***All characters are over 18 and are fictional. Any resemblance to any real-life persons or situations is purely coincidental.
There is a no sex in this story, but I feel it still belongs in the Loving Wives section. I’m sorry if this disappoints you, but I still hope you give it a chance and hopefully you’ll enjoy it.
…
It was around noon when James got the text from his wife, Amanda, letting him know she would be home late because of work. That happens sometimes between them; even he has to occasionally stay later after hours when something comes up at work. It’s not a problem for them as long as they text each other about it ahead of time so they aren’t surprised later. Since Amanda would be home late, he figured he’d stay later himself to get some extra work done and get a little overtime pay for it. He texted her back to say to let her know he would be staying late at work as well, and she replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
It was nearly 4 p.m. when he realized he had all of his work done for the day. It shouldn’t surprise him since it seemed to be a slow work day. He had a few emails to take care of, but other than that, he had nothing else to do. He already promised his wife he would stay late at work, so he figured he’d sneak off for a drink with coworkers instead.
He was about to text his wife about his new plans when the receptionist called him to let him know there was a woman at the front desk asking to speak with him. The woman claimed she was an employee from another branch and was there to speak to him about a private matter.
This happens sometimes. James worked in the Human Resources department and handled work for several branches. Most of the time, the employees in his department did their work over the phone or by email, but occasionally someone comes in directly when there’s a bigger issue involved. Sometimes it’s because of a benefit or pay issue; other times, it’s because they’re having a problem with a coworker or supervisor and they didn’t want to talk about over the phone. He found that when a woman comes to the office, it’s usually the latter.
He told the receptionist to let her in. When he saw her enter the office, he had the distinct impression that he recognized her from somewhere, but he couldn’t place it. He assumed he must’ve seen her somewhere, probably from visiting other branches or at a company function. Being in HR, he had to know a lot of employees within the company, even those he rarely met. But there were still a lot of people he couldn’t remember or hadn’t met before.
She was an attractive woman, a little shorter than James, with long dark hair. She wore a professional suit with the skirt cut off just above the knees. He could tell she had a good body, probably worked out a lot. He figured she was a full-size C-cup like his wife. Being in his position, he knew he shouldn’t be checking out women like that. But he was only human, after all, and sometimes couldn’t resist. As long as he didn’t look too long or try to say or do anything about it, he would be in no trouble.
When she came around to his desk, he stood up to greet her.
“Hello, I’m James,” he introduced himself while extending his hand.
“I’m Brandi,” she replied as she shook his hand.
She took a look around and saw five others in the office around them. The office was big, with several filing cabinets and servers for their systems, but it needed a small team to run it.
“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” she asked.
When James heard something like this from a woman coming into HR, it usually meant they wanted to talk privately about a harassment issue they were having. He has known some women who just wanted to keep quiet about the situation and hoped to resolve it without causing any problems.
“I understand,” he said. “Would you prefer to speak to one of the women here? If this is a personal issue, we find talking to another woman–”
“No, it’s not that,” she assured him. “I came here specifically for you.”
He understood and escorted her to the conference room in the back. He figured someone must’ve referred him to her for whatever personal issue she wanted to discuss.
The conference room wasn’t a big room considering how small his department was, but it worked well for the occasional meetings.
“Please have a seat,” he said as he closed the door behind them.
“No thank you; I feel like standing,” she said.
“No problem. How can I help you?”
Brandi didn’t say anything for several seconds, and she was behaving very nervously.
“I can understand if you’re nervous, but I assure you that anything you say to me will be private,” he told her. “Are you having a problem with a coworker?”
“No, I don’t even work for the company,” she revealed.
“Alright,” he said, feeling a little surprised.
“I’m not sure if you remember, but we met a little over a year ago at Danny and Susan’s wedding. They’re coworkers of your wife, Amanda.”
“Yes, I remember their wedding,” said James, realizing that might be where he remembered her from. “But I’m sorry, I’m having trouble remembering you.”
“My husband is Pete Russo; he works with your wife at the accounting firm,” she continued.
“Now I remember,” James said happily. “You’re a college professor. You teach economics, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” she said smiling.
