The Hit Man

I collected Julianna from the airport on the Saturday morning and we drove to the villa I had rented.

She squealed happily when she looked around and saw the private pool with its loungers and said, "I'm going to get changed."

"Can we have a few minutes to chat first? Jules?" I asked.

Her head snapped round to look at me.

"You know I don't like you to call me that." she said.

"Why not?" I asked, "you didn't seem to mind when Peter used it."

She paled but decided to brazen it out.

"Who's Peter?" she said.

"You know, Peter. The insurance Agent. The one you have been fucking for the last 4 months. The one you were fucking on Monday night when you said you were so tired that you fell asleep and didn't call me," I said.

"I don't know who you have been talking to, or what you have heard, but..." she began.

I placed an 8x10 picture on the table between us. It was the one I had taken at first, through my scope with her on her back, her eyes wide and her mouth in that perfect 'O' as her lover ate her through her orgasm.

She sank down into her chair. "Oh," she said.

"Oh?" I asked "is that all you got? OH???"

She shrugged.

"How long?" I asked.

She looked at me levelly. "About 4 months."

"I take it he wasn't the first?"

"Do you really want to do this?" she asked.

"Do what?" I asked, "Find out the truth about my slut of a wife?"

"Insults? Really? Are you that juvenile? Go on then get it out of your system, call me a Whore, a cunt a slut. Maybe you can find something original to call me and impress me. But before you start there is something I would like you to know."

"And that is?"

"Why I did it" she said.

I started to say that she did it because she was a... but then I stopped myself and indicated for her to carry on.

"We have been married a long time haven't we." She asked, I nodded.

"Can you tell me on average, how many times a week we have sex?" she asked. I thought back.

"Well, It's fallen off as we got older" I started but she interrupted.

"Has it?" she said "Yes, initially we had sex every day sometimes twice or more in a day. But once we got over that youthful exuberance, we averaged at least every other day sometimes more. The sex was and still is wonderful and you are still the best lover I have ever had. But then you went on your business trips. Sometimes for up to a month at a time. I was used to getting laid almost daily and then you were expecting me to go without for weeks. I tried some DIY, even got myself toys but it wasn't the same. It didn't satisfy the need. "

"One night I had decided that since you weren't here, and I couldn't get fucked I would go to the gym and work of some tension. I was so horny I must've attracted half the men in there they were like dogs in heat, and yes, I ended up going home with one of them. I had found a way to satisfy the need that you had created in me. Oh yes, I was guilty the next day, scared that you would find out and that you would be hurt and divorce me. When you came back from your trip, I practically raped you every day for a week trying to make it up to you, making up for something you didn't even know about. Even then, I knew that the next time you went away It would happen again. And it did."

"After a while I decided to embrace the new normal, but I needed to put in place some safeguards, so I created some rules. Firstly, I would never do it when you were home. Not because I thought you would catch me but because you were always my first and best lover. I didn't need anyone else if you were here.

"Secondly, I never brought anyone back to our home. I would never disrespect you by having another man in your bed. For the same reason I would never let any of my other lovers disrespect you. It seems that some men get pleasure from denigrating the husbands whose wives they are fucking. If any of them started talking badly about you, I stopped it. I refused to see them again and have even kicked some out of bed for doing it.

"Thirdly I got regular STD testing, I didn't want to pass anything on to you. And before you say it, it wasn't just because that would get me caught, I didn't want to put you at risk that way. I also made doubly sure that I couldn't get pregnant. I used an IUD and had a contraceptive implant. When we were ready to have children, I stopped. I have copies of the DNA tests for the children for you to see if you want proof. I knew that it was possible you may find out and that you would question the parentage of the children. And yes, that means that I have been doing this for all the time we have been together.

"You got me so hooked I just couldn't do without. A day or two was fine but anything more than that I had to have some relief. That is all it was. Scratching an itch. I never had any feelings for any of them. They were flesh sex toys as far as I was concerned. The only person I have ever loved and been in love with is you. When you told me that this was going to be your last trip, I was overjoyed. Finally, I could have you at home and to myself I could stop having to find second rate substitutes. I wouldn't need them because I would have the best one at home with me all the time. My days of having to settle for second best were over. It seems rather ironic that what was perhaps my last time with another man would be the time I got caught."

"Your last time?" I said "Those pictures were taken Monday, you said you couldn't go without for more than 2 days so are you expecting me to believe that you didn't go out the rest of the nights? What about Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday?"

She laughed a little.

"Tuesday, he called me to say he was back at his hotel, but he started badmouthing you so I told him that we were done, and I wouldn't meet him again. He called back a little later to apologise and I forgave him but told him he was done for that night, and I would see him Wednesday. He said he would take me out to dinner by way of apology."

"So that call that came in when we were talking on Tuesday," I asked, "that wasn't your mom?"

For the first time she had the decency to look guilty.

"No, it wasn't," she said quietly. "I hated lying to you."

"Not enough to not do it," I said.

Her eyes widened "Wait, you called me Jules on that call. I remember thinking it strange. You knew then?" she asked.

"I was sent the pictures on Tuesday morning. There were some transcripts of previous calls included."

