Feeding An Addiction: A Three-way Street Ch 11 free porn video

Scarsdale, NY: Saturday 25th April 2015

Twenty-four hours in hell

I honestly can’t think of a single way in which the next twenty-four hours could have been worse. It was the perfect storm. My whole being was shot through with fear. It wasn’t just that I was afraid. Fear was my very being for those long hours. I was totally subsumed in the fear that I’d lost Sue. The woman who had transformed my life, from shy and awkward stranger in a foreign land to a happy and successful family man, was at this moment in the clutches of a ruthless bastard who seemed intent on destroying our marriage.

Sure, he’d held out the prospect of some kind of ‘proposition’. But based on experience to date this was probably another trick to pull me deeper into his web and make me even more helpless.

It was bad enough thinking of the physical sex that was now no doubt going on between Sue and Brandon, but what was a million times worse was the thought that he was intent on continuing to build an emotional bridge between Sue and himself. And to use this to strengthen his relationship and bonds with her, in direct proportion to the way he was chipping and gnawing away at what Sue and I had built as a couple.

Like anyone who’s come from a happy and secure home and done well in life, I’d rarely known true despair in my life. Sadness, sure. Depression, occasionally. But true, soul-crushing despair – a chest suffocating absence of hope – was a new and terrifying experience for me. It was a hellish mixture of emptiness and deep pain. Emptiness from a love lost and a love I thought I’d never know again, leaving a gaping Sue-shaped wound in my chest. And pain from the mental pictures of my love and the times we’d shared, snatched away and now to be shared between her and another man.

Living, or maybe existing is a better word, through this marital wasteland was bad enough, but it came accompanied by paralysis. Throughout my life, I’d always found that action, almost any action, would lift my spirits when I was down. The simple action or even perception of action and progress always gave me a placebo effect or maybe better.

But I was so totally consumed and crushed by despair that my brain was literally frozen. I was the proverbial rabbit in the headlights – so riddled through with despair that I couldn’t think of any actions to start moving things in a positive direction.

The rest of that Saturday alternated between lonely despair and several short sessions of being tormented by Brandon, when periodically a text would arrive inviting me to return to the web link and watch the latest torture this sick bastard had seen fit to provide.

Some of the time I turned down the fix he was trailing in front of me. But of course, his software told him that no-one was watching and so he’d just torment me more with further texts. But at other times I’d give in and watch. Or at least I’d watch for as long as I could bear.

Truly it was a vicious circle. As I’d watch their latest love games, whether whispered closeness or raw and pounding sex, my sense of self-disgust and despair would deepen and spiral. I’d tell myself I was only watching to check that Sue was okay, or maybe to better understand my enemy. But the voice of truth, so long ignored, told me to be honest with myself and admit I was an addict and that’s why I watched.

Maybe Brandon had been right in his analogy of the crack addict that sold his wedding band for one more fix.

I must have witnessed Sue and Brandon making love another four or five times that day, before I eventually succumbed to sleep, only made possible by to the bottle of whiskey that had been my only friend through that lonely and soul-destroying day.

And it was ‘making love’, more than just pure sex. I’d known from the beginning that Sue was incredibly attracted to Brandon’s handsome looks and charisma. And I’d known that he’d spent the last week talking to Sue on a nightly basis, worming his way into her mind and heart like the snake he was.

And now I had to watch him continue to deepen and strengthen the emotional foundations he’d so carefully made. The physical act of love between them was one weapon in the war he was waging to replace me. Each time they made love, I felt my heart breaking afresh as I saw the kisses and closeness. The act of the woman I loved taking another man deep into her body. Each time I howled like a baby, because this was nothing like the games we’d played before. I knew that there were only two people present in this act, that in her anger I was a million miles away from Sue’s thoughts and heart. This wasn’t a game we were playing together. This was her with her new man, her heart filled with an anger which might never ebb. Or if it did finally ebb, it might be too late, the tide might have already carried her out of my reach forever.

Watching their two bodies move together was no longer arousing in even the tiniest way. But still, I was drawn to watch, some troubling masochistic flaw drawing me back time after time. Each time I saw their lips touch, or saw a look exchanged or some new physical high reached, I’d die a little more inside.

But each time I’d watch until I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I’d walk away, without the strength even to turn the monitor off.

