Who Is This

There is a dark truth to our modern lives, one that is at times both terrifying and at others: one's only glimmer of hope.

The carousel never stops turning.

No, it simply goes -- around and around, with days passing by in a blink, with eyes that close to sleep, opening to wake in what feels like an instant. Clock in, clock out. Return. Repeat. It is a marathon we each run, until our legs give out, our back breaks, our eyes dim, and our minds fog.

One morning amongst so many, that painful truth dawned on Lauren, as she sat drinking her room temperature coffee, in her grey-rug-wall cubicle. The realization came suddenly, as her mind ran through all she had done the day before, not just at work, but on her lunch break, and when she got home: the cleaning, the shopping, the banking, the bills... The list made her proud for a brief moment, before she compared it to what she had to do on that day, and the day after that. What she had done in weeks previous, and for every year she could at that point clearly remember...

Such doldrums are what love was for, the blonde thought to herself -- what her husband David was supposed to cure. Yes, there was a time when he did, the memories of his sweet demeanor and romantic gestures brought a smile back to her face even then as she sat pondering. He was so kind and funny -- patient and adventurous. But now...? Less so, in every moment and every venture. He worked hard at his job, she knew. He was a lawyer, and there was a stress to that. An exhaustion. Too much speaking, listening, and thinking for him to come home and light up with fire and excitement. And yet still ... in his job of distracting Lauren from the day to day grind, he was failing, regardless of cause or career.

Often, such moments of clarity fade into the back of one's mind, as they work and wage, and in fact, that is what Lauren expected would happen. That through the monotony of her day and life, that by 5 o'clock, her terrifying realization of modernity's cruel and unbreakable shackles would be forgotten. To her dismay, however, Lauren found that even as she drove home, the painful realization haunted her. Twisting every thought, and dragging it back to her own exhaustion with life. But somewhere along her drive home, as one street turned to the next, and as on-ramp turned to off-ramp and then back again, the blonde's focus shifted, moving from her own boredom to her husband's sudden inability to cure it.

What happened...? She asked herself. Had he changed...? Had she...? She internally queried between dingy street lights flickering on for another night of use. Once, not too long ago, David was the salve to every wound, and the smile that graced her lips in the morning, and returned to her whenever his well-manscaped image entered her mind. But now, to her growing dismay, he was just different. In some ways -- in every way, even if she hadn't yet collected, counted, and analyzed them.

Driven by those thoughts -- plagued by them as she was, that night, Lauren watched David. Listened to him. Examined him, closely to see what he -- what THEY had truly become.

He was quiet, but smiled. Exhausted, but kind. He would say he loved her, to which she would respond in kind. But even when they were talking about the weather or politics, his eyes and fingers remained glued to his phone. And with them there, and more often than one might expect, David would smile and laugh while looking at his screen. When Lauren would comment, he replied that he was on Facebook or Tumblr, reading memes and funny stories. But for some reason, though she had never had reason to distrust him before, she did.

As the night passed, Lauren continued to study him. Noticing that he would keep his phone with him, even when such was a burden. He would sit with his back to her, or aim the screen away, even when it left him in a position that seemed unnatural, odd, and even uncomfortable. At first, his actions were concerning, by sunset they were alarming, and by the time each laid down to sleep, Lauren was sure: something was going on. Someone had her husband's attention, and it certainly was not her.

From that night on, the blonde became a detective, never going so far as to take his phone, but only to keep a keen eye on David's comings, goings, and suspicious behavior. As she did, she would try to imagine what he was doing, why he was doing it, and if her own fears that he was cheating on her were real. Her investigation continued, until finally, sparked by nothing more than an inability to continue without knowing, Lauren decided that she would talk to him and give him the chance to explain or confess. That is before she was forced to take more drastic and privacy-invading steps.

