Chapter 1: The Seed Is Planted

The decision I’d had to make was a hard one. After all, I had two little girls to add into the equation here. I’d studied up on the way the courts work, and it appeared to me that no mater what the female partner had done; the courts almost always appeared to place custody of the children with the mother. I’ll give you sometimes if the father had plenty of money and/or the wife’s behaviour had been extremely outrageous - the mother having placed the children in some kind of physical or mental danger - the father might win custody; but that apparently happened very rarely.

My problem was that Celine had always been an almost perfect mother, well when she was at home that is, and most discreet when she got up to ... whatever it was that she had been getting up to? So bloody discreet if fact, that I had not one shred of evidence that I could use against her in a divorce court. Secondly Celine had been the main - well to be honest, as the world knew it, the only breadwinner - in our family and had been for some considerable period of time. So you see “in theory” I wasn’t rolling in cash and therefore I could not really afford a costly legal battle to fight her over the custody of our twin girls.

You know, many times in the past, I’ve often wondered why some women seem prepared to put up with a philandering husband, so readily. But after nearly ten years where the overwhelming priority in my life has been the welfare - both physical and mental - of my two little angels. I think I’m coming to understand the reasons those women have chose to accept the status quo.

Not making too much sense, well I’m not surprised. If anyone had told me even ten years earlier that I would find myself in the position it I found myself in that day, and actually be contemplating continuing to put up with it, I’d never have believed them. You see I’m a househusband. Yeah, sounds belittling don’t it, but its even more belittling when your so-called loving spouse, is playing the field or having an affair.

Lets start at the beginning. Celine and I met at university, our relationship started quite literally by accident. I raced into the car park one morning very tight for time because I’d been held up in traffic. It probably would have been quicker to walk or run the short distance that day; the traffic had been so heavy and the accommodation blocks weren’t really located all that far away from the college buildings.

By chance I spied myself a empty parking place right near the car parks entrance and hit brakes hard. There followed the sound of squealing tyres -- not mine -- and then a pronounced crunch. Looking in the rear-view mirror, something I should have done before I’d slammed the brakes on; I saw a somewhat shaken-up Celine staring back at me, from the drivers seat of her car. Celine’s face appeared to be much closer to me than it should be.

There wasn’t very much in the way of visible damage to either vehicle, although there was probably a little to Celine’s pride. Being a connoisseur of the human body, well one that filled its clothes the way Celine’s did (and a randy little bugger to boot, who always his mind on the off-chance) it was me who assured Celine that the accident had been entirely my own fault.

The net result of the encounter was that two students were extremely late for their first lecture of the new term. Believe it or not, the next morning we car shared, as we’d discovered that not only were we on the same course, but we were living in adjacent dormitory blocks. To cut a long story short, we never did use separate cars again until we left Uni and started our professional careers.

Being on the same course studying business administration and marketing, we tended to work (and party) together at uni and we got married a couple of weeks after out final exams. We actually started work on the same day. Celine for a clothing manufacturer, and me at an engineering company. Although in completely different industries our positions within our respective companies were somewhat on a par with each other, and for the next few years our individual advancements almost mirrored one another. That is, until Celine’s advancement abruptly halted.

Celine had almost reached the limit of where she would rise to within her employers company, until one of the founding partners retired or passed on. Not that that looked like a possibility at the time.

Celine for some reason, had also begun to worry about her ticking hormonal clock. At twenty-eight, I thought it was the last thing she needed to worry about. But she said she wanted to enjoy her children whilst she could. Celine’s mother had given birth to her late in life, so neither of her parents were still around to enjoy their grandchildren. Celine was adamant that that wasn’t going to happen to her.

I was earning an extremely good salary by then; well we both were. But Celine -- after a lot of discussion with me -- decided that now was the time she wanted to start our family. I think she’d proved to herself that she had the nonce to make it in business, now she wanted to show that she could make it as a mother as well. Not that her employers were overwhelmed with pleasure at her decision, although I don’t believe she ever actually told them of our plans, until Celine fell pregnant.

Almost exactly twelve months after Celine and I first had the discussion where she announced it was time for her to try to become pregnant. Celine presented me with not one but two beautiful girls. For the next few months, life -- although somewhat hectic -- was wonderful. But then things -- for me at least -- went all to pot. A hostile take-over of my employers by a multi-national saw my office, and the future I thought it held for me within the company evaporate. To stay working for the new company I would have to move, not just to another city, but to another country.

For the next three months I looked around for a suitable position that would allow us to continue living the comfortable life that we had grown used to, but I had no luck whatsoever. Ah yeah, there were plenty of jobs out there for me if I wanted them, but at nowhere near the salary I had been previously been enjoying.

