Tricks and No Treats

Tricks and No Treats

A series of Halloween pranks ends a marriage.

Here's my submission for the "Halloween 2023" writer's contest. As always, I appreciate the organizers of the many fun contests and writer challenges here on Literotica.

Relax; it's only a story, people. Oh, yeah - BOO!

[Copyright, 2023. All rights reserved]

It was a trick and not a treat that changed my life on Monday, October 14, 2013. The series of unplanned events began before lunchtime. My wife, Mia, and I had tried a new Mexican restaurant the previous night. When my stomach started rolling at about ten, I popped a couple of Tums and kept working. A trip to the company restroom at eleven was brutal and embarrassing. At least the smell it left behind was.

By eleven thirty, I was in my boss's office, begging for the rest of the day off. Since summer was officially over, our business had dropped off substantially, so he gave me the green light with a look of pity. I couldn't help but make one more trip to the head before departing.

Driving home, I remembered it was Mia's day off. She worked at the bank Wednesday through Saturday. I wanted to get in the house and lay down without bothering my wife. Mia had often swooned over me and my fickle stomach. I shook my head as I pulled up in front of our home. Mia had a horrible habit of taking up the entire driveway, especially when I wasn't expected home and often when I was.

Then, I got a silly idea to surprise her. We did little things like that to each other all the time even from our early days in college. It wasn't that we were trying to give the other a heart attack or something. It was always a little harmless trick here or a prank there. On that day, my purpose was neither. It was only to assure her that while I was sick, I was still in a good mood and just needed to rest so she wouldn't coddle me.

Our home, a gift from my Grandparents before they passed, sat on a little hill, like all the others on our side of the street. What appeared to be the basement from the front, was its own floor in the back, on the downslope, complete with a separate entrance. My Grandpa said it would be a good way for us to make residual income during the early years of our marriage. The floor plan was one great room, with a full bath and a kitchenette. I still hadn't bothered to find a renter - much to my Father's dismay - because I enjoyed going down there to watch Sunday football, alone or with a few friends from our neighborhood. I planned to sneak in that door and then go up and 'surprise' my wife.

I moved quietly alongside the house, past the kitchen then started down the few steps we'd installed last year. As I got to the lower patio, a window in the lower apartment was open, and I stopped in my tracks.

Mia was in my makeshift mancave talking to someone. It was weird because she never went down there ever since we bought the new washer/ dryer combo and had it installed in a closet upstairs. I stopped and squatted by the window to listen.

It didn't take long to hear a man's voice - a familiar voice. Another five minutes and I had a pretty clear picture of what was happening. The familiar voice belonged to Peter Jenson. He was a single neighbor five houses down and across the street. We had both met him about a month after moving in. Most of the homes in our neighborhood were little starters, so there were plenty of single people in our age range living there.

After listening to their planning session, I decided to quietly make my way back to my car on the street. Suddenly, my mind was outpacing my sick belly for dominance. As I drove around the side streets of our small town, I thought about how we got here.

I met Mia Swawl in our junior year at Ohio State University. She was going for a degree in accounting, while I was studying graphic arts. It wasn't love at first sight. I was more conservative than her. The problem with that - I wasn't conservative by any stretch of the imagination.

Mia could be best described as a free spirit, possibly because she was the baby of the family. She wanted us to date, but she wanted us to date others too. It took a while to become okay with it, but Mia seemed committed to only her studies. She rarely went out even with her girlfriends. Occasionally, though, I'd see her at the usual campus haunts with some guy and I couldn't help but compare myself to him.

Mia's parents lived in SoCal and were well off. They weren't wealthy, as in Beverly Hills, but they lived in an affluent area of Oak Park, a northeastern suburb of Los Angeles, and every home in their neighborhood was worth at least a million and a half. They'd worked hard for what they had, for sure. Her father, Gerald, owned two UPS franchises, a breakfast café and a high-end women's apparel store in a busy strip mall.

Mia had two older siblings - twins - named Brian and Brianna. In contrast, I was an only child and my parents had retired to a Vancouver high-rise the year I started college. Yes, they were much older than typical parents, and I'm pretty sure I was a 'mistake.' Still, they showed their love for me. I missed them a lot during those first few years.