Watching their coupling and growing physical intimacy was bad enough, but listening and watching as they cuddled and shared the quiet whisperings of lovers afterward was even worse. Because this was two people, rather than two bodies, growing closer together. And each time I watched this, a huge question occupied each cortex and synapse of my brain.

I knew Sue loved me. You don’t simply stop loving someone after twenty years. But love is a fickle thing, and after seven days it was perfectly possible that Sue would be unwilling to give Brandon up. Or that she’d return home and tell me that because of my own stupidity, whatever I wanted, she wanted him to be a part of her life in the future. Or maybe she’d never really fully return home, as Brandon had threatened, telling me that she still loved me but that she loved him the same or more.

As I watched them kiss, cuddle and grow closer as a couple, that frightening voice of truth told me that all of these things were possibilities. And this fear paralyzed me and was far, far worse than any physical pain I’d ever known. I’d known the pain of losing girlfriends when I was younger. But losing the woman who was my other half was something I’d never be able to endure.

I’m not proud to admit it, but I could only cope with this life-threatening mix of despair, gut-wrenching fear, and paralysis with the help of drink. By late evening I was dead to the world, the stupor I’d created being the only way I could get any relief from the crushing pain I felt.

Dawn?

The booze may have helped me get through Saturday, but as I made my final preparations to meet Brandon I was wishing I’d shown a little more self-control. I’d woken early and copious amounts of water, medicine and coffee had helped me fight the worst of my hangover, but I was still well short of a hundred percent.

But I just about had enough about me to have hatched a half-way workable plan to try and fight back and prove to Sue that Brandon wasn’t the knight in shining armor she thought. The mere fact I was fighting back had cheered me a little, and I’d even run some sound tests. I’d tested that my iPhone could pick up and record a voice at various ranges and with various materials in the way, and I was confident that carefully placed inside my jacket it would pick up and record Brandon’s voice.

I was happy that he’d chosen two o’clock to meet when the bar would be pretty quiet. I couldn’t envisage that he could lay out his ‘proposition’ in any way other than one which would incriminate him when played back to Sue.

Armed with the optimism, I headed across town, determined to get to the bar well before Brandon so that I’d be well prepared so nothing could go wrong.

As I anxiously waited for his arrival my body was floating on a sea of adrenaline. Strange as it may seem, I actually felt good. The man who’s been kicked and punched repeatedly, now standing back up and taking pleasure in choosing where to plant the first retaliatory kick. Groin, head or stomach? This mental picture made me smile for the first time in a couple of days.

Savoring this notional choice, the spell was broken by the arrogant smile and swagger of the man I hated, as he arrived a few minutes early.

“Pete.”

“Brandon.”

We both already had drinks, I guess anticipating that neither would want to buy for the other.

The arrogant fuck, his first question, “Don’t you want to ask how Sue is?”

I looked at him with pure hatred, which only made him grin all the more.

“Let’s not pretend we like each other, Brandon. Say what you’ve got to say, and then we don’t have to spend any more time than is necessary with each other.”

The shit-eating grin just got worse, Brandon obviously enjoying how much he’d got into my head.

“Okay, but first things first, as we’re both gentlemen, I’m going to turn off my phone so you know I’m not going to record this conversation and use it against you.”

With that he pulled out his phone and started the power-down sequence, his raised eyebrows making clear he expected me to do the same.

“I thought you Brits were meant to be honorable types. Aren’t you going to afford me the same courtesy?”

I desperately sort an escape route. A way to justify not handing over and turning off my phone, or revealing that it was already recording.

All of the optimism and energy I’d been feeling evaporated, and the paralysis and panic returned. The best I could come up with was one final bluff, in the hope it might misdirect and snag Brandon.

“We are honorable, Brandon. Honorable, but not stupid. You’ve already conned me once, and you know how the old saying goes Brandon. ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’”

Brandon smiled, but I could see he was now on his guard, evidently suspicious at my unwillingness to turn my phone off.

“Well, Pete, that’s a shame. Because I was going to suggest something that would have made you happy. Very happy. But if that’s what you think of me, I’m not really sure I want to do it.”

“And, anyway Pete, I’m really not sure what you mean by ‘fool me once’. I think you’re getting a little paranoid there, fella. You, me and Sue had a perfectly happy little thing going, and then you screwed it up by asking me to do all kinds of strange things with your wonderful wife. And honestly, the fact that I’ve been the perfect gentleman and not shown that second piece of paper to Sue shows who’s the pervert here and who’s doing the right thing.”