But when the mood struck to talk, neither she nor David were in the safety of their home -- hidden away from others to have a possibly marriage altering conversation. No, instead they were both, once again, at their respective places of work, as it seemed they always were. But such placement and predicament would not stop Lauren, not when she needed to know. Not when every moment of her day had been spent picturing him in bed with another woman, him fucking her atop his desk at the office. His dick sliding in and out of her, as he bent her over, grabbing her hair to bring her body back to his -- each of them moaning. Screaming. Whispering words of passion to each other through desperate gasps for air. And so, driven mad by a need to answer the questions that echoed through her tortured mind, Lauren picked up her cell and called, fully intending on telling David of her suspicions. On forcing him to come clean, though to what end, she had not yet decided.

"Hey, babe. You would not believe the day I've had." David answered, less than romantically.

"Hey, before you start..." Lauren said softly into the receiver, hiding the importance of the questions to come. "...can we ... uh ... talk?"

"Uh ... actually, honey, it's not a great time right now. I just got out of a meeting with the partners, and they're sandbagging me again. Not only do I have to write the briefs James assured me he would take care of three weeks ago, but apparently, I'll be the one arguing them too. And guess what ... the hearing is not only TOMORROW, but in NEW YORK." David said with an irritated emphasis, noting the absurdity of the task, given that he and she lived in Los Angeles, California.

"Oh no!" Lauren exclaimed in support of his complaining, she still, even amidst her torment, finding it hard to argue with a man she truly loved.

"I know... Can't believe it... Well, I can, but I tried to get out of it. And their response...? That without me, we're going to lose the motion, the case, and I'll probably lose my job." Make no mistake, Lauren still wanted to know -- still NEEDED to know, but she knew, or at least had decided, that it wasn't the right time. Not with all of that on his plate. Maybe when he got home that night, or back from New York.

"Ok, well -- maybe tonight then; I really think we need to talk..." Lauren commented in a voice that would raise alarms in most men, though David seemed not to notice.

"Maybe -- it'll be late. I'd guess around 10:30 PM, and then I've got to leave at something like 4:00 AM to catch my flight, so I'm going to need some sleep, babe." David explained, with an expectation in his voice that Lauren would understand and push for a 'talk' no more.

"We'll talk when you can, honey. Just don't drive if you're tired." Even as she said the words, Lauren felt stupid. If David was cheating on her, which she hoped he was not, she just handed him a blank check not to come home, and to stay with whatever floozy he had been fucking. But the kindness of a relationship once perfect had not fully faded yet.

"No, I'll be home tonight -- trust me." To Lauren, the word trust sounded almost dirty coming from his mouth. "I love you!" He finished, professing his love in such a tone that it almost sounded like a question -- a test, to see if Lauren suspected anything.

"Love you, too." Lauren responded quickly, and in a manner meant to reassure.

'Click', their call ended, leaving Lauren again in her cubicle, her caramel brown eyes staring out across the sea of corporate utility, mired in her state of marital futility. A futility that led her to worry. To dwell. To almost daydream, though it was far more a daymare. And there he was in each of them. Fucking her. Again and again. God it made her angry. Sick. Disgusted. Not just with the slut she pictured, but with David -- and truthfully: herself. How could she have let it get this far...? Why did it take her so long to notice...? What had she done, or not done, that would let David slip away...? The weight of those questions and the answers that she found within herself were too much. Too painful. And so she latched on to the only hope she could. That he wasn't cheating... That he wouldn't... That she was just being paranoid, and there was a logical explanation for everything she had noticed...

But even as she clung desperately to that last gleaming hope, she found it taken from her. For that night, Lauren saw David only as he crawled into bed near 11:59 PM, smelling, looking, and feeling as if he had just gotten out of the shower.

"Did you just shower?" Lauren asked, confused and half-asleep.

"Yeah, I won't have time in the morning. Anyway, sorry I'm so late. You get back to sleep, babe, it's almost midnight..." Despite her own anger at David for not coming home, the suspiciousness of his scent-and-lipstick-cleaning shower, and the resulting tears that ran down her face when he didn't, she took his advice, and went back to sleep.

The next morning, when Lauren woke, David was already gone. He did not kiss her goodbye, or even wake her to say it, he was just gone.

