After many, many emails I feel compelled to repost this story with a PS. Here is 'the rest of the story', as Paul Harvey would say.

Rrriiiiinnnnggg, rrriiiinnnngg,

"Hello?"

"Hi Honey. This is Daddy. Is Mommy near the phone?"

"No, Daddy. She's upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul."

After a brief pause, Daddy says, "But, Honey, you haven't got an Uncle Paul."

"Oh yes I do and he's upstairs in the room with Mommy, right now."

Brief pause.

"Uh, okay then, this is what I want you to do. Put the phone down on the table, run upstairs and knock on the bedroom door and shout to Mommy that Daddy's car just pulled into the driveway."

"Okay, Daddy, just a minute."

A few minutes later the little girl comes back to the phone.

"I did it, Daddy."

"And what happened, Honey?"

"Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes on, and ran around screaming. Then she tripped over the throw rug, hit her head on the dresser, and now she isn't moving at all!"

"Oh my God! What about your Uncle Paul?"

"He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn't know that you took out the water last week to clean it. He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he's dead.'"

Long Pause

Longer Pause

Even Longer Pause

I'll give you the punch line later on. Anyway this got me to thinking, and somehow this story came into my head ... and, well, here it is. BR

Chapter 1

I've been feeling that something isn't just right at home. I drive a short distance truck for a living. I am home between runs probably three to four days a week. I usually have some day runs when I'm home, except on the weekends. My schedule is known to both me and my wife when I go into work on Monday mornings. For the last year, my wife has been kind of all over the map as far as her emotions and her bitchiness. She says it's two things; her stress at work, and my being gone too much, but neither item is going to change right now. We need her job to make ends meet, and I need my job as well.

I get paid more when I do the long hauls since I get paid by the mile. I could certainly make more if I was gone more, but then we get into the whole can of worms about me being gone too much now. I explained that if we could hold out another year, then maybe I could get that inside job as dispatcher and route planner. That would pay almost as much as if I did only long distance driving. The great thing would be that I would be home every night.

Oh yeah, my name is Billy Bob Thorne, and I've been married to my sweetheart, Kelly, for over eight years now. We have a girl, Becky, aged six. We're hoping for a boy soon, but we don't seem to be having much luck in getting her pregnant. We wanted the kids to be about four to five years apart, but no luck so far. Kelly told me she stopped the pills two years ago when we decided to try for the boy that we hoped for.

When I was out on a three-day run to Corpus Christi, I had a doctor check me out and he told me the results when I went back down there the next month. He said I was very fertile and should have no problem siring children. I also had him do a DNA test on me too so I could make sure that my little Becky was really mine.

We had had a DNA test done on Becky when she started school, since they had a county health team at the school doing the tests for safety and identification reasons, in case of kidnapping, abduction, or death. I got home that Thursday and Kelly was at work, so I copied Becky's DNA chart on my printer and put it with my work papers. I did a little snooping on our computer to see if I could find anything that didn't belong. You know websites, e-mails, etc. I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. I also checked Kelly's drawers and found something stashed under some of her old flannel gowns that she uses during the winter. I found a new box of birth control pills. The prescription was only a week old.

To say that I was pissed would be an understatement of the highest order. Here I thought that Kelly wanted to have another child, and all along she was still taking birth control pills to make sure I was essentially shooting blanks.

The next question now was: is she doing it because she doesn't want to have another child, or is she doing it because she's cheating on me. I was going to find about that last part first. If she wasn't cheating, then it was about her not wanting more kids and she should have told me.

The sex was slowing down lately; not in the number of times, but in the quality. For about the last two months, it has been get in, move some, then get off and go to sleep. There was no love there anymore. It was like she was only there so I could get my rocks off, then she didn't want anything to do with me again until I came home from the next trip.

Kelly worked for a fair-sized family-owned insurance agency. She started out as a receptionist and now was an agent. There were seven agents, a receptionist, and an accountant working out of a duplex home that had been converted into an office, not more than five miles down the way from our subdivision. She worked part time until Becky was in school all day, and then she started working full time. She worked the same hours as Becky's school hours and worked Saturday mornings to get her forty hours.

I worked about fifty-five hours a week, when you counted my ten hours on the road for each long run, and about eight hours when I was at home running local hauls. I was completely off two days a week, but they were Saturday and one other day, sometimes it was Sunday, other times it might be any day of the week. We had a nice four-bedroom, two-story house with a fair-sized backyard and we were saving for a pool and a sauna to be put in next year. We already had a hot tub on the back deck where I liked to relax with Kelly after Becky went to bed, especially after a three day run.

I went to college and got an electrical engineering degree, however, when I graduated I couldn't find a job around here. A friend of my Uncle Ray's needed drivers. I drove for him during the summers, earning money for college and saving for a marriage. My 5'-11", 190 lb frame is quite muscular, since I do throw boxes and pallets around in my job. A lot of the places where I deliver don't have a full shipping and receiving department, so it's usually me and one other guy, loading and unloading my semi. Most places have either a forklift or pallet jack, and I also have two dollies on my truck. So, I'm not some dummy that can only drive truck. I just wanted to get that right out of the way, even if I still kinda write like I talk.