These last words had all obviously been said for the benefit of the microphone currently recording, in case I chose to play it to Sue. I felt like reaching across the table and punching him in the face, or smashing my forehead into the bridge of his nose and watching the blood spurt out.

But the mention of the second piece of paper sent a chill through my body. From everything I’d seen yesterday, I knew I was on thin ice with Sue. And if she thought that I was the one who’d proposed the things written on that piece of paper, then there was a big chance she’d be even more angry with me, giving Brandon an even bigger opening. It was a risk I knew I couldn’t take.

Brandon picked up his phone, showing me the dead screen. “Last chance, Pete. I want to work with you, not against you to fix this thing. But if that’s not how you see it, then I don’t see the point in us having this friendly drink, and I may as well go home and spend the rest of the day talking to Sue. I don’t want to, but I have to think of what’s right for her. After all, I don’t want to keep any secrets from her. People shouldn’t have secrets, should they, Pete?”

Whatever the consequences, I was an inch away from launching myself across the table and trying to obliterate that arrogant face.

I just stared at him, aware I had to make a decision of huge, possibly life-changing importance. I just kept looking at his face, desperately searching for some undiscovered way out. But nothing came. No bright idea. He’d rightly guessed at my plan and wasn’t going to say anything incriminating.

As he started getting up to leave, with no other way out, I closed my eyes and fished inside my pocket for the phone. My humiliation was complete, as the glowing screen died, a fitting metaphor for my own hopes. He even humiliated me to the extent of patting down my pockets in case of a second device. Only then, did Brandon finally lay out his proposition.

“Pete, you may not believe it, but I don’t want to split you and Sue up. Honestly, that’s not what I want. But I do want to be more in her life than just some one night fuck.”

“Pete, you know better than anyone, Sue’s an amazing woman. And more than anything, I just want a little piece of her in my life.”

I wondered where he was going with this. I’ve always had an optimistic streak, and the optimist in me listened quietly, hoping beyond hope that what Brandon was going to suggest offered some way back for our marriage.

“Pete, you’ve already seen I can either be a friend or an enemy. You may not like to admit it, but when you listened to Sue and me talking Saturday morning, I was batting for you man. When she was pissed and angry with you, I tried to explain that you’re one of many guys who’s fought their addiction hard for a long time. Remember, she may not have wanted to hear it, but I was telling her it wasn’t really your fault.”

As I listened to him, he struck me as being like the worst kind of politician. The man who takes a hundred dollars from your wallet, and then hands you back a nickel saying ‘hey, look at me, look how I’m helping you, what a good guy I am.’ I didn’t know if he believed his own propaganda, but my gut told me he did.

“And that’s part of what I’m offering, Pete. Over the next seven days, what I’m proposing is I’ll carry on batting for you. Talking you up to Sue. And in exchange, when she comes home on Friday, I only ask one thing.”

I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to give this man I hated the satisfaction of asking what it was he wanted. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being party to his game. When he realized this, he continued anyway.

“All I want, Pete, is that if after this week Sue wants to carry on including me in her life in some small way, that you’ll not stand in her way. That if she asks you, you’ll say ‘okay’ and let her see me when she wants. That’s all I ask.”

‘That’s all I ask’. Nothing much then, I thought. He just wanted carte-blanche to carry on seeing Sue whenever the two of them fancied it. He just wanted me to agree to having a deceitful, scheming and conniving snake present at the heart of our marriage. Nothing much then.

“I’ll give you a minute to think about it,” he said as he headed off in the direction of the restroom.

As he got up, with a deft movement of the hand I saw him place a single piece of folded white paper on the table, with the word ‘copy’ written in the top corner. I guessed what it was, and as I opened it my worst fears were confirmed. It was a copy of the list of ‘kinky’ things he’d shown me and which he was threatening to show to Sue, making out that they were all my ideas.

With a sinking feeling, I saw he’d superimposed my initials from the other piece of paper onto this second sheet, adding plausibility to his threat that he’d use his time with Sue to get her to believe I was the originator of this list. The list that contained all of the kinkiest things that a husband could ask his wife to do with her lover. Harmless as fantasy. Potentially a lethal weapon if used by Brandon to convince Sue I’d gone behind her back to plan these things for real with Brandon.

Dawn

I held that piece of paper and realized I had no alternative except to go along with Brandon’s proposition, and I felt a terrible premonition that Brandon would soon be a permanent and very unwelcome part of our marriage. I closed my eyes at this soul-crushing thought, picturing an ever-closer relationship between Sue and Brandon.

