Chapter 2

This is the document that Susan wrote on Saturday evening while Jen slept, intending it to be read first by her husband and then, if divorce was decided on, by her lawyer to provide documentation of her admitted wrongdoing. It's obvious that she hadn't really expected that outcome as she wrote. She sends it as an email attachment which he reads in my final chapter.

First an apology for some of my actions.

Obviously the stuff about the loneliness of the big bed that I gave you on Friday evening was sheer hypocrisy. I was speaking from the guest bathroom at Jenson my CEO's home and the big bed that I was to occupy that night was no place that I should be, no place I could talk to you about.

The same line the previous night wasn't so straight forward: at the time we spoke I did feel lonely but my desire for John was a good way short of irresistible and I could have changed my mind about visiting his bed. Indeed had you 'admitted' that you were home it would never occurred to me to do anything other than come to join you.

I can't feel very guilty about my actual lies: it was a lie to say that I was home but I had no real reason to feel guilty about where I really was. The lie was just a convenient one intended to avoid further questioning from you and I know you have told me minor easily detectable fibs with similar intention. There may be very honourable people who avoid even this sort of deception but we can neither of us can pretend to such scrupulosity.

What I can't justify to myself is the lie by omission about my intention to commit adultery. Given the intention it was inevitable and may be pretty minor in comparison with the fact that I delighted in my wrongdoing for two full days but it played an essential part in that deceitful behaviour.

However, I still can't understand your own equally deceitful omission: why didn't you tell me you were home? If I had already fucked adulterously it wouldn't make me any more guilty if you let me go on and you would still be on the moral high ground. As it was it brought about the result you claim you don't want and changed my unhappiness about the way our marriage was going into a clear matrimonial offence. Couples do get round such facts but negotiation would have been easier without it.

When I think about it I'm not sure that it was simply a lie by omission: you called what had happened a 'minor change of plan'. I wouldn't like to have to argue the point in court but a more skilled advocate than me might convince a judge that the word minor made that a direct lie.

Your aggressive manner was understandable in the circumstances now that I understand them but your final statement that you 'loved me more than life' didn't override it. Indeed your tone of voice turned it into an attack and reminded me how long it was since we had spoken to each other with simple affection. At one time there was never anything else, was there? Whatever, I don't think I really noticed the avowal I was so conscious of the rest and at least for a time I gave up on you and my feelings weren't as mixed as they should have been as I left the bar with John.

My emotions towards you were much more positive when I eventually came to join you but my guilt was too strong to make it possible to express them in the face of your justifiable anger. You seem to think there is a way forward though the punishment that you have chosen doesn't seem very helpful. Have you forgotten that you enjoy sex yourself? Let's try to find that way and use every tool we have including the pleasure we can give each other in bed. For me at least that is the part of our old relation which has survived best. No one has ever made me feel so good as you still do every time we lie together.

To start with as few secrets as possible I've written the following account of my doings while we were apart as I see them.

At the beginning of last week, shortly after you had gone away, I found a way round the difficulty I told you had been given me to sort out at work. I know that you believe that any woman who thinks herself treated unfavourably to be a feminist klutz so I didn't tell you then that several senior members of staff hoped that I would fail and could be left to carry the can for the whole problem. Naturally this group included the guy directly responsible, call him 'Jones' to avoid a libel action if he gets to read this. It was admitted that Jones might have made a 'misjudgement' but in my investigation I soon found this to be a polite word for an attempt to profit himself not only at the expense of the client but of our firm as well. It so conflicted with his duty to the firm that it merited the sack though I thought his position was probably strong enough to avoid that; also too many others should have noticed what he was doing.

Knowing the nature of the misjudgement I had got round the obstructions and negotiated a deal with, Melrose, the client which avoided admission of wrongdoing on our part but left us with the poor terms that had been negotiated. We would still profit but at a rate way below our usual achievement. No guilty names were mentioned but it was implied that their business would no longer be handled by the previous team; I am their clear preference for project leader.

By Wednesday morning I had a written submission and the next step was to take this to John Stickner who is in overall charge of that part of our business. Part of the failure of oversight was his and he could have had his share buried along with the perpetrator's wrongdoing simply by rejecting my plan. This option would cause the firm a greater loss but that would be blamed on me. If he accepted my solution then it would be almost inevitable that he accept client preference and have me, a woman, head our dealings with them in the future. So, doing things as I proposed not only involved his publicly accepting that he had made a misjudgement but joined him with the modernisers, a partisanship he had so far avoided.

Naturally he looked long and critically at my proposals but in the end he accepted them in full and even asked for my advice about what other action to take. He put a written proposal to the CEO that the terms which I had 'so skilfully' negotiated should be accepted and that internal action should be taken to recover some of the loss adjustment we had had to make to the clients. The action was pretty forceful: Jones was to be given the choice of prosecution, resigning without a reference or continuing in his employment at a reduced salary after signing a copy of my account of what had happened as being accurate. Several others, Stickner and possibly even the CEO himself included, were to forgo all merit rises and bonuses at least for that year. On the down side, as there was no prosecution or resignation - no one seriously though that Jones would go - I have made an enemy but I have blunted the teeth of several more and made two important friends, Stickner and the CEO.

I have no idea why I exaggerated my feeling that I fucked John because I owed him something. He had behaved honourably to me but I don't feel that I have to fuck every honourable man I encounter indeed it's ridiculous cynicism to claim that there are more than a few dishonourable ones. We screwed because I had got to feel horny over him as we worked together and it wasn't hard to see that he had the matching feeling. As he lives alone I wouldn't be wounding any other woman if I offered to go to his bed. You were away; I wanted to fuck, so I offered myself as a short-term partner. Again he was honourable and though he accepted with enthusiasm he made me take time to think, reminding me that you aren't a man to take this lightly if you found out. Clearly he was right!