“Well, Brandi, how can I help you?”
“I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it,” she said before taking a deep breath to help her relax. “Your wife and my husband are having an affair.”
James was stunned by this revelation. He could barely think straight; his mind was like a website buffering itself while it tried to get to the next page. He wanted to say something to her, to tell her how wrong she was, but he had trouble saying it out loud.
“I know this comes as a shock to you and it might be hard to believe. But it’s true; they’re having an affair with each other.”
“Are you sure?” James asked.
“I’m positive,” she said. “I suspected he was cheating on me for quite some time as I saw some unusual texts and emails that seemed to be written in some kind of code. It’s not government spy-level stuff, mind you, but when you look at them closely, they’re flirty messages and discussions of when and where to meet.”
“Are you absolutely certain? I’ve seen this type of accusation before in my line of work concerning emails, and often it turned out to be absolutely nothing.”
“I also got a confirmation from a former secretary who used to work at their firm until recently,” she said. “He made up some things about her to have her fired. And apparently Amanda confirmed those allegations in the report. The secretary says she got fired because she found out about their affair.”
“OK, right there, that sounds fishy to me,” James said, taking a defensive tone. “She was fired as a result of them, so it’s possible she made up some nonsense about them out of revenge.”
“I’m also friends with someone they work with; she says the secretary was a sweetheart who never did anything bad, so it was hard to believe any of the accusations against her. When she heard this stuff, she confessed to me that she had been hearing rumors about Pete and Amanda but thought it was just dumb office gossip until I told her what the secretary told me.”
James didn’t know what else to say. There were still some issues with the story which could be explained away as revenge or office rumors, but he had been an HR person long enough to see that sometimes those types of rumors have some truth behind them. He still didn’t want to believe that his wife was cheating on him, but the evidence was getting stronger.
“I know this is a lot to lay on you, but I think I have one more bit of proof,” said Brandi. “From what I gathered from his emails they’re meeting after work today at a hotel. If we go there now, we can catch them on their way in.”
“Amanda did say she was staying at work a little longer,” said James, suddenly feeling uneasy about what his wife may be up to behind his back.
“I admit, there is a chance I could be wrong,” Brandi continued. “And to be honest, I am hoping I am wrong about all of this and I’m just a crazy, jealous wife who is seeing something that isn’t there. But it wouldn’t hurt to go there to be absolutely certain. And if they are there, it will be a good chance for us to confront them about it.”
He still wasn’t sure if he should believe any of this. It was a big accusation about his wife. Brandi had some good evidence, but it was still circumstantial. But at the same time, it wouldn’t hurt to go to the hotel and be absolutely sure about it. If they showed up together, then Amanda was cheating on him, and he would have to confront them about it. But if they don’t show up, at least he’ll know it’s not true. He would feel stupid about it, but at least it’s proof that his wife was faithful to him.
“Fine, I’ll go to the hotel with you to be absolutely certain about all of his,” said James. “But I really hope none of this is true.”
“Me too,” she replied.
It was almost 4:30 p.m. by then. Brandi left first, and then ten minutes later James said he was leaving early for the day. He didn’t want his coworkers to question why he was leaving early with Brandi, so he left a little bit after her.
She gave him information about the hotel and recommended a good parking spot where his car would not be seen. That part seemed a little peculiar to bring up, but he went along with it.
He met up with her inside the hotel. She took him to a lounge area where she said they could keep an eye on the front door and front desk without being noticed. She even had a couple of newspapers ready for them to cover their faces as they kept a lookout for their spouses. This also felt like a peculiar thing to do, and he made a mental note of it in case he had to come back to it later.
As they sat there, holding up those newspapers, he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t held up a newspaper in years. He looked around and didn’t see anywhere in the lobby where one could buy a newspaper. There was a small gift shop and a small café in the hotel, but neither of them looked like the type to sell newspapers.
“Where did you get these newspapers?” he asked.
“I bought them just in case we needed them for this stakeout,” she replied.
This made him wonder when she might have bought them. Was it on her way over to the hotel? If that was the case, he didn’t think she had much time to buy them, given how long it had been since he last saw her at his office and the time it took to meet her at the hotel. Or was it long before she came to see him? That seemed more likely.