But at this moment, eyes closed, something happened that gave me a hint of redemption and leverage. And this little seed of hope came from the strangest of sources.

With my eyes closed, my hearing was just a little more sensitive than normal. And over the bar’s background noise my brain picked up the sound of the CNN correspondent on the TV behind the bar. The correspondent was announcing that back home they’d thwarted a major terrorist plot to bomb the City of London.

Even in my own personal pit of hell, I couldn’t stop myself opening my eyes and following the unfolding story. The CNN picture showed a senior police officer giving details of the arrests they’d made and how many blasts had been planned. He was positioned next to one of the giant concrete obstacles now strewn all over the City to prevent vehicles bombs. The senior police officer was saying that London was now the most heavily monitored place on earth and it had been the use of CCTV information that had provided the vital breakthrough.

By a strange quirk, I actually recognized the police officer. When I’d know him at college, he’d been a lazy, long-haired heavy-drinking layabout. But a layabout with a scholarship from the Metropolitan Police Force, always keen to recruit the odd potential high flyer. And if they thought Nick was a high flyer, well then good luck to them.

As I watched the TV report, two things occurred to me that gave me some hope I might just be able to work my way out of the mess I’d got myself into.

The first thing I noticed was the CCTV camera that was immediately to the left of the TV screen, and as I looked around the bar I spotted another five or six cameras judiciously placed to provide coverage of most areas of the bar.

The other thing that occurred to me was that I’d briefly met my old college acquaintance one time before since our student days. As a thank you gathering for a small number of British businessman who frequently traveled to the developing world and who’d provided discrete low-level information back to UK Intelligence Services. As a senior officer in the Anti-Terrorist Squad, Nick had been present and we’d enjoyed catching up on news of friends and how our lives had developed.

Thinking about Nick and the various small favors I’d done for certain people in the UK embassy, I thought there was a good chance I could cash in these chips to help me in my current predicament.

Just as these thoughts were whizzing through my brain like a silver ball in a pinball machine, I saw Brandon’s arrogant gait returning to the table.

“Well?” he asked.

Just as fate had maybe handed me the weapons to fight back, I didn’t want to alert my enemy by suddenly showing a change in mood. So trying my best to conceal the tiny flame of optimism I felt, I continued to show pain and anguish in my face, before finally reluctantly agreeing to his suggestion.

Judging from his arrogant and self-satisfied grin, I think he was taken in and didn’t suspect anything. I was only half listening to him as he told me I’d made the right decision and that it was the best, for all three of us.

As he carried on prattling, I knew he suspected nothing. He told me he was glad we were both working on the same side now, and that when he got back to his condo I’d be able to watch again. Both the fun and also his keeping his promise that he’d talk me up to Sue. By now I wasn’t listening, I was busy day-dreaming about my revenge, but still trying my best to mask my intentions.

Brandon got up to leave, and I explained I was going to wait a little longer as I wanted to see what was happening back in London. I have to say, I felt a delicious sense of irony and satisfaction as he mumbled something about understanding and that he hoped everything was okay.

False dawn? Holding my breath

Nothing of worth is ever won without a struggle. I wish I could report the next few days were a smooth ascent to the victory of good over evil. But real life’s not like that. With Brandon gone, I bided my time in case he returned and then I did what I’d really stayed for. I approached the guy behind the bar and explained that if he’d let me have access to the CCTV images from last Thursday night there was a couple of hundred dollars in it for him.

It was just my luck to come across maybe the only honest and un-bribable barman in all of New York. He was paying his way through college and said he couldn’t afford to lose the job and so he couldn’t show me the images. I tried offering more, and when this didn’t work I gave him a sanitized explanation of why I needed to see the pictures. But still, he didn’t budge. The only useful thing he said was that his boss would be in on Monday lunchtime and that maybe I should raise it with him. I carried on trying, but he was firm and not for moving.

And so I headed home. A man with hope, but a man suspended between heaven and hell, with my destiny only to be decided on Monday. Because Monday would also be the day that I could call the British Embassy in Washington and try and call in that favor I felt I was owed.

I got home around four p.m. and with a hot cup of coffee in hand, I turned on the feed from Brandon’s condo. The images were in some ways mundane, Brandon and Sue on the sofa, but since I’d last seen them something had changed.

