Chapter 1

I met my old friend Michael Albertson at a party. He asked me if I had published any of my stories on the web as I had told him the last time we met. When I said yes, he told me that if I wanted to write the story about him and his common-law wife Sarah and publish it on the net I was welcome to see him at his place an evening. I went there and here is his story just as he told me:

Many thanks to Angel Love for editing the story.

I've always regarded us as an average Scandinavian family. Now at the age of 35 I have been living ten years in a rather comfortable suburban life with my pretty 33 yeas old common-law wife Sarah Hanson and two kids, Linda 8 and Kenny 6.

My profession is bricklayer, but nowadays high class expensive Italian glazed tiles have replaced bricks in my daily business. I have my own company together with my partner Robin. We specialize in restoring bathrooms. We make good money and usually booked for a long time in advance because a newly restored luxury bathroom with heated floor is a must for wealthy people. Sarah is working for the local savings bank. Until recently 75% of full time at a small local office. When it closed due to increasing use of Internet for payments, she got a full time job at their main office in town center.

Sarah and I met at a real tourist trap, a crowded holiday resort disco with a boozed DJ who kept a terrible sound level. I suggested her to skip the disco and take a walk. To my great pleasure she accepted and after some necking on a bench in a park she took me to her room in the summerhouse she shared with three friends.

We didn't waste much time before we had undressed each other and got to her bed. She was great, both tender and very intensive at the same time. As we had very good times together we decided to continue our relation. At the resort I shared a caravan with three friends why she invited me to spend the nights in her room.

When we parted after the holidays, we were in deep love. Only a month after the summer holidays she quit her job in her hometown and moved in with me in my house. I had won some money in the Lottery and invested it as down payment for a nice house. Though we were together ten years and two children later we are not married yet.

After living together a couple of years I suggested a small-scaled wedding at our embassy in Paris or in the Scandinavian church at San Agustin, Gran Canary, which are very popular places for "quick marriages" abroad. I even suggested Las Vegas when an travel agency had bargain priced charter trips there, but she refused and demanded a big wedding in her hometown' big old church. As none of us have rich parents, we decided to save money to a real big wedding some years later and are still saving.

I felt that the big wedding was OK if she wanted it. Sarah is special in many ways, casually dressed without make up and her nice brown hair in a pony tail she is just one in the crowd. But dressed for a party she can be marvelous. To be honest I must say that our sex life is not what it used to be ten years ago when we moved in together. But how many couples with two children can honestly say that they never have any ups and downs in that matter. Most of our friends are exactly as we are. However, the main reason for the latest "down" is her new full time job at the bank's local main office in our town.

That office is known among local people as the "Divorce Bank" because so many divorced people work there and the rumors say that if they are not divorced when they get a job there they will be that soon. I didn't care much about that because in a nation where the divorce level is about 50% there are divorced people everywhere.

It didn't take a long time for Sarah to be a close friend to several of her fellow-workers at the new job and she told me in the evenings what nice people they were. Good for her I thought and didn't have any objections when she told me that she intended to join a bowling team on Wednesday evenings and they used to stay for some beer after the bowling. Neither did I care when she joined the group who went for aerobics on Thursday evenings. No disadvantage to have a wife who kept herself in good shape.

Even her Tuesday evenings out for a "GI slimming food" cooking class for six Tuesdays were OK with me. Sarah had talked much about her new friends but not any personal matters, only their first names or pet names and I hadn't asked for further details. One Thursday evening she came home late from her aerobics. I finally had enough when she told me that one of the best bands in the country was playing at the big dance-hall in our county's capital on the Saturday evening and her friends wanted to go there. She didn't want to go but as she was the only one in the group with a rather new full sized car, a Volvo V70. She had been persuaded to drive them to the dance. Then she told me that they should have an "After work" meeting tomorrow, Friday evening for planning the trip and hoped that I didn't have any objections.

