The Infidelity Gene

Spoiler. There is no sex at all in this story. Just putting that out there.

I'm currently stuck writing the endings to four novella length tales and I just needed to have a change of pace, where I could complete and publish an entire story in a evening. I hope it works.

It is set in the UK and the cities exist but the people and locations (apart from the NEC) are made up.

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It was a warm June afternoon, especially warm in the city centre, and I'd just finished packing my gear into the van after fixing an outage in the client's server room. My jobs list was cleared and I needed a cold drink, so I took my time ambling past the prestigious office buildings towards the shopping precinct in search of refreshment.

Mission completed and a chilled bottle of lemon and lime in my hand, I began to retrace my steps, taking the time now to check out the shops I was passing. One in particular caught my attention; a music shop with a Gibson SG Classic in Dark Cherry on display in the window. I must have spent a full ten minutes lusting after that guitar, not that my attempts to play it would have done it justice, any more than my driving skills warranted the McLaren GTS that I craved.

In that respect, I consoled myself, at least I had excelled in the romance stakes, what with my wife being the female equivalent of either of my two inanimate fantasies, especially if she turns into her mother.

Chloe, my wife, is a twenty six year old hottie. Anne, her mother, still turns heads at fifty one. Where Chloe is young, vibrant and exciting, Anne is gorgeous, mature, thoughtful and... over there.

I suddenly realised that this train of thought had been triggered by me seeing, without registering, the reflection of a woman resembling my mother-in-law leaving the hotel opposite the music shop. The thing was - and it was a thing - the woman didn't just look like Anne, it was definitely her. The thing was - and it was a big thing - we were in Leeds and my mother in law was supposedly at the National Exhibition Centre outside Birmingham, a hundred miles and a couple of hours drive from where I was standing. The thing was - the really big thing - she was supposed to be there, or not, with her daughter, my wife, Chloe.

I hurriedly turned back to the window, lustful thoughts of guitars long forgotten, my one over-arching thought was, "What the fuck do I do now?"

I'm a comms engineer. I solve problems for a living but none of my education or experience had prepared me for this type of situation. I fell back on the basics. I needed more data before I even knew what the issue was that I needed to fix.

I watched Anne's reflection as she made a call, then putting her phone back in her bag, she strolled towards the shops. I followed, painfully aware that she'd recognise me if she looked around. That problem was solved when she went into a small arcade, walking straight to a kiosk at the far end. She obviously knew where she was going.

My salvation, such as it was, came in the shape of a stall nearer the door. It seemed to sell all sorts of tat, but to my mind it was a Godsend. I bought a stupid straw trilby hat, the sort my grandad wore on holiday in Mallorca, and a pair of cheap sunglasses. Admittedly, I looked ridiculous but I looked like a ridiculous old man and nothing like myself.

Even so, I moved away from the door and held my phone to my ear, with the camera recording video, as I browsed a pet food stall for chews for the dog we don't have.

I tracked Anne as she left and, after quickly checking out the stall she'd visited, I followed. Of course, she was nowhere in sight. Now, Chloe had often commented on my analytical nature so, rather than run into the centre of the precinct and draw attention to myself by frantically looking around, I stayed close to the entrance and checked the street. There were no side-streets close enough for Anne to have reached before I left the arcade, but there were three or four shops she could have gone into.

I picked the doorway to a shop least likely to appeal to a woman in her fifties and checked the video that I had recorded on my phone. It wouldn't win any awards for cinematography but it would do. I flipped a mental coin and made the call.

She answered. "Hi babe," Chloe greeted me cheerfully. "Wotcha doin'?"

"Calling my best girl," I replied, wondering if that was true. "How's the crafting exhibition?" I asked. "You and your mum bought much?"

"A few bits," came the reply. "We're more interested in the ideas and the demonstrations."

I suddenly realised that, for someone supposedly in a massive exhibition hall, full of vendors, demonstrations and visitors, there was abso! utely no background noise. I decided on a simple test. "Actually, sweetheart, I have to to drop off a UPS for reconditioning. The people that do it are just outside of Leicester." None of that was true, but Leicester was the only place in the Midlands that I could think of at that moment.

"I'll just swing in to the NEC pick-up point and save you both having to traipse home on the train." Again, I had no idea if that was even a thing but I knew my wife well enough to be certain that she wouldn't either.

"No!" she shrieked. Then calming herself. "Don't be silly, babe. You can't be using your works van as a taxi. Anyway, we have return tickets."

"Got to go," I apologised. "Just got another call coming in. See you later." I realised as I closed the call that I hadn't told her I loved her. I wondered why.