Lauren was irritated: yes. Suspicious: yes. Even preemptively angry about an affair she was now certain he was having. But she still loved him. Still wanted him. Still missed him, not just the way that he was when they first met, but in whatever state she could have him. In that strange mix of expected and assumed betrayal, but also longing affection, did Lauren get up, and get ready for another day. Or at least that's what she planned on doing, until she saw it. David's cell phone, left on the bathroom counter, sitting next to toothpaste, brush, and the cologne he wore and that she had hated since he first bought it.

At first, she only stared at it, unsure what to do. They had always respected each others privacy, after all. In fact, they had even had conversations about how pathetic it is when couples don't trust each other. When they resort to sifting through the others social media accounts looking for likes or comments made by anyone they saw as a possible rival or demanding to see the others cell phone to check for any taboo behavior. But after all she had noticed, how could she? It was there, in front of her, the phone he had been guarding like the grail for ... well, she wasn't quite sure. Maybe she would just peek, she thought to herself, as she grabbed the phone, lifted it up, and turned its screen to face her. Once done, however, there it was. A text. From a contact without a name.

Sliding the message to the right on the screen, Lauren opened the text, and found that it sat alone, without any messages appearing to have ever been sent or received from the number before. The message read: "Did she say anything last night? Do you think she knows?"

From the moment they were read, the words repeated in Lauren's mind, over and over again like a chant. All day the two questions followed her -- plagued her. A state she aided, by keeping his phone with her all day and keeping it charged at 100%, making sure that she would not lose the message -- making sure would have the text to study and to anguish over.

Anger. Sadness. Heartache, she felt them all. But also excitement, strangely. An excitement which made her heart beat fast, and her thoughts jump from one emotion to another quickly, only to settle on the thought: who was this person? How could she find them? Meet them? And then force them go away and leave her husband alone?

One might assume that Lauren would want to punish David. Yell at him. Leave him, and find a man who would not cheat on her. But those thoughts never passed through the blonde's mind. No, she wanted David. She loved him, through and through. And despite his betrayal, she wanted him, forever, to grow old with him and have his children, just as they had discussed so many times before... But she could only do that, if she could claw him free of the person who sent the text -- whoever it was.

That day passed with Lauren distracted and work went on waylaid by her obsession with the message. Such focus, or lack thereof, did not pass when Lauren clocked out for the day, or when she drove home from the office. Nor did it ebb when she stripped off her blue blouse and beige skirt, leaving herself what laid underneath, a pair of black lace thigh-highs, with a matching set of lacy black bra and panties. In such attire, did the blonde crawl into bed, despite the early hour. She took with her not a book, or the TV remote, but instead only David's phone.

"Did she say anything last night? Do you think she knows?" She read out loud once, then twice, her voice heard by none but she. As the words passed her lips, her chest grew hot, her breath began to quicken, and deep within her she felt something stirring. She could not explain it. It was almost a lust, a passion, not for David, or for sex, but for conflict -- with this person, whoever they were.

Slowly, that feeling, however it might be described, began to work its way closer and closer to the surface, her hand lingering without intention down and into her panties. Still without noticing, she being lost in her repeated reading of the text, Lauren began to gently stroke her clit. As she did, she imagined, as was almost certainly the case, that the person was a woman, and that she was David's mistress. From there she pictured she and this woman meeting. Herself confronting her. That they were yelling and screaming at each other, and then after one insult or twenty, they each launched towards one another and after falling to the floor they began to roll. Suddenly from the daydream Lauren woke, finding her finger deep inside herself, with her head laid back against the backboard, and her mouth open letting loose soft moans of pleasure. In shame and confusion, the blonde quickly retracted her hand, and slammed the phone down on the bed, her eyes searching the room for an answer as to what was happening and what had gotten into her.

After a moment, her heartbeat slowed, her breathing calmed, and she was again merely sitting on the bed. She again looked at the phone, half-tempted to pick it back up, and half to hide it somewhere until David returned. But as her hand lingered over top of it, she still deciding which path to take, it rang.

After fumbling to quickly take it into her grasp, Lauren lifted the phone, to see that the call was from the number which sent the text. The woman she had just fought with in her unwanted fantasy. At that moment the blonde wife found herself afraid, of both her own unexpected desires, and finding out who might speak if she answered. And yet, despite those fears, she answered.