She sighed again. "I'm so sorry you had to find out like that, it must have been horrible."

"Let's not get side-tracked. You didn't fuck him on Tuesday what about the rest of the week?" I asked. I wanted to see how she had been affected by his death.

"Wednesday he was supposed to meet me for dinner," She began

"You mean when you were supposed to be binge watching sluts on TV?" I asked with some irony.

"I really have been watching it, and it is good. I just didn't watch it that night. And no, it never gave me any ideas. As stupid as it sounds and please don't get angry when I say this, in my mind I wasn't cheating. I was just getting a physical need met. To me it was like perhaps going to lunch with a friend. I needed to eat; you weren't there to keep me company, so I went with a friend. I know this may be hard for you to accept but this is exactly how I viewed, and to some extent still view what I was doing when I was fucking other men. And you may notice I never said I was making love. I never did that with anyone but you."

"You are stalling," I said flatly. "Are you trying to avoid telling me what you got up to on Wednesday?"

"Not at all," she said "As I said, we were supposed to meet for dinner, but he never showed. I sat in the restaurant for 45 minutes and I have to say I was pissed. I have never been stood up before. So, I decided I would go to his hotel. When I got there, he didn't answer the door, but I knew he was in the hotel because his car was in the carpark. I got the floor manager to go in and we found him face down in a steak dinner, dead as a nit. According to the EMT's he was on medication for blood pressure, but the stupid fool was taking Viagra as well which you should apparently never do. He must have had a massive heart attack."

"At least he didn't die while fucking you," I said. "That would have been much more inconvenient."

"Oh, shit I never thought of that," she said. "That would definitely have raised a ruckus. His poor wife would have found out."

"I think she already knew," I said. "I suspect she sent me the pictures."

Julianna nodded.

"So at least I don't need to ask if you are going to see him again," I commented, and she smiled wryly at me.

"I won't apologise for what I did," she said. "It was something I needed to do. I am really sorry for hurting you though, and how you found out. I was counting the days until you were not going on trips any more so that I wouldn't have to do it anymore, but I knew that as long as you were going on trips it would keep happening. All I could do was to minimise any fallout and hope that if you ever found out, your love for me would be strong enough for you to understand."

"Why didn't you come and talk to me." I asked. "We could've figured something out. I could have done something different, even taken you with me on my trips." In my heart I knew that was nonsense. I could never have taken her with me, but I needed to understand.

"I didn't want to be that wife. The nag that demanded you provide a lifestyle and then complained about the way you went about it. You loved your job, and we had a great life together. I didn't plan to do this, I kind of fell into it and by that time it was too late to take it back."

I looked at her for a long time, thinking.

"So," she said, "what happens now?"

I stood and went into the kitchen of the villa and opened a bottle of wine pouring us each a glass. I brought the bottle back to the table with me.

I handed Julianna a glass and sat wearily down in my chair, downing half my wine in a single swallow.

"I don't know," I said. "This is just so much to think about. We have been together for so long and I thought that you loved me as much as I loved you. Yes, we had a great sex life and yes, we had sex a lot. But you were not alone in suffering when I went away. I also went without sex for weeks or even up to a month at a time. Yes, there were opportunities for me to 'have lunch' with other women when I was away, but I never did. I stayed faithful to our vows. I didn't even have toys. I had to rely on the old faithful." I waved my hand.

"I don't understand how you can be that overcome by your need that you would betray everything we had together, or promises, our vows, for what? Just to get laid. Are you going to claim sex addiction? Do we need for you to see a counsellor?"

She opened her mouth, but I held up my hand.

"Please, I let you speak, at least do me the courtesy of listening to me for a while."

I leaned across and refilled her wineglass, topping up my own.

"I have so many questions. How can you dissociate sex and love so easily. Everything I have read says that it's men that do that not women, that women need to have love to have good sex. And if that is true and you are not lying about there being no love then that means that you were risking everything for bad sex. How do you think that makes me feel?

"You also said that you couldn't go without sex for more than a couple of days at a time. So, what happens as I get older. It's well known that men slow down as they get older, and some women get a boost to their sex drive as they age. Is that what I have to look forward to? Am I going to come home to find some stud balls deep in you when I can only manage to get it up twice a week, because that is not enough for you?

"How can I look myself in the mirror each morning with anything resembling respect, knowing that for all our married life you have been cuckolding me with other men. There must have been dozens if not hundreds over the years. Also, you say that you got regularly tested but what use is that. You could have got infected and passed it on before any of your tests came back. You could have passed anything on to me, even HIV. That shit takes months to be detectable. You could have killed us both. Where would our kids have been then?"

Her face twitched, and she rubbed at her left arm absently.

I smiled at her gently.

"Peter was a piece of shit," I said. "But I think in the end he was developing feelings for you. He told me that he would even cancel on his other mistresses if you called to say you were available"

"What?" she said. "When did you speak to Peter?"

"Oh, he and I had a little chat the night he died. You see I was a little upset at seeing you fucking that creep so I decided to make sure that it wouldn't happen again."

Her face was flushed now, and I could see that the pain was starting to develop in her chest.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Same thing I just did to you." I snarled "I killed the cheating bastard. Say hello from me when you get to hell!"