“This is a nice hotel,” said James. “Not an overly expensive one, but it must still cost a lot of money to pay for one day and night. How did they pay for it? I didn’t notice any unusual credit card transactions from my wife. Did you notice anything like that from any of your bank or credit card statements?”
“I noticed some cash withdrawals,” said Brandi. “He could be paying all this in cash. Maybe you should check your bank for unusual cash withdrawals too.”
“But aren’t you supposed to give the hotel a debit or credit card for check-ins as well? They take a small security deposit and then return it if nothing happens to the room. There should be a record in the statements indicating where the payments were going.”
“I happen to know that a few employees here have a side hustle where they keep a few rooms off the books for people who want a little privacy without leaving a record about it. You don’t even have to put down a card for security deposit, just cash. The managers don’t even know about this.”
“That is some scam they’re pulling,” said James. It was a sketchy operation, but he was kind of impressed by how the employees were pulling it off.
“If it comes down to it, I know an employee I could bribe to let us into the room to catch them in the act. But hopefully all we’ll need to do is to catch them coming into the hotel. It will be hard to explain what they’re doing here together.”
“How do you know all this?” James asked, then suddenly had a big revelation. “This is not the first time you suspected Pete of cheating on you, has it?”
Brandi suddenly looked nervous again, just like she did when they first met.
“No, I suspected a few times before,” she revealed.
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. Too many to remember.”
James started to put everything he knew so far together. Besides the information she told him back at his office, which was already circumstantial at best, there was plenty of new information he was gathering. There were also the things she knew about the hotel, such as the employees, where to park, and where to sit in the lounge, with newspapers of all things. There were also the bank statements she mentioned, which were suspicious but not really evidence of anything. And finally, she revealed that she had suspected him of cheating before but had absolutely no proof it ever happened.
Even then, talking about finding coded messages in his emails and texts seemed strange. Now that he thought about it, it could mean she had been hacking into his emails and phone, which doesn’t make her sound like a reasonable person.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized what kind of situation he had gotten himself into.
“Oh, my God,” he said as he threw down his newspaper on the coffee table in front of them.
“What’s the problem?” she asked.
“The problem is that you’re fucking crazy,” he told her.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking very offended.
“I can’t believe I almost believed any of this. You’re just an overly jealous wife; that’s all this is.”
He laid out his entire case about how he came to this conclusion. He even took the time to poke holes in all of her so-called evidence.
“What about the secretary? And my friend who works with them?” she asked.
“As I said before, the secretary was fired because of them; she wanted some revenge. As for what your friend told you, office rumors like that are a dime a dozen. I see this all the time in my line of work, especially towards women.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” she said as she threw down her own newspaper. “I’m not some mentally ill woman stalking her husband–”
“It sure seems like it.”
“Some of my evidence may be considered circumstantial, as you say, but there’s too much of it to be overlooked. He’s cheating on me with your wife, and you need to face that when they –Oh shit!”
Brandi jumped up from her seat and took a few steps away from them.
“What’s the problem now?”
“I just saw them walk away,” she said. “While we were arguing, they came in and are now walking toward the elevators.”
“Oh, please,” he responded. “We didn’t argue with them long enough for them to check in.”
“They must’ve gotten their keycard beforehand.”
“That’s it. I’m done with this.”
James angrily stood up and started walking towards the front doors before Brandi stopped him.
“See for yourself; they’re right over there,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction.
James looked to where she was pointing and saw a tall man and a blonde woman holding on to the man’s arm. She had the same hairstyle and body type as his wife, and he was even more sure she was wearing the same outfit he saw her wearing that morning before they left for work. But her back was turned, so he wasn’t entirely sure it was her.
“I’m pretty sure that’s my husband,” said Brandi. “Is that your wife?”
“I’m… not sure,” he replied. “It looks like her, but I’m only seeing her from behind, so I don’t know.”
“Then let’s go after them,” said Brandi.
He followed Brandi as they went after them. The couple had already gotten onto the elevators going up before they could get to them. Before the elevator doors closed, he saw Pete kissing the woman, but from the angle they were kissing, he couldn’t see her face.
