You never get even, but you can always get back

I waved at the security guard as if I belonged there and gave him a cheery good morning as I headed for the elevators. I got on and hit the button for the third floor. When the door opened on three I quickly got off and went directly to the employees bulletin board. I took a piece of paper from my pocket and thumbtacked it to the board and then headed for the men’s bathroom. Once inside I went into each of the four stalls and using a magic marker I wrote the same thing on all four of the stall walls. I used the stairwell to go up to the fourth floor where I repeated what I had done on three and then I took the stairwell down to the lobby. I had a huge smile on my face as I walked out the front door of the building.

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It has been said over and over again that, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” I’ve never understood the saying; I could never figure out if it meant that you should wait until the person you wanted revenge on had forgotten about you or if it meant that whatever you did to get your revenge had to be something ‘stone cold.’

If it was the former then I didn’t have the patience to wait that long and if it was the latter, well, I guess that you could consider what I had just done a very stone cold thing to do. And that was only half of it. The other half took place when I sat at my computer this morning. I figured that all hell would break loose around ten that morning and I had conveniently taken the day off from work and once I had gotten home from running my little errand I took the phone off the hook. Then, everything in place, I grabbed a good book and settled down on the couch to enjoy a nice, leisurely morning.

It all started the way most of these things start – an unexpected trip to the house during the day and finding a familiar car in the driveway. Why would Brian be visiting my house in the middle of the day? The answer was immediately apparent as soon as I was in the front door.

“Damn it Marlene, you are tight. Doesn’t Robert fuck you anymore?”

“Not near enough sweetie, and nowhere near as good as you do. Come on lover, push it in deep and fuck me. We only have two hours until you have to go.”

I couldn’t believe it. It was a fucking clich‚ – my best friend was fucking my wife! And on top of that she was telling him I wasn’t worth a shit in bed. That really hurt. I’d always thought that Marlene and I had a great sex life. Four or five times a week and more often than not twice on those occasions and then a quickie in the morning before heading off to work.

I guess most men would have gone charging into the bedroom screaming and ready to kick ass and take names, but I wasn’t most men. My motto since the eighth grade has been, “Don’t get mad, get even.” I very quietly made my way into my home office and got my mini-recorder and a fresh tape. I crept as close to the bedroom door as I dared, opened the linen closet door a crack and put the recorder where it would pick up the most from the bedroom and then I quietly left the house.

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When I got home that night Marlene had dinner ready as usual. She had a fresh pitcher of martinis in the icebox and we sat down and had our usual before dinner cocktail and made small talk.

“How was your day sweetie?”

“Full of the usual bullshit meetings and conference calls. How was yours?”

“Pretty boring. I went shopping for groceries this morning, did a load of laundry and then read a book for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Anything good?”