Good Neighbours

Penny froze, her face ghost-like. Daniel wondered, idly, how Marcia's confrontation was going. "Not an affair, exactly," he said, concluding his explanation, "just being a good neighbour." He smiled a mischievous grin before adding, just for the rhetorical effect, "Who knows, maybe a little wife-swapping, or an open marriage, perhaps? What do you think?" He realized, though, that of all the possible resolutions of the current situation, that one was incredibly unlikely.

Notwithstanding, he watched her, his errant wife, in the ensuing silence, as she struggled with her emotions. He could just imagine what was going through her head: distress, guilt, betrayal, discomfit – all traversing her face, and flashing through her eyes. Surprisingly, he felt no anger, only a sort of smug self-satisfaction.

"I don't know" he mused, "is there a difference between getting even and revenge?"