He then followed Brandi to the front desk, where she introduced him to Dave, her contact at the hotel she had acquired. She gave him some money and said she wanted to go to the room where her husband and the other woman were going. He couldn’t just give them the keycard, so he had to go with them to the room.
On their way up the elevator, James decided he still needed more proof that it was Amanda he saw in the lobby. He didn’t want to risk making a fool of himself when entering that couple’s room and it turned out it wasn’t Amand or Pete.
“Did they check in just now or earlier?” James asked Dave.
“It was just the guy who checked in yesterday and took a couple of keycards,” said Dave.
“Did they still have to sign in for it?”
“Just a little something to make it look legit.”
“What names did he use when they checked in? It may not be him.”
Dave laughed. “Nobody who does this ever uses their real names. He used an alias, and not very good ones. John Smith, if you could believe it.”
“He didn’t even bother taking the time to come up with a genuine fake name,” said Brandi, shaking her head.
“But how do we know it’s them?” James asked Brandi. “We only recognized them from the back, and this guy doesn’t know his real name.”
Brandi saw how nervous James was behaving; she was worried he was going to have a panic attack. She took out her phone, pulled up a picture of her husband, and showed it to Dave.
“Is this the man whose room we’re going to?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s him,” said Dave, which gave James a sense of relief. “If you take out the mustache.”
“Mustache?” James asked.
“This picture was from a month ago; he has shaved his mustache since then,” said Brandi.
“Then how are you so sure?” James asked Dave.
“Trust me, it’s him.”
“It’s a mustache, James, not a beard,” said Brandi.
James pulled up a picture of Amanda on his phone, showed it to Dave, and asked if that was the woman the man they’re after came with. Dave said he never met the woman; it was only the man who bought the room. He’d only seen him with the woman from a distance when they came in, and he’d never gotten a good look at her. The best he could say was that the picture of Amanda kind of looked like the woman he had seen with the other man. This did not make James any more confident in their mission.
They got off the seventh floor and began walking down the hallway.
“Thanks for doing this,” Brandi said to Dave. “Even if it is for the money.”
“No problem,” said Dave. “Hopefully it’s the right guy this time.”
“Wait, hold up,” James said to them, and everyone stopped. “What does he mean by that?”
Brandi sighed. “One-time, last month, I thought Pete was coming here on a particular day and I mistook someone else for Pete. I got Dave to let me into that man’s room and saw how wrong I was. The man in that room was cheating on his wife, but it wasn’t Pete.”
James began breathing heavily and had to lean up against the wall because he was afraid he was going to collapse. He knew he was having some kind of panic attack, but he had never experienced one before, and it scared the hell out of him. There was evidence that Amanda was cheating on him with Brandi’s husband, but there was also a lot of evidence that Brandi was just a crazy woman who dragged him into her fantasies.
Brandi came up to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
“Listen to me, take a big, deep breath, and slowly exhale,” she told him in a soothing voice, and he did just that. “Now do that a few more times, and clear your mind as you do it.”
He did as he was told, and it did help him relax. When he finally calmed down,
“I’m alright now,” he assured her.
“”I’m sorry if there seems to be a lot of skepticism about all of this but I assure you I am correct about everything. We’re almost there at the finish line, are you with me?’
James just nodded, but was a little shaky about it.
“Great,” she said with a big smile. “Then let’s go.”
They followed Dave down the hallway until they got to room 7M. There, they could hear the couple in the room loud and clear from the other side of the door. From the noises they were making, they were definitely having sex.
“Already?” James asked. “They just got here.”
“Good,” said Brandi as she pulled out her phone and turned on the camera app. “We can catch them in the act, and I can record everything on my phone to get all the evidence we need.”
Dave asked for more money before he opened the door for them, and Brandi handed it to him. But just before Dave was about to open the door, James stopped them.
“Wait, I can’t do this,” said James, backing away as he felt another panic attack happening. “I just can’t do this.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” Brandi told Dave.
Brandi went after James and stopped him from walking away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “They’re cheating on us. Don’t you want to confront them?”
