PokeHer Face

It was quite clear now that he knew almost everything, somehow, he must have been tipped off or became suspicious. I had to assume that the envelope had come from a private investigator. What I didn't know was how far it went back.

"I can tell you why, but it will hurt you, Jimmi. Are you sure?"

He made a small, expressionless nod to continue. So I carried on from that moment in Dan's office I had been describing.

"As he was kissing me, his hand reached down and slid the hem of my dress up and gripped my bum cheeks hard. He pulled me in against him, and I could feel his hardness push against my belly as we were locked in a violent kiss. He started to to...to..lift...me up and...I..I'm sorry....I lifted my legs....and locked them behind him. I...I...reached down a...an...and undone his trousers before he...he pushed his co...."

I looked at Jimmi, he had closed his eyes as a single tear rolled down that blank face. I started to cry hard, just saying sorry over and over until I was practically hyperventilating.

"Was he better Jade? Is that why you've continually gone back. I assume you love him, as you have purchased and shared all this lingerie I do not recollect seeing you wear."

I jumped from the chair and tried to move around to hug him, but Jimmi calmly put a hand up to stop me, telling me to sit back down and finish telling the truth. I was a broken woman now, and I was sure my husband was broken behind the facade he was putting up.

"He wasn't better, but he was different, so very different. You are loving, gentle, you think, and cater for, my sexual needs and wants probably more than your own needs. It's slow and sensual and I love the way we build to a climax over time, all those years we've shared and explored our bodies. I love you, Jimmi!"

I fought to hold back the tears; I meant what I said. I jumped up from the chair again, but this time I pushed past his hand and clung to him as my tears spilled onto his shirt. Up until this moment his hands would have reached around to comfort me, today, they sat immobile, resting on the arms of the chair.

He spoke, softly.

"Please Jade, go sit back down. This is the hardest part of the rest of our lives, let's get through it. I have some questions Jade, if you don't mind."

I nodded as he started what was beginning to feel like an inquisition.

"Did he make you come, Jade."

I couldn't open my mouth, but my expression of guilt and the copious tears told him the answer, but it seemed it wasn't enough.

"Answer the question, Jade, yes or no?"

"Yes."

"Did he make you come more than once in a sex session?"

I didn't want to answer, but he already knew.

"Yes"

"How often, Jade"

"Every Friday I went out with the girls when you were working."

"No Jade, that wasn't the answer I wanted. How often... how often did you come during your session?"

I didn't want to answer, but he already knew the answer. I could only barely speak between the flood of tears and my sobbing.

"At least a couple of times."

"Did you dress up for him?"

"Yes"

I was finding it harder and harder to keep myself together, I wasn't even sure if he could understand my words through my constant sobbing, I wanted it to stop, every question felt like a knife going deeper into my heart.

What did you give him, Jade, did you give him the things you denied me?"

"No, I didn't give them, but he took them, and I let him."

I sobbed uncontrollably again, I had just confessed to giving another man my anal cherry, and I never swallowed for Jimmi. The shame was overcoming me and he could see that so he told me to drink some water and calm down as best as I could. A few minutes later I sat shaking, but just coherent. He said just a few more questions and he would stop.

"Did you enjoy the sex, Jade, you went back, again and again so it must have been better than what we had."

"I told you, he was just different to you. You're loving, respectful, he just takes me and I don't know why but it does something I can't explain to me deep inside. It's wrong, but I can't help it, please treat me the same, punish me, make me your whore, not his!"

I could not stem the major flow of tears again, and started to feel as if I would pass out.

"Jade, one last question."

I nodded.

"Do you love him more than me?"

That was it, it tipped me over the edge, I hyperventilated until I passed out. When I came around, he had picked me up and laid me on the sofa indoors. The dreaded manila envelope was on the arm of the sofa.

"I'm sorry Jade, we need to finish this, can you answer the last question."

"No, I have no love for him at all! It was simply a release, I don't know why or what has driven me to keep going back to him, it's been like a drug, and like a drug, I've become an addict. I knew of the consequences just like an addict does but I couldn't stop even though I would have days telling myself it would have to stop. What happens now, Jimmi, please, I beg you, don't leave me, we can work this out together, there has to be a way!"

"Jade, thank you, that is the end of this part of the conversation, you can now take your copy, which is in that envelope."

I sat up, my shaking hands picked up the envelope, surprised by how light it was. When I opened it, there was a single thing inside. A small digital recorder.

"If you push the little toggle to the left Jade, it will stop it recording."

I did that and examined it, it had me confused and my mind started to regroup its thoughts. He had nothing bar this small device I held in my hands but, of course, he knew and that was the problem, my husband knew. In glorious detail from my own admission, I had just confessed to the fact I had betrayed him, in the worst possible way. I thought about crushing it to destroy the evidence, but the real evidence was now part of our memories, so what would the point of trashing it?

"Jimmi, this doesn't make sense, you knew, you must have done. You couldn't have picked that lingerie out randomly, could you. When did you know?"

