The Argument

On Sunday afternoon, Jane was at the bar grinning as she began to fix their Manhattans as Bill sat down heavily on the bar stool. She was dressed in skintight leather pants with a red sleeveless halter top that bared her midriff and exposed a healthy cleavage. It was an outfit he had not seen before, and she was dynamite in it. It made him wonder with a pang who else had seen her in this sexy outfit.

Tom sighed, "You are certainly a hot chic tonight. You know, I always loved Manhattans, but they are starting to have a new, unfortunate connotation for me."

Jane smiled as she slid Tom's drink in front of him, "Oh, I don't know about that. I think my taste for them is growing exponentially. And now, to the weekly scorecard."

Jane turned to the calendar and affixed a gold star on Saturday. She turned back smiling at Tom, "You have guessed about yesterday I am sure - but you can't prove a thing. Score one for me."

Jane laughed merrily, "Tom, did you really think you could fool me with the phone tracking app? After all, I am the technical guru in this house. I found the app Monday morning after you activated it. I just waited until an apropos time to kill it and leave you hanging."

Tom started to speak, but Jane held up her hand saying in a chirpy tone, "Hold on. I am not through."

Jane affixed a gold star on Tuesday.

She went on gayly, "Your boss has a mandatory weekly staff meeting of all you senior people on Tuesdays at 9:00. According to your secretary, these last anywhere from one-and-a-half to three hours. What a convenient block of time when you are tied up and helpless to check on your naughty wife!"

Tom shook his head in bewilderment, "Another one? God, you are insatiable. Same guy?"

Jane smiled and batted her eyes teasingly, "Oh no, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I went for variety."

Jane's lovely big brown eyes danced with amusement as she sipped her drink watching her husband squirm. She continued, "You have worked out with me at my gym several times on weekends. You must remember Frank? The instructor who looks like the poster boy for the Marines: wasp waist, massive chest and shoulders, crew cut, and those lovely, deep blue eyes."

Tom laughed cynically, "Oh yeah, he's a magnificent male specimen alright. I can believe my wayward wife might want to sample that."

Jane grinned back, "Well, I am not admitting to anything, of course, but several of the wives from the gym have had amazing private aerobic workouts with Frank - they say it really kicks up the heart rate and oxygen consumption. It's reputed to be a very healthy workout! Well, Tuesday is Frank's day off. Let's just say I didn't need to go to the gym or go running Tuesday."

And now Jane had a solid four stars to two lead.

Monday morning Jane had a meeting with a client out by the airport. Tom took the opportunity to purchase and install two spy cameras in their house. One camera that looked like an electronics charging unit, he plugged into an outlet in the living room so its field of vision included the front door and hall. The second looked like a cell phone docking station. This one he placed amidst some piled paperbacks on the bookcase on his side of this bed. It would provide complete coverage of their bed. Both cameras used motion sensors and were Wi-Fi enabled storing their recordings in the cloud. Tom would be able to view the results of the surveillance on his computers at work or at home and on his phone.

Tom smiled and grunted, "Ok, hot cakes. Let's see what I get when you smoke the sheets with Frank or your mystery lover next time. Think I'll post it on the internet for all of your friends to see! That will fix your little red wagon."

Tom returned to his office and periodically checked the results of his surveillance. He saw Jane return through the front door from her meeting and reappear in the bedroom. There she took off her business suit, hung it up, and redressed in shorts and a tee shirt before disappearing from the camera view. Later in the afternoon, Jane reappeared vacuuming and dusting the rooms. All appeared normal on the home front.

After the boss' drawn-out staff meeting on Tuesday morning, Tom returned to his office looking forward to checking his camera video. He was positive he would have some very interesting film to show his wife tonight. Yes, indeed, it would be his turn to fix the Manhattans and gloat.

As he entered his office, his secretary called out, "Your wife called right after you left for your meeting. I put her through to your voice mail. She called again a few minutes ago so you have two messages from her."

"Thanks," Tom replied cheerfully as he closed the door behind him.

Tom picked up the phone and started the voice mail as he signed into his cloud account to call up the camera video to see who he had caught with his wife. The voice recording began:

"Hello Dear. I was just chatting with your secretary to be sure you were in your meeting and not sneaking up on me. Now be sure to cue up your door camera video while we chat."