Celine and I discussed the job situation many times during those three months. We even discussed relocating to the USA where my employers had offered me what they claimed was a permanent position. But I really had a distrust of an organisation that could walk in and make so many good workers redundant at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t as if our company had not been extremely profitable before the take-over. To be honest with you, it was probably that profitability that had made the takeover attractive to them in the first place.

What was to turn out to be our saving grace, was the fact that one of the founders at Celine’s previous employers had unexpectedly decided it was time to meet his maker. It was sometime before Celine told me that her old employer had been calling her on a pretty regular basis ever since that death; virtually begging her to return to the fold.

There is one thing I could say for Celine, at that time, she was extremely diplomatic. Besides subtly, informing me that her old employers had been in touch, Celine never did make the obvious suggestion; she left that idea for me to come up with.

So there you have it, the obvious answer. I would stay home and raise the children, Celine would return to the workforce as the distribution director for her old employers. When Celine informed me of the package they put together for her, I could hardly believe my ears. What with bonuses and stock options, I couldn’t understand why she’d hadn’t told me about the details of the offer they’d made her much earlier.

Now I’ve heard of companies throwing retirement parties before. But the week that Celine went back, the chairman of the company threw a “welcome back Celine” dinner party at his home on the Saturday evening.

I’m pretty sure that Celine was quite embarrassed about the whole thing. But during the evening the company chairman collared me alone and informed me that he foresaw Celine as the company’s MD within a very few years. He actually said that Celine was a ‘mover and shaker’ (always an unfortunate sounding analogy when applied to a female, especially ones own wife) who was capable of achieving just about anything in her career. (Looking back now, another poor choice of words.)

“You know Mike, I can even see that wife of yours sitting in my chair one day. But it’s only fair to warn you now, this is one cut-throat business. Celine is gong to have work her socks-off for a few years. Do me a favour lad; cut her some slack when she needs it, will you my boy?” The old fella said, in what I took to be a somewhat condescending tone.

I was to get used to those condescending remarks over the next few years. Becoming a househusband I had to get used to a lot of things; like being looked down upon by Celine’s male colleagues at company functions. Although I must admit I found that the female members of staff and those same male employees wives, appeared to be completely fascinated with my ... situation.

I doubted that it was my great looks or personality that attracted them, it must have been my pretty unique occupation. Jesus I had trouble finding time to dance with my own wife at some at those in-house functions. Not that I think -- after a couple of years -- Celine ever noticed.

I might also add, that on occasion I did gather that quite a few of the wives weren’t to be listed amongst Celine’s greatest fans. Reputedly my wife had morphed into a hard taskmaster, who they thought, drove their husbands much too hard. Strangely I can’t say I noted the same air of ... cattiness amongst Celine’s female colleagues.

And so life went on, or so I thought. As the man had told me, Celine’s workload was heavy. I began to understand that Celine had a hand everything that went on within that organisation. On average she was away from home two or three days (and nights) a week. Not every week mind you, sometimes Celine didn’t go away for a few weeks at a time. But then when all those damned fashion weeks would start-up and she was off all over the world, sometimes for two or even three weeks at a time.

There were times when the children and I went along with Celine, but she was busy most of the time we were away and Celine could spare little of her time for us.

Okay from Paris it’s not too far to drive down to Euro-Disney and from Rome I could take the children to some of the nearby beaches. They were a little on the young side to understand or enjoy all those ruins around Rome.

Then there were all the functions that Celine had to attend in the evenings; finding suitable babysitters was often a real problem whilst we were abroad. So Celine would more often than not, attend those functions alone; well, without me anyway. Annoyingly they often went on until the wee small hours of the morning as well.

Five years on and Celine did make it to MD (I do believe that’s CEO in American talk). I had expected Celine’s travelling to drop-off some once she took over the MD’s chair. But on the contrary, if anything Celine appeared to travel even more.

Things at that time had been rapidly changing in the rag trade; more and more of the actual manufacture was farmed out to the Far East; consequently Celine was now travelling out there as well.

The company had grown significantly by then and had opened offices in many countries of the world; it appeared that Celine was required to visit all of them on a regular basis as well. Yes, the girls and I did enjoy visiting New York, Toronto, San Francisco and Sidney. I generally passed on the far east and Asia, I can’t say that I’m enthralled with long flights for a start, and the children were on the young side to really appreciate the scenery. They were not the sort of places that we could cart the children off to at the drop of a hat every time that Celine had to visit them.