When I looked at him, his poker face was gone, he'd won and I had lost. Tears spilled from his broken eyes, and a deep loss was etched on his face. I was never going to be able lose that image of my husband sitting there at that very moment for the remainder of my life, and at the moment, I was wishing it was going to be a short one.

He spoke, his voice now barely holding it together.

"I found out Friday, but I wasn't one hundred per cent certain. I needed you to tell me for sure. When you got out the shower to talk to me, I suddenly noticed this brand-new piece of lingerie hanging on the door hook, it was only a reflection in the mirrored wardrobe, but I saw it. You always hang your clothes there when you are getting ready. It was in the packaging, and I wanted it to still be in the packaging when I made it home, but we both know it wasn't."

"I looked at the doorbell footage when you left Friday night, noted the time, and by carefully pausing the video, I could just see parts of the lingerie showing as you turned and blew a kiss at the camera. When you returned and did the same, you stood directly in front of the camera for slightly longer, long enough to see you had a different bra on, so you had changed. When you left, I called my sister to tell her to note what time you arrived at the club, there was almost two hours, which meant that there was ninety minutes of your time unaccounted for. Thank you for telling me what you did with those ninety minutes. Until that point, I was clueless."

I was trembling, but I had to ask the question?

"What now Jimmi, can you forgive me, can we find a way forward?"

He looked at me with tears spilling from his eyes.

"I forgive yo.."

I never let him finish, I jumped up and threw my arms around his neck, kissing him over and over on his cheek, but I stopped when I tried to kiss him on his mouth, he hadn't reacted, his expression was blank again, and the tears were still falling. I stepped back away from him.

"I forgive you Jade, for the first time it happened, I can understand the pressure, I already knew you weren't in the best place mentally during and after covid. I had spoken to my sister, she had a friend whose wife was a nurse and died in covid, a decent, attractive guy. I honestly thought about suggesting you have indiscreet meetups, if it pulled you from a dark place. As for all of the other times you cheated on me, I can't forgive them, and I can't see past them."

I wanted to cry but I had to seize on the small chink of an opportunity he had given me.

"Wait, Jimmi you would have let me sleep with someone...what's the difference, in fact I think you are suggesting more than I've done. I had an hour of straight, hard fucking when I was with Dan, and yet your suggesting that someone could have treated me in the same way you do!"

He walked across the room and picked up a vase, my vase.

"Jimmi please don't, you know what that vase means to me!"

"I know Jade, I've got no plans to do anything other than look at it. I remember this, how proud you were at school when you made this, I remember it being on display during our final year, showing that there were some talented people in school. We've both come to love it. I'm not going to, but suppose I hurled it against the wall to smash it into thousands of fragmented pieces. Let's say we then spent a year finding every tiny fragment until we are sure we have every piece, then carefully glued it all back together. Would you still want to stand it somewhere prominent in our house? Would it be the same? On the other hand, supposing we both agreed to lend it to someone to appreciate it, and they returned it intact?"

I knew where this conversation was going, but I had to continue. I could barely whisper the answer.

"No, Jimmi, it would stand out that it had been glued back together, it would look similar, but not be the same. But if we lent it someone, they would look after it, and return it intact."

By then I broke down and wept uncontrollably, I understood the reference. Our marriage was the equivalent of that vase smashed into all those pieces, Jimmi would only see it as that vase after it was repaired. The vase would never be the same, our marriage ditto. If we lent it out, and by that he meant if he had agreed to some form of relationship with someone else whilst he was away, then there was a likelihood our marriage would remain, most likely, intact too.

"What now?"

"I've already packed a couple of bags and spoke to my sister about staying there. You stay here, you were a brilliant estate agent so get to work selling this place, unless you want it and can finance the mortgage to keep it? I want to be fair, we have no kids so a straight 50/50 split or thereabouts. Before I leave would you be happy with that settlement?"

I wanted to scream and shout that it wasn't fair, I didn't want him to leave, but I knew my husband. He would never see our marriage in the same light and it would fall apart. I didn't sob, I held it in, but the tears ran down my cheeks like two mini rivers. He went upstairs and came down with two cases.

He walked over to hug me tightly, as the sobs started again, from the bottom of my heart I understood my husband would never hug me like this again. I could barely speak.

"If I could damn myself to an eternity in hell to keep you I would, but I know I can't. If it means anything, I'm truly sorry for what I've done."

"These things happen, watching you the last hour has been enough punishment in my eyes, but you've lost something that was precious to both of us, I pray you can come to terms with it."

Then he was gone, I sat on the floor with the front door open watching, as his car pulled away from the house, likely to never return. I wanted to run into the kitchen and slit my wrist, but that would be the easy way out for me, and I'd be punishing Jimmi even more than I have already managed to achieve.

