I was in the middle of moving when I found them. Ten used condoms, dried and scattered on the floor where the bedside table had sat for months. The movers had just hauled the bed out, and one of them looked at me, shook his head, and grinned. I was dumbstruck.
Nan and I never used condoms. She was on the pill. We had just arrived back from Christmas leave. I had left the Marine Corps after eight years, given up a promising career in EOD, and married her six months before my discharge.
She had begged me to marry her early, and I gave in. Now I was watching the movers load our life into a truck bound for Memphis. When the truck pulled away, I called her into the empty bedroom. “I am not cleaning this up,” I said.
She grabbed her mouth and started to cry. “No. Oh god, no. ” She slumped to the floor.
“Please understand. It was a one-time fling. You were gone. It just happened.
I love you. I was lonely. And it meant nothing to me. ”
“Looks like it was more than just a one-time thing.
I count ten here on the floor. ”
She cried harder. I left her there and went to vacuum the spare room. She gathered the condoms in a plastic bag and took them to the trash.
When she finished cleaning, I told her I was heading to the hotel and asked her to pick up supper. That gave her hope. When she arrived at the motel room, she saw the single king bed and thought she could fix things. She set out the cheeseburgers and milkshakes.
We ate in silence. Then I asked, “Want to explain? ”
She told me she had been lonely while I was gone, that she cried for two days. She decided to plan our future.
One Friday, she ran out of gas on the highway. A handsome man on a motorcycle stopped and helped her. He refused payment, so she bought him lunch at the Waffle House on Highway 98. He was from San Francisco, half Irish and half Japanese, with long black hair.
They talked for two hours. She invited him to the house. He spent the weekend. She made him use condoms, even though she was on the pill.
Monday morning he left on his bike, and she never saw him again. “I thought he flushed them. Why he dropped them behind that table, I will never know. Please don’t let this affect us.
I love you. I was just lonely and you were so far away. ”
She started crying, and it worked. I took her in my arms.
We showered together. I made love to her three times that night, and again in the morning before we left on the twelve-hour drive to Memphis. Yes, I still loved her. But trust?
Never again. She fooled me completely for three months. And how much of that story was the truth? I decided part of it was my fault.
A Marine’s wife has a lonely life. Leaving her for three months had been the cause. I bought it. Once.
From then on, I watched her like a hawk. Three years passed. We were doing well. I made a small fortune in the commodity business, and we were looking for a place outside town with a few acres to start a family.
Nan was always with me. When I traveled to Chicago, she came along. I still didn’t trust her alone. The fact is, I didn’t trust her at all.
Once burned, twice shy. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Nan found the perfect place: an old antebellum house with six bedrooms on 120 acres.
It looked like something out of Gone with the Wind. With about half a million dollars, we could restore it. We bought it and hired a contractor named Sam Billings, a man with excellent references. He moved into an apartment about thirty minutes from the job site.
Nan said she needed an office at the site to oversee the work and handle the subcontractors. She bought a small trailer, had it moved about three hundred yards from the house, and set it up with a well, septic system, electricity, and a butane tank for heat. I thought it would eventually be a place for live-in help. Before any work started, I took Nan to lunch and a movie.
While we were out, I had a technician install hidden cameras in the trailer, connected to a website I could access from anywhere. Remember, I loved her. I just didn’t trust her. For the first two months, everything was normal.
Then one Wednesday afternoon, after lunch, I logged on and saw Nan and Sam looking over plans in the trailer. His hand went to her butt and squeezed. “When are you going to let me have some of that sweet part of yours again? ”
Again?
“Well, if you promise not to leave a mark. Right now. ”
She grabbed him and kissed him. He picked her up and carried her into a bedroom.
Now I knew why there were sheets on those beds. When they were finished, she took the condom off herself. She remembered what happened the last time she left that task to a man. As she dressed, he helped her with her bra and said, “My guy is ready.
You just say when. ”
“I’ve told you I want to wait until this house is finished,” she said. “You will be back in Boston, and I will be buying furniture for our dream house. Tim is mugged and killed for his Rolex and wallet.
