Cheater Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  Other Works

  CHEATER: A WIFE-WATCHING ADVENTURE

  B. Jaye

  Copyright © 2017 B. Jaye

  All rights reserved.

  1

  “I saw Miguel again today.”

  Josh sighed. Emily looked so happy with herself, her brown eyes positively overflowing with the prospect of doing good in the world. He didn’t like that he always had to be the voice of reason, but his wife never gave him much choice.

  “I’ll bet you did,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  Emily narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he lied. “How’s he doing? Has he found a job yet?”

  Her face darkened. “No. You know how hard it is for someone with a felony record. First we lock them up in cages and then, when they get out, we expect them to make a living when no one will hire them for more than a day-laborer’s wages. It’s no wonder that recidivism rates are so high.”

  Josh knew the signals. Emily was about to launch into one of her tirades. Ever since she had graduated with a degree in social work and moved across the country to join him in California, she had been cut off from her old networks and starved for opportunity to protest society’s injustices. For the most part he agreed with her perspective on society’s injustices, but he didn’t enjoy talking about them nearly as much as she did.

  And where Miguel was concerned, they didn’t agree at all.

  “What did you talk about? Did he hit on you again?”

  She scowled at him. “He’s never hit on me. Men of his culture and generation just have a different way of talking to women. It’s a bid for connection.”

  “Yeah,” he smirked. “He’d like to connect his anatomy with yours.”

  Her mouth fell open. “I can’t believe you said that!”

  Josh knew he was walking a dangerous road. There were times when he could get away with joking about that sort of thing, but it looked like this was not one of those times. Emily seemed a little upset with him, but he wasn’t ready to let go of it.

  “Emily, he’s been hitting on you for weeks,” he said, trying to be reasonable. “He’s not even subtle about it.” He had overheard some of their conversations. Emily was a very attractive woman, even though she had a habit of hiding the evidence beneath baggy clothing. Even so, sometimes Miguel very nearly drooled over her.

  “That’s not true!”

  “Then why does he come over here so often?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “We’re friends, Josh.” Her voice carried a dangerous tone.

  He chewed his food and considered his options. Usually he would bail on an argument like this one before it had a chance to go from bad to worse, but the way that their neighbor had been sniffing around his wife—not to mention the way that Emily refused to acknowledge the fact that he was making a play for her—was starting to make him angry. He made a spot decision: They were going to talk about it once and for all.

  “Honey, I love you,” he started carefully, “and I love how compassionate you are. You think everyone can be redeemed, and that’s a beautiful thing. But this guy, he could be a drug dealer for all we know!”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you know what I think?” she said quietly.

  He tensed himself, realizing too late that he had made a critical mistake. “What?”

  “I think you see a Latino ex-con and it intimidates you. When you look at him, all you can see is a person of color, and you think he belongs behind bars. I see a good man who made a few bad decisions and is now looking for a second chance.”

  Josh gritted his teeth. “You’re calling me a racist?”

  “I’m pointing out how white privilege has blinded you to some things.”

  “But you’re not blinded. You see everything clearly.”

  “I’m the one who’s reaching out, Josh! I’m the one who sees his potential and not just his tattoos.”

  Frustration and irritation had been building inside him until it burst out. “Damn it, Emily, you’re not being enlightened, you’re being naive!”

  She stood up from the table and stormed away.

  2

  JOSH went to bed angry and was asleep by the time Emily got there, but the next morning he was ready to apologize. This was usually the way their fights went. Emily wore her emotions on her sleeve. She was passionate in her convictions and, once she had made up her mind, nothing on this earth could stop her from doing what she thought was right. Sometimes it seemed like her little body contained more energy than the sun. Josh could not have been more different. He was the analytical one in the relationship. While she would seethe over something he had said hours or days before, his mind was carefully and methodically breaking down the terms and structure of their argument until he could see the flaws in his thinking as well as hers.

  That morning he could tell she was still angry. She didn’t get up when his alarm went off, which wasn’t unusual, but she also didn’t come out for breakfast, and that was definitely a bad sign. Emily worked at home as a freelance writer, so she could set her own hours and sometimes she decided she needed to sleep in, but Josh was confident that this time she was simply avoiding him.

  He left for work missing the hug and the kiss she usually gave him when he left, and he spent much of the day thinking about how to reconnect with her. It was a balancing act: He wanted to apologize for his part in the argument, but he didn’t want to give the impression that he was admitting that she was completely right and he was completely wrong.

  In fact, on this occasion he was pretty sure that he was mostly right. Miguel wanted a piece of her. Josh didn’t blame him for being attracted to her. Emily was the sort of woman who attracted stares whenever she entered a room, although she seemed oblivious to the power she had over men. Miguel was bluntly obvious about his intentions, however, and he seemed completely undeterred by the fact that Emily already had a ring in her finger. Josh would never admit it to Emily, but he thought Miguel was a loser and a jerk, and it felt terribly unfair that Emily had accused him of racism.

