The Adulterer's Handbook Read online

  The Adulterer’s Handbook

  A Novel

  Sam Anthony

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One: The Text Message

  Chapter Two: The Party

  Chapter Three: The Phonecall

  Chapter Four: The Photograph

  Chapter Five: The Map

  Chapter Six: The Hotel

  Chapter Seven: The Condom

  Chapter Eight: The Dream

  Chapter Nine: The Email

  Chapter Ten: The Argument

  Part Two

  Chapter Eleven: The Holiday

  Chapter Twelve: The Reconciliation

  Chapter Thirteen: The Kitchen

  Chapter Fourteen: The Car

  Chapter Fifteen: The Letter

  Chapter Sixteen: The Mistake

  Chapter Seventeen: The Final Straw

  Chapter Eighteen: The Plan

  Chapter Nineteen: The Canal

  Chapter Twenty: The Aftermath

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Interview

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Loft

  Chapter Twenty-Three: The Box

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Prologue

  I raise my hands to her shoulders and give her a hard shove. She stumbles away from me until her heel catches on a tree root and she falls backwards, arms windmilling, towards the setting sun.

  “Lee…” she shouts before there’s a spectacular splash and she disappears beneath the green, frothing water.

  My first thought is, she won’t be happy about me ruining her new dress.

  My second is, I hope she doesn’t swallow any of that slimy, foul-smelling canal water.

  In a moment of panic, one thought comes to the fore: she can’t swim!

  Am I going to have to jump in and rescue her? I don’t mind my jeans getting wet, but I’m wearing my favourite shirt. Have I got time to strip off?

  Then, to my great relief, she comes coughing and spluttering to the surface. I expect to receive an earful of fully justified abuse, but, to my surprise, after some ineffectual splashing, she disappears beneath the surface again.

  The water quickly stills above her.

  She genuinely can’t swim.

  I’m about to jump into the canal and pull her to safety when I stop at the edge of the towpath.

  What if I do nothing…?

  Part One

  Chapter One

  The Text Message

  “No, no, no, no, NO!” I realise my mistake milliseconds after pressing the little arrow icon. I’ve just sent the text message “That was incredible! God, you’re so hot! xxx” to my wife, instead of my lover.

  The traffic lights turn green and I drive away, searching for somewhere to park so I can figure out if I can remedy the situation. I turn into a side street and pull over. How did this happen? I’m always so careful. That will teach me not to send messages while I’m driving. I pick up my phone, type in the six-digit passcode and study the screen. Two grey ticks. My wife’s phone has received it, but she hasn’t read it yet. Sometimes she doesn’t look at my messages for hours. Perhaps there’s a way I can delete it from her phone before she even notices it. I feel sick and I’m sweating. What am I going to say if she reads it?

  ◆◆◆

  For the last seven weeks, I’ve been having an affair with Sophia from my office. Over the course of a couple of years we’d gradually made the transition from colleagues to friends, and we increasingly used to spend our downtime together. She made me laugh, made me think and took an interest in me. I came to really enjoy her company. It didn’t hurt that she was also very easy on the eye. We flirted a bit, initially by email and then in person. One evening, at the tail-end of summer, after working late to finish an important project, as we and a colleague made our way to the staff car park, along a particularly dark section of the footpath, I reached out and surreptitiously squeezed Sophia’s bottom. I still don’t understand the strange compulsion that made me do it. What an impetuous thing to do! I had no idea how she’d react. A slap in the face would have been justified, or she could have made a scene in front of our colleague and humiliated me. She did neither. Without breaking stride, Sophia maintained her conversation with Claire from the IT department. It was as if it had never happened. I started to believe that she hadn’t even noticed.

  ◆◆◆

  It’s my own stupid fault. I’ve completely ignored rule three: Always begin text exchanges with ‘Hi.’ It’s a security feature of our carefully regulated affair, to make sure it’s safe to communicate and hence to prevent situations like this one from occurring. I’m an idiot!

  ◆◆◆

  Two blue ticks. Tamsin has seen it! My heart sinks. What must she be thinking now? I picture her in floods of tears, staring at her phone as her world crashes down around her. There’s no reply yet. Is she already throwing my clothes onto the front lawn and lighting a match? I couldn’t blame her if she is.

  A response at last. Just a single symbol.

  “?”

  ◆◆◆

  The following day at work, Sophia was still behaving as if nothing had happened. Fine by me. I’d regretted grabbing her bottom the moment I’d done it, and I was happy to forget all about the whole incident. However, she approached me mid-morning, after being out of the office for a while, an expression of suppressed anger on her face. “I’ve just been with HR,” she said. “I’ve reported you for sexual harassment and they want to see you in their office now.”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. “I’m so sorry, Soph. I don’t know why I did it.”

  “Well I do!” she replied, her eyes steely. “I have an irresistible arse. It’s always been a problem.”

  She burst out laughing. I’d never seen her so joyful. “Your face is priceless!” she gasped, trying to catch her breath as she sashayed back to her office.