We weren't what you would call rich, but we were doing all right, and I sure couldn't spring the cash for some PI to go snooping around. Besides, Kelly does the bill paying for us, and she would notice any expenditure for something like that. So I went down to my local electronics supply house and looked around for a few choice things that could help me find out if I was being cheated on. I got a phone tap that I could use on our landline, and the guy said he had something I really needed if I was spying on my wife. He had a small transmitter that I could put in her purse. It would transmit to a receiver in the house, and had a five mile radius if I added an antenna on top of the house for signal pickup. It would record onto a CD or DVD recorder. He said I could have everything in what they called their Cheating Spouse Spy Kit for under two hundred. I scrimped and saved on my meals on the road for the next week, and saved up the $200 for the kit. They did tell me that, for an extra hundred, I could wire the bedroom for video and sound that would record to the same recorder. All the items were wireless, but I would need to change discs more often as the bugs were sound activated, and the video was motion activated. I told them I might be back next week for the cameras.

I had to wait three days after my purchases, before my scheduled days off coincided with Kelly working and Becky being in school. I had borrowed a hundred from my boss, and he let me pay him back in installments at $25 a payday; that is, once he knew why I needed the money.

I put the camera next to the mirror on her dresser that overlooked the bed. I added the receiver in the spare bedroom (or, as well call it, 'the junk room'). I then cleaned the gutters out, installed the antenna, and checked everything out. The bedroom camera and the mike worked fantastically. The landline bug was perfect, and I put it on the answering machine in the office bedroom. Now I only needed to add the bug to Kelly's purse. I got instructions on how to track her whereabouts by her cell phone's GPS, and got that added to my cell phone. I was now set to see what happened. Two weeks had gone by and nothing of interest showed up. I heard lots of conversations, and a few nights of Kelly sleeping when I wasn't at home, but no cheating. I guess I was out of luck in that regard. I guess it was that Kelly didn't want any more children.

I was in San Angelo, spending the night and leaving early in the morning. I had too many hours on the road and really needed a good ten hours of rest, but I could get away with five or six. It was about 5:30 PM when I called home.

Rrriiiiinnnnggg, rrriiiinnnngg,

"Hello?"

"Hi, Honey. This is Daddy. Is Mommy near the phone?"

"No, Daddy. She's upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul."

After a brief pause, I said, "But, Honey, you don't have an Uncle Paul."

"Oh yes I do and he's upstairs in the room with Mommy right now."

Brief pause.

"Uh, okay, then ... this is what I want you to do. Put the phone down on the table. Run upstairs and knock on the bedroom door, and shout to Mommy that Daddy's truck just pulled into the driveway."

"Okay, Daddy! Just a minute!"

A few minutes later the little girl came back to the phone.

"I did it, Daddy."

"What happened, Honey?"

"Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes on, and ran around screaming. Then she tripped over the throw rug, hit her head on the dresser, and now she isn't moving at all!"

"Oh my God! What about your Uncle Paul?"

"He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn't know that you took the water out last week to clean it. He hit the bottom of the pool, and I think he's dead.'"

Long pause.

Longer pause.

Even longer pause.

Then I said, "Swimming pool? Is this 486-5555?"

"No. I think you have the wrong number."

"You should call the police Honey." I quickly closed my phone and sat down, heavily. Oh My GOD!

I looked down at my cell phone, and hit 'last number dialed'. It was 4 9 6-5555. Well, there was one marriage that had ended, and the poor sap of a husband didn't even know I helped him out.

So, I tried again.

Chapter 2

Rrriiiiinnnnggg, rrriiiinnnngg,

"Hello?"

"Hi, Honey. This is Daddy. Is Mommy near the phone?"

"No, Daddy. Mommy's not home yet. I'm kind of worried about her. She's normally home by now. I had to use the key by the garage to get in."

"Don't worry, Sweetheart, I'll call Mommy and get her home right away. That was very smart of you to remember about that key, Honey. You just wait right there at home, and don't let anyone in but Mommy or Grandma. Okay, Honey?"

"Okay, Daddy, I love you. Are you coming home tonight?"

"I'll be home as soon as I can, Honey. You be a brave girl and do what Daddy said, okay?"

"Yes, Daddy."

I hung up and looked for Kelly's location on my phone. According to this she was at the office. So I called her office.

"Fletcher Insurance Agency, how may I help you?" said the receptionist, and I recognized the voice.

"This is Billy Bob Thorne, is Kelly there? If so, I really need to speak to her! It's kind of urgent!"

"Of course, Billy Bob. I think they're in conference with John, the owner, but I'll buzz him."

I was put on hold, then a very breathless voice came on the phone, "Billy, what so urgent, has something happened to you?"

"No, but there may be something happening to you shortly."

"What do you mean, Billy? What about me?"

"How could you just leave Becky at home alone? She is very worried about you, and so am I. Why aren't you at home where you belong?"

"We had a meeting, and it ran a little longer than it was supposed to. I'll hurry up here and rush home to Becky. I'm so sorry about this, Honey. I gotta go so I can get right home."

While I was listening to her I could hear some grunts and groans, and they were not coming from Kelly. Her voice sounded like she was trying to talk while being jostled ... like she was getting fucked ... hard. The other thing was that there was more than one other voice in that room. Now I was really pissed. I called my mom who lived in the same subdivision that we did, but about three blocks away.