"Hello?" Came the woman's voice, without even waiting for a greeting, one that was smooth and confident -- sexy and strong.

"Who is this?" Demanded Lauren, her heart once again beating at a fevered pitch.

"Who is THIS...?" Responded the woman in a soft, confident hiss, refusing to give her name first.

"My name is Lauren, and I'm David's wife!" Lauren spat, expecting the words to have a shaming effect on whoever it was she was speaking to.

"Hi Lauren, my name is Claire, and I'm David's mistress." Defiantly the response came, making clear that she, this 'Claire', was not afraid to admit who she was, or stake her claim to being David's.

In silence the two sat, on other ends of the phone, as each came to grips with not only what the other had said, but the consequences of two such opposed women speaking.

"I knew he had a mistress." Lauren commented, making clear her own recent realization.

"And I knew he had a wife..." Unlike Lauren's comment, Claire's was stinging, though it was not said with cruelty.

Again, after only two sentences, they paused again, each trying to decide what to say next, and how to say it. I should yell, thought Lauren. Scream. Berate this slut. Tell her to leave David alone, or else... But instead...

"Where did you meet David?" Lauren asked, oddly calm, though her voice shook from the whirlwind of emotions running through her.

"In court, I was opposing counsel on a few of his cases. Where did you meet him?" Claire answered after a short pause, before asking the same question back, doing so because she truly wanted to know.

"We met in high school. I was on the cheerleading squad and he was the football team's quarterback." Wanting desperately not to give into the shameful desires that she had found herself masterbating to not moments before her rival called, Lauren tried desperately to keep her hands away from her own soaking sex.

"David played football? I can't believe it..." Claire said, as she laughed, entertained by the idea of David, a less than fitness-and-sports-focused man, in a helmet and pads.

"I know, right!? Honestly, he was terrible..." Admitted Lauren as the two women began to laugh together, she too finding humor in the thought, given how different David was now from back then.

"Then why did you date him? Women like us go for the players with talent." Claire asked sympathetically, the sound of her voice sounding far too friendly for one used to speak to a woman whose home and heart she was wrecking.

On and on they continued, speaking almost as friends, together discussing their history with David, their lives, their work, and everything else other than the fact that they were both sleeping with the same man. Such avoidance continued, even up until the moment when Claire asked. "Look, would you mind if I came over? I think we need to..." The attorney then found herself cutoff suddenly by Lauren, before she had completed her question.

"Yes, come over. Please..." Lauren said in acquiescence, she regretting her addition of 'please' almost immediately, knowing that it sounded almost desperate.

"What should I wear?" Claire asked, her voice bending and softening at just the right moment to make it clear that she would follow Lauren's lead.

"Whatever you're wearing now." Responded Lauren, as she looked down at her body, one covered only by her black bra, panties, and lace thigh-highs.

"You won't change either, right? I want you to promise me you won't get dressed, when I am coming just as I am." Claire said, making it clear that she wanted to meet Lauren in the same clothing each had worn when they spoke on the phone.

"I promise." Lauren said softly. "Do you know where it is?" The blonde asked, both in genuine concern and to see...

"Yes, I have been there with David before. We've been fucking ... in your bed..." Claire said with unneeded detail, wanting to make sure that Lauren knew that David had held nothing sacred, and had crossed every line with her that he could.

"Hh--hurry." Lauren's response was simple and stuck in her throat, as she tried to process Claire's words.

"Be there soon." Claire promised, before hanging up.

It seemed like an eternity to Lauren, but really, it was only a matter of minutes before Claire arrived. In anticipation, the betrayed blonde, sat on the couch in front of the street-view window waiting and staring. Wanting to meet Claire -- to see her, as soon as she could. And that soon finally came, when a woman, no shorter than she, stepped out of her red BMW coupe. She had gorgeous brown hair, which had a tint of red to it. On her feet were bright white high heels, and from her ankles to her neck she wore a long wool coat, one that was obviously too hot for the warm, night that LA was accustomed to.