***************

In April 2024 I held my godchild, Amy, and pledged my life to her. She was so tiny and helpless and I was grateful to have this opportunity. After Jimmi left me, I was unaware he had given notice for his job. I later found out he was planning to get a local job of some sort if his suspicions turned out to be unfounded, otherwise he was looking at going abroad. He ended up in the USA four weeks after leaving me. When I found that out, I couldn't handle it, but Jimmi had asked his sister Beth to use my circle of friends to rally around me and they managed to help keep me afloat.

The house sold fairly quickly and up to that point, Jimmi kept paying the bills and even paid me some money to keep myself going until that point when the house sold. I never contested the divorce and six months later our marriage was just a statistic in the UK divorce cases. At that point I wrote a letter which I passed to his sister to forward to Jimmi, it didn't feel right to send a message expressing my sadness, and the fact I was sorry for what I had done to him, he didn't deserve it.

Surprisingly, I received a reply, although no address was stated. He accepted my apology and apologised himself, for putting me through the grilling when he tricked me into confessing my affair. He also apologised for not being there when I needed him, if he could turn the clock back, he would have left the rigs to be with me rather than leaving me when he knew I was down, He said he had to share some of the responsibility for what happened. That made me break down and cry, it was typical Jimmi.

I left Yorkshire and took a job in an estate agency in South London, and rented an apartment in Greenwich. It was hard making such a drastic break and I was close to giving up when I found a man to love, and now loves me back an equal amount. I was asked to look at a property that the owner wanted to put on the market and met Jerry, a quiet man in his late forties. It was an exceptionally nice detached four-bedroom house in Bexley which would fetch a tidy sum. The house was completely empty and, when we reached the main bedroom, he broke down and cried his heart out. I held him to me tightly, promising it would be alright. It turned out his wife had died of cancer six months back, he had moved out, but knew he needed to sell the house and this was the first time he had stepped back inside it. Needless to say, love bloomed, I'm happily remarried, with a step-son although he is twenty.

I was surprised to receive a message from Jimmi - he had remarried in America and had a new born daughter, Amy. It pained me that he now had one thing I couldn't give him, a child, but there was also happiness that he had something he had previously been prepared to forgo when he was married to me.

He had spoken to his wife, Cassie, who had agreed in principle to allow me to be a godmother to Amy. Jimmi was over in the UK, and came to visit me & Jerry in Canterbury, close to the cricket ground. His son was at university there and we both liked the area, plus it was close to the coast which we had grown to love.

When the doorbell rang, I was shaking, not sure what to expect. I was about to come face-to-face with my ex-husband since the day he walked out of our house. I walked to the door with Jerry, he kissed me and told me we would be alright. He held my hand tightly, I wanted to cry but knew I shouldn't as I opened the door to see a tanned Jimmi, with a woman who looked at least ten years younger than him holding a small bundle called Amy.

We ushered them indoors and went through the introductions, Cassie started off guarded, but I think she quickly sensed I was happy in my life, and within an hour it was like we were old friends. I knew that Jimmi and Jerry would have no issues they did share some similar traits, although, once I became more intimate with Jerry as our relationship grew, he was somewhere between Jimmi and Dan in the way he treated me in the bedroom.

For someone that didn't deserve a second chance, I promised to never, ever falter in my relationship. I took it as far as to have a tattoo (something I had never done) at the top of my left thigh. It was a small scroll that said 'Till Death Us Do Depart.' Above the top of the scroll, it said Jerry, and just below it, said Jade.

As the afternoon wore on, I was talking to Jimmi, thanking him and apologising yet again. He smiled and said in the end, it worked out OK for both of us. I could not have children, and Jimmi accepted that that was how our relationship would be, having Amy and meeting Cassie was a big positive. He asked me what happened regarding Dan, why didn't I follow that relationship.

"There was no proper relationship Jimmi, it was literally a short fuck-fest on those Friday's nothing more, and nothing less. Neither of us cared the slightest about the other. After you left and he found out, he dropped me like a stone, not that I would have gone back. He got the biggest thrill from knowing I was married. I know that you were prepared to divorce on the pretence we had simply grown apart, but I came clean, although you already know that from your sister. Word spread he was a homewrecker, with no morals and it took hold through the local social media about the damage he had done. When another woman stepped forward with the same story pre-covid, there was a huge drop in his numbers and the club shut up shop. He just disappeared after that."

As I was finishing my sentence, I see that something had distracted Jimmi. I had a momentary flashback to the day his eyes diverted from me in that fateful video call when he had seen the reflection of the lingerie in the mirrored glass. But this was completely different. He walked over to the mantlepiece and picked up what he thought was a paperweight, but he, and him alone other than me, knew exactly what it was.

By then, Jerry had walked over.

"It's a strange ornament that one, but Jade said it is as important as her vase, and important for us. She touches it every morning when she gets up, and just before we go to bed. She tells me it's what will bind our love forever. I still don't understand it though, why would someone set a cheap digital recorder in a block of clear acrylic to make a paperweight?"

I smiled and took a crafty look at Jade, who was doing the same as me. It showed she had learnt her lesson, never stop loving a good man, even for a second.

* * * * *