Many thanks to Southronstyle for editing this story.

It was a rainy Monday morning, the last week of September. I was tired, very tired indeed because I had been away Friday and Saturday at a training camp with my son Martin's hockey team as an " hockey dad", assistant coach and driver of the rented travel bus. We had come home late that previous Saturday evening. Then my wife Catherine had been a nagging bitch the whole Sunday and refused me the weekly taste of her sweet pussy both Sunday morning and evening. Not a very good weekend.

When I came to work that Monday morning at my job as production engineer at a custom tooling machinery company, Rick, one of my co-workers took me aside and told me, "Do you know what Catherine did Friday night?"

"When I called home from the training camp she told me that she was going to see her mom and then go home to see a film on TV."

"Did she t tell you about the Motor Hotel?"

"No, why should she?"

"Because I saw here there about nine 'o clock Saturday morning together with some man. I was on my way to the fall membership meeting of the Kawasaki owners and I stopped at the Motor Hotel's gas station. She and this man came out from a room and after some hugging and a kiss she got into her little red Toyota and drove away. The guy left in a black Mercedes."

"Are you sure?"

"Hundred percent."

"Would you recognize that man if you saw him?"

"Yes."

"Did Catherine recognize you there?"

"No, I had my helmet on."

Bad news but it was no real surprise for me because I had suspected some kind of crap would happen sooner or later since Catherine got promoted and moved to a new department at the insurance company where she worked. I was sure the guy was one Albert Ek, who was her boss at her new job. It was almost a classic "cheating at the job" story because Catherine had been bragging about this Albert since the first day at the new job.

Of course Albert had seen his chances to get the panties off a gorgeous woman, as Catherine really is, especially as Albert's own wife was far from that. However, but Albert's wife was rich and that had probably meant a lot for Albert, at least when he had stood at the bottom of the ladder and wanted to have many expensive things he couldn't afford with his own salary.

I'm an average forty-two years old Scandinavian guy. My name is Eric Johansson, which happens to be one of the most common names in the country. I used to play hockey in our elite division and had I been only slight better, there had been a future for me in NHL. But now my highest point, as player had been only one unimportant tourment with our national hockey team when all the best players had invented excuses to been elsewhere.

When I met Catherine she was a real natural beauty, representing our county in the national Miss Pageant competition. I'm sure that it was only my reputation rough hockey star in the popular local team that got Catherine into my bed with spread legs. Several of us player had a posse of groupies after us and it was never any big deal to get a fuck from one of our groupies.

However Catherine was a bit different. We remained as a couple and she was a real trophy girl that made other guys envy me when we were out in the evenings. She got ill from her birth control pills at that time and skipped them, which is why we played some kind of roulette each time we fucked. Of course, the accident happened after we had been together for almost a year and, as I always been a fair guy, I married her instead of running away as some cowards in the team did.

A trophy girl is seldom any perfect wife but Catherine and I managed to keep our family together without any long lasting serious quarrels. The price I had to pay was doing much more at home than any of my friends. Our sex was okay but never on any heights. Though Catherine looked very sexy when she dressed up, she had never been all that interested in sex, but that was my secret, which I didn't tell all those who envied me for my sexy looking wife.

That rainy Monday Rick promised to help me find out if it was Albert who had spent the night with Catherine, which is why we went to the restaurant at her lunchtime where Catherine and some of her fellow workers used to have their lunch. Our plan was simple, if the guy Rick had seen at the motel was there, Rich would cough and point him out to me.

The restaurant was crowded but we saw Catherine sitting at a table for four together with two men and another woman. A few meters from the table Rick coughed and poked at the man sitting next to Catherine. We went to the table. My wife seemed surprised but not at all happy to see me, when I told her, "Hello my darling, I happened to have an errand to this area why I dropped in to tell you that I might be late home this evening."

"Have you lost my phone number?"

"Oh no my love but I can't see your sweet smile in the phone."

Then I raised my voice and asked Albert, who was sitting next to her, "You are Albert Ek, aren't you?"

I saw that people at the tables around us had begun to listen when he replied, "Yes."

I told him with a loudvoice, "You are a famous guy today Albert, there are rumors in town that say that some Albert Ek spent Friday night at the Motor Hotel together with a whore. Poor bastard, that can give you six months in jail and some STD as a bonus."

Most people at the surrounding tables, hopefully co-workers to Catherine and Albert, had heard what I had said.

Albert shouted, "To hell with you!" and began to rise up from his chair, probably intending to attack me

Rick pushed him down shouting, "Shut up and remain seated, you damn maggot."

To my surprise both Catherine and the other couple had remained silent, as I said to her, "Enjoy your meal my darling, though you have chosen to have it with some damn bad company."

