Trinity sits smack dab in the middle of the Journada del Muerto. And yes, that means, “Journey of the Dead Man.” You pass it via two lane blacktop that cuts directly across the White Sands Missile Range, deep in New Mexico’s Sonoran desert.

It was nighttime and the road was empty. It was just me, my faithful F-150 and the random armadillo. All the scene needed was a smelly old brown-dog named Buster and It would be a sad country song.

The sky was black-velvet and the stars had the clarity you get when there’s absolutely no civilization. There was even the occasional meteor floating across the horizon, like a single snowflake. I thought back a few days.

It’s funny how a simple decision can change your life. Cross the street, or don’t cross it, turn left, or right, scratch an itch, or not. We make hundreds of those choices every day and sometimes they’ll kill you.

It was nothing that I could put my finger on. She just acted different. There was too much detail about work, like she was painting a picture. There was over-attention to schedules, like she was tracking me, and there was the scrupulous way she fulfilled her wifely duties. It was like she thought that fucking me MORE FREQUENTLY would make me LESS suspicious.

It’s way too easy to dig up the truth in this modern age. In fact, people would cheat less if they knew how far the technology reached. So, when that little devil “suspicion” tickled my fancy I just downloaded a high-end Bluejacking tool. The only problem is that you can learn things that you just hate to find out.

*****

Brenda was a great wife, intelligent, witty, gorgeous, and a beast in the bedroom. How we met and married is irrelevant. Suffice it to say that, for fourteen years we lived a happy upper middle-class life in the Northeast Albuquerque suburbs.

We were DINKs by choice. So, we could afford the finer things, nice house, frequent travel, and expensive restaurants. Brenda is sex on a stick, tiny, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and very curvy, with pert boobs and smashing long legs. But her best asset was her supple callipygian ass, pun intended. 

My wife did PR consulting for a global firm that made its fortune paving paradise. Given New Mexico’s sunny climate, tract development had been a growth industry for some time. The only problem was that the people currently residing in paradise might not want it paved. So, Brenda did lots of meet-and-greets and networking with big-time money men and politicians.

Brenda’s career was my version of the nineth-level-of-Dante’s-Hell. I’m a nerd you see, and nerds don’t get out much. I do nerd things at Sandia National Laboratories, which is why we lived in Albuquerque. It’s high paid and low stress because I’m very good at what I do.

I work in counterespionage technology. It’s a profession that’s dedicated to lying and deceit, sort of like politics. The job entails plenty of old fashioned machismo. But it’s more like Dr. Evil’s than Conan’s. Of course, diabolically clever will beat musclebound and stupid every time.

You might wonder how Brenda and I ended-up as beauty and the nerd. Like I said, the details of the romance are irrelevant. We connected because we are both smart, funny, and adventurous. She had dated a lot of jocks and pretty boys. I’m not bad looking and I’m reasonably well-off. Hence, I’d known my share of hot women. The problem was that everybody we’d dated prior to our meeting bored us to tears.

You’re going to spend a significant chunk of time with just one individual. So, you had better marry a person who excites you. Brenda and I had completely different temperaments. But we fit together like we were made for each other. That doesn’t mean we walked around joined at the hip. We had our own interests and special abilities. But our complementary qualities cemented our bond.

Brenda’s emotions made her an exhilarating partner. Nothing was ever dull and boring with my wife. But sometimes her feelings would get the best of her and she counted on me to talk her down off the ledge. Me? I’m a little too cerebral. Brenda got me out of my own head.

Neither of us are very big, Brenda is five two and calling me five nine would be generous. But both of us are as healthy as can be. We both loved the outdoors and Albuquerque is the ideal place for that. We hiked, biked, or kayaked daily. People thought we were the ideal couple.

I think it was my lack of stature that gave Hondo the idea that Brenda would be an easy score. Richard Tudwell was a neighbor. He was a Major in one of the training wings at Kirtland and he had the Great American Hero act down pat. He even adopted a call sign. Nobody knew where he got it since he wasn’t a pilot. But he preferred to be called “Hondo.”

Most of us just called him “Tud,” mainly because he hated being called that.