Seeing Sue snuggled there with Brandon on the sofa, rather than here at home with me, for the first time since this whole shit pile had started I felt angry at Sue. Sure, I had still been a total fool and started this whole fuck up. But seeing her sitting there like that made me wonder if she was enjoying this pretext to spend time with Brandon maybe a little too much. Surely by now, her temper had cooled enough for her to reach out and talk to me. I’d been so busy beating myself up for my role in this thing, that this was the first time this thought occurred to me.

The second change was that these images which had earlier cast such a spell over me seemed to have lost much of their power. Before, however painful, I’d been unable to tear myself away for long portions of Saturday. A weird mix of guilt, self-flagellation and a need to keep tabs on just how bad things were kept me hooked to that video feed.

But now, armed with hope and optimism, after I’d watched for a couple of minutes, I turned off the feed and started thinking through in more detail my plans to thoroughly destroy Brandon. Of course, Brandon’s software told him I wasn’t watching and so a while later a text arrived. Not wanting to tip my hand, I turned the feedback on, but it held no power and I sat in my den preparing my plans for Monday.

A couple of times before the end of the day I watched a few minutes, but my emotions were nothing like the day before. I honestly don’t think I could have coped emotionally with another day like Saturday. Part of me wondered if my change in feelings was the mind’s natural defense mechanism against trauma and overload. I think it was this ‘cut-out’ mechanism working in tandem with my hopes for what Monday would bring.

A couple of times, a little voice would tell me that my hopes for Monday might just be so much hot air. Hopes built on sand, rather than rock. But I chose to believe the opposite. I’m honestly not sure I could have coped with a more nuanced and realistic level of optimism. I chose to look at a half-full glass as if it was totally full. The thought of a half-empty glass and five or six more days like Saturday was something I daren’t even think about.

And when I did tune in, when I saw the two of them just snuggling and being close, I felt my anger and self-righteousness start building. But when I saw them making love, strangely I felt a little more forgiving and less angry towards Sue. Still, I was angry, but I got the whole thing about her enjoying the sex with a guy who was obviously an amazing lover. There was even a weird little corner of my brain that was happy that the woman I still loved was having great and pleasurable ‘mechanical’ sex. But if I thought about the emotional part of what was happening between Brandon and Sue, then the red mists of anger and fear soon returned.

Monday watershed

With the future of my happiness and marriage at stake, Monday was definitely a day for emergency leave. Not that I’d have been any use to anyone if I’d have gone to work. I got up really early and put into place part one of my three part plan.

I called New Scotland Yard in London and left a message for Nick. I didn’t expect to get through to him in person but was pleasantly surprised when he rang back. Looking at the clock, I could see he’d taken his first opportunity to ring me as it was lunchtime in the UK.

I took a deep breath and trying to keep as much dignity as possible started explaining the mess that I was in and what I planned to do about it. Nick and I had never been particularly close, each being one of nine students studying the same subject at our college, but with very different friendship circles.

But to his great credit, Nick listened patiently and didn’t make any wisecracks when I explained that my wife and I had been trying to ‘spice things up’ but had been conned by a guy who I was now trying to get some leverage with.

I explained to Nick that this was only a courtesy call, and that I wanted to let him know just in case I met with no success at the Embassy and might then need a favor.

And this was the point at which things finally started to take a positive turn. Nick reminded me of something I’d totally forgotten, that I’d once let him copy an essay of mine because he was too drunk to write anything cogent himself. He then went on to say that after our last meeting, purely out of inquisitiveness he’d pulled my file and had seen the many small ‘favors’ I’d done for the government over the years. Putting two and two together, he said that there was no need for me to contact the Embassy, as he was happy to see what information he could unearth that might help me. He told me to give him a couple of days and he’d call me on Wednesday.

I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Even Nick’s final flippant comment, totally in bad taste, couldn’t lower my spirits. He’d always been a bit of a ‘ladies man’, and just before he signed off he said that next time we needed to spice things up, then we should give ‘Old Nick’ a call. He’d always been one for puns and bad jokes, his last words to me being ‘better the devil you know, and Old Nick would love to know your wife a bit better.’

As I put the phone down, I literally felt a wave of stress that had been building up in my body leaving me. I felt like collapsing on the floor. I just sat there for the next hour, just recovering and trying to pull myself together for what I needed to do next. Until that moment I don’t think I was aware of how badly everything had really affected me. I felt limp and devoid of energy. The only times I’d ever known a weakness like this before was after a general anesthetic. It was the same listless feeling, where even the smallest task seems beyond you.