Almost everybody at the restaurant stared at Rick and me when we left the place. At least some of Catherine's fellow workers must have suspected about her affair with Albert and understood why I did what I did. Hopefully others would spread the rumor of Albert and a whore at the Motor Hotel.

I didn't work any overtime. Catherine attacked me as soon as I had closed the door when I got back home and shouted, "What the hell did you do today? Are you insane?"

"Don't you want to hear the truth about that damn creep or is he some kind of special friend to you."

"You humiliated me among my fellow workers, why in the hell did you do that?"

"Because your damn pervert friend enjoyed hearing you say your nasty comments to me."

"I have begged him to forgive you and he promised to do that if you immediately call him with your apologies and accept his conditions to get even. If you refuse to do that, I'll move out from our house at this very evening, did you hear what I said?"

"Yes I did."

I didn't make any attempts to get the phone and Catherine shouted at me, "What the hell are you waiting for? Get the phone and call him!"

"I can't see any reason to do that because I know for sure what said at the restaurant was true."

My answer must have surprised her because she remained silent a couple of seconds before she shouted, "Obviously you don't intend to call him. Bad for you, because he is going to sue you and I'm moving out from this house."

"No problems, I'll help you pack. Are you sure dear Albert has told his wife what he did that night? If that law suit ever comes, which I doubt, I'm sure my lawyer will find his whore and use her as witness and get your dear friend Albert to pay for his crime."

Catherine began to understand that she had played a high-stakes game with me and was going to lose it. She sounded worried when she asked, "You don't care if I move out?"

"No I don't. You promised to do that if I refused to call Albert and I expect you to keep your promise."

Now she was red as a tomato when she shouted, "You have got Albert on your insane mind."

She had never intended to move out but she had too much pride to stay, so she went to the bedroom and began packing.

One hour later she came out from the bedroom with two suitcases. I saw in her red eyes that she had been crying but why should I care. I was sure she hadn't cried during her night with Albert at the motel and didn't see any reason to be sorry for her facing the consequences.

She didn't say a word when she left. Not a word about Martin, who was doing his homework's together with his friend three houses away so he hadn't seen his mother go.

When he returned back home, I explained that his mom would be staying at his grandparents for some time. He simply asked if we had been arguing and when I said, "Yes" he only told me that he didn't want to get involved. I promised to keep him out of it.

The next day not much happened with my family quarrel. During the day I rang Albert's wife at her job and after introducing myself and explaining that my wife was fellow-worker with her husband, I asked her, "Do you know where your husband spent the night between Friday and Saturday last week?"

"Of course I know. My husband doesn't have any secrets from me."

"Are you saying that you know and accept the fact that Albert spent the night with my wife at the Motor Hotel in the next town."

"That's bullshit. He was at the Sergel Plaza hotel in our royal capital because he had been negotiating with an important customer on Friday and then had dinner with the customer and his wife at the evening."

"I regret to say that you are only partly right. Yes, during the daytime at Friday your husband probably negotiated with the customer but if he dined with a wife at the evening, it was with my wife and it was without me because I was out of town. It is no longer any secret that Albert and my wife spent the night together at the Motor Hotel in the next town. I know that for sure because people who have seen them there have told me about their affair."

She began to swear. I had never heard a woman swear in such way as she did. She ended our call with shouting to me, "You poor miserable wimp, you can take your damn whore wife and go to the hell."

["Such"] was my reward for being a polite truth-teller.

At Wednesday Rick and two other co-workers invited me out for bowling and beer. Rick's daughter was hired as baby sitter for Martin. We had a really good time and, got me to forget all my problems with Catherine during the entire evening.

To my great surprise two policemen dressed in civilian clothes came to my job about eleven o'clock the next day and wanted a private talk with me. They asked me several questions about last evening and I told them that I and three fellow workers had spent the evening first with bowling and then with a few beers and even some food at the pub at the bowling hall.

Of course, I wanted to know the reason for their questions, but they refused until I demanded that I would call their chief to know the reason. After a while they gave up and told me that Albert Ek had been severely beaten last evening. He had accused me of doing it as revenge because he had fucked my wife.

I told them, "I didn't see him at the bowling hall and how in the hell could I done that beating among all people in a crowded bowling hall."

They told me that Albert had been beaten outside his house about half past eight last evening and asked me if I had any comments as to that.

I had, "Find the guy who did it and I'll buy him a bottle of the best whisky they have at our local alcohol store. I will never pretend to feel sorry for that damn asshole."

