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-
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.