Luckily the second part of my plan couldn’t begin until eleven a.m. when the manager of the bar was due to open up for the day’s trade. Not surprisingly, I was the first customer of the day, and as he served me I sized him up and tried to work out the best approach. Bribery? Hard luck story? Flattery or Threat?

Someone up there was smiling down on me because it turned out the manager was a guy called Victor. He was about my age and black, and by chance, he was from Nigeria, just like Francis. With the bar being dead, he was happy to have someone to talk to, and we soon struck up a conversation about Nigeria, part based on my trips their and part on the fact that he knew of Francis. He wasn’t a close buddy or anything, but he knew the name and had met him at a few parties over the years. With about forty thousand Nigerians in New York, he said it was like a small town within a bigger town, and as both he and Francis had been here for many years it was almost inevitable they’d bump into each other at some time or other.

Knowing I couldn’t put the moment of truth off any longer, I broached the difficult subject. Having built up a fairly good rapport with him, the obvious strategy seemed to be to tell him an edited version of the truth and appeal to his better nature. As he knew Francis, and although maybe unfair to Francis, I took our story all the way back to Francis, as I was desperate and wanted to give myself every chance that he’d say yes to my request to see the CCTV pictures.

I then moved on to the part about Brandon and how he’d duped both Sue and me, and that if I could only show Sue the pictures, then she’d see how Brandon had lied to her and that both pieces of paper had originally been his idea. That I was guilty of nothing more than being a stupid fool, and that the man who was trying to manipulate her was Brandon, not me.

The gods were really shining down on me, because while the young barman had been nervous and refused, Victor said he thought Brandon was a total bastard and he’d be happy to help bring him down in any way he could.

We had to wait a few minutes until the young barman, Thad, turned up to cover the bar, but then we headed back to the little office where the monitor and hard drive were kept. It took a few minutes to find the date and time we wanted. But I could have wept for joy when the images showed as clear as day that both pieces of paper had originated in Brandon’s jacket. The same pictures also showed Brandon pulling a pen from his jacket and thrusting it into my hand so that I could put my initials on the first piece of paper, about Sue spending the weekend with Brandon.

I’d never really known the meaning of the word ‘elated’ until that moment. But no other word described how I felt at that moment. I felt like a prisoner when the jail door has just been flung open and the bright light of freedom beckons.

I looked at my watch and worked out it was another five and a half hours before Sue finished work and I’d be able to bring her back to the bar and show her the tapes. I’d toyed with the idea of taking a copy and marching right over to the hospital. But this fell down at various levels. Too public. Too much chance of Sue not taking kindly to me ambushing her at the hospital, especially when we were still in the part of the week when she’d asked me not to contact her.

And so after one more beer, I switched to coffee and tonic water and tried to find ways to kill time while I waited for Sue’s shift to finish.

Everything had been going so well

As I made my way over to Sue’s hospital to surprise her outside the main entrance, I thought how everything had been going amazingly well. Right from Nick’s remembering the personal favor I’d done for him when we were both eighteen, right to the coincidence of Victor the bar manager knowing Francis. I think I was even in such good spirits I was actually whistling to myself as I hopped out of the cab and waited for Sue.

But fifteen minutes later my happy mood was shattered into a million pieces as I saw Sue exit the main entrance arm-in-arm with Brandon. I was about twenty meters away as I saw them head to the parking lot and I knew I needed to make some decisions very quickly.

If the mental paralysis that had sat like a toad on me throughout Saturday had been there, I might have blown it. But luckily all the good fortune from earlier in the day had fortified me with enough energy and initiative that I came up with a plan that might just work.

Taking a deep breath, I fell back on my days of amateur dramatics in South London.

“Hey, guys, wait up there.”

Bluff and confidence were going to be central to my plan.

Both Sue and Brandon looked surprised to see me, and it struck me to the core that even in this public place, Sue made no move to un-entwine her arm from Brandon’s arm.

“What are you doing here, Pete?” came her question, my anger building, as if I had no right to meet my own wife of twenty years.

But I needed to mask my anger, which somehow I managed to do.

“Look, I know things got a bit bent out of shape. And I know there were some angry feelings. But I think things have calmed down a bit now. And I thought it might be a nice idea if I treated us all to a drink, as a kind of sorry for being such a dickhead. For not being straight with you.”