I just cannot live in the house where we planned to live out our lives, so I sell it. After collecting on his million-dollar insurance policy, I leave the state. You and I can live a long time on that amount of money. ”
I cut the computer off.
Her plan was to have me killed, then run off with her lover and live happily ever after. Not going to happen. She was home before me that evening, running a bath. She met me at the door with a big kiss.
Then she sat on the floor by my chair and told me how she couldn’t wait until the house was finished so she could go off the pill. We would have four kids, and she would be such a good wife and mother. Thursday, I watched the trailer all day. No fooling around.
Friday, I went shopping for supplies. Saturday, no one was working at the house and Nan had an appointment to get her hair and nails done. This would give me time. By one in the afternoon, I was back home watching a ball game when she walked in.
She looked beautiful. I took her out to the Vapor Supper Club for steaks and dancing. When we got home, we made love until the early hours. Monday morning, she went to the house.
I watched her enter the trailer and arrange contracts. At about ten-thirty, she went to the main house. An hour later, she was back at the trailer, fixing herself a tuna sandwich. She waited, looking out the window.
At two o’clock, Sam walked in and took her in his arms. “I missed you this weekend. You look amazing. I love your nail color and your hair is so pretty.
”
“Thank you. I missed you too. I can’t wait until we can be together all the time. Just a little longer.
I want us to have the perfect alibi. Then when your next job comes up, we will both work together. ”
“We will make the perfect team. And don’t worry about us being blamed for his death.
My guy is a professional from South Boston. Part of the mafia up there. ”
“Get me to the bedroom. I am tired of faking it.
”
So she had been faking it. I thought so. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. I watched them undress each other.
As he entered her, a cell phone rang, a worried look crossed her face, and the cameras went blank. Almost an hour later, I got the call. There had been an accident at the job site. I asked to speak to my wife.
I was told she was not available. That was the damn truth. I arrived about thirty minutes later. The volunteer fire chief met me and started explaining what he thought happened.
I asked about my wife. He walked me to the ambulance. An attendant told me to sit. Then they told me she was dead.
I tried to cry. The tears just wouldn’t come. I demanded to know what happened. They believed it was a faulty gas heater.
The first cool day, with all the rain, they probably lit it to stay warm. Something sparked and set it off. “You keep saying ‘they’ and ‘bodies. ‘ Who was with her?
” I asked innocently. They believe it was the general contractor, Sam Billings. They were found together in bed, naked, engaged in making love. He was on top.
They were melted together. The coroner was going to have his hands full trying to separate them. I put my face in my hands to keep him from seeing me laugh. “That lying unfaithful wife!
” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “I can’t believe she would do this to me. This is our dream, and she is cheating with the contractor. That betrayer.
That unfaithful woman. ”
The fire chief explained to the sheriff and the coroner how they found the bodies, and the sheriff was trying hard not to laugh. The coroner, an older doctor, went in with the fire chief. The deputy came back out and threw up his lunch.
When the coroner passed me, he shook his head. “I’ll do my best to separate them, but they are really stuck together. I’ll contact you tomorrow about claiming her body. ”
“You can throw that unfaithful wife in the dump for all I care.
Do not call me. ”
Then a woman in a fire investigator’s uniform arrived. She asked who I was. I told her I was the owner, and my wife and her lover were killed in the fire.
I said it with venom in my voice. “So I take it you did not know about the lover? ”
“Not even a hint. ”
She needed to talk to me the next day after her investigation.
I handed her my card. “What about funeral arrangements? ” she asked. “I will not be making any arrangements for that woman.
Maybe her mom and dad will want her, but not me. The coroner said they were melted together. Forget that. They want to be together.
Bury them together. ”
They carried one body bag to the hearse. The deputy carried the other, so I guessed they were both in the same bag. I watched the investigator enter the trailer and begin her work.
She would not find anything. That was what I thought. The next afternoon, I parked in front of the house. Nan and her lover had done a great job.
It was almost finished, and its beauty was back. As I walked around downstairs, a cute little redhead walked in. “I don’t know you, but I am one of the subcontractors,” she said. “My father and I own a paper and painting company.
We are getting the walls ready to start papering the downstairs later this week. You are going to complete the job, right? ”
Then the fire investigator walked in the door, walked directly over to the redhead, and kissed her on the mouth. Lesbians.