  ◆◆◆

  What should I do? Reply straight away? Think fast and try to come up with any old excuse on the spur of the moment? Or take my time and make sure I’ve got a foolproof reason why I’ve just sent a hugely suspicious text message to my wife? She too must have seen the two blue ticks, so she knows I’ve read her message. I have to reply at once. I wing it.

  “Ha ha! Sorry about that. Colleague Dave got hold of my phone and thought it would be funny to send you a dodgy message!”

  Two grey ticks. Two blue ticks. No reply.

  Minutes pass.

  I wait.

  ◆◆◆

  My wife is called Tamsin, and she’s wonderful. I fell in love with her the moment I met her at university, and I love her more with each passing year. She’s beautiful, kind, wise, classy and very, very sexy. Slightly on the skinny side of slim, she looks incredible clothed and naked. I’ve never met anyone who I find more alluring than her. So why am I having an affair? I’ve considered this a great deal. Is there something missing from our relationship that I can only obtain elsewhere? Not really. Tamsin is my dream woman. I fancy the pants off her. She’s my best friend. We share many of the same likes and dislikes. She’s great company and we thoroughly enjoy spending quality time together. We both appreciate fine dining and regularly go out for romantic meals. We behave like newlyweds on our summer vacation, which Tamsin meticulously researches and organises. I’d hate to do anything to hurt her, so why am I cheating on her when I’m fully cognisant of how devastated she’d be if she knew?

  ◆◆◆

  For the next few days, Sophia teased me mercilessly about not being able to resist her bottom. However, our relationship continued to be professional and above board, with just some occasional flirting. That is, until my birthday.r />
  At the close of business, once most of the staff had left the building, I popped into Sophia’s office, as I’d begun to do several times a day, ostensibly for a chat. We often spent our break-time together and took the opportunity to gossip about and affectionately ridicule our co-workers. It was a pleasant way to spend time, and I found I was enjoying being with Sophia more and more. In fact, I seemed to be thinking about her rather more than a married man should.

  On this particular day, my forty-fifth birthday, as I said goodbye, Sophia stood up from behind her desk, came towards me, stretched up onto her tiptoes, kissed me softly on the lips and said “Happy birthday!” in a soft breathy voice I hadn’t heard her use before. I was taken aback. It was so intimate. I’d imagined what it would be like to kiss her, but it had actually happened and it was lovely. She stood there, inches away, looking me in the eye and waiting for a response. There was nobody else around so I decided to push my luck. “Any chance of a hug?” Sophia didn’t hesitate. She put her arms around my neck, pressed her body against mine and relaxed into me. My arms went around her waist and I squeezed her gently. And she squeezed back. And it felt perfect. I wanted it to go on forever, but we heard voices outside in the corridor and we leapt apart. “See you tomorrow,” she waved, her eyes now on her computer screen as two people walked past her office door. “See ya,” I replied as I left the room, walking on air.

  ◆◆◆

  There’s no response from Tamsin for twelve minutes. Does she believe my feeble excuse? It’s plausible. Eventually, I get a one-word reply.

  “Hilarious!”

  I can almost see the sarcasm dripping off my phone screen.

  This is immediately followed by, “We need to talk when you get home!”

  ◆◆◆

  I should mention at this point that I’m heavily editing and reconstructing my wife’s text messages so they make sense. She types fast and never reads them before sending. They’re often indecipherable and sometimes highly humorous. This one I don’t find funny at all and I’m already dreading returning home.

  ◆◆◆

  For the next couple of weeks, my relationship with Sophia continued much as before, except our eyes seemed to meet more often in staff meetings, and we’d taken to hugging goodbye before we left for home at the end of each day, obviously only after we’d checked that nobody could see us. This rapidly became the highlight of my day. Sophia felt so good in my arms that I was always reluctant to stop, and these hugs became longer and longer. Increasingly, we only ended our embrace when we heard voices or footsteps in the corridor outside the room. Nothing was said, but it was obvious to both of us that something was happening between us that we wanted to keep secret. How long can you maintain a hug before it starts to feel weird? Quite a while, apparently. Several times I thought these hugs were about to lead to kissing, but they never did. Until the evening of the puncture.

  ◆◆◆

  I drive home, paying little attention to the traffic. This isn’t going to be any fun. I don’t think Tamsin has bought my story. When I walk through the front door, she’s coming out of the kitchen. She must have seen my car arrive and is eager to talk without delay. With a sideways motion of her head, she summons me upstairs. I guess she wants privacy and I can hear the kids monopolising the kitchen, arguing over which songs to play while they’re doing their homework.

  Tamsin does not seem happy, but she’s a long way from furious. This is a good sign for me. I’d place her mood somewhere between anxious and stressed. The signs are apparent: the worm-like swollen vein in her otherwise elegant neck and her hands balled into fists, but her face is nowhere near the purple shade which signifies an imminent eruption. To be fair to Tamsin, she rarely blows her top, but when she does, it’s spectacular.