It was when Celine was on one of her trips to New York that the idea that she just might possibly be stepping-out on me whilst she was away, first raised its ugly head and bit me.

The afternoon before I’d been to a little ballet display that the girls dance school had put on. Celine of course couldn’t attend, she was flying to New York; but she insisted that I took the video camera along to record the girls contribution.

After the little display, during which my two daughters made all the others look like beginners. Well yeah, after a few years at this househusband game, you do tend to think like most proud mothers, that your kids at the greatest on the block.

Anyway after the performance, we moved into the schools cafeteria where some of the older children served-up tea and coffee to all the audience.

Before I say anymore, I’ll point out that I was not sitting there with a group of over-enthusiastic milfs; I was sitting with George.

Who’s George you ask? Well George is and isn’t a house-husband at the same time. George is a widower who struggles along to bring-up his three offspring on his own. I think he survives on the compensation he got when his wife was killed in a road accident and by doing odd jobs on the side whilst his children are at school. George is a friend, but habitually I don’t ask to many questions about other folks’ private lives. After socialising with an extended group of gossipy housewives for a few years, you soon learn to mind your own business.

The two of us (George and I) had teamed up years before, being usually the only two men in that sea of horny housewives; or so it seemed. I’m going to admit now that on occasion, George and I were forced to run interference for each other.

You would not believe just how many randy -- or to be fair, more likely lonely -- housewives that there are out there. However had George always appeared to be as devoted to the memory of his wife, as I was devoted to Celine. Consequently we’d learnt to watch each other’s backs.

Although I’m going to admit to you that on many occasions we had discussed who were the choicest milf’s around, but that was just to keep ourselves entertained.

That day George and I found ourselves a table and our children came over and sat with us for a little while; whilst the older children served our tea and biscuits. Then the woman who ran dance program at the school got up and gave her little speech. We were used to her diatribes by then; she would go-on about how wonderfully the children had performed.

Come-on if you got children you’ve seen these little shows the places put-on for the parents. They are designed to give the children confidence, not for the audiences entertainment. No, that’s not exactly true, the really young beginners can be great fun, no bugger ever knows what they are going to get-up-to next.

The speech over George and I settled back to drink our teas, whilst the children disappeared off to either clear up or see their friends. George and my conversation kind of dried up so we sat there in silence waiting for the first chance we got to get the hell out of there. George and I didn’t like to be the first to leave.

It was then that I picked up on a conversation that was going on between some mothers on an adjacent table.

“Yes, she flew out there and caught the bugger in bed with his assistant!” A woman’s voice said.

“I know, Sally told me that he’d been knocking-off that little tart for years.” A second voice added.

“Always claimed he was too tired when he got home, you know.” Voice one continued, in a serious tone.

“Of course he was, he’d been banging that little bitch all damned week.” Voice two.

“And with such lovely children as well; its them you have to I feel sorry for, not her. You know she had something going with the maths teacher at the school here, don’t you?” Voice one

“Did she? I heard that she was seen having dinner with the man who owns the garage on the High Road.” Voice two.

“No, that was after she caught her husband with his little tart.” A third voice joined the conversation.

“Is she going to divorce him, do you know? Voice two asked.

“No, I spoke to her the other day. She’s suspected what the bastard had been getting up-to for years. She said she only went out there to catch him at it and clear the air. They aren’t going to divorce for the children’s sake, well not yet anyway. They are sleeping in separate bedrooms and they are going to lead their own lives until the children all leave home.” Voice three again.

“What? They’re going to have one of those open marriage things, I don’t think I’d like that, idea.” Voice one, asked with an astonished tone to her voice.

“Well I suppose so. She told me that it will give the children a stable home and both her and her husband can do what they like, providing they keep it discreet.” Voice three.

Then there was a general discussion between all three women about whether they would or could live with an open marriage, or cheat on their husbands. What was quite surprising about their conversation was, that I happen to know that two of them had regularly sampled the maths teachers ... er wares, whilst their husbands were away on business. One of them bedded the bugger on the school camp that I’d been conned into joining as a helper. When one keeps ones eyes and ears open; you’d be surprised what you discover. Oh, and yes I had been all-but propositioned by one of the other mothers on the trip, but I had declined her offer.

As George and I were walking out to the car together later, I happened to ask him whether he’d overheard the conversation as well.

“Yeah, I heard the bitches. Holier than thou they try to sound. But you can’t trust any of the sluts as far as you can throw em. There ain’t a woman ever lived, who can be trusted!”

George’s outburst actually surprised me.

“Come on George they’re not all like that. What about Jenny (George’s deceased wife) you could trust her.” I said, more in jest that anything else.