Next morning, Thursday, Jennifer phoned to tell me that she would be calling in sick. Before I left for work I packed an overnight bag with clothes adequate for most of the things I could be doing in the next two days. I could stay innocently with her, adulterously with John or just come home; I hadn't decided yet. When I got to work I found that the CEO had already accepted my plan so John and I spent much of normal working hours together figuring out who had to do what and when; nothing was said then about where I would spend the night.

It was sheer delight to explain his options to Jones who had had no inkling that I had rumbled him until I asked John's PA to tell him to drop whatever he was doing and come to John's office 'at once'. He still didn't understand his situation and when he saw me he began by trying anger and bluster that I, nowhere in his line of management, should give him orders rather than seeking an appointment with someone so busy. "Look son!" it was a delight to say. "When you leave this room I'm going to be in a position to demote you to office gofer if I want." As we had planned I told him that he had the rest of the day as paid leave and that he should leave now without returning to his office. The PA's timing was perfect and she had his coat and emptied brief case ready as I offered to send for the handyman to help him leave if he felt reluctant. "Bitch!" he called her at the door but I think she found the term satisfying on that occasion and her "But not your bitch small fry!" seemed to give her pleasure.

All that more or less done by finishing time, I worked late in my own office catching up on stuff that had got put aside earlier in the week. I picked up a snack and after eating it I phoned your hotel and as you now know I learned you had checked out that day. As I told you on the phone, I knew by then that was in for a partnership but not what duties I would pick up apart from the Melrose account - or how much I would get paid, a big issue!

At about 8pm I went to the bar where I had arranged to meet John. There was a party of others who had worked late and we didn't get opportunity to talk about our private affairs. When the party began to break up I phoned you again, getting to speak to you this time as you know. After we were through I phoned Jennifer who was already in bed planning to try to sleep her bug off. I went back to John to confirm my desire to spend the remaining nights of your planned absence at his place. I decided to follow him home in my car and park it at his place until Saturday morning; leaving the car on the firm's lot seemed an unnecessary advertisement of my actions. So it was there during the day when you went looking for evidence though I wasn't.

During our Thursday consultation it was decided that I should go to Melrose's next day to get to know the staff I would be working with and to explain the timetable we proposed for redressing their grievances; a limo was arranged to pick me up from John's place and take me out to their factory.

There is no need to describe that night at John's except to confirm that we fucked, twice in fact, and that I enjoyed it. In itself the sex was no better than you and I usually have together but this was exciting because it was different. Apart from hurting you I don't regret anything that happened with John then or later.

Friday morning as we were to pass near anyway I had the limo call at Jen's where I found her still to be noticeably ill so I instructed her to call in sick again. I don't often tell her exactly what to do but she gave in immediately saying that she expected to be back Monday something I'd already told the office manager after hearing how she sounded when we spoke the previous day.

Soon after I had left her I got a call from John to say that we were invited to eat with Mr and Mrs Jenson that night. They are friends of his but on this occasion he said that I should expect to find business mixed with pleasure; welcome business he emphasised! Having sorted out that the layout of the journeys and the time of the invite we saw that it would be easiest if I met him at Jenson's. I avoided the cliché of asking what I should wear by planning an orgy of boutique shopping; after my promotion I was going to be able to afford it!

Melrose business went well and it was a pleasure to go out with two of their lead execs so that they could watch me enjoying my retail therapy. Influential women are no problem for them; there that battle was over years ago. There were a good number of places to choose from but when they heard I intended to be Ms BigSpender they made a small enough selection that we could go everywhere in a rather stretched lunch break. I knew nothing about Mrs Jenson but it seemed worth trying to impress her so I decided to go for simple luxury. When I finished I thought I looked great; sexy for John but distinguished for the boss and his wife. As Senior Partner and CEO Jenson is surely the boss of bosses and a man I knew it would be a pleasure to impress; to show off to his wife as well might be fun.

As we motored back after such a busy day I realised that freedom to use one of the limos was going to be an unexpected benefit of promotion; the home going traffic was thick and bad tempered but I could lay back and relax, preparing myself for an evening which might turn out to be really important for my career. Good news I found had reawakened the ambition I had tried to stifle to protect your feelings.

When we arrived it was John who greeted me and helped me and the limo driver carry my stuff to a spare bedroom. It was obvious that the quantity was enough to impress him without his seeing any of what I had bought! After a quick but affectionate kiss he asked how important I felt it to conceal our relation. When I said "Not at all!" he suggested that we might amuse ourselves teasing Sarah Jenson who had already shown herself very curious to know if anything was 'going on'.

Downstairs again I was taught to call Mr Jenson Jim and introduced to his wife. After brief chat Sarah, who seemed very plainly dressed to me, took me back up to the bedroom to 'freshen up' as she put it. However, when she saw my parcels she realised that though I was coming from work I was definitely not intending to look as if I was still there. After asking what style I had chosen she left me in order, as she put it, to make herself an adequate background for my celebration of promotion. After helping each other with our hair and some other adjustments we went down together, both heavily made up to match our finery, and were greeted by two obviously interested men. We both got kisses from each of them which were definitely more than simply affectionate. I realised that in spite of the business talk this was going to be the sort of rather formal occasion I love; stylish dress, good talk, probably good food and lots of not too discrete flirtation.