I'd hung up when I did because I'd seen Anne at the tills in a shop opposite me. I turned to see the reflection of its doorway. She exited, stopped and took her phone from her bag, answered and glanced around. She started walking as she spoke and my intuition suggested that I stay where I was with my back to her. Sure enough, she glanced around again. Apparently satisfied, she carried on walking and talking until she disappeared into a coffee shop.

I found a bench seat in the precinct, facing away from the door, and took a generous swill of my drink. I now rang the number that had lost my coin toss. "Hi there, Grant," my father-in-law answered.

"Hi Trevor," I replied. He waited patiently for me to say why I'd called. "Trevor?" I took a deep breath. "Where's Anne today?"

His tone seemed to harden. "In Birmingham with Chloe. You know this. Why?"

I fiddled with my phone. "I just sent you a video. I took it less than twenty minutes ago; in Leeds."

It took him less than a minute to open and view the clip. "Fuck!" he exclaimed.

"I just called Chloe and she insists that Anne is there with her. Trevor. What's going on?"

His voice seemed distant, as though he'd let his hand drop, no longer interested in our conversation. I thought I heard, "Fuck her and fuck the cunt that spawned her!"

I waited for him to remember me. I heard his breathing. "Trevor?"

I heard him sigh. "Grant? Do you have plans tonight?"

"No. I'll be home in an hour unless...?"

"You follow my wife? Don't bother. Can we meet in The Royal Standard at about seven? I'll explain, as well as I can at least."

So, avoiding the direct route past the café, I returned to the van and drove back to our depot to exchange it for my own car. Once home, I showered, changed and thought. They weren't pleasant thoughts either. Dishonesty was happening and my wife was, at best, complicit. It was the worst case scenarios that concerned me though. I'm not religious but I sent a plea out into the universe that my worst fears wouldn't be realised.

Too soon it was twenty to seven and time to leave to meet Trevor in the pub. Our wives were due in at nine and I hadn't the first clue how we'd greet them.

Trevor was waiting for me at the bar when I arrived. He gestured at the beer pumps. I ordered a pint of Posh Rat IPA. He ordered the same, paid and then we collected our drinks and found a table.

Once we were settled, he looked at me expectantly and I described my afternoon. He nodded sadly. "I'd hoped," he said. "I thought we'd moved past this but... fuck."

He took a pull of his pint and explained. "Anne's mother cheated on her husband. Not once apparently, but regularly. When he found out, she claimed it was, well, tradition isn't the right word, maybe curse would be more appropriate." He grimaced and took another drink. "According to the whore, this was something their female line had 'suffered' for generations. Once Darwin and Mendel published their work on inherited characteristics, the bitches used that as justification. They claimed they had inherited an infidelity gene."

He looked guiltily at me. "I had a conversation with her husband when I asked for his consent to marry Anne. He told me that he had sat Anne down and warned her that he'd divorced her mother for her adultery. He told her that no reasonable man would accept this shit about an infidelity gene and, if she even considered it, he would help me to divorce her too." He took another drink. "I'm sorry, Grant. I should have had that conversation with you too, but Anne seems to have fooled me. She convinced me that the whole tradition was a convenient excuse to screw around and she swore that she'd never cheat."

"But Trevor-," I tried to to plead their case. I mean, I never actually saw Anne with another man.

"Grant. We'll give them a chance. We'll let them either explain or hang themselves. But, one way or another, we resolve this tonight."

It was two grimly determined men who collected their wives from the station that evening and, despite our best efforts to appear natural, there was a definite tension in the car. It ramped up another level when, instead of turning to drop Chloe and me at our own place, we carried on towards her parents'. "Grant and I wanted a chat," Trevor explained unhelpfully.

Once we arrived, he ushered us all into the house. Our wives insisted that they both needed to use the bathroom. It might have been true but, just in case, Trevor decided to go too. They'd already had enough time to agree a story; we weren't going to allow them time to consult further on the details.

Eventually, bladders emptied, we sat in their living room. Trevor looked at me; it was show time. "Chloe, where did you go today?" I asked quietly.

She looked nervous. "The NEC babe. You've known that I was going for weeks." I didn't reply.

"Anne, where did you go today?" Trevor asked.

She was made of sterner stuff. "What is this, Trevor? A fucking interrogation?"

"A simple question, Anne. Where did you go today? Chloe answered, why won't you?"

"Then I'll give the same answer that Chloe did. At the NEC as you

damn well know."

I let Trevor lead. "Buy anything nice?" he asked icily.