Tom scowled as he listened and opened the camera files. He clicked on the file for the camera covering the front door and saw Jane walking toward the camera. She bent over. He could see her hand reaching for the camera and then the video went blank.

He quickly switched to the bedroom camera. He could see his wife enter the room and stand at the foot of their bed still talking on the phone. She apparently had not found the bedroom camera.

When Tom had left for the office, Jane had been in skinny capri pants and a casual pullover. Now she wore a short black mini skirt and a pale silky blouse. Her hair and makeup were exquisitely done. Ah, how nice, she dressed up for her lover. Would it be the mystery lover or Frank? Bill was sure that he was about to find out.

Jane's voice mail message droned on cheerfully.

"You have been a sneaky boy. I have been monitoring our credit cards and saw you made a $438 purchase at the electronics store yesterday morning. Goodness, I wonder what you could have been buying and not telling me about. Oh, I know; it must have been that cute little spy camera, I just unplugged. Sorry you won't be seeing my lover come dashing through the front door today."

Jane was giggling now. "Well Dear, you will have to excuse me now. I am about to be a very, very naughty girl. Bye, Bye."

The voice mail ended.

On the camera video, Jane was openly laughing as she put the phone down on her dresser. Tom watched intently, as Jane took off one high heel and then the other. She slowly and languorously unbuttoned her blouse and seductively removed it.

Tom stared intently at the video. Jane's lover would certainly be watching the show as Jane unveiled her body. Unfortunately, Jane's lover was somewhere outside the camera viewing angle.

Jane unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. She stood there posing hands on hips clad only in a scarlet lacy bra and matching skimpy panties. Daintily stepping clear of the skirt, Jane began unhooking her bra. She took her time, no doubt deliberately torturing her lover. Finally, she hooked her fingers in her panties while leaning forward to thrust her naked breasts outward, showing them off to advantage. Wiggling her hips, she slowly snaked her panties off.

Jane, now delightfully naked, stood holding her panties hooked on her right forefinger. She was laughing as she stared directly at the camera. She slowly walked to where the camera was located, spread her panties open, and then dropped them over the camera. The blinded camera, no longer sensing any motion, turned off after three seconds.

Tom groaned in disgust. His wife had outmaneuvered him again.

The first bedroom camera recording ended at 9:17, and there was a second recording that started at 10:26. He clicked to open the second recording and started his wife's second email message.

Her breathless voice rang in his ear, "Goodness me, that was fun. I was tempted to let you watch, but that would end the bet. I still have a lot of March to enjoy yet so I decided just to tease you a little instead."

The camera showed a naked Jane from the rear as she sashayed back to where her clothes had fallen. She was talking into her cell phone and swinging her panties on her finger. She turned back smiling at the camera as she began to redress. She was flushed and her hair tousled. The bed was a wreck.

Jane's voice mail message continued in a pouty tone, "Just look at that bed! I guess I better wash the sheets and remake the bed before my husband gets home. A woman's work is never done. But I certainly earned a gold star today! Well Dear, I am going to go unplug your camera in a minute."

Jane chuckled as she walked toward the camera, "Tell you what Sweetheart, I'm already all duded up for this morning's party. Why don't I just finish redressing and redo my makeup. Then I'll come by your office, and you can take your very naughty wife to lunch. Of course, if you don't want to, I have another offer for lunch that just left and whom I could call. Your choice. I'll stop by in about 45 minutes."

Tom gritted his teeth in frustration as the camera went black and the voice mail ended. His crazy and over-sexed wife was running circles around him and making a fool of him. He really was regretting getting in that argument with her and even worse, taking her up on this ridiculous bet. He was going to have to really up his game to compete.

Intelligence was the key to winning this bet. Jane had discovered and emasculated his initial intelligence gathering attempts using the cell phone tracker and spy cameras. On her side, she had used her extensive collection of girl friends and contacts to gather intelligence and to set up surveillance on him to win the first part of the wager and also to sidestep him for her affairs.

