Grave Cruelties

"Frank--"

"A buddy wouldn't have sat on the information about how much of a slut Becca was. Of how much she wanted to fuck him, how she was willing to manipulate her dying best friend into a swap without her husband's knowledge. A buddy would have let his best friend know about how she'd planned it as a stepping stone to full-on swinging."

The shift of topic seemed to surprise him. The tone did even more, though. This had stopped being an accusation and turned into something else: a confession. Or, perhaps, a villain's monologue, depending on your perspective.

"A buddy--a real one, one that hadn't been stabbed in the back by someone he'd loved like a brother since childhood--would have warned you that your whore of a wife had 'joked' with Paula that if the swinging didn't happen after your 'mission of mercy,' maybe she'd just step out on you anyways."

I pulled out an envelope and slapped it on the table. "And a buddy, a real true blue pal, would have told you about the private investigator that he'd paid to keep tabs on the manipulative bitch. He'd have shown you all the interesting pictures that the PI had taken while you were preoccupied mourning the loss of your friendship. The friendship that you killed because you thought you could get away with it."

Aaron looked at me in horror, then at the envelope, then back to me. "Yeah, that's right. She started cheating on you within a couple of months of the funeral, and I kept it to myself. I had planned to send them to you anonymously, once the affair had gone on long enough that I knew you'd never be able to forgive her. But then you had to drag my daughter--your goddaughter, you son of a bitch!--into this sordid little drama. Maybe I should thank you for that, though. I got it all out into the open then."

I chuckled, and he looked up at me again. "Well, almost all of it. I kept the pictures back, of course. Thought it would be more satisfying to watch the two of you tear your own marriage apart, rather than help its demise along with absolute proof. And, God, it was. How long did you two limp along? How much would you have saved in the divorce if you had proof instead of suspicion? A lot, I bet. Guess we'll never know."

I'd almost forgotten how much I'd wanted this confrontation. How it sustained me, back when I learned the full truth. How it helped me play my part at the funeral, to manage politeness towards Becca and brusqueness with Frank, so that he'd hopefully go into a tailspin and she'd think she'd gotten away with it.

It had been even easier to forget after the confrontation at Jenny's apartment, seeing the seeds of distrust planted then and knowing they'd almost certainly bear fruit. That had felt incredibly cathartic, and I decided it was enough for me.

Enough to tuck the envelope away in a shoebox in my closet. Enough to move on with my life. Enough to move past my pain, and eventually to let my daughter set me up with Marilyn, her co-worker. Enough to be happy again in my new life.

But then Aaron had to try once again to worm his way back into my life.

I stood up as he stared at me, openmouthed. "I don't want to be your friend again. And now? I'm pretty sure you don't want to be mine, either. It's true that I miss my friend, the guy I thought I could always count on. I lost him, though, even before I lost my wife.

"I've moved on, Aaron. You should, too. Marilyn will never replace Paula, and I don't want her to. I just need her to be someone who I love and who loves me. Eventually, I'm sure I'll find a new best friend, too. Maybe one who'll actually be the friend you should have been." With that, I tossed down a few bucks to cover my bill, then left my stunned former friend to contemplate his sins.

As I drove home, I considered his sins and mine. Becca's, too. His primary sin was a simple one. Opportunistic. Almost understandable, due to his ex-wife's influence. But they were committed against me, his best friend, and I couldn't forgive that.

However, he was also correct that Becca had set all of us up. She's the one who actually put all this in motion. An outside observer might feel like she'd gotten an easy out with merely being divorced, after all the destruction she wrought. I knew different. I knew how much she'd lost when she inevitably succumbed to temptation.

Becca loved Aaron, regardless of her boredom with their love life; or at least she thought she did. Even if she hadn't loved him, she loved the life of leisure that being married to him provided her. Even with the spousal support, she'd ended up having to go back to work with a degree she hadn't used in twenty years, just as her beauty began to fade. The stress of the divorce didn't help matters there, either; last I saw her, she'd aged as much as Aaron, if not more.

I'd heard through the grapevine how hard she'd fought for her marriage, but she had to try to convince Aaron that I'd lied while also trying to hide her own very recent affair. She simply couldn't manage it. The hall pass with Paula had made it easy to manipulate him once, but only because he trusted her. Those days were long gone. Becca's affair--and her desperate attempts to hide it, which made him even more suspicious--had put the nail in the coffin of their marriage, even if he'd only gotten proof of it a few minutes before.

I'm sure Aaron would have even more questions when he looked through the thick sheaf of photographs and documentation in that envelope. Who was the young stud in those pictures? Why would he seduce a nearly over-the-hill married woman? Where did a college dropout with no prospects and no steady job get the money to wine and dine her?

The photos showed they'd maintained an affair for months, and the PI's notes mentioned repeatedly how strange it was that the man cuckolding Aaron always seemed to make it as easy as possible to get pictures: blinds left partially open, lingering kisses in doorways, blatantly groping in public. Why?

And then the stud disappeared almost as quickly as he showed up, moving to another state right at the exact time that Aaron started to look for evidence of Becca's cheating. At a time when Aaron most needed proof, all he could ever marshal was suspicion. Did the young man somehow receive warning? Did Becca?

All good questions, and ones he'd never receive the answers to.

One thing I'd learned through this whole ordeal: some secrets, I'll take to the grave.

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As usual, my stories wouldn't be nearly as polished without the help of the people kind enough to beta read for me, in this case seraph_nocturne and Constories. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate their insights.

The voting for Literotica's Most Influential Writer is still open, so if you missed me being an attention whore last time, now's your chance to see it again! Seriously, thank you so much to the folks that voted. If you haven't, well, you know... the link's right there. 😉