  He first met Miguel one day when he heard Emily talking to someone out in the hallway. She always seemed to know everyone in the building. She had a talent for immediately learning their names, the names of their dogs, and what their most cherished dreams were. Josh didn’t know how she did it, and for his part he could never seem to remember anything about anyone. So when he heard her talking to someone outside their apartment door, he decided to join the conversation, thinking that this time he might get to know a neighbor for once.

  He opened the door and found his wife talking with a guy who looked like a gang-banger out of central casting. He had a scary network of scars on his face, and his long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wasn’t much taller than Josh, but he was built like a boulder, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest that made him look more than a little intimidating.

  Immediately, Josh didn’t like him. It seemed like the feeling was mutual, too, because the stranger turned and fastened him with the sort of look that a man would normally give to something he found stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

  Josh held out his hand. “Hey, I’m Josh. Emily’s husband,” he added, because already he was getting the sense that this man needed a reminder that Emily wa
sn’t fair game.

  “Miguel,” the man said in a voice tinged with just the trace of an accent. He wrapped Josh’s hand in a meaty grip and started to squeeze.

  Wincing, Josh extracted his fingers from Miguel’s punishing grip. “Ouch,” he said, not smiling. Miguel didn’t smile, either. Already it seemed like they understood one another.

  Miguel turned back to Emily. “It’s a great place. Dark, with comfortable booths. The food is like my mother used to make. We should go some time.”

  Emily glanced at Josh before she replied. “The three of us? That would be fun. I’d love to hear about your mother. Maybe we could go around 7:00, when Josh gets back from work?”

  Miguel shook his head. “That’s no good. The tables fill up by then. We’ll want to go earlier. I can take you. Have you ever ridden on a Harley?”

  Dude, I’m right here , Josh thought to himself. “Can’t we make a reservation?” he asked. He was pretty sure that sharing a dinner table with a man like Miguel was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t resist calling the guy’s bluff.

  “No reservations,” Miguel said with the barest sideways glance. “What do you say?” he asked, turning back to Emily.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Emily had said, and she brought the conversation to a close right after that. Josh remembered that they shared a laugh later about how transparently Miguel had been hitting on her right in front of her husband.

  A few weeks later, though, the incident dropped out of Emily’s memory. Miguel’s predatory behavior that day was inconsistent with the person she wanted him to be, and so she purged it from her mind. By then she was regularly spending time with her new Latino friend. He had been out of prison for over six months and was having a hard time holding down a job. Emily saw a reclamation project: Here was a man trying to turn his life around and atone for his mistakes.

  For his part, Josh suspected from the beginning that Miguel’s real problem was that he was a huge asshole. He was a flagrant, unrepentant bully, and no employer in his right mind would ever want to hire him. Strategically he kept those thoughts to himself, snd nothing had happened since that first day to make him feel differently.

  3

  JOSH knew that how he felt about Miguel, and whether he was right or wrong, wasn’t that important in his current situation. Emily was angry with him, she had a habit of staying angry for unpleasantly long periods of time, and he wanted to make amends. He spent the day thinking about what the best gesture might be. Flowers were always nice, and he knew Emily liked the little white and yellow ones. What she really wanted from him, he was aware, was for him to share his feelings and connect with her on a deep emotional level, but Josh had never been very good at that sort of thing. Flowers always seemed like a nice second choice on those occasions when he wasn’t comfortable with the first.

  He left work early and stopped off at the market for a fresh bouquet, then grabbed a bottle of wine while he was at it. He was planning to surprise her with the flowers and then make dinner to seal the deal. He was feeling pretty good about the plan right up to the moment when he was climbing the front steps and he heard Emily scream.

  It wasn’t a scream, exactly. It was more like something between a shout and a drawn-out moan, and it sent chills up his back to think what must be happening for her to make that sort of a sound. Their apartment was on the third floor, and he could tell right away that the sound wasn’t coming from above him. Her cry had come from one of the windows near ground level.

  Miguel lives in the basement apartment.

  Josh wasn’t a fighter by nature. Through a combination of pacifism and—if he was honest with himself—more than a little timidity he had managed to make it to adulthood without ever getting into a fistfight. His first reaction on hearing Emily’s cry, though, was to go into protective mode. Adrenaline flooded his veins as he imagined Miguel forcing himself on his innocent bride. He needed to save her, but first he needed to know what the situation was.

  Off to the right of the front steps, mostly concealed by a leafy bush, there was a narrow window just above ground level that gave a view into Miguel’s apartment. Josh hopped down and squeezed between the wall and the bush to peer into the window.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the shadow, and a moment more after that for his mind to adjust to what his eyes were seeing. There was some sort of smooth, brown-colored blob on the floor, and around it articles of clothing were arranged haphazardly. The blob was heaving rhythmically up and down, and the sound that Emily was making came from beneath it.