Tom just couldn't see admitting to his male friends that his wife was cheating on him and doing so, more or less, with his permission or at least tacit understanding. Hell, half of them, once they learned Jane was making herself available for sport, would get in line to service her. No, he would have to fight this one through on his own.

Jane was always going to win on Tuesdays; there was no way to get out that damn staff meeting with his boss short of death or the plague. Jane had him checkmated there. He would just have to rope-a-dope that one.

His random stopping by the house made using the house for entertaining visitors at other times increasingly risky. She would be forced to move her affairs to new locations. If he could track her movements, his odds of finally nailing this wily vixen would improve.

After taking Jane to lunch, Tom stopped by the electronics store again. He suffered through the humiliation of admitting to the pretty young woman behind the counter that he suspected his wife was cheating on him and needed help finding a way to catch her. The young woman acted sympathetic, but he sensed she was secretly amused by his predicament.

Nevertheless, she proved to be tech savvy. After about an hour of discussion, weighing alternatives to meet his needs, and examining equipment, Tom left with a GPS tracker, a waterproof, magnetic box, and a receiver costing $626. The battery would last at least two weeks and the GPS location would be sent to the receiver every minute when the tracker was in motion. The data would give him the minute-by-minute report of the tracker location, show it plotted on a map, and would also store summaries of each trip. He paid cash this time so there was no credit card record to alert Jane as had happened with the cameras.

That evening he pulled into the garage and parked alongside Jane's Audi. Tom attached the magnetic protective box with the GPS tracker inside the upper rear wheel well of the Audi. The young woman at the store had assured him that location was reasonably safe from discovery while ensuring good signal strength for transmitting data.

The tracker worked perfectly. He had a complete record of all of his wife's trips, but nothing the rest of the week raised any suspicions. But he had a trap set for Saturday.

Tom was scheduled to play golf and left the house at 8:00, suspecting Jane would use Tracy to babysit again. Having him safely out of the way on the golf course would be too tempting for Jane to pass up. She would probably be off for some hanky panky as soon as he left. He had canceled his golf game, of course.

Tom had not been able to find a tracking app on his phone, but he suspected his tech-savvy wife could easily hide one that would baffle his limited skills in that arena. Just in case, he had also bought a burner phone at the electronics store Tuesday. During his random stops by the house during the week, he left his regular phone in his office so there would be no warning of his arrival back home. After what he had learned about GPS trackers at the store, he scoured his car daily to make sure Jane had not done as he had and put a tracker on his car. It seemed clean.

Now he drove to the Club and put his phone in his locker so if there was a tracking app on it, Jane would see he was at the Club. By the time Tom got back to his car in the Club parking lot, Jane had already left the house and was cruising down I-10. The trap was set and proceeding according to plan. Tom set out to catch his cheating wife with a self-satisfied grin.

As he closed in on Jane, the tracker revealed that she had exited the interstate and stopped at a large outlet mall. Jane and he went there often, and he knew it well. It was a sprawling place with over two hundred stores, bars, and restaurants. He arrived at the mall seven or eight minutes behind Jane. As he circled the mall on the perimeter road he saw Jane's red Audi parked on the outside edge of the mall's eastern parking lot.

Tom pulled up next to a burger place about fifty yards away from the Audi. That morning while Jane showered, Tom slipped binoculars, their camera with a telephoto lens, and a thermos of coffee into his car parked in the garage. He was all set to play PI on a stakeout.

He smiled with confidence. His wife certainly was not here to shop. The stores didn't open for another twenty minutes. But lo and behold, directly across the perimeter road from Jane's parked Audi was a 1950s-era Mom-and-Pop motel sandwiched in between a collection of fast food and chain restaurants and self-service gas stations. He had never paid attention to it before. A pedestrian underpass ran beneath the perimeter road to allow mall shoppers access to the businesses on the far side of the perimeter road. Anyone seeing Jane's red Audi would assume she was shopping and not guess she was getting laid across the street in the motel. If spotted walking to or from her assignations, she could innocently claim to have gone over for a sandwich. A Chic-Fil-A was over there, and it was indeed her favorite fast food restaurant. Pretty clever ploy; his wife was good at this cheating game.