Tud, was beefy, easily a half foot taller than me and perhaps seventy pounds heavier. A lot of that was blubber, whereas I didn’t have an ounce of fat at one-seventy-five. But the contrast between sizes made it seem like I was three quarters the man he was. And he wasn’t subtle about pointing it out.

Every guy has been bullied. Most either take it, or they fight. But there are a few amusing alternatives. I always had a way with words. So, my stock response in bully situations was a smart-ass remark that everybody else got, but which sailed right over the target’s head.

The trick was to cut the guy in such a way that he didn’t know it’d happened until he turned around and his head fell off. So, when “Hondo” would patronizingly call me “Little Davey” I would shrug, laugh self-effacingly and banter back, “Not where it counts little DICKey.” Turd, I mean Tud’s, look of confusion at the gales of laughter was priceless.

The Snake slithered into my Garden because the people in our neighborhood liked to party. There are many things that I’m interested in. None of those include gossip, innuendo, or outright judgement about the mundane comings-and-goings of distant acquaintances. But Brenda wallowed in it.

I could never tell whether her in-group actually enjoyed each other’s company, or whether the parties were just the playing field where they could stake out turf. I DO know that there was far too much drinking and up-close-and-personal contact among the various players.

I went to those dreadful events because that’s what good husband’s do. Nevertheless, since I cared less about golf, or the won-loss record of the Albuquerque Isotopes, I was always consigned to the ancillary spouse group. While the insiders reveled in the pleasures of the herd.

The typical progression was jolly arrivals, followed by the machine gun rattle of small talk as they caught up on events in the six LONG days that they’d been apart. Then, once the communal wheels had been greased by liberal amounts of alcohol, the participants would settle down to the real point of the evening, which was cozy drunken conversations.

Those discussions normally entailed overly familiar touching, a bit of questionable leaning-in and melodramatic outpourings of emotion about topics that would seem trivial if both parties were in their right mind. Brenda lived for that stuff.

She told me that she was a “people person.’ Well, she was undeniably that. But she also enjoyed playing mother-confessor to her nit-wit girlfriends. Vampires have to suck blood and Brenda seemed to have the same need for gossip. Still, I DID learn some very shocking things about the supposedly “happily married” denizens of the neighborhood.

It was at one of those parties that I discovered my wife in intimate conversation with “Hondo “ Tudwell. That was eye-opening. Turd was hunched over looking distraught, while Brenda lovingly clutched his hand in both of hers. I would have bought the pretense except that Hondo was giving Benda’s delectable cleavage considerable side-eye while he was pouring out his heart.

I loathed the guy for a number of reasons - besides the phony macho-man act. The scene in front of me just added one more count to the indictment. Turd was a relentless womanizer. He told anybody foolish enough to ask, that it was his privilege as the alpha male in the herd. We all just thought it was because he was an amoral prick.

We generally ignored him, unless it was your wife he was hitting on. Then the impulse was to remove her from his clutches, the faster the better. So, I said nonchalantly, even though I was seething inside, “Let’s go Brenda, it’s late.” She glanced up, anger flashed across her face and said, “Can’t you see we’re discussing something important here Davy.” Now THAT was a new and different response.

Turd could see he was busted. So, he went all noble grief. He said, “No Brenda, you’ve helped me a lot. You need to go home with your husband.” Then he sadly patted her hand, stood, and wandered back into the seething mass of people; trailing “broken” and “defeated” behind him.

Saint Brenda was in a snit all the way home. It seems that Turd’s wife, the woman he had “loved” since their graduation from Texas A&M was catting around on him and he was devastated.

They were a perfect couple. Turd was an obnoxious, narcissistic asshole and Polly was a vacuous, self-absorbed, bimbo, who had once been Miss Texas World. She was breathtaking in a boom-boom-ba-boom kind of way unless you had the excruciating experience of talking to her.

I mean - humans only have so much blood in their bodies – right? In Polly’s case it was apparent that her huge tits had siphoned off the life giving fluid that should have been allocated to her brain. Still, with a face and body like hers it really didn’t matter. But I digress.

