Selena Kitt - Bluebeard’s wife

I could be a little obsessive, but when I found myself searching his Internet history for any remnants of porn, even I knew I was crossing a line. I sat there, hoping to find something, anything- Thick sausage pounded into tight anus or Sexy young blonde babes lick each others snatches or Ebony swallows stiff black snake or Wife slut takes hard cocks everywhere. Those were all the titles that ended up in my “Bulk” e-mailbox, and I knew they must show up in his, too, on occasion. Didn’t he ever click on one, just a little bit curious?

What did he like? What did he want? What did he fantasize about? It was driving me crazy.

We had been married three years, and John had never told me one fantasy. It wasn’t like I hadn’t asked. With the hope that he might reciprocate, I had revealed several of my own fantasies, whispering in the dark with my hand squeezing and tugging on his cock, trying to make him bolder, break down a few of his inhibitions. Still, he wouldn’t talk. When I just came out and directly asked him who he fantasized about, he smiled and touched my cheek, and said, “You.”

Feh! I didn’t believe it for a minute. Okay, not that it wasn’t sweet, and not that I didn’t like that he fantasized about me. But that couldn’t be all he thought about, could it? If I had visions of firemen or Brad Pitt-or Angelina Jolie, for that matter-dancing through my head once in a while, then I couldn’t believe he wasn’t imagining something, too. Yet, I couldn’t ever find evidence to the contrary. No magazines or videos, no telling Internet trail. I had never even seen or heard him stroking his cock.

That was the strangest part. John didn’t masturbate. We took showers together, so he didn’t do it there. We slept in the same bed. He owned his own business, but there were no closed doors where he worked, aside from the bathroom. So where and how was he doing it? Of course, he claimed he didn’t-but even the Kinsey Report said that 92% of males masturbate-and what was the old joke…the rest lied about it? I had a feeling John was lying. He was keeping something from me, and it felt like a really big secret. I hated it.

So I started searching for evidence of his fantasy life. I checked his laptop Internet history whenever I could-I even bought a program to recover hidden files, but came up with nothing. I looked through his briefcase, hoping to find some sort of evidence of a fetish. I didn’t care what it was-bondage, spanking, peeing, wearing rubber suits, having sex with dogs. I realized the irony of it, as I went through his desk and computer at work after hours one night when he was on a business trip-I was a wife looking for something most women would be appalled to discover about their husbands.

Not that I thought whatever John fantasized about would be extreme. He was an accountant, for Pete’s sake-he played tennis and golf and liked watching hockey. If his name was “Joe,” you could have put “average” in front of it without too much trouble.

When I leveled with myself, I knew that his fantasies were probably pretty average, too-just the usual, tame lesbian and threesome kinds that every typical male had. It was the not knowing that made my imagination run wild.

Why wouldn’t he tell me? Was it so appalling? Was it disgusting? Was it illegal?

I had to know.

I had pretty much given up on the whole thing, when I discovered the phone bill.

John was Mr. Bills in our house. When they came in, I just threw them on his desk and didn’t worry about it, because he always took care of them. That afternoon, the phone bill seemed-thicker-than usual. My mother had some issues last month, and I remembered calling Kentucky a few times to talk to her, but not enough to create a huge bill. Maybe I called her more than I thought?

I ripped the bill open, feeling guilty and wondering what John would say. I ran my finger down the list, looking for long distance calls. Yes, a few calls to my mother, but that was all. So why so many pages? I flipped through a few of the pages and discovered my answer. There was a separate section on the bill for “900-number” calls.

There were dozens of them. The company name was listed as “Continental Enterprises,” but I checked the times:

10/04 2:12 am 20 minutes

10/06 3:37 am 14 minutes

10/08 4:28 am 8 minutes

10/09 1:19 am 29 minutes

It went on-dozens of calls, dozens of minutes.

I had apparently neglected and underestimated my ability to sleep through anything. John got up in the middle of the night to make phone calls to sex lines! I sat there, my breath caught in my throat, my heart hammering in my chest. This is what I had been looking for-proof that the man of steel had a weak spot. The pages shook in my hands. It was just what I had wanted, and yet now part of me didn’t want to know.

My chest burned. He wasn’t sharing his fantasies with me, but he was apparently sharing them with some sex phone operator who was probably some three-hundred pound housewife eating Doritos and Ho-Ho’s and watching the soaps with the volume off while she fake-orgasmed for him!

I sat there for a long time with the bill in my hand, thinking about what to do. I knew John. If I confronted him, he would either deny it, or he would simply clam up and not talk about it at all. I couldn’t see how that would be helpful. I realized that I wasn’t really offended by it-not in the way I would be if I found him cheating on me with another woman. He was just exploring his fantasies in a place where he felt safe.

Yeah, ok, it hurt that he didn’t feel safe enough with me, but I already knew that, right? Getting him to share that part of himself with me was like pulling teeth, and I didn’t understand why, but now I knew, at least, that he actually had a part of him that fantasized, that he actually did masturbate. He was a flesh-and-blood man after all. So why did I feel so empty, sitting with the knowledge that I thought I had wanted to know?

Because I still didn’t know what he fantasized about, I realized. That was the secret that I really wanted revealed.

I looked at the open envelope, which meant that now John would know I had seen it. The minute he saw the open telephone bill, he would know. I folded the bill exactly as I had found it and put it back into the envelope. Then I went to the kitchen to dig through the junk-drawer and found a glue stick to rub along the flap of the envelope.

Pressing my fingers along the edge, I made sure it was closed. It was a little wrinkled and torn, and that might stop him for a moment, but I doubted it. He usually tore through bills pretty fast.

I put the telephone bill onto his desk with the rest of that day’s mail and left it.

When he came home from work that night, I kissed him hello and asked him about his day, and we had a good dinner and snuggled on the couch for a while. The only thing I did differently that night was drinking an entire pot of black tea. When we climbed into bed, I rolled over and feigned sleep, but I stayed wide awake. Between the caffeine tea and the adrenaline, I couldn’t possibly drift off, and I didn’t.

I heard John fade in and out, something I normally don’t get to hear. I was the one who always fell asleep first, usually within the first five minutes of my head hitting the pillow, and he always joked with me that I could sleep through a terrorist attack.

John, however, took longer to settle in, pulling the covers, rolling around.

I watched the light shadows play on the closet and waited. John fell asleep. I could hear the deep, even sound of his breathing. The clock read 1:39 a.m. In spite of the tea, my eyes were growing heavy. I realized, disappointed, that he wasn’t going to make any calls tonight. I closed my eyes and started to drift, when I felt a small vibration on the bed. I held still, listening.