Anne pointed mutely to a patchwork bag by the door. He picked it up and emptied it onto the table. "A poor haul for two crafters at a national exhibition." Chloe looked frightened; Anne merely looked pissed off. Trevor wasn't finished though. "Not a bad haul, however, from Kate's Krafts in Leeds Arcade."

I swear the temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees.

It was my turn. "Who was he, Chloe? A workmate, some guy from an on-line cheating site or just some random you picked up off the street because you wanted a fuck?" She started to cry.

"Same question Anne. Anything you want to say?"

She looked trapped. She knew that we knew something but she had no idea how much.

"You asked if this was an interrogation," Trevor reminded her. "Well, it sort of is and it sort of isn't." He nodded towards me. "Grant and I have evidence of your deceit; but we aren't the police so we don't have to tell you what we know; you're not under arrest; you can stand up now and walk away. But." His tone changed completely. "While you have your right to silence, we," His gesture included me. "We are judge and jury. If you say nothing in your own defence, then we will draw our own conclusions based on what we know, as well as your refusal to tell us the truth."

He sat back. Chloe looked pleadingly at me. I said nothing. As far as I was concerned it was up to her to convince me her lies were innocent. What saddened me was that I didn't think she could.

Chloe looked to her mother for guidance and found nothing. She looked back to me for forgiveness and found none. I could still only guess what sins I needed to forgive. She looked to Trevor for a father's unconditional love and saw only disappointment. She broke. "It was the gene," she sobbed. "It made me do it. Mum warned me that it would make me cheat. But we tried so hard not to let you find out. We never wanted to hurt you."

"How long, Chloe?" I asked, hurt but not angry. I wanted to know the truth and a shouting match wouldn't achieve that.

"Since the beginning," she sniffled. "Mum warned me, once my periods had started. She said that the women in our family had this gene and we couldn't fight it. The best we could do was to protect our men by being discreet."

I glanced towards my in-laws, Anne, studying the floor to avoid Trevor's glare.

Chloe looked pleadingly at me. "What will you do, Grant? I'm so sorry, but it was the gene that made us do it."

"I'm sorry too, babe. But do you really believe that? Do you believe that a gene made you cheat, and it wasn't just your mother giving you the same excuse that her mother gave to her?"

She shook her head. "It was the gene. It's my family's curse," she bawled.

I stood up and spoke to Trevor while Anne moved to comfort her daughter. "I'll sort out a case for her and drop it off in an hour or so."

Trevor acknowledged the implication with a nod. Then Chloe caught my meaning. "Please, Grant. No!" she howled. "Please, not that. Why?"

I knelt in front of her. "I have a solid career, we have a home and savings. We've spoken about starting a family." I took her hand. "Put yourself in my position; imagine that we've brought our baby daughter home from hospital and I look into her cot, and all that I can feel is the hate that I have for the woman she's going to become. That's not the father I want to be. Surely you can't expect me to face that."

I stood and made to leave. I stopped at the door and turned. "I apologise for saying this, Trevor. But fuck you, Anne." I left on that happy note.

Trevor and I both divorced our wives. Even though neither of us gave the existence of the gene any credibility, the fact that they did meant that we knew we could never trust them. And if it was a thing, then we definitely couldn't trust them.

I'd love to regale you with stories about who had the best lawyers and how our wives fought to keep us, but I can't. If one partner checks out, there's virtually nothing the other can do to stop the divorce.

It was the same with our finances. If you can't agree, then the court will decide, and you'll get what you should have agreed on in the first place, minus court costs and legal fees. We agreed between ourselves.

Trevor never forgave Anne, but he tried to persuade Chloe to see a therapist. Last time he and I spoke, a couple of years ago, she was still refusing. She told him there was no point. She couldn't fight her genetics. She and I haven't spoken since the divorce.

Trevor found a managerial position in Scotland and my employer moved me to supervise a big installation in the South East. I liked it so much that I stayed down there. Part of the reason I liked it was Alison. We met in our local pub, dated, slept together, moved in together and eventually got married. Our daughter, Freya, was flower girl at our wedding.

One evening, before we got engaged, we were on our patio in the back garden watching the sun set and I decided to tell her the story. She shook her head in disbelief once I'd finished

"Any genetic flaws you want to admit to, Ali?" I asked, taking a sip of beer.

"None that convenient, for sure," she replied equably. "And you?"

"Well," I replied. "I have this compulsion to..." And I leaned in to whisper in her ear.

She smirked. "Two things; first, that is so not a flaw; second, I'm willing to help you deal with your issue."

I think that was the night Freya was conceived.