Turd had waylaid Brenda in a dark corner to “seek her advice.” When I stumbled on their cozy little get-together Brenda was helping Dickhead “channel his grief.” I didn’t buy it for a minute. But Brenda adores sappy melodrama, and she wasn’t pleased that I’d broken up her little tet-a-tet.

According to St. Brenda, Turd had uncovered some kompromat about Polly, and it was killing him. Any sane person would have immediately called bullshit. Turd was as subtle as Pepe Le Pew in his relentless pursuit of anything in a dress. Hence, he had plenty of his own excursions off the reservation. But Brenda had bought Turd’s story hook line and sinker.

In the ensuing argument, Brenda tried to justify her willingness to listen to the conceited d-bag by telling me that he was really very sensitive underneath all that bluster. Of course, that particular observation opened up another front.

I said heatedly, “And how do you know ANYTHING about what might-or-might-not be lurking beneath Tudwell’s adolescent exterior. Have you spent any time in his tree-house?”

Brenda actually had the good grace to look embarrassed. She said, “Well, he HAS dropped by a couple of times to talk to YOU. But you’ve never been there when he does.”

That hit me right between the eyes. It wasn’t like Turd was even attempting to be subtle. I said, “Did it ever occur to you that YOU might be his target?”

Brenda was genuinely confused. She said, “Why would he want to talk to me? You’re the one with the big-time government credentials. He said there was something he needed to discuss about clearances.”

Talk about clueless. I said, “Look Brenda, you are the hottest female in the neighborhood. Every guy on the block thinks that.” Brenda got the typical woman look that told me that she loved to hear it. But that she hated hearing it from ME since it created fertile grounds for jealousy.

I continued with, “The camel was just trying to find-out how far under the tent he could get his big fat lips. I hope you didn’t invite him in.”

She looked uneasy. She said, “I did a few times, he asked if he could come in and wait for you. But he didn’t stay very long.”

I said, sounding even more displeased, “How many is a few and why wasn’t he there when I arrived?”

Brenda looked like something was beginning to sink in. She said, “Well, for the past month it’s been three or four afternoons a week. He stops by on his way home from Kirtland, but you’ve always been at work. He waits for a while and we talk, but he has to get home or Polly would worry.”

I laughed uproariously and said, “That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard. Since when has Tudwell given a flying-fuck about what his wife thinks.”

Brenda looked at me indignantly and said, “He deeply values his marriage. He tells me over-and-over- how lucky we are to have each other. He wishes he had what we have. That’s why I was so supportive when he told me about Polly’s affair.”

I said angrily, “He wants SOMETHING that I have, and it’d better stay just wishing. From now on tell “Hondo” to call me if he needs to talk. I don’t want to find him alone with you.”

Brenda said, really pissed off, “ You don’t tell me what to do. This isn’t the Dark Ages.”

The discussion was proceeding down a dark and dangerous road. So, I said, “For the sake of compromise, if he shows up again just call me at work. I guarantee that I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.” I knew THAT would chase the varmint off.

Needless to say, there was no nookie that night and for a few weeks afterward. Still, we really did love each other, and the ice eventually melted. By month’s end we had both entirely forgotten about the matter. I thought...

*****

Santa Fe is a mile and a half above sea level. Hence, even though it’s hot in Albuquerque. it’s always nice up there. Plus, Santa Fe features the funkiest art scene in the U.S.

Brenda, and I were both fans of Georgia O’Keefe and they were selling some originals at her museum. The paintings are in the million-five range. But I had my eye on a signed serigraph. It looked like we could get it for a mere three-thousand. So, we went up there to try our luck.

Sometimes we rough-camp. But this was a fine-art expedition. So, we went to the other end of the spectrum and stayed at the Inn of the Five Graces, which has a relatively short walk to the museum.

That place has a hacienda vibe with the faux-adobe walls and the heavy Spanish furniture. The bed looked like Ferdinand and Isabella had it carved at monstrosities r’us. The word “ornate” didn’t begin to describe it. Which was convenient since Brenda was finally back in the mood.

My wife had been distant all month. I attributed that to the argument over Turd. She felt that I was being “mean” and “insensitive.” Whereas I thought that she was being an idiot. We’d actually made love more often than normal. But it wasn’t the usual all-in extravaganza that both of us were used to. There were obviously still some tender feelings.