Of course I didn't own her and she was free to go wherever she wanted to go. Even if I didn't have any objections I had several questions. Was it really necessary for Sarah to spend five evenings a week with her fellow workers and neglect our children even Friday evening?

Something must be wrong in our relationship because even our sex had by on by gone to a poor level. Too many "not tonight's" and "I'm too tired tonight's" and too many lousy "quickies".

I had never wanted to act as some kind of a watchdog against her because in my opinion an adult is responsible for her own behavior. But from now on I wanted to get some more information about her doings before I took the necessary steps.

I asked her, "How come all of your friends only have access to old small cars? Don't any of their husbands make enough money to have a decent car?"

"Lena has an old small car and the two others who are going with me don't have any car at all."

And what are their husbands doing? Are you the only woman at the bank with children who care when their mom neglects them during the whole week for friends whom she already spent eight hours a day with at her work?"

"Of course my friends have children but they don't have them every week and they don't have any nagging husbands who demand them to stay at home as unpaid maids."

"So, nowadays I'm disqualified to a nagging husband or shall I say a damn boarding-house landlord who ought to give you an extra reward for the rare evenings you have time to see your children?"

"I didn't say that, you did."

"Yes I did because nowadays your 'divorce gang' seems to be your first choice and hold much more importance for you than your family. Keep going and you'll be qualified for a real membership in their club. Not difficult to get it, if that is what you really want?"

"That's not fair. You ought to know I love you and my children. My family will always be my first choice."

"Yes, but we don't understand your way to show it. Not easy for me to tell our children on Friday evening that the "meat market" gigolos at a shabby bar are more important for you than they are."

"I have never cheated on you so you don't have any reason to be mad and jealous."

"But you are beginning to envy your divorced friends for what they use to call for 'freedom', which in the reality is a desperate hunting for a 'Mr. Right' who is very difficult to find among all 'pussy hounds' on the 'meat market'. The truth is that they envy you, at least until you have got full membership in their gang."

"What do you mean?"

"Keep going out five evenings a week with the 'divorce gang' and I promise that even you are free from children every other week."

She left the room in anger without any further comments.

I got a feeling that our children and I were the next candidates for the "Divorce Bank's" long list of crashed marriages. I could try to demand that she stay home on Friday and Saturday evenings but the benefits of that, if there were any, should only be of limited value for a very short time. I decided to let her make her own choices and take the consequences.

The next day I went to an electronic store where I found exactly what I was searching for, a small sized Japanese voice activated digital recorder with a capacity of four hours on a memory stick. It was easy to hide it in the V70. My tests were very successful even with CD or radio switched on it was possible to hear what the driver said.

Today it is common that families with children use to spend Friday evenings together as a "family fun evening" with some good food, snacks, play games and have fun together. Our children didn't care much that their mother wasn't at home the other evenings but Friday was important for them.

Sarah had promised them that only be slight late but still be home early enough to have a good time with them. Somehow I got a feeling that they understood that we had got equal problems in our family as several of their friends with divorced parents. But neither the kids nor I mentioned anything such. They had already been sleeping several hours when a rather tipsy and messy Sarah came home at twelve thirty and went direct to bed.

The driving time to the dance-hall is about one hour and Sarah said they had booked a table to eight o'clock why she left sometimes after six, with her hair still in a pony tail, knee long gray skirt and comfortable low heeled shoes. She looked young and girlish. At least far from sexy dressed for "stud hunting". She wanted to have plenty of time to pick up the others at their homes and be there in good time for some food before the dance would begin.

I had done some errands during the Saturday afternoon with the car and switched on the recorder when I got home.

Sarah was back home about half past three in the morning and I pretended to be sleeping when she sneaked into her bed. The time was as expected, nothing to say about that. She slept to eleven o'clock and after a quick lunch she and the kids left for her sister's. I had been out to the car and taken the recorder. As soon as they had left I went to my home office, connected the player to the PC via USB and began to listen.