The house was dark as I entered through the front door.

I didn’t need to turn the light on. Cheryl, my wife, and I had lived here for over 15 years. I knew every inch, every piece of furniture. I knew which stairs squeaked, and where to place my feet to make sure they didn’t. I knew that the bedroom door never closed properly.

Cheryl had been after me to fix that for years, but I never got around to it. I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The bedroom was dark too, but the blinds were thin, allowing some of the full moon’s light to cast soft illumination into the room. More than enough to see Cheryl curled up asleep, and someone, who wasn’t me, curled up behind her.

I could tell they had had sex. The room stank of it. Cheryl was naked, and she rarely slept so, not unless she dozed of in her post orgasmic haze.

Given their position I wondered if he was still inside her.

Questions started to present themselves to me and I wondered about their affair. Who had started it? How had it progressed? How did they make the leap from being friends, to being lovers? I saw his hand curled protectively across my wife. He was wearing a wedding ring.

So, he was married too.

I wondered about his wife. Was she even now sleeping alone, wondering where her husband was while his dick was lodged in my wife’s ass crack?

Did they have kids?

What was the problem with their marriage that he had to be here interfering with mine.

And what was the problem with my marriage that he was able to.

I thought back to when I had met Cheryl. We neither of us were children. I had been 32 and she was 18 months older. I had been married before, but although Cheryl had had a long term relationship, they had never tied the knot. He had apparently kept promising that one day he would ask, but never did. Eventually she gave up waiting.

Both of us had had over a year of singledom before we met up, and although we met on a dating site, it was literally love at first sight.

I had thought that we would be together forever. Apparently, that was not to be.

I sat on the stool by the dresser and watched her sleep.

She was a beautiful as ever. Her long dark hair had streaks of grey in it now. She used to dye it, but for some reason more recently she had decided to acknowledge her age and was ‘growing old gracefully’, and it was graceful.

Yes, she had some grey in her hair. And yes, she had a few more lines around her eyes and her mouth. Laughter lines I think they call them, but none of that mattered to me. I loved her just as much, more even, today than I did when we first met.

I had thought I would feel more pain than this, but for some reason I just felt empty. No anger, sadness, grief or loss just a void. A dark and cold emptiness. I wondered at that.

How can It be that after so long together I can contemplate my wife, in bed with another man, and not feel anything. I loved her with all my being and yet seeing her in his arms just left me feeling only very slightly sad. Nothing more.

I watched for a few minutes more, wondering what I should do next.

Should I wake them? Demand explanations, commit violence? He seemed to be much bigger than me, so I’m not sure how that would turn out, but I just didn’t have the energy for it. Empty as I said. Just slightly sad.