Night fell as we finished a meal at the adjacent restaurant. There is something special about the sunset on a warm Santa Fe evening. The air is soft, and the light has a unique red-gold tint. The sky with its bright emerging stars was almost purple and the crescent moon rising to the Northeast would make you want to howl at it - and Brenda’s rapt gaze told me that howling would be done tonight.

She was wearing a little black dress accessorized by a necklace that filled the scoop with small chunks of pure turquoise. I’d bought it for her that afternoon. Brenda’s Italian by origin and the contrast of the bright blue stones on her smooth dusky Mediterranean skin just radiated loveliness.

My wife was blessed by one of those perfectly proportioned faces, with huge brown eyes and a cap of thick dark brown hair that she wears in a stylish pixie cut, with choppy layers that emphasize her high cheekbones and pointed chin. When Brenda focuses her deep dark eyes on some poor male there isn’t much that he won’t give her, which is why Brenda is so effective as a point person in negotiations.

Still, Brenda’s mouth and sculptured lips are the things that stop traffic. Movie stars pay a fortune to get full, mobile lips like hers. They are always in motion when we kiss, nipping and tugging. It’s the sexiest experience that you can imagine because it communicates her total involvement in the act.

We normally take some time preparing for sex rather than just dive into things. But my wife was on a mission. The minute we got in the room, she stepped out of her dress and towed me into the bedroom by the tie. The sight of those two bubble buns twitching in a thong made me harder than titanium. Then the thought struck me, “When did she start wearing thongs?”

As soon as got to the bed Brenda turned and just ripped my shirt open, buttons flying everywhere and fell to her knees dropping my pants like a pro. She rummaged in my boxers, found what she was looking for, extracted it, and proceeded to gobble it like it was the last popsicle on earth. That gave me some more pause. Brenda had never done anything even close to that in our entire marriage.

But before I could think about what had just happened, she pulled off and started frantically dragging me toward the bed. Since she had a grip of steel on my favorite appendage, I had to go along, or I would have parted company with it.

Once we’d reached the bed, my wife turned and without further ado threw both of her arms around my neck, put her right hand behind my head and dragged me down to the hottest kiss she had ever given me. Her sensual mouth opened underneath mine and I could feel her nipping and probing.

The sensation made her moan loudly. She momentarily freed herself and agitatedly unsnapped her bra, letting it slide off of her shoulders. She held it momentarily to her breasts. Then she dropped her arms.

What fell out were her two gorgeous breasts. Brenda is a small woman. But she has a beautiful hard body with soft, broad tear-drop shaped boobs. They are hard and substantial high and proud. I had seen them throughout our marriage. But it is like listening to the first notes of Beethoven’s Ninth. You might have heard it a million times, but it still profoundly moves you.

I had an overwhelming desire to suck on one, of those big rubbery nipples. So, I sat on the bed and pulled her to stand between my legs. I took the left one into my mouth, She let out a loud groan and threw her head back inundated in sheer sensation.

I sat with her positioned between my legs while I drove her wild working her nipples. She was on fire, crushing me to the tit and making rhythmic ugh-ugh-ugh noises as I nursed that swelling red-hot nub. Never in our extensive sexual history did I remember her being so turned on. She was just drenched. The smell of aroused woman was giving every hormone in my body a massive hard on.

She pushed me back, hastily scrambled up on the bed, straddled me, and pushed her dripping thong aside. Then, she roughly inserted me into her white hot passage. She must have come twice while I was moving up into her and we hadn’t actually started fucking yet. For a change, she was rendered totally inarticulate, making odd moaning, gasping, and growling noises.

It nearly killed her when I hit bottom and started to move. Brenda was in an absolutely brave new world of wild cries, and frantic bucking. The expression on her face was intense passion. She went from looking down at me, to leaning as far back as she could, hands gripping my thighs as she ground her clit into me. That set off more hyperventilating.

Then she began to just yell, “OH GOD DAVEY!! YOU FEEL SO GOOD!! FUCK ME, JUST FUCK ME!! I was watching her exquisite tits swinging in a dozen different directions as she ground on me. She was making savage groans and cries. She was so wet that I could feel her hot juices dripping down my leg and onto the sheets underneath.