  Josh squinted, trying to make sense of the scene. Then, in a moment of horrible clarity, he had it.

  They’re doing it . The thought forced itself into his brain with terrible and unforgiving clarity. They’re having sex. Miguel is fucking Emily on the floor.

  Numb with shock, Josh’s eyes drifted around the scene, collecting the details. He saw for the first time that Miguel had a huge tattoo on his back, of an eagle with outspread wings. He saw that Emily’s blouse was draped over the back of a chair. He spotted her bra on top of a table, next to a bottle of whiskey and two empty shot glasses. Her pink panties were gripped tightly in Miguel’s right fist as his hips moved back and forth between her pale thighs.

  Even in his daze, Josh could remember those panties. Emily had modeled them for him the day after she bought them. It was his birthday that day. She’d told him that the panties were a part of his present, and after that they’d made love.

  What he was seeing didn’t look much like love-making. Miguel was grunting and growling like some sort of beast. Muscles rippled along his back and his ass clenched with every thrust of his cock into Emily’s pussy. Josh could hear wet, squelching sounds that bore testimony to how turned-on his wife was. Miguel was fucking her hard, and Josh could tell that she was loving it.

  His eyes moved reluctantly to his wife. Her hands gripped Miguel’s shoulders, and he could see that her eyes were screwed tightly shut. He could tell that she was close to orgasm. Her face was covered in sweat and her breath was coming in deep gasps. With a whimper, she dug her nails into Miguel’s skin and buried her face into his shoulder.

  Miguel picked up the pace. He snarled and started pounding into her powerfully, the muscles along his thighs bulging in thick cords. Emily gave out a wail, then her legs started to quake. She was succumbing to the pleasure. She was coming louder and harder than Josh could ever remember seeing from her.

  A moment later Miguel gasped and pushed back from her. He rose to his knees between her legs and stroked his wet cock with his right hand. Josh’s analytical mind couldn’t help measuring it and comparing it to his own; Miguel wasn’t much longer, if at all, but his cock was so thick that his fingers barely made it halfway around. He stroked himself once, twice, three times, and then with a groan he shot his load. A thick stream of cum jetted in long ropes that laid wet, glistening stripes along Emily’s stomach and breasts.

  Josh felt a painful twisting sensation in his chest, as if someone had seized his heart and gave it a squeeze. He watched as Miguel reached out to rub his seed into his wife’s naked skin, and he thought to himself: This is like watching porn.

  Emily’s eyes were closed and she was still breathing heavily, collecting herself after the intensity of their experience. Her full breasts rose and fell hypnotically, and Josh’s heart thumped painfully a second time. Belatedly he realized that he was an uninvited guest to their party. He backed out of his hiding place as quietly as possible. The bush rustled as he left, but neither Miguel nor Emily turned toward the window. He felt sure that they were too lost in each other to suspect that someone might be watching.

  Not knowing where to go or what to do, he set off down the street, walking aimlessly. Every step that took him away from the scene of the crime brought a wave of emotion.

  She had sex with another man.

  She’s cheating on me.

  I gave her everything, and she betrayed me.

&n
bsp; Miguel needs to die.

  Our marriage is over.

  I have to move out. I’d kick her out, but she’d probably just move in with Miguel.

  Where the hell am I supposed to go?

  She’s having an affair with that guy? THAT fucking guy?!

  Wandering aimlessly down the sidewalk, Josh took a hard look at his life and saw that all his plans and dreams were gone. None of them made sense without her. She had stolen them from him, he thought. She had called him a racist, and the very next day she fucked the man who she insisted was not hitting on her.

  She was so beautiful on our wedding day, so radiant in that gown. She cried when she said her vows and pledged herself to me and lied to me and ruined my life.

  Now that Josh knew that Emily had cheated on him, it was beginning to dawn on him that it might not have been the first time. He had always trusted her implicitly and never questioned her when she came home late. He wondered how many other lies might she have told him?

  His mind was spinning. He was frantically trying to get his bearings in this new world he found himself inhabiting. He wondered how long his wife had been fucking Miguel. He tried to remember every time she mentioned him casually. He tried to remember whether she’d said or done something that, in hindsight, was a signal that they were having an affair.

  Nothing came to mind, but he couldn’t stop himself from obsessing about it. In his mind he ran through the catalog of men they knew, the men Emily seemed to like. Were there any that she seemed to like just a bit too much? Was there a man who made her laugh a little too hard, or whose arm she touched a little too intimately? Nothing seemed certain anymore. She may have been cheating the entire time he knew her.

  He felt like he was going to be sick. He wanted to scream and break things. He wanted to get in the car, drive away, and never come back. He wanted to get in the car, drive to a gun shop, and then blow Miguel’s brains out.

  Josh gritted his teeth with sudden clarity. He wanted revenge. His mind began methodically working on the problem, breaking it down. He thought about objectives, core requirements, and intermediate steps. Soon the gist of a plan began to form.