I had no problem with that. “I thought I saw your truck pull up. I guess this is as good a time as any to have this talk. Let’s find a place to sit.
”
We found a table in the kitchen. She took out her phone and called a man named Buck. She told him to bring his backhoe to the old antebellum house off 78 early in the morning and dig a big hole off to the right, because the septic system was on the left. She told him to push everything in the hole and cover it up like it was never there.
Then she looked across the table directly into my eyes. “I, or rather we, don’t want any sheriff or deputy snooping around and finding what I found, do we? ”
“I guess not,” was all I could manage. “I see you have met my partner.
She is an excellent painter and paperhanger. I am sure you will appreciate her work. ”
The redhead reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Capitain Tim Jones.
Eight years in the Marine Corps, EOD unit commander. You taught at the EOD school in Yuma, Arizona. Then you trained those Nigerians in Africa. I know you were even a special consultant to the CIA, teaching classes on bomb making.
And you gave it up for that woman. Bad mistake on your part, but good for us. Oh, before I forget,” she said, “if I did not know what to look for, I would not have found it. So, good work.
”
She had found it. The device I had rigged in the trailer, triggered by the cell phone call when I called her lover’s number. The blast had killed them both. “About now, you are wondering how I know so much about you and your wife, right?
”
“Yes, and to be honest, I am a little worried about just what is going on here. ”
She explained. A year ago, she met a former Marine at a conference of fire investigators. He told her stories about his captain, a man named Tim Jones.
The best EOD man he knew, a genius who could make a bomb that was almost undetectable. Then Lori, the redhead, told her about the house renovation and its owners. When they heard about the fire, they knew what I had done. “Okay, so you know all about me.
I killed two people yesterday. So what do you want? Money? The title to this house?
What exactly? ”
“Don’t be so crude. Lori and I talked it over last night. What we want is kids.
We are lesbians, but we want to be moms. We decided you would be a good father. And this house. What a great place to raise kids.
”
“So I get you both pregnant and give you the house. For that, you keep my secret. ”
“Oh no, much more than that. We are not going to raise our kids without a father figure.
Our plan is that we all move into this house when it is finished. We share a bedroom and a bed. We announce to the world that we are a trio. No more sneaking around for us, and you get both of us.
We raise the kids as normally as possible. You know, them having two moms and one daddy. What do you say? ”
I told her I thought only a fool would say no to her plan.
Any man would be lucky to get either of them. But both? Every night in the same bed? How could we start without raising red flags?
I couldn’t go from losing my wife one day to living with two beautiful women the next. She had a plan for that. I would start spending more time at the house, meet Lori, talk to her father, show interest. We would go out to dinner, slowly, over six months.
People would think it was good for me to be getting out. Then one day, we would all move in together and start our family. Some would not like the idea of a trio, but who cared? I did not attend the funeral.
I let it be known I had no idea she was cheating. Her parents apologized to me many times. It was not their fault, and I never treated them badly. Lori, Sandy, and I started going to dinner together, then to the movies.
The first night I walked them to Sandy’s door, they stepped inside, and Lori grabbed me and kissed me on the mouth, using plenty of tongue. When we broke apart, Sandy did the same. Then Sandy grabbed Lori and kissed her while I watched. “Think about all the fun we are going to have when we all three live together.
Now, good night and drive safe. ”
I got a lot of that over the next few months. It was always “Wait until we move in. ” So I waited.
When the house was ready, they helped pick out the furniture. A month after I moved in, Sandy gave up her apartment, and Lori told her father she was moving in with me. It was a Friday, and we had been unpacking boxes all afternoon. It was summertime, and we were all a little sweaty and tired.
Sandy suggested a shower, and I started to walk out of the bedroom to give them privacy. “Where do you think you are going? Get undressed and get in. That shower is big enough for all of us.
”
That was the first time I saw either of them naked. And what a sight it was. We played in that shower for over thirty minutes, soaping and rinsing over and over. We have a tankless hot water heater that paid for itself in six months.
We plan on living the rest of our lives together, always trusting that our secrets are safe.