I was almost choking on my words as I said them because they were so far from what I truly felt. But I could see Sue’s face start to soften as she listened to my words.

When I finished, Sue was smiling and I felt my second wave of elation that day as I saw her smile at me for the first time since things had so disastrously leaped off the rails. She said she thought that was a great idea.

As we headed to the parking lot, she took my arm so that she was now working arm in arm with myself and Brandon. I hated this fact, thinking to myself that if all went to plan, knowing Sue’s temper she’d be using her arm to be doing something entirely more painful to Brandon.

Strike one

When we entered the bar, I was glad to see that Victor was there and that Thad and another young black guy were behind the bar with him. If Brandon cut-up rough or got violent, I might need there help.

Brandon seemed a bit surprised at my choice of bar, but he bought my lie when I said I’d chosen this place to show there were no hard feelings. He smiled at my comment and slapped me on the shoulder.

I waited until he had to go to the restroom and then told Sue that there was ‘something special’ that I wanted to show her. She was obviously intrigued and needed little persuading to come with me and Victor into the little office back behind the bar.

I’d rehearsed this moment several times during the day, and I knew exactly how I wanted it to play out.

Before I asked Victor to play the pictures, I grasped Sue and turned her so that she was looking directly at me, and made the little speech I’d put together.

“Sue, honey. These last few days have taught me the importance of openness and honesty above all else. So I’ve brought you here so you can see for yourself who made that piece of paper that Brandon showed you. And you can see whose idea it was to bring a pen and get it initialed. And you can see who brought another piece of paper where he’d written down all kinds of kinky stuff, and then used that piece of paper to blackmail me.”

As my words ended, I pulled out the ‘copy’ of the second piece of paper and held it aloft, being careful not to let Sue read it until I judged the moment the most damaging for Brandon.

The look on Sue’s face was priceless. She’d not seen the CCTV images yet, but she knew me well enough to know that I didn’t lie and that what I’d verbally prepared her to see would likely shatter every perception she held about Brandon.

I nodded and Victor pressed the play button.

The little slice of video didn’t last more than three or four minutes. But just as I’d seen earlier, it clearly showed who had brought the pieces of paper and the pen, and who was manipulating who. Yes, it showed me as the Fool I’d been. But it showed that I was not the manipulator that she thought I’d been.

Sue’s face was a mask or horror. She was slack-jawed and her eyes were wide in shock, as she struggled to speak. To her credit, she looked directly at me, only capable of managing a few words. “Pete, honey. I’m so sorry, what I have done. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried to tell you. But you didn’t want to know! Remember, you made it clear you didn’t want to talk to me for a week. You even warned me that if I contacted you it might be all over for us.”

Sue looked crestfallen, in that instant realizing she’d been just as stupid or maybe more stupid than I’d been.

I could see the tears forming in the corners of her eyes, and maybe I was a little mean or uncaring, but that was the moment when I choose to hand her the second sheet of paper.

“Read it, Sue, those are the things that Brandon was planning to do with you if you carried on seeing him.”

Through teary eyes, Sue had just started reading the first few things that Brandon had planned for her when the man himself entered the little office. Seeing Sue’s tears, the freeze-framed monitor and the piece of paper with ‘copy’ written in his own handwriting he immediately knew he was in trouble.

“I can explain,” he said with a shaky voice.

I don’t know where it came from, but I summoned up a calm that was very different from how I felt inside and stepped in front of him.

“It’s okay, Brandon. It’s all okay. I was just explaining to Sue that you and I both agreed yesterday that we should both be in Sue’s life, and she’d be happier that way.”

I offered my hand to him, just as he’d offered his to me that infamous Thursday night.

Then I’d been the fool. Tonight it was his turn.

Not caring about the difference in our sizes, as I shook his hand I slammed my kneecap into his groin with the full force of my pain and despair. As he crumpled downwards, his head was perfectly positioned as I smashed my forehead into the bridge of his nose, hearing the bone splintering from the power of the impact. Blood spurted from the wound as Brandon lay on the ground.

Despite the intense pain from his groin and nose he tried to grab me, but a well-aimed kick from Victor winded him and caused him to release his grip. I was about to kick himself myself, but Sue put a hand on my chest.

“No, Pete. That’s not who you are. It’s not who we are.”

