. Later, we booked a bus trip for the next day to Rotorua at the hotel tour desk before showering. The same conference as the night before had the hotel restaurant booked out so we wandered along the street and found another nice place.

The problems began at the end of the meal. This place didn't accept AMEX either, so, once again, I dragged out my Mastercard. Declined. What the hell? I'd paid the balance off in full just the week before so I knew the problem wasn't a balance issue, and I'd used it last night, so I knew international transactions weren't barred. It was embarrassing for Pete and I to have to dig through our wallets and purses to scrape together enough Australian currency to pay for the meal. We ended up paying the same amount in Ozzie dollars as the bill was in NZ dollars, even though the exchange rate had that well above the cost.

Only slightly worried, we hurried back to our hotel and as soon as we were in the room I tried to log onto the bank's website. My password wouldn't work. I had a sinking feeling about this. I was on hold with the bank's third world call centre for over forty-five minutes and then another fifteen minutes to get the message from the non-English speaking drone. International transactions had been disabled on my account and, no, they wouldn't allow me to change it over the phone.

Logic said there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. It certainly didn't mean Dave knew I was playing around on him. He certainly hadn't gone on any computer, changed the password, and disabled international transactions. The idea of him knowing how to do that was laughable.

When I glanced at the clock, I noticed that with the time difference it was almost too late to phone home for my nightly check-in. Pete had made his phone call while I was on hold with the bank before. Shushing him, I rang Dave.

After asking how he was and answering the same query from him, he asked how the weather was in Brisbane. I'd done my research beforehand, good old Weatherzone, and related what it had been like in that city that day. Then I dragged the subject to what was on my mind. He sounded his normal chirpy self which twinged my conscience when I thought of how I was deceiving him.

"Dave, do you have any idea why my credit card doesn't work? Or why the password to online banking has been changed?"

There was perhaps ten seconds of silence before the line went dead. The worrying, no, terrifying, thing was that just before the link was cut, I thought I heard what sounded like a sob. Three attempts to ring back over the next five minutes went straight to message bank. The phone had been turned off.

Pete reported his phone call to his wife had been normal and, of course, wanted to make love again. I was worried sick and told him I was no longer in the mood.

The memory of that sob, the most heartrending sound I'd ever heard, was killing me. I tried trying to figure out if Dave could possibly have discovered where I was and what I was doing, but I couldn't fathom it. A restless night's unsleep, listening to the chainsaw snore of Pete and I was a mess in the morning. I was having trouble deluding myself that Dave's refusal to turn his phone back on was anything but sinister. Suffice to say, we didn't show for the bus trip to Rotorua. Instead, I called Dave's phone every thirty minutes, to no avail, and went to a bank that had a reciprocal arrangement with mine to withdraw one grand of emergency money. Then just sat in the hotel room and worried. A fine, sexy holiday this was turning out to be--not.

Extreme worry turned to terror when Mary, our next-door neighbour, rang to say there was a removal truck in our driveway and asked if we were leaving. In my panic, I asked her to find Dave and give her phone to him so I could talk to him, but apparently he refused to accept it.

The game was up. Of that there was no longer any doubt.

Our son, Mike, lived nearby so I rang him to ask him to go and see his father. He answered my question with a question. "Where are you, Mum?"

When I replied, "Brisbane", he hung up on me and now I had two family members with phones either turned off or blocking my calls.

Desperate calls to several airlines revealed that the Auckland airport was now closed due to their curfew and the earliest flight I could get was 10a.m. the next day. No sleep again and an annoying Pete, who refused to accept the gravity of the situation until I pointed out that if Dave knew, his wife might soon as well.

The drive to the airport and the long wait in the terminal were interminable. A call to Mary revealed that the removal truck was gone and Dave had driven off late the night before and hadn't been seen since. The sleepless flight back to Sydney and the wait and flight to my home state passed at the speed of an asthmatic snail.

I tried composing my defence but it was useless. Without knowing what Dave knew it was impossible. The fact he knew I was away with a lover was a given, but how did he find out and when? Did he know Pete and I had hooked up on previous occasions? Would that make any difference? Had Dave suspected where I was going and arranged for a PI to follow us? I quaked at the possibility. Even as I was talking to Dave the last time we spoke, was he watching footage of Pete and I doing the nasty? That would certainly explain the sob. Just for a moment, the immensity of Dave's pain at seeing something like that rocked my conscience, and it was horrible.

Or had the PI told him that they'd confirmed my unfaithfulness and had recorded proof but recommended he didn't watch it. That made getting home quickly even more imperative.

How would Dave handle the confrontation? I knew him to be the strong silent type. He'd probably just sit there expecting me to confess all. But what would I say? There was a vast difference between, 'Pete and I have been flirting for a while, but this was the first time we crossed the line', and 'we've been fucking at work for several months and decided to sneak away for the week so we could actually do it on a bed'. Dave would no doubt be expecting a full explanation, but what to admit to?

All the unknowns ate away at me. I needed information.