They even wanted to know how I knew about the cheating and what I done about it. I told them the truth that I humiliated Albert at a restaurant and told his wife about his doings. I told them that I suggested Albert's wife as the possible culprit because she had been barking like a mad dog when I had politely told her about what her dear husband had done with my wife.

The policemen took my cell phone and left.

The information about Albert was certainly news for me because I didn't had the slightest idea who had done it but it would be a lie to deny that it was good news for me because I felt much better after hearing about how Albert had been beaten.

Catherine rang me only a few minutes later and shouted, "What the hell have you done to Albert?"

I replied with as friendly a voice as I could, "It would be much better if you, my lovely beloved wife, told me what you have done with Albert."

Catherine rang off and I could hardly believe that she for the time being felt herself as my lovely beloved wife.

There were many different rumors and gossips circulating at the insurance company and other places in town where Albert had been active. Even Catherine got her share and took a week's vacation, during which she spent three days alone at a spa and the remaining time with her parents.

After several days, when I got my cell phone back from the police, they told me what had happened to Albert. He was living in an apartment at the town center where he had his parking lot at the back yard. That Wednesday evening a woman had rang his doorbell and said that she had accidentally scratched his car. When he went out to investigate the damage, two men with baseball bats had been waiting for him. When they were finished with him, he lay there with his right arm broken, his right knee crushed, two broken ribs and damaged testicles. He was expected to remain in the hospital for some time.

When Catherine came back from the spa she rang me and wanted us to meet in order to talk but I replied, "What for? Are you doing errands for your miserable boyfriend again? I don't care a damn shit about his lawyers."

"Please listen."

I interrupted her and shouted, "Tell that silly creep what will happen if he don't stop using you for harassing me, even I can use a baseball bat if he didn't got enough the last time."

"Please listen. I have something important to tell you."

I didn't care to do that. I cut off her call and didn't bother to take her further calls.

The next day the director for personnel administration at the insurance company where Catherine worked rang me at my job and invited me for dinner at a nice restaurant in town. He told me that it would only be a friendly talk "off the record" about the latest events. I had no reason to pretend to be an ostrich and hide my head in sand, which is why I accepted.

I met him that evening and he seemed to be okay. After some polite small talk about sport he told me that though he knew that my wife and I had serious problems, he had no intentions to be any kind of marriage counselor because it was our own business to fix such things.

Then he continued by saying that it wasn't any disadvantage for me to know some further details about what he had found out while investigating what had happened to Albert Ek before I decided how to act towards Catherine. I agreed and he continued, "It is very unusual case and in fact it is the first time I' have to discuss such matters with somebody outside our company."

He went on with, "The police told me that you are out of their interest and our own investigation says the same thing. Do you have any guess about who did it to Ek?"

I replied, "If I had, I would reward that man or woman. A simple guess may be that he had even fucked some other wives or girlfriends, or his wife gave him a lesson or hired somebody to do that. Why should I care about that asshole? The only thing I did to him was to start some rumors at the restaurant and I rang his wife about his doings. I got the impression that she is a real bitch."

"I can tell you that the gossips circling around the company caused him serious problems and his wife has already filed for divorce. She apparently would have done it anyway, but I think that your phone call hurried up her decision."

"The rumors were plain truth, if a married woman agrees to spend a night at a motel with such an asshole, then she is a whore. No doubt about what kind of woman he fucked there. The problem is that I'm still married to that shabby whore"

"As I told you, it is not my job to care about what our employees are doing at their free time as long as they don't broke any laws of this country. A cheating wife may be regarded as a whore in the public opinion but is not a prostitute in legal terms. If he had spent a night with a prostitute he had been fired for breaking the national laws and company rules."

He continued, "However, he will be fired anyway for breaking other company rules. Our lawyer is working with that matter and Mr. Ek will never work for us again. Your wife is doing a good job and will be allowed to remain at her present position. As I told you earlier I don't have any intentions to interfere in your marriage. I admired you as hockey-player because you were a good guy and I want appeal to you to listen to Catherine because she has something very important to tell you."

He continued, "Please understand that it is my private request and I'm sure that you will never regret if you'll give her a few minutes to tell you what she wants to say."

I promised to do that and we ended the meal with some chat about sport.

Catherine rang me the next day and asked if I agreed to meet her at the evening. After my "yes" she asked if I allowed her to see me at home or preferred somewhere in town. I told her that home would be okay and promised to fix some kind of dinner.

Obviously Catherine had serious problems, probably much worse than a simple cheating but I didn't know it had any connection to Albert. If I had been told about Albert's celebration dinner before the cheating night, it had been cancelled with much less hullabaloo than now. Albert had possible been able to save his health, marriage and job. Catherine and I could been able to avoid the now ongoing serious problems.