“I’m sorry, I know I seem like a total coward right now,” he told her. “There’s a chance we’re wrong about this, and those are two different people. But if it is Amanda in there, I just don’t know how to face her. We’re talking about my wife, the woman I love. If it is her, I don’t know how to handle any of this.”
Brandi took a good look at him and realized she couldn’t force this on him any longer.
“You know what? You don’t have to join me on this,” said Brandi. “I pushed you into this, thinking you deserved the truth as much as I did. But I can see how you’re feeling about this, so you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she assured him. “And I don’t think you’re a coward; I think a lot of people would feel this way in your position. To be honest, I’m scared too. Part of me hopes you were right before and that I’m just a crazy, overly jealous wife. So, I’ll fully understand if you want to leave now, and I won’t judge you. But I still have to go in there for myself.”
Brandi walked back to room 7M, and James followed her. He figured she shouldn’t have to face them alone, and he should get over his fears and face what was behind that door.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked James.
“Not entirely, but I have to know.”
Brandi had her phone’s camera ready again, getting ready to record everything. James told Dave they were ready, and he used his master keycard to let them in. Dave walked away as Brandi and James quietly entered the room. The couple they followed were naked under the blanket, with the man on top of the woman, fucking her hard.
“You bastard!” Brandi yelled at him while holding her camera up and recording everything.
This startled the couple, with the man covering the woman with his body in a protective measure. He looked at the people who entered his room and was surprised by what he was seeing.
“Brandi, what the hell are you doing here?” Pete yelled at her.
“Catching you in the act, fucking this man’s wife,” she said referring to James.
The woman she was referring to was behind Pete, who had her head buried in her pillow the whole time, sobbing uncontrollably.
“How did you know we were… oh shit, you hacked my email again, didn’t you?”
“Of course, I did. Seriously, you should learn better cyber security by now.”
James took a couple steps toward the crying woman on the other side of the bed.
“How can you do this to us?” James asked.
“Oh my God, I’m so, so sorry!” She said this while crying into her pillow. “I didn’t know what I was thinking. Please forgive me.”
“I think you did know what you were doing this whole time, Amanda,” said James. “You’re obviously don’t care enough about our marriage if you’re having fun with this asshole.”
“Oh, Mike, I’m so sorry. Please forgive–” the woman stopped and slightly lifted her head up from the pillow. “Wait, did you say Amanda?”
“Who is Mike?” James asked.
The woman turned over on the bed while still covering herself with the blanket. Both she and James gave each other a long look.
“Who the fuck are you?” James asked.
“That’s not Amanda?” Brandi asked.
“My name is Julie,” said the woman, still crying but not as much as she was before. “I thought you were my husband. Wait, are you talking about Amanda from work?”
“Stay quiet, Julie,” said Pete. “Amanda has nothing to do with this. Now, please, both of you get the hell out of our room.”
James realized Brandi was only half correct. Pete was cheating on Brandi with another married woman from their office, but it was not Amanda. Julie had similar hair and body type as Amanda, which led James to believe she resembled Amanda from behind. As for the clothes, now he’s theorizing they were a general style of professional clothing for women, and he just thought it looked like what his wife was wearing that morning.
James felt a great sense of relief from this revelation but felt bad for Brandi, who now had proof Pete was cheating on her.
“I’m sorry, Brandi,” he said to her. “At least you now have proof your husband is cheating on you.”
“Would you please put down your phone?” Pete yelled at Brandi.
Brandi was still recording the couple in bed.
“I’ll put my phone away when your slut over there puts down her phone.”
Nobody noticed that Julie got hold of her phone and was typing away.
“Who are you texting?” Pete asked Julie.
Julie showed him her phone, and suddenly Pete looked scared.
“Ok, everybody needs to leave now,” Pete yelled.
Pete got out of bed and began to put his clothes back on, not caring that Brandi was now recording him naked. All the while, Julie was still on her phone, this time trying to make a phone call.
“I can’t get through to–”
“Shut the fuck up, Julie!” Pete yelled at her. “Everybody else, get the fuck out of here!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Brandi.
