Please Stop She Said

I don't really remember why I thought my wife was cheating on me. There's a saying somewhere that you could look at the various pieces of a puzzle and have no idea what the whole thing looks like until you put all the pieces together. It was easy to look at the individual pieces and come to the wrong conclusion. Like our sex life, sure things had cooled in the bedroom but after being together for seven years that was probably normal. My wife Amy was an ER nurse so it wasn't uncommon for her to come home late because of some accident or one of the other nurses had called out. Plus, she had to work different shifts so there were times we barely saw each other. During covid our life was a nightmare. There were just a lot of little things, and I felt silly saying them out loud or writing them here.

Worrying about this was eating me up inside. I was losing weight, weight I didn't need to lose. My hair was thinning and I was still in my twenties. I started going through my symptoms with my doctor and his first question was if I was under a lot of stress lately. I denied it. He gave me a prescription for Xanax which I had filled.

After weeks of anguish I decided I had to do something. I thought about confronting Amy but she could easily lie to me and then maybe lay low for a while or get sneakier. After doing some research online, I bought a bunch of cameras which I hid around our house. I bought a tracking device which I snuck into her purse. And a few recorders, one for her purse one and one for her car. There was also an app I could put on her phone. When I went to hide a recorder in her purse, I found a second phone.

Amy worked four ten hour days followed by three days off. This week she would have Thursday through Sunday off. I thought I was stressed worrying Amy was cheating it was worse when I heard her telling someone that he should come over on Thursday morning and fuck her brains out and maybe he should bring his friend because her husband hadn't given her any in over a week.

Amy was going to get home late that evening, which gave me time to make sure all my cameras were ready. I also booked three days in a hotel and before my wife came home on Wednesday, I had already checked into a hotel and left a bunch of clothes there. And I had an appointment with a divorce lawyer on Friday morning. With all that done, I took several Xanax and was out when my darling wife came home and tried to initiate sex.

Before I left for work on Thursday morning, I took her second phone out of her purse. A friend told me about a "U break it I fix it" shop who would be willing to clone her phone for a price.

Amy surprised me with a call early in the day and said she couldn't find her phone. I said you just called me on it. Amy said she also carried one of the hospitals' phones in case of emergencies.

Thursday at work was a nightmare. The motion sensor on the cameras were pinging my phone a lot which in itself would not be crazy since Amy was home and probably handling chores. But I didn't want to look while I was at work.

Amy wasn't home when I came in. I set up my laptop on the kitchen table and started scanning the video files that cameras had uploaded to the cloud. Most of them were short, maybe a couple of minutes as Amy passed through the room.

I hit play on one from the bedroom, Amy was on her back getting fucked by some guy in the missionary position. There was another guy there, with his own video camera. He was naked and would occasionally dip his cock into Amy's mouth. The volume was turned up so I did not realize Amy had come in and was standing across from me at the table.

"Are you watching porn in the kitchen Jack, this is a new low."

And with that, I emptied the contents of my stomach onto the kitchen table, just missing my laptop.

Amy started screaming, "what the fuck Jack" There were some other comments I didn't really catch because after throwing up, I realized I was going to shit my pants, I grabbed my phone and ran to the bathroom.

I barely got my pants down in time. It was the most disgusting shit I ever smelled. Amy was knocking on the door which I had been smart enough to lock. She wanted to know if I was okay and could I please light a candle. I thought maybe Amy might see what I was watching and delete them so I started sending the videos from the bedroom camera to people on my contacts list. There were tears in my eyes so I really didn't know who I was sending what to. I made sure her parents, her brother and sister, and any of her work buddies received copies.

I felt like I had drank that stuff you use to prep for a colonoscopy because I was literally pissing out my ass. The smell was so bad I would occasionally vomit into the sink.

Amy was knocking on the bathroom door again, "Jack, I saw what you were looking at and I'm sorry. Please come out so we can talk about this."

Before I could say anything, I loudly vomited again into the sink as I wondered if I ever went down on her freshly fucked pussy. Maybe Amy heard it because I heard her walk away. Every time I thought my stomach had calmed down another wave took over.

As I sat, I started checking the other cameras. One scene had Amy being double teamed over the kitchen table, she was bent over the kitchen counter while they took turns fucking her ass and then her mouth. God, did I ever kiss her after she sucked her shit off someone's cock. Another loud vomit into the sink. I sent the kitchen videos to anyone of her friends on my contacts list. I thought of posting them on Facebook but didn't think they would get past her sensors. I started searching for something PG rated.

Amy was at the door again, "Jack, please stop. You sent the videos to my parents Jack, it will break their heart." A few minutes later, "Jack, not the ones from the kitchen counter. Please stop Jack, your ruining me in front of my family and friends, if I'll even have any family or friends left. I'm begging you Jack, I know you hate me right now and I don't blame you but please stop."

Through the gap at the bottom of the bathroom door, I could see that Amy was sitting down right there, she just kept repeating, "please stop Jack" while she sobbed. "My father will never be able to unsee that Jack."

"Neither will I Amy."

Maybe I was empty so I flushed the toilet again, rinsed my vomit out of the sink and started the shower.