I explained my logic to Pete, along with the knowledge that Dave's character meant he would certainly tell Pete's wife. That finally made him as worried as I was and as soon as we were wheels down in Sydney, he rang his wife to tell her the conference he was allegedly on was cancelled due to a fire at the hotel and he was heading home. She acted normal so Dave hadn't told her anything... yet.

Multiple calls to Dave's cell still went unanswered, so just before the flight home from Sydney I sent him a text with my arrival time. I had an aisle seat and, as I stood to disembark the plane, I told Pete to wait until everyone else was off and to not even glance at me in the terminal or at baggage retrieval. Our affair was over forever. As I stood looking down at him, I tried to remember the satisfaction, pleasure, or orgasms this man had given me. My mind was blank. So much stress and pain... for what?

I'd decided on an aggressive but unscripted defence to Dave. I still didn't have a clue what he knew so decided to offer no details until I'd dragged out of him what I needed to justify and apologise for. I took solace in the knowledge that he worshipped me. Yes, he may inflict some short-term pain, but our future was assured. Crossing the aerobridge, I plastered a fake smile on my face and stepped into the terminal.

I suppose some of the men waiting for offloading passengers might have been called Dave, but my Dave wasn't amongst them. This wasn't good. I'd hyped myself up for a confrontation that wasn't going to happen just then. With a sigh, I waited for my luggage then caught a taxi home, increasingly worried about what I'd find there.

As part of my research on the signs that give cheating spouses away, I couldn't help but read some of the consequences in the stories I'd read. I hadn't taken that much notice of them because I would never be caught. Featuring highly in the cheating wife stories was the wife coming back from a trip away with her lover to find the locks changed on the house. If Dave had done that, I would have no choice but to go stay with my sister, who would not rest until she discovered why. She was almost as bad as me when it came to needing to know.

Then there was the other burning question. Whose stuff had been removed from our house? Mine or Dave's?

Second only to my desire not to lose my husband was the wish for my transgression not to be made public. I enjoyed a high social status in my community, being on several church committees and in the local neighbourhood watch. I made a mental note to add swearing Mary to secrecy to the list of priority things to do. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to jump to the true conclusion about a scenario that included an absent wife, removal truck in the drive, and a husband's refusal to talk to said wife when a phone was thrust at him.

Oh god, why hadn't I given any thought to consequences BEFORE I strayed? Even if almost twenty-four hours of constant worry was all that happened, it wasn't anywhere near worth it. Screw my curiosity about a different man and the excitement of infidelity. And double screw my curiosity about whether or not I still 'had it'. What did that matter as long as my husband still desired me?

Lugging my suitcase to the front door, I pulled out my door keys, then stood there for a little while, praying the key worked and Dave was feeling reasonable. Something made me look around. Mary was watching me from her front yard, as was her neighbour and the nosy lady across the street. Two more curtains were twitching in the cul-de-sac. I guess they had a thing about curiosity too. I looked back at Mary, who looked away sheepishly. Oh well, there goes my reputation.

The key turned in the lock and I escaped the smirks and disapproving looks by going inside. I could see from the view I had of the lounge from the front door that my life wasn't going to be easy for a long time. Just that glimpse told me Dave was gone. I dropped my bags and raced through to the lounge, noting favourite pictures and knickknacks of Dave's were absent. Room after room told the same story. I mean, hardly a trace of him remained in the entire house. The sight of his empty closet was bad enough, but when I dragged myself back downstairs and saw his wedding ring on an envelope in the middle of the kitchen table, I just sank to my knees and wept as I thought of the balance sheet.

On the debit side, I'd caused immense pain to my husband. A man that in no way deserved the knife I'd personally driven into his back. What relationship I'd have with him from here on was a total, terrifying unknown.

That went for my kids as well. They'd had twenty-four hours to hear and absorb Dave's side of the story, possibly backed up with photographs and videos. We'd instilled both of them with keen senses of justice, after all. Years of lessons on honesty, morality, ethics... why had I stopped leading by example? Damn my curiosity.

With the juicy gossip Mary had unleashed, I knew I wouldn't have the courage to attend church or any other neighbourhood function in the near future, possibly forever. And I really didn't want to dwell on my job. My boss attended the same church as I did. If he found out what Pete and I had been up to, either from local gossip or from Dave telling all and sundry, I was out of a job. He wouldn't do it for performance reasons or through any stupid morality clause in my employment contract, he'd just give me the boot and to hell with the legal consequences.

Balanced against this... oh god, this annihilation of the three pillars of my life; family, job, and social acceptance, there was what? Vague memories of some quick fumbles in the office after everyone else had left. Events where Pete just lifted my skirt, shoved my knickers aside, and deposited a load in me. Hell, I hadn't even gotten off during those encounters. All they'd achieved was a mess between my thighs that necessitated me shoving a wad toilet paper in my panties to get me home and a race to the shower once there.

Yes, the trip to New Zealand had satisfied my curiosity as to my continuing appeal to the opposite sex and what sex would be like with another man. And, yes, I remembered having enjoyed our two couplings there but though I knew I'd actually orgasmed both times, those momentary, ethereal events were already fading fast from my memory.