Then, Brenda paused, oddly still. It was like she was having a hyper-rational moment. Her passage was still milking me, and she was panting heavily but she sat there straddling me with her strong legs gripping my hips, like she had reached some kind of cosmic revelation. It was weirdly spiritual.

Brenda leaned down, opened her incredible eyes, and focused directly on me. I could see her love; as well as something else. It looked like regret. Then she went-off with the kind of cataclysmic force that buried Pompeii. Her passage began to spasm and she shrieked with the sensation. Her hips were a blur of activity and her frantic cries were like the breaking of the surf, “YESSSSSS, OH GOD YESSSSSS!!

It had been a weird enough experience that I was having a hard time coming. But this final display of sheer carnal abandon got me to my destination at light speed. I turned her over, still buried to the hilt, and slammed her flat on her back on that garish bed.

The next few minutes of writhing, pounding, grunting and shrieks was like something out of Animal Planet. Then, it felt like I deposited my entire reproductive system in her frantically churning passage. I was totally exhausted when I got to the finish line.

Afterward, we were lying side-by-side in the moonlight, holding hands, and bathed in sweat. I almost asked her about it then. I should have. But the warning signs were still too new, and we’d been married far too long for me to confront her out-of-the-blue. So, I suppose it’s natural to waffle.

I mean seriously?? Who’s brave enough to stake their happiness on one throw of the dice after a fantastic night of sex. Your life will be on a decidedly darker path if you come up snake-eyes. I had a great career; a beautiful wife and  life was good. So, let’s put the questions off for another time. 

Brenda turned toward me and said almost desperately, “I love you Davy. Don’t ever forget that. You’re my man. We’ll grow old together, just you and me.” That was a fitting benediction to a very strange evening.

We ambled over to the museum the next day. Brenda is an exquisite little woman, with a compact body who looks stunning in a stylish pair of shorts. Latino men are a lot less repressed than Germans, or Norwegians when it comes to the type of booty that she was flaunting So, there was significant gawking as we walked along.

I said amused, “You’ve got a fan club.”  She gave me a flirty smile, grabbed one of her butt cheeks and said, “This is only for you.” The guy who had just strolled past us ran into a mailbox.  

That was our marriage in a nutshell. Some people view their wives as trophies, a living proof of their masculinity. I never saw Brenda that way. She was my peer and my partner. Her beauty was just one aspect of her contribution to our relationship. It was her spunky spirit and her loving, warm heartedness that made her who she was.

But now I was caught in a Chinese finger trap. The more I pushed my wife about the way Turd was blowing smoke up her dress. The more she dug in about me being “mean” and “jealous.” At the same time, I couldn’t take Turd aside and tell him to knock off the cuck act. I’d sound like a paranoid weenie.

I was holding-off on making any moves, hoping she would either come to her senses, or Turd would fuck up by pushing it too far. I mean seriously, you have to trust your wife. She’s the one person in this brutal world you know you can depend on. And it’s a very slippery slope if you start to have doubts.

Maybe I’m too cynical. But I thought that Brenda’s inherent faith in humanity was her Achilles heel. It made her the logical prey of anybody cruel enough to take advantage of her innate tender heartedness. Of course, you would have to be an amoral douchebag to do that. But I knew one individual who fit the description.

Shakespeare was the first to write it down, “All the world’s a stage - and one man in his time plays many parts.” In short, what you think of as reality is scripted and directed by you, in your own head.

Turd might be a joke in his role as, “Captain America, alpha-dog-of-the-pack.” But alas, he didn’t know that. In fact, he thought that he was entitled to all the rights and privileges, and that’s precisely how he acted. The reality of his aggressive attempt to game Brenda made him a threat since SHE couldn’t see it. So, I had to do something.

I suppose there are people who actually get away with cheating. But most couples get caught because fucking-around is such a complicated process. If you cheat, you have to keep track of all the normal stuff plus a whole shitload of abnormal things. And regular people just can’t cover all the bases. That’s why folks who’re doing what they oughtn’t to be doing, will inevitably get outed.

