John and I didn’t meet the following week. I gave him some excuse but the truth was the amount of angst these late nights’ cost was no longer worth the reward. I found myself at home thinking of excuses to give John the next day.
It was a different story the following week when we left on a three-day trip. The final day of which was entirely fake. Away from home, I didn’t have to keep one eye on the clock or lie to my husband. I could defer the guilt and not have to worry about scrutinising myself before I got home. Of course, miles away from home, we could also go out for dinner and dancing before retiring for the evening. I still made sure John booked us two rooms. Read the stories I have, you’ll know why.
The first night, I accepted dinner from John, then told him I was going to bed alone. I wanted to reinvigorate our relationship by trying to rekindle that feeling of pre-sex anticipation. I also wanted John to have to work a little harder and not take me for granted. He didn’t fight me that much for my decision. We did spend the next night together though and the whole day after that.
Driving home the next afternoon, the guilt was crippling again. After John dropped me at the office, I called Wendy and we went out for dinner. The only purpose of this was to delay my getting home until Dave was asleep. That way I wouldn’t have to face him. I knew from experience the guilt was short lived. I’d already warned him I might be very late. We parted at 10:30p.m., and I drove past our house noting all but the bedroom lights were out. I parked up the street, battling to stay awake after a couple of energetic nights, until half an hour after the last light went off. I snuck in the house and carefully crawled into bed.
We had a quiet weekend. It struck me that Paula no longer visited, and of my new work friends, only Peta still came around after the flurry of new friendships. My life had evolved, pretty much, to two activities. Work and worry. Wendy rang in tears Saturday evening. She’d come home to find her husband moved out and a note to say he was no longer willing to swallow his pride for the sake of their marriage. That shook me up as I’d used her as my rationale that my marriage wasn’t automatically doomed if John and I were discovered. I fretted all Saturday night and on and off all of Sunday.
Therefore, it was easy to turn John down for the next two weeks until our next trip away. That was a quick two-nighter. After visiting clients all day the first day we went to our respective rooms to get ready for dinner. I was in the bathroom, putting my face on, when I heard the room door open. I yelled out, “There in a minute, John.” When there was no reply, I walked into the bedroom naked to see Dave sitting smiling on the bed. To say I was a little shocked was like saying the Pope was a little catholic. I think he said something about how useful the find-a-phone function was on smart phones and maybe went on to explain what he was doing there. I wasn’t listening, I was terrified he’d heard what I’d yelled, then seen me walk out in my birthday suit. He couldn’t have heard, though, as he acted way too normally.