“But I am,” said James, making his way back to the door. “I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I only got involved because you convinced me that Pete was sleeping with Amanda. Now I feel guilty for ever thinking my wife would ever do such a thing.”
“I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” said Brandi. “I really thought it was Amanda. But I’m happy for you that it wasn’t her.”
“Thank you,” said James as he opened the door. “Goodbye Brandi. I hope things turn out better for you.”
James left the room, closing the door behind him. He heard a big argument break out between Peta and Brandi. Even all the way down the hallway by the elevator, he could still hear them arguing. When he got on the elevator and the door closed, much to his relief, he stopped hearing them. He took out his phone to send a text to Amanda.
…
After James had left, Brandi finally put her phone away, giving Julie the chance to get out of bed without being recorded naked. She saw Pete grab Brandi’s phone and attempted to access it to get rid of the recordings she made, but to no avail. But Brandi laughed and said even if he could break into her phone, he couldn’t access the cloud, where she had everything stored automatically. Further showing how much better Brandi was compared to Pete when it came to cyber security methods.
Julie only put her underwear on before she ran into the bathroom with her phone. The door only slightly muffled the sound of Pete and Brandi arguing, which she hoped was enough to make her phone call without any interruptions.
She tried to make her call again, and this time it looked like her phone was making a connection.
“Please pick up. Please, pick up,” she said over and over again.
“Hello,” said a voice on the phone.
“Oh, Amanda, thank God it’s you,” said Julie.
“Yeah, sorry I was late. Something came up last minute at work.”
“I’ve been trying to call and text you.”
“I was driving,” said Amanda. “My phone is set to the do not disturb setting when it detects that I’m on the road. I can accept calls and texts now because I just parked at the hotel. I now see all the texts and calls you were sending me. What’s going on?”
Julie told her everything that had just happened, putting Amanda into panic mode.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” said Amanda. “This is not good.”
“Listen to me, Amanda,” Julie began to say. “It’s too late for me; my husband will soon find out about me and Pete, and he’ll divorce me for sure. But we covered for you; James doesn’t know you’re involved with either of us. He thinks your part in all of this is just a misunderstanding because Brandi is a crazy bitch.”
“Apparently she’s not that crazy if she’s got most of it figured out,” said Amanda.
“I’m sorry, babe, but it’s all over.”
“I’m going to miss being with you most, Julie,” said Amanda sadly.
“I’m going to miss being with you too,” said Julie. “Maybe when this is all over, you and I can get together, just the two of us. But for now, you need to save yourself.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
…
Amanda felt like crying. Not only because she wasn’t going to be with Julie for a long time, if ever, but also because her husband might find out about her affairs and she might lose him as well. Julie assured her that James no longer believes she was involved with Pete in any way. But even still, if she isn’t careful, something will slip up and it will be revealed that she was cheating on him.
She got a text notification and read it.
James: “I’m on my way home now. Do you want to order a pizza for dinner?”
Amanda wasn’t sure why he would text her about this after everything he had just been through, but she decided to respond right away.
Amanda: “Sounds great. It’s been a long time since we’ve had pizza. Let’s rent a movie too.”
James: “Great idea. No Rom Com’s though, I feel like I had enough drama for today.”
Amanda saw this as a good sign. After everything he just went through, he wanted to spend some time with his wife with a pizza and a movie.
Amanda: “Anything you want, sweetie. I picked the last movie anyway, so you can decide this time.”
James: “Thank you” with a smiling emoji.
Amanda: “By the way, things have changed. I’ll be leaving to go home soon. Driving in a minute, so you can’t text me.”
James: Wonderful. I’ll see you soon. I love you.” followed by a kissy face emoji.
Amanda: “Love you too.” she replied also with a kissy face emoji.
She drove away from the hotel. She didn’t notice it, but James had just left the front entrance of the hotel just as she left the parking lot.
She was looking forward to spending time with James. To make him happy, she decided that after their movie, she’d wear that special piece of lingerie he loves seeing her in.
She realizes she’s not only a terrible wife but a terrible person in general for what she’s been doing. But despite everything, she still loved James and was willing to do what it took to keep him.