But I was completely taken aback by George’s reaction. He stopped walking and turned towards me with a look in his eyes the like I’d never seen before.

“Believe me Ralph, there ain’t no such animal as a trustworthy woman. You wanna know why I steer well clear of the bitches nowadays? Jenny, my so-called loving wife! You wanna know how she bleeding-well died?” He said, with an indescribable expression on his face.

“You told me George, your wife died in a road accident.” I said trying to calm George down a little. It was obvious he was extremely emotional about something.

George looked around as if to check that the children were safely out of earshot.

“Yeah, she died in a car crash all-bleeding-right. But what was the bitch doing out in her boss’s car at two o’clock in the effing morning? And the clothes she was wearing that night, a bleeding pro doesn’t dress as slutty as that. When they gave me her clothes back, most of them had been cut off of her body in casualty. But guess where her sodding knickers were? Yeah, in her effing handbag!”

“Oh Christ, George; I had no idea!”

“Of course you didn’t, no one does if I can help it. I didn’t make a big thing of it for the children’s sake. Didn’t want them to know their mother was an effing slut. The story was that they were out on business that night, and I let it ride. The police knew, the coroner knew. Sod-it, the little shit’s wife knew. But it was all quietly brushed under the carpet.

“I got the bastard though. I waited couple of years until he thought it was all forgotten about, then I kicked the shit out of the little Prat.”

“No comebacks?”

“Nope, never heard a word about it. A nasty mugging it was reported as in the local rag. Mind, I told the tosser that if I went down for it, I had friends who’d make sure the wanker would never walk again. Nor would he be able to screw anybody else’s wife!”

There was something about the tone of George’s voice, that scared the shit out of me. I figured that whoever the guy had been. He’d noted that tone as well and believed George’s threat; I know I certainly did.

Then as quickly as George had turned serious, his demeanour lightened as he called the children over and suggested a trip to McDonalds was called for. This was greeted by the normal cheers all round, and I almost, but not quite, forgot about George’s story during the rest of the afternoon.

It was later that night when Celine called home, that I -- as you knew I would in the end -- became suspicious. Celine had had her normal chat to the children and it was when they passed the phone back to me that -- not for the first time -- I thought I detected the sound of a male voice in the background.

“Where are you calling from, Celine?” I demand quite sternly and completely taking her by surprise. What I heard from George during the afternoon had been playing over in my mind whilst Celine and the children had been talking and those background noises had suddenly taken on a new significance.

“My room where do you think. I always call you from my room.”

“Who’s with you?”

“Claire, you know we share a room when you don’t come along.” Celine replied.

“But I heard a man’s voice!”

Celine didn’t reply directly to me.

“Turn that damned TV off Claire, Ralph thinks that we’re holding an orgy in here or something.” I heard Celine telling her PA.

It was only the sudden silence in the room that told me exactly how much background noise there actually had been.

“There is that better! It was the TV, Claire always has the damned thing on.” Celine said with what I took to be a slightly sarcastic tone to her voice. I’d heard her use that tone to some of her staff in the past. In an instant, I realised that she’d been using it with me quite often of late.

“Why did you say that?” I demanded

“Say what?” she asked.

“That I thought you had an orgy going on!”

Celine began to laugh then. “I was only joking, darling.”

But for some reason I was pissed-off that Celine had used the word ‘orgy’. At that time I couldn’t claim to know why, but the word just jumped up and bit me.

“Don’t you darling me, Celine; answer my question!” I demanded again.

“Ralph what’s got into you? It was a joke. You know what some of these people get-up-to at these events. I thought you’d see the funny side.”

“Well I don’t see the funny side of anything, Celine. I hear men’s voices in my wife’s bedroom when she’s thousands of miles away from home, and I don’t like it.”

“Do you really believe that I would ... Ralph how could you even contemplate that I’d do such a thing?”

I’m going to leave to the readers’ imagination, the tirade that came down the telephone line after that. Lets just say Celine was putting-on a pretty good show of being outraged. In the end, she hung-up on me.

I really can’t be sure what set me off that day. Whether it was learning about George’s wife having strayed, or it really had been Celine using the word orgy. It could even have had a connection with the fact that I was aware that Celine hadn’t been able to secure a hotel suite for that week -- someone in the office had dropped a boo-boo and left the booking until too late -- Celine and Claire had had to settle for a twin bedded room. Anyway the significance of the difference between them having a suite or a room ... or even separate rooms, might become more obvious later.

The following evening when Celine called, I had the children answer the phone. I refused to speak to her at first. But after she called back for the third time I had to relent: I couldn’t keep the children up all night answering the damned telephone.