  I close the bedroom door behind us and sit on the bed, dreading the first words out of her mouth.

  “Your bloody mother is now saying she can’t make it for Christmas!” she says, barely containing her anger.

  “What?” What’s she talking about?

  “She phoned earlier to say that she and Greg are going to ‘holiday in Spain’ this year.” She mimes air-quotes as she rants. “All those Vegan recipes I’ve been looking at! What a waste of time! The kids are going to be gutted.”

  Tamsin goes on, but I’m no longer listening. Have I got away with it? Has this new crisis superseded mine and caused her to forget that I’m supposed to be in the doghouse?

  I make noises of agreement, disappointment and annoyance at the appropriate times as she continues to vent, but after a while, she begins to calm down and I tune in again.

  “Well, at least we should score some devoted-family-points for inviting them, but a bit more warning would have been useful.”

  I concur and Tamsin opens the door and starts to make her way out of the bedroom.

  As I’m beginning to let out a huge sigh of relief, she turns back to me.

  “By the way, what was that weird text message about? I don’t think you’ve mentioned Dave before. Is he new?” she asks.

  “Not especially. He’s been with us for a couple of years. Considers himself to be a bit of a prankster.” I can’t look her in the eye.

  “Well, I’ll be giving him a piece of my mind at your office Christmas party.”

  Tamsin turns and walks away. As she stomps back down the stairs, I decide to postpone my sigh of relief.

  ◆◆◆

  Tamsin and I have two children. Charlie is fourteen, witty, confident and as beautiful as her mother. John is eleven, tall for his age and too young to be as studious as he is. They’re both addicted to their gadgets and seem to spend less and less time with their parents, to our dismay, but they’re still great kids. I may be biased, but I believe we make a wonderful family, and only an idiot would do anything to jeopardise what we have. An idiot like me! However, I’m determined not to end up divorced and full of regret like my parents. I guess I’d better not get caught.

  ◆◆◆

  Sophia is thirty-five and has an amazing figure, somewhere between slim and voluptuous. She’s undoubtedly curvier than my wife, but not as tall. The perfect hugging height. Her husband is a lucky man. Oh yes; did I mention that she’s married too? They have no children yet, but they’re contemplating starting a family soon.

  ◆◆◆

  Eight weeks before Christmas, as I was completing a task at work, shortly after hugging Sophia goodbye, and coming perilously close to kissing her again, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

  “I’ve got a puncture!” Sophia texted.

  Sophia is the best text message writer I’ve ever met. She produces perfectly constructed, precise messages and even uses correct formal punctuation.

  She’d only made it half-a-mile home before her car had begun to weave erratically across the road and she’d been forced to pull over into a lay-by.

  On reflection, this was the first text message we’d ever exchanged, and it began a whole new era in our developing relationship.

  “You ok?” I replied.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, but I need a big manly man to help me!”

  This was followed by, “I immediately thought of you.”

  Then, “Do YOU know any big manly men?!”

  Funny!

  “Have you tried the AA or RAC?” I responded, chuckling to myself.

  “Not a member,” accompanied by a sad face emoji.

  “What about your husband? Can’t he help?”

  “He’s away at the moment and TBH he’s useless at mechanical stuff and many other things!”

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  Sophia sent me her location, and I set off to assist her, the way any colleague would under the same circumstances.

  ◆◆◆

  Well, it looks as if I’ve got a temporary reprieve. Tamsin appears to believe me regarding the prank text message, so hopefully I’m off the hook, at least until the office Christmas party, which I’m now dreading. What if she confronts Dave? There�
��s a high likelihood they’ll bump into each other at some point during the evening, and the only thing she knows about him is that he’s a prankster. I can already envisage the scene:

  “Nice to meet you, Dave. Are you the one who sent me that dodgy message from my husband’s phone?”

  “Huh? I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lee’s hot wife.”

  “Please, call me Tamsin.”

  “Okey-dokey, Tamsin.”

  “You know! A few weeks ago you sent me a message, pretending it was from Lee to a woman he’d just been having sex with. Something like: ‘That was amazing! God, you’re so hot!’ You must remember.”

  “I’m sorry, Tamsin, but that definitely wasn’t me.”

  “Fair enough, Dave. Want to pop upstairs for a shag ...?”

  Okay, so I may have an overactive imagination, and many of my daydreams involve my horny wife having sex with someone else, but I’m already terrified that the conversation will go something like that. Except possibly the last bit.

  Once Tamsin discovers that my story isn’t true, she’ll confront me again. What new concoction can I go to next? I could accuse Dave of lying, but why would he do that? I could blame someone else in the office, but Tamsin could easily ask them. A random stranger? But she’d still wonder why I’d accused Dave in the first place. I can’t see a way out of it, and I’m coming up with increasingly desperate ideas, which eventually I whittle down to just two:

  Tell Dave what I’ve done, man-to-man, and hope that he’ll back me up.

  Murder Dave.

  Chapter Two

  The Party