Most of these old fashioned motels had been put out of business by the big chains. But this one was well maintained and landscaped and was actually quite picturesque in a retro sort of way. It must be doing ok. The office up front had a sign announcing it had vacancies. There were about a dozen rooms, each letting directly out onto the parking lot, all in a row behind the office and then a dogleg with a couple of more rooms. By shifting his car to the right about twenty yards, Tom was able observe the doors to each room and also have a clear view of Jane's Audi.

Tom snapped a few photographs of Jane's car and the motel. He practiced zooming in on each door to be ready when Jane came out, hopefully, with her lover in tow. With his telephoto lens he would get great pictures of the cheaters. He carefully scanned every inch of the motel with his binoculars. Interestingly, room 5 had a do-not-disturb sign on the door. No other room did, so that one was a good candidate for the adulterous love nest. He snapped a couple of shots of the door and its sign.

Tom poured a cup of coffee and settled in to watch. The Hispanic maid was making her way from room to room cleaning but skipped room 5 when she got there. Yep, that looked pretty promising. Should he make a scene when they came out or just take photos and surprise Jane at their Sunday night happy hour? Probably the latter would be more fun. Tom snorted, besides if it was that titan Frank putting his wife through her aerobic paces again, Frank might pound Tom into a greasy spot on the pavement.

Time crept by, and the Texas sun was broiling. Tom cranked up the car to run the air conditioner and poured another cup of coffee. The maid had finished, and nothing seemed to be happening at the motel. If he had thought to bring a picture of Jane, he could ask the maid and desk clerk if they had seen her. But he hadn't brought one; he still had things to learn about this PI game.

Good grief, it had been over three hours now; what in the world were they doing in there? As though he didn't know!

In his boredom, Tom's thoughts turned to a perennial, vexing question: Who exactly was his friend that was so enthusiastically fucking his wife behind his back, probably even right now as he sat outside watching their motel room. There were his business associates, her business associates, most of whom he had met, the friends at the Club, friends in the ritzy neighborhood where they lived, and even some around that dated back to high school and college. They were a very social couple and were out and about with people so the list was long.

He had been sniffing his male friends hoping to catch a whiff of that distinctive men's cologne he had smelled on Jane a couple of times. He was like the hound dog casting about to find the scent of the fox that was raiding the hen house. No luck so far.

A lot of their male friends were athletic, good looking guys so Jane had quite a herd of studs from whom to select. When working, Jane was very professional and dressed the part. In social settings, she enjoyed sexy outfits and flirting and was always popular with the men. The rogues' gallery of studs that might be enthusiastically screwing his wife was excruciatingly long.

Tom's reverie was shattered by a sudden tapping on the window next to his head. He almost jumped out of his skin in surprise.

Tom looked out the window. Jane was standing there in high heels, tight black slacks, and a sleeveless grey top and red scarf. He rolled down his window. He caught a whiff of the distinctive tangy, cedary men's cologne emanating from his wife again.

Jane wore a sphinx-like smile and said quietly, "My, oh my, you gave up your golf game today just so you could follow me around. I am flattered. I would have never guessed you took such an interest in my shopping habits."

"You were here before the stores opened," Tom challenged her.

Jane shrugged nonchalantly. "Indeed. Perhaps I stopped at Patti's bakery back there that opens at 8:00 and had coffee and a Danish while I planned my shopping. Nothing unusual in that." She was giving away nothing.

"Three and a half hours is a lot of shopping; you should have a trunk full of purchases by now."

"You know me, Dear, I carefully research things and take my time." Jane lifted the one small bag she had so Tom could see the store's name: Victoria's Secret. "I bought a few skimpy things with which to entertain and have my eyes on some others for possible future purchase."

Tom snorted and said, "You know I don't believe a word you are saying."

"Oh, that doesn't matter; you can't prove a thing. The official answer is I have been innocently shopping this morning." Jane grinned wickedly, "But maybe the real story is you spent your whole Saturday morning watching the wrong motel."

She waved her hands dismissively, "Who knows, maybe your friend picked your wife up here after she ditched her car where she would have an alibi. And then, maybe your wife spent a very passionate, prolonged Saturday morning doing very naughty things with a man who was not her husband."