“I’m sorry Ralph, I shouldn’t have gone-off at you like that last night. After all, we are a long way apart and I suppose I can understand that you might get a little anxious, sometimes.”

“Anxious, I’m not anxious about anything, Celine. I’ve got a good idea where I stand in this marriage.”

“I’m sorry, what do you mean, where you stand? You’re my husband!”

“No Celine, I’m the bloody housekeeper and nanny all rolled into one. Remember I used to work with guys who talked to their wives on the telephone the same way you spoke to me last night. And, who talk about their wives the same way that I suspect you talk about me to your colleagues. What am I Celine, the little man? I knew a lot of the guys who used to refer to their wives as such, ‘The little woman!’ What do you tell your boyfriends, that I don’t understand you?”

“I don’t understand what’s come over you these last two days, Ralph.”

“Realisation, Celine! Yesterday wasn’t the first time I’ve heard voices in the background when you’ve called home.”

“I told you, Claire always has the television on.”

“If it wasn’t for that snide remark about orgies, I might have accepted that. But then you come over with that demeaning tone of voice of yours. Sorry Celine, on top of that, your room didn’t go quite as quiet as you would have liked. Your guests must have been restless, I heard them moving about.”

The bit about that guests moving about was a lie, I just slipped it in to see what Celine’s reaction would be. But I had in fact heard what had sounded like a door closing. Anyway it paid-off trumps.

“That was the bell boy delivering some ice!” Celine shot back at me as quick as lightening.

“Why would you need ice Celine, for your guests drinks?” I asked. God was I scoring well?

“No it was not! If you must know, Claire gave her ankle a bit of a twist yesterday; she fell off those damned heels that you keep chiding her about. That’s what the ice was for, to make a cold compress for Claire’s ankle.”

“And I believe you Celine, good night.”

I hung up the phone on her this time. Then pulled the plug from the wall. “Get your teeth around that one, girl,” I thought to myself.

I wasn’t really sure why I was so angry, or why I was suddenly so convinced that Celine was stepping-out on me. But for some unknown reason I’d become completely convinced. As I say I’m not sure why, maybe there had been lots of ... I don’t know ... out of place or suspicious occurrences over the years, that on their own had told me nothing. But put together, added up too the possibility of a whole different ball-game. Not little pointers, but a ruddy great road sign.

It was probably five minutes later that my mobile started ringing. No prizes for guessing who was calling. I hit the button to send the call to the message service.

Half a minute later, it rang again, I repeated my previous action. After the same thing happening five times, I suddenly got the tone for a message being left. Now had I planned not to listen to the message, but I ain’t that strong willed. So I hit the play button.

“Ralph I don’t know what has suddenly made you so paranoid. I can’t understand where you got this idiotic idea from, but there were no men in my room last night. I wouldn’t do that to you or the children. Now can we please call a truce until I get home and we can discuss this sensibly? I’ve got a lot of work to do over here and I really don’t need to be upset like this. Good night darling, I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”

“Screw-you too!” I thought to myself. “Yeah you go out and have some fun with the boys, Celine.”

Okay some of you might be asking yourself why I’d suddenly decided that Celine had been playing with other guys whilst she was away from home. Well looking back I don’t think it was quite as sudden realisation as it at-first appears. There had been quite a few occasions in the past when I’d been talking to Celine on the telephone, where thought I’d heard someone talking in the background. But some of the telephone lines hadn’t been all that clever and in the past, I’d always swept any suspicions I’d had to the back of my mind.

I think hearing those women talking and then hearing George’s story had made me just a little more questioning and ... yeah, maybe a little paranoid. And on top of that I was convinced that that male voice I heard in the background hadn’t sounded like a TV set to me; there had been a half-heard comment there, that I couldn’t put my finger on. Then there was Celine’s general reaction and that demeaning tone of voice she had used.

Lastly and I suppose some folks would think more importantly was that Celine and my sex-life had almost become non-existent. It hadn’t dropped off suddenly or anything like that. It had just kind of faded away over the years. The busier Celine got, or I should say the more travelling she did, the less we seemed to have sex. I could probably count on the figures of one hand the times we’d had sex together since the previous Christmas. And that made it less than once a month.

I’m afraid I hit the bottle a bit that evening and knocked back a few more Scotches than was good for my health.

I awoke at six the following morning still sitting in a lounge chair. A quick bit of mental arithmetic told me that it would be somewhere about one AM New York time. It was with that thought in mind that I picked-up the phone and plugged the thing back in.

The girl on the hotel’s reception put me straight through to Celine’s room. The thing rang about fifteen times before a man’s voice said, “Hello?”