Things changed at the start of our senior year. Mia was all over me from the minute she returned from summer break. I'd given a great deal of thought to our relationship during that summer. My biggest worry about going further with Mia was that being free-spirited and self-centered was a very bad combo.

We'd been off again - on again our entire junior year, but we were very close and rarely argued. With the extra attention that September, I re-evaluated. The things I liked about Mia, her endearment, her kindness, and of course, the fact that she was way out of my league led my decision-making.

I decided to see where things went. She was constantly seeking me out, even asking me out. Most of our 'dates' happened during the daytime hours. Backpacking, kayaking, and even bowling were on the menu. Mia had a quirk of taking selfies wherever we went. She said she liked to keep friends back home up to date on social media.

Then in mid-October, Mia sat me down for a little talk, which infuriated me from the get-go.

"Baby," she started holding my hand. "You know how I'm always taking selfies whenever we go out?"

I didn't think I was going to like what came next. She saw my expression and blushed.

"Well," she continued, "It's part of an elaborate prank I'm playing on my brother and sister, for Halloween. We do a lot of that in our family, kind of a tradition. When we were kids, it was mostly April Fools' but as we got older, being restricted to just that one day often spoiled the trick. When I was twelve, Brian and Brianna hid a small tape recorder under my bed, just before Halloween, strapping it to the box spring, and it played a half-hour of an almost inaudible monstrous hiss. Sometime the next day, one of them would go into my room and take the recorder, plug it in to recharge it, and then sneak back in and put it back under the bed.

"I was scared shitless," she went on. "I had mom and dad in there looking under the bed, not finding a thing. I was positive there was something evil in my room with me."

"And the point is?" I asked impatiently.

It's a tradition," she repeated. "I'm planning to drop our marriage on them."

"What?" I looked at her like she was crazy.

"The selfies," she said, "are to reinforce that we're a couple. I'm going to announce the day before Halloween that we eloped and are moving to Maine."

I just looked at her. I couldn't think of anything reasonable to say. She'd used me and the pretense of our getting serious, so she could execute an elaborate Halloween prank.

"Say something." She commanded. That was a bad move.

"What the fuck?" I posed it as a question. Without a ready response, I went on. "So, you're telling me now that our sudden romance was all a means to some sort of sick prank?"

"No, not just," she defended. "I do have feelings for you. That's the biggest reason why I'm letting you in on the prank now. The idea came to me because of those feelings. Lately, I've been fantasizing... wondering, what it would be like to be with you... forever."

"You're telling me you love me," I asked incredulously, "while using me? I'm missing something here."

"No," she quickly replied. "It's not like that. Well, it's sort of like that, but with no malicious intent. My joke on my siblings is separate from my feelings for you."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Are you saying you love me, Mia?" I asked point blank.

There was a slight hesitation, a moment in time that I wish I'd paid more attention to. "Yes," she answered confidently. "I believe that's exactly what I'm saying." Another pause. "Sure, we had our ups and downs last year. Still, you've grown on me and I thought about you quite a bit over the summer. Did you ever think about me?"

Truth time had arrived. "Yes," I said meekly.

"And not just... sexually?" she asked that one timidly.

"No, Mia," I told her. "I thought of you in other ways too. But we're so different. Even our families and childhoods. You get that, right?"

She leaned in to plant a smoldering kiss on my lips. "I know, but wouldn't that be part of the adventure?" I decided she had a point. I kissed her back because her kiss had got me hard, but also because I needed time to think.

We made love that afternoon, and stupidly, all thoughts of her 'prank' were gone. They were gone that night as I lay with her sleeping in my arms, envisioning our future. It really appealed to me. An older, wiser person may have reflected a bit more.

The trickery on her siblings went as planned, unabated by me. I even found myself getting in on the action. Common sense dictated that one good prank deserved another, and eventually, Brian and Brianna would want to get even. They'd find a way to do it, too. I was blinded by love in that regard.