I looked at my loving wife and breathed a sigh of relief. We were back as a team, as nature intended.

“I’ll see you in the bar in a minute, honey. Just give me a second with this piece of shit, will you?”

I nodded and headed out to get a drink to calm my nerves. I nearly choked on my whiskey, as a blood-curdling scream from the back office cut through the entire bar. As my strangely serene looking wife joined me in the bar, she smiled and said she’d tripped over Brandon as he lay on the floor, and accidentally her stiletto heel had landed somewhere soft and squidgy.

Strike two

If Monday had been a great day, Friday was an even better day. And all due to that long forgotten copied essay. And it came just in the nick of time.

Brandon may have gone down like a sack of potatoes on Monday night, but he was proving to be a lot more stubborn an adversary than I’d hoped. On Tuesday I was hit by a letter from his lawyer alleging assault and threatening legal action. It was clear he didn’t want money, he just wanted his day in court so he could embarrass Sue and I and wreak his revenge on us.

Thankfully, the cavalry arrived just in time, in the form of a telephone call from my friend Commander Nick Spode. He said that it turns out we had done him and his colleagues in the FBI a favor. Brandon wasn’t some big-time criminal, but he was greedier than was good for him. Nick asked me what I knew about the US-Iran sanctions regime, and then he went on to explain that Brandon had been a naughty boy.

Apparently, a high tech cargo of parts that were under sanction had been shipped and ended up in the Iranian nuclear program. And as with much foreign trade, the goods could only be moved on the first, semi-legitimate part of their journey when they were insured. And guess which greedy boy had sold the insurance at a rate which was three times the going commercial rate for such insurance. Brandon had no doubt enjoyed the extra money, but now the fact that he’d received so much more than the going rate acted like a smoking gun and had got people in the CIA and FBI taking a closer look at him.

Even back when we were young, I remembered Nick always had a sense of humor, when he wasn’t drunk or smoking weed. With a chortle, he told me that if I watched TV on Friday evening I would see a certain Insurance salesman in Manhattan taking a perp walk, before talking to some very unpleasant members of the US security services.

Triage and healing

It would have been nice to have watched the TV coverage of Brandon’s perp walk, but Sue and I had more important things to concentrate on, namely rebuilding the damage to our love and marriage.

We both had things we needed to face up to and address. I needed to own the fact that my stupidity and addiction could well have cost me my marriage. It had certainly caused me huge pain and worse than this, I hated how it had hurt Sue so much.

I’d been through a lot of guilt and ‘beating myself up’ during those terrible few days. But Sue now had to deal with her own feelings of guilt and blame. At first, she could hardly look at herself or bear to think about her own part in what had happened.

All these years I’ve known her, Sue has always been her own worst critic. Knowing this, even though I did feel some residual anger at how she’d behaved, I didn’t want to direct this anger onto her. I knew there was no point. She was already hurting enough. It was written on her face. It was clear from the way she withdrew within herself and couldn’t even bring herself to be close to me for several weeks.

She was going through a strange and painful mix of feelings. Moving from seeing Brandon as the knight in shining armor, to having to face up to the fact he was the polar opposite. She had to deal with the fact that she’d shut me down when I tried to point this out to her. This fact and the guilt she felt was eating her up inside.

But slowly, over a number of months, we worked through it as a couple and managed to get back into a good place. I actually found it easier than Sue, because she blamed herself for what happened after my initial stupidity.

And Sue’s feeling of guilt is the essential backdrop behind the final episode in our story.

We’d had two very different false starts in our voyage into the world of wife-sharing. Both abortive for very different reasons. The experience with Francis a happy memory to look back on. The experience with Brandon something altogether darker and more traumatic. After this experience with Brandon, it honestly felt like my desire for wife-sharing and the power this addiction held was shattered. It had been so traumatic that it acted like a Force Five aversion therapy, not just for me but also for Sue.

This all happened back in 2015, the affairs with both Francis and Brandon. And fully for two years neither Sue nor I showed any desire at all to step outside our marriage. We were a couple who loved each other, who’d nearly lost each other and who were determined to never again bear this risk.

But in England, we have a saying that things seem to come in threes. And that was certainly true in our case. Just as with Francis and Brandon, it wasn’t an experience that we went out looking for. It seemed to come and find us, and it was an experience on a totally different level to what had happened before. And strangely enough, it was something that grew out of our son Brandon’s life. Or more accurately, that grew out of his friendship circle.