My husband is having an affair. I’m sure of it. 

How do I know?

It’s pretty obvious. My husband is the worst actor. 

There are the midnight escapades - he rolls off the creaky, springy bed and pads out of our bedroom to god knows where. When he slips back under the sheets with me, he smells different and he always lets out a satisfied sigh. I wish I could time his little escapades but I’ve been blessed with the ability to fall asleep in the blink of an eye. He could have been gone minutes or hours, I wouldn’t know.

There are the hush-hush phone calls - he always gets one of those when he doesn’t have his midnight escapades. Normally, it’s just before I head off to work, which is to say, mid-morning. That way, I can’t interrogate him about who it is. It doesn’t help that my boss calls every morning before my husband gets that call.

There are the tell-tale looks of pent-up lust - he bites his lips after dinner. His leg jiggles restlessly. I can tell he’s aching to get some. I can’t say anything because the kids will be dancing circles around me and dragging all my attention away from him.

I’ve told my friends about all this and they insist I make the effort to find out what’s happening with my husband. I agree I haven’t done anything about it and I can’t help but feel like a negligent wife or an indifferent wife. But the truth is I’m scared. I don’t want to find out anything.

Still, they’ve convinced me to tail him just for one day. So that’s what I’m doing now in this horrible disguise that’s not really a disguise. I mean, a scarf and sunglasses don’t scream James Bond.

I’m probably tailing him a bit too closely as well. People are giving me odd looks and I won’t be surprised if someone asks me if I’m stalking. 

So far, nothing out of the ordinary has happened anyway. My husband is busy eating lunch at a street stall that serves food that I doubt is sanitary. He knows I only serve healthy, nutritious food at home - none of that junk food that I deplore. I guess this is his way of acting out. Childish.

Ah, he’s on the move! I follow him to the park where he takes a seat on one of the benches and starts to read the newspaper he’s bought. Maybe his lover leaves clues for him to find in there - a carefully worded obituary that tells him where to go.

Five minutes pass before I see him start to fidget. That’s a sign! As I suspected, he gets up and leaves hurriedly. Adrenaline rushes through my veins as I follow him close on his heels. If he turns around, he would spot me immediately. But he’s too set on his destination to notice the pair of hurried footsteps matching his pace.

The longer I follow him, the more I notice that this path he’s on leads back to our home. Or - my eyebrows scrunch in suspicion - to one of our neighbor’s homes. Could he be having an affair so close to home?? How daring!

This hunch of mine is getting more likely with every step he takes. We’re right outside our apartment building now. He rushes in without a thought, confirming my hunch!

I follow behind him but now that I’m this near to him in an enclosed space, I keep a larger distance. After all, my footsteps on the staircase would alert him to my presence. As we ascend the stairs, I wonder which floor his lover is on. The sixth floor perhaps? Six - the devil’s number and also a terrifying number of steps to climb, something that my husband would surely despise.

No, wait. He’s stopped at the next landing - the third floor. Our floor.

I creep up the stairs. Hearing him plodding somewhere to my left, I peek out to see him stop at our doorstep. My eyes widen in shock. Has he been having an affair right under my nose??

Before the door closes, I make a dash for it and jam my fingers between the frame, preventing it from shutting. I wince through the pain and slowly pull the door open wide enough for me to squeeze into my own home. The door shuts, emitting a soft melody. If I had opened the door with my own key, my husband might have been alerted to the melody playing twice in succession. Not that he would be as smart to figure it out, but his lover may have a little more brains than him.

Speaking of the devil and his minx, where is he? Nursing my fingers, I look around for my husband. The living room is clear. So is the dining room. I turn to the left, poking my head around the kitchen. No one.

Of course. It would have to be the bedrooms. I tiptoe over to the opposite corridor. The first bedroom belongs to our children. I nudge the door open, seeing a mess of toys and clothes, but no writhing bodies. 

Heaving a sigh of relief, I’m glad he has the sense not to contaminate a sacred place of innocence. It would have to be our master bedroom. As I pad towards the place where I share a bed with my husband, my heart races like a horse on drugs. I don’t know whether I feel angry, nervous, or scared. All I know is I need to catch him in the act and have this all over and done with.

I push the door open, fully expecting to see two naked bodies at it and preparing myself for the verbal onslaught to come. Instead, what I see makes me blink three times in rapid succession. 

The room is empty. No bodies.

I back out of the room. Where could he be if he wasn’t here?

A plaintive moan from the bathroom answers my question. I turn to the common bathroom that I had walked past earlier. Oh, right. There.

Now that I’ve located the traitorous bastard, I march down the hallway, not caring whether he hears me. He either doesn’t care or is too far into his pleasure that he doesn’t hear anything else because another rattling groan travels down to my annoyed ears.

Before he can groan or moan or whine again, I kick the door open with a foot and barge in without a care. With eyes bulging wide like a bull, I announce my intrusion with a loud, “You cheating bastard!”

“You-” The words die on my lips. 

My husband stares wide-eyed at me, his pants bunched at his knees as he sits on the toilet. “H-Honey?”

The pungent smell of excrement wafts to my crinkling nose. I look around wildly, finding no one else in this stinking room. My cheeks flush. “W-What are you doing here?”

“Taking a dump?” He lets out a grunt as the sound of a gushing river lets loose from inside him. “Why are you at home? And what did you call me?”

A cringy ringtone from the master bedroom blares in response.

He groans. “Sorry, hon. Can you fetch that for me?”

Flustered, I mumble a verbal yes and rush to the bedroom. My husband’s phone sits on the bed. I glance at the screen. It’s his doctor. While I have his phone, I quickly scan the recent calls that took place during the suspicious hush-hush timeframe. All from this - male - doctor.

I shuffle back to the bathroom and hand the vibrating phone to my husband. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He grimaces and answers the call. “Hey, doc.”

He looks up at me, giving me that expression that signals I should leave. I stand my ground, firmly planting my feet on the tiles and my arms on my hips.

Rolling his eyes, he shakes his head and says, “Yeah, doc. I’m having indigestion problems again. Are you sure that the pills you gave me are supposed to work?”

I fold my arms across my chest, my fingers tapping in exasperation. What did all this mean?

“Doc, you don’t need to tell me that I should stop eating street food. I know that’s the problem. But what can I do?” At this, he gives me a pointed look. “My wife won’t let me eat any of my usual snacks. And you won’t let me eat other alternatives either. Now, it’s worse. She knows now.”

Everything falls into place. The midnight escapades to the bathroom, the hush-hush calls to his doctor for different pills, the tell-tale looks of nature’s call. All because I don’t let him eat his favorite snacks because of his health issues.

Fuming with anger and embarrassment, I shout, “You bet I know what you’ve been doing! No more street food for you, understand?!”

Before he can respond, I storm out of the bathroom and slam the door. I wobble my way over to the living room and slump down on the sofa.

Oh boy, this is one shitty day.

---

Author Notes:

Lessons to learn for ConCoct agents in RomCon:

When emitting noises to attract or repel the person of interest, be very careful in choosing the right tone, cadence, and volume.