Inexplicable behavior always has a logical explanation. This truism applies in every aspect of life. For instance, scientists discovered the planet Neptune that way. They noticed that Uranus’s orbit was out of whack, did the math and found Neptune back there tugging on it. It’s why the phenomenon of covert influence is called the “planetary body” principle.

The same concept applies to cheating. There’s always some malevolent body behind a change in normal behavior. As I watched Turd and Brenda interact at parties, I could see him pulling her into his orbit. So, I made the decision to cross the Rubicon.

I used the six days before the next party to visit a Darknet Market and purchase a simple man-in-the-middle package. I kept it innocuous. Since you will quickly become a person of great interest to agencies both foreign and domestic if you start buying military grade hacking tools in a deep-web souk.

I dropped the bomb at the next barbeque. I was sitting with the rest of the geeks, while Turd bummed around looking like somebody had shot his dog. Brenda was solicitously following him, like I’d told her not to.

I port-scanned Turd’s phone. Naturally, it was wide-open. He never sweated silly concerns like protecting his cell from the likes of me. Of course, the only reliable way he COULD have protected it from me, would have been to run over it with his car. But I further digress.

It took less than a minute to drop my little pet on Turd’s cellphone. It immediately texted a picture of an adorable kitten to Brenda. The flying monkey was hidden in the steganography. She opened the picture and gave Turd a delighted glance. The rootkit that she launched when she did that, did the rest.

Turd looked confused, as well he should be, since both of them had no idea how much stealth shit I had just added to the background processes running on both their devices. Everything they did from now on, pictures, calls and texts would be under my control and captured in a cloud account that I owned.

I looked at my wife as she “consoled” Tudwell. She was wearing a short sundress with her fabulously long tanned legs sticking out the bottom and the suggestive valley of her two round boobs framed by the spaghetti straps of the top. She was radiating life and happiness. I felt a wave of melancholy. I said under my breath, “Brenda, I hardly knew ye…”

It was the paradox of paradoxes. I wanted to know. I needed to know. But I didn’t want to find out. Healthy people don’t obsess about life extinguishing events like that. It just proved I wasn’t as self-contained as I pretended to be.

The world is tough, and a good marriage helps you through all the shit. It gives you a companion and friend, no matter the threat, or circumstance. Hence, I really yearned to chalk up my suspicions to simple paranoia. I could live with a low opinion of myself. What I could NOT endure was a discovery that would cost me my ordered and happy life.

The figurative symbol of two people’s commitment is the professed willingness to limit their intimacies solely to each other. I mean seriously, you can’t share your private self with more than one individual and maintain a special bond. And you can’t trust somebody who thinks they can.

The problem is that humans aren’t naturally monogamous. Hence, it takes a conscious act of will, to stay faithful. A strong and moral person will keep their promises. People without honor won’t. So, in many respects fidelity is the litmus test of a person’s character.

I’d known Brenda for a very long time, and I knew how important personal integrity was to her. So, I couldn’t imagine any circumstance where she would willingly compromise her precious self-concept, especially for the sake of scratching an itch – theoretically that is.

But if you sneak around trying to learn things. You oughtn’t to be astonished when you are blindsided by what you find out. Yet, I was - go figure.

The fatal call came at 9:23 AM the Monday after the party. It was Dickhead. Turd said, humble gratitude oozing from every pore, “ Brenda, you’re the only person who understands what I’m going through. I would have killed myself if it weren’t for your love. It’s just so hard keeping my hands off you, knowing what we’ve shared.” My heart sank.

Brenda said, with exasperation in her voice, “I told you before Richard, I don’t love you, I love my husband. I am only doing this to help you adjust to your new life without Polly.”

Doing what??! My brain went to Defcon One – Cocked Pistol!! Turd said in a regretful voice, “I know that. But it’s the one thing that’s keeping my head above water. Can we get together soon. I really need some of your special comforting.”

Brenda said, her voice softening, “I understand. I’d feel the same way if I discovered Davy was screwing around. We can meet one last time. But you’re going to have to get through this without any more of my help. I don’t want to lose my marriage because you can’t cope.”