After graduation, Mia and I married in a simple ceremony, attended by our immediate family. I think her parents wanted a big shindig but felt bad for my side's lack of possible attendees. Most of my aunts and uncles were deceased or debilitated, and then there was the age difference between us.

We moved to our small town, mostly so Mia could be close to her brother and sister. My grandparents' estate gifted me the home, and we began our simple little life.

I'd have to say I was darned happy, except twice per year. I dreaded the days leading up to April first, and the entire month of October. The twins repaid us by claiming their parents had been in a plane crash. They sent Mia YouTube footage of some other dated crash and she freaked out before taking time to look at the posting date.

Then, she seemed to side with them against me. Our first Halloween together, she called me from the bank just four days before the end of the month, claiming her car had been stolen from the parking lot. She sobbed uncontrollably, trying to explain her purse was inside the car. She said she'd gone right back into her place of work, where our checking and savings resided, and canceled all our cards, and changed passwords.

I suspected a rat, so, I went on my phone app to check accounts. I was locked out of all of them. Then I started to believe Mia and told her I'd be right there to pick her up. When I arrived, I comforted her for a few minutes until it started to rain. We got in the car and drove home solemnly. As we were walking into the house, Brian pulled up in Mia's car.

"Trick or treat!" Mia screamed at me as my face blushed in anger. Brianna was already inside preparing dinner and, by the time dessert was served, the three of them had found a way to light-heartedly dispense the anger I felt towards them. I told Mia later that night, no more pranks. I was sick of it and I didn't find it amusing.

But I got a call from Brianna in early March and she explained that Mia had told her about my anger and ultimatum. She wanted to help me give Mia a taste of her own medicine. Initially, I didn't go for the idea, but the more I thought it through, I decided it might give Mia a glimpse of the results of her pranks.

The prank was simple. Over the next week, or so, I moved small amounts of my clothing out of the house. Mia rarely looked in my drawers, so I started there. We'd met all the neighbors our age and did summer holidays and block parties with them, so it wasn't hard to find a guy, Greg, from the end of the street who was willing to keep my stuff in his spare room.

It was Brianna's job to draw out of my wife, the woman in our little group that she most disliked. What Mia told her was the same as my guess. Talia was a recently single mother of one, who lived two doors down from us. Mia thought she was constantly checking me out and she always got her dander up when Talia would find a way to talk to me while Mia was preoccupied with others at the parties.

I did the rest with my professional-grade graphics software. That first required Brianna and I to go to the municipal airport, on both a sunny and cloudy day, and take photos of me walking in. I looked stupid with my arm up at shoulder length, as if around my invisible friend. Then I found a stock female body, about the same dimensions as Talia, in jeans and a sharp top. I embedded that stock photo underneath mine and, finally, found a few photos of Talia's face from the block parties. I added her face to that stock body, making it look as though Talia had turned to look over her shoulder at whomever had taken the picture.

That was Brianna's play. She'd show my wife the photo of the skank I'd run away with and say she yelled "Homewrecker" as she snapped the pic.

I waited until the day of the prank, while Mia was at work, and pulled all but one hundred dollars from our checking account. I opened another account at the only other bank in town which we'd use as a vacation fund, post-trick, and did an electronic transfer of our entire savings, minus ten dollars.

Brianna and I agreed that for maximum believability, we'd spring the trap three days after Halloween. It worked perfectly. Eight minutes before Mia was to get off work at the bank, Bri started calling her. Mia returned the call from her car. Brianna acted hysterical trying to explain to her sister what she'd seen at the local Starbucks, how she followed me and the attractive blonde to the airport, and the picture she'd taken.

Afterward, Brianna admitted that Mia didn't believe her at first. When she arrived home, she was greeted with a 'Dear Jane' letter from me. It outlined my angst about the family pranks and my recent blooming relationship with Talia. I didn't think I was extremely brutal in the letter but, later, Mia confided that it was what I left out that made the letter more callous and hurtful.

After reading my note, Mia ran to our bedroom, finding all of my stuff gone. The timing also didn't allow Mia to get any answers from my place of employment. She did check her bank app and that's when she broke down.

The plan was for me to return home after nine, with the twins in tow. Mia was so heartbroken and in shock that Brian called me at seven, begging me to go home and end the trick. I did just that, hoping I hadn't gone too far.

The truth was, I hurt her badly. She wouldn't talk to me for two weeks, slept in the spare room, and wouldn't take any calls from the twins. She'd thrown them out of our house the night of the prank. Thanksgiving was a bust and if I had not been able to influence all of them to agree to a meeting, two days before Christmas, that wouldn't have happened either.

During those two months, I apologized profusely but also made it clear this was a result of her constant trickery. I made my case that there was no such thing as a 'practical joke,' and that all casual pranks, no matter the intention, had a victim and a price.

With the new year, things normalized. Mia and I got back to our own selves - loving and caring for each other. As April approached, I was on high alert, but no fool's play ever developed. I could tell that Mia also shared a bit of the mistrust I felt.

Here I was though, fifteen or so days from another Halloween, and it seemed Mia hadn't learned a damned thing. From what I'd overheard through that window, I thought I'd need to move quickly to protect myself. The plans she was hatching with Peter weren't a mere prank, by any stretch of the imagination. They were diabolical, even maniacal.

In those days, we still had mom-and-pop electronics stores and Radio Shack. In Battle Creek, we had both. As I headed there, I thought about the simplest way to thwart the entire thing. I could simply go home and tell Mia what I knew and put a stop to it. My next thought made me as sad as I've ever been.

The damage was already done. The cold, hard truth was that we'd already dented the framework of our relationship, and the trust and respect were severely diminished. Stopping her wouldn't repair or restore them. I supposed that the real trick or joke was on our marriage. There would be no children, no happily ever after. So, with that sad revelation, I pressed my foot firmly on the gas pedal.

Some items cost me a lot more than I'd expected, while others were cheaper. Sitting in my car taking stock, I laughed at the idea that I could start my own small-town PI business. It was nearly time to be home and I was forty minutes away, so I texted Mia, letting her know I had a project due and I'd be late.

Over the next two days, I did what I could when Mia was preoccupied or in the shower. For the rest, I left work each morning at eleven-thirty to complete while she was at work. I installed four micro-cameras, one for the bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, and our downstairs apartment. The apartment had a beat-up bookcase we'd put down there just to store books, magazines, and knick-knacks. The living room and kitchen were easy, too. Our bedroom presented a challenge because we only had a dresser and two nightstands. I finally settled on placing the camera on the dresser behind a snow globe that Mia had displayed there. I wouldn't get any clear recordings of infidelity but, if everything else went according to plan, I'd only need the blurred image of them in our marital bed.

I'd purchased an older phone tap, which amounted to a clunky thing that resembled an answering machine, to which I attached the extra cord to the phone and ran the wire through the same slot in the wall, down to the apartment. I hid the machine under a stack of books, which also made the wiring impossible to see. It was a simple voice-activated unit and answered calls would be recorded. I put a voice and text tracker on her cellphone.

Over the next twelve days, I knew every detail of their wretched trick.

For his part, Peter, we all called him Pete, seemed but a minor player. Still, he went along with the prank, and being a guy, I figured he was hopeful of some future payment from my nine-out-of-ten wife, and that payment would include her body. Hell, the way they planned it, he was already eighty percent of the way there, without any actual penetration. He didn't disparage me during their meetings and, in one conversation, he actually asked Mia if she was sure she wanted to go through with it.

The plan was simple and I learned the details over four additional meetings they had. Mia never communicated with him on her cell. All calls came from the home phone, setting up their next planning or practice sessions. What I learned and watched made me sick.

The first one, just a few days after I got the recording devices set up, gave me ninety percent of what I'd need to start divorce proceedings. Mia laid out the details of my debasement and humiliation.

She'd call my boss, whom she knew well, and say she had a surprise for me, the day before Halloween. He'd agree to let me off early, and she'd make sure to let him know that I wasn't to be alerted to the surprise. I thought that under normal circumstances, she'd already be taking a big risk of screwing up her joke. That time of year we all sat around throwing wadded-up paper into a wastebasket until a client called or walked through the door, then we'd work hard to meet the client's deadline.