"Amy, I'm going to take a shower and then I'm going to a hotel. I really don't want to look at you or talk to you tonight so please make yourself scarce when I go to leave."

"Ok Jack, I understand. I need to go talk to my parents so I won't be here when you get out. Do you want me to pack a bag for you or make you something to eat before I go. You should really drink something, you have to be concerned about dehydration Jack."

"My bags are already at the hotel Amy, I'll drink something when I get there."

"No alcohol Jack, that will only worsen the dehydration. I'll leave some clean clothes for you outside the door."

All of a sudden she was the loving caring wife or was that just the nurse coming out.

Amy did leave me some clothes and I was quickly on my way to the hotel. My phone was blowing up when I got to the hotel so I shut it off. There's probably a bunch of people wanting to know how I could share that and wanting to know how I could be so mean to Amy. I was exhausted, took a bunch of Xanax and passed out.

My phone was buzzing in the morning, there were missed calls and texts from Amy asking if I made it to the hotel ok. I sent her a text back saying I was fine, realized I was starving and headed out to a diner. I had an hour to kill before my appointment with the lawyer.

Over breakfast, I started going through the missed calls and text messages and email. As expected, most of Amy's friends wanted to know how I could do that to her. I wanted to ask them what about what she did to me. There were several from her brother with increasing terroristic threats and messages from her parents asking to me to stop.

There was a text from a number I didn't recognize. "I'm glad you found out Jack but I couldn't think of a more painful way to find out unless you walked in on them. It has been killing me not to tell you. The two gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, are doctors in the ER. They refer to one as Doctor Dreamy like the guy in Grey's Anatomy. I sent the videos you sent me to their wives and some of their other coworkers and management team. I've also sent them to all of the rest of hospital management including the CEO and HR of the hospital's holding company. Dr. Dreamy and the other scumbag have been counseled before to keep their dick in their pants. For obvious reasons I need to conceal my identity so I'm using a burner phone but please feel free to contact me if you need anything."

I texted the person back, thanked them and asked who they were. There was no response.

Well it felt good to have someone on my side. I still needed to call my parents, my brother and my sister. They were all big fans of Amy and I wondered how graphic I would have to get before they understood my position. They may have been big fans of Amy but I had to keep them from going after her or Dr. Dreamy.

There were no surprises with the attorney, although I had proof of her infidelity it wasn't going to help me. Maybe if had not sent it to the world I may have been able to use it as a bargaining chip if needed. Amy and I had only been married for seven years so we didn't have a lot of assets, we lived in a rental and our cars were leased. We talked about suing the hospital, he was willing to take the case and would draw it up. For divorce, he suggested that I talk to Amy and if we could come to an agreement, he could make the divorce quick and painless. He would need a list of our assets including 401ks and stock holdings. The biggest account was the account we were using to save up for a house.

He didn't want to watch the videos but he took the thumb drive, on my way out he said, "Divorce is a billion dollar industry, between lawyers, judges, private eyes and spying equipment plus the costs for counseling for children and harmed spouses, you would think by now we would have evolved as a species to a point where we could control our sexual urges."

When I left the attorney's office, there was another text from Amy, "I'm staying at my parents for a few days although they don't want me there. I'm assuming you will have no interest in keeping the apartment so you can remove your clothes and anything else you want during that time. I'm also assuming you don't want the furniture either so I'll offer you five grand to buy out your share. I have an appointment with an attorney on Monday and will forward his information if he agrees to take my case."

There was a second text later on, "Jack, I am really sorry I hurt you the way I did. My parents have asked me a thousand times why I would do something like that to you and I have no answer."

While Amy was gone, I took all my stuff out and put it in a storage bin. I told Amy if she wanted to keep the flat screen TV we just bought she would have to throw in an extra 1500. She agreed. We split the accounts, the lawyers filed the paperwork and we would be done in six months. The last time I saw Amy was when I vomited onto the kitchen table.

A week after vomit day, my anonymous friend told me that Amy and both doctors were fired along with the senior management of the Emergency Room but they would likely be rehired elsewhere. Both of Amy's doctor friends were in divorce court and their wives had hired some famous lawyer.

And my anonymous friend told me that Amy had moved back into the apartment. Her parents couldn't wait for her to get out of their house and it would be a long time before she would be invited to Christmas dinner.

I asked. "How can she afford the apartment if she isn't working."

"Her parents said they would rather pay her rent than look at her every day, that's what I heard," anonymous responded.

Even with the Xanax, sleep eluded my most nights. In the beginning it was little glimpses of the videos that haunted my dreams even though I barely watched them that day and never watched them again. By the end of the week I was haunted by Amy's pitiful sobs outside the bathroom door, begging me to stop. They say you can't hear in your sleep but I can, every night I hear Amy's voice saying, "Please stop Jack."

A couple of weeks later my anonymous source informed me that Amy was able to get her job at the hospital back but she was now working in the cancer wing. Amy hired a lawyer who claimed that the hospital had been previously warned that both doctors were sexual predators and Amy was a victim of the hospital's negligence in failing to remove the doctors from the workplace.

My lawyer was able to get a nice settlement from the hospital, that and the money from our house account was enough for me to put a down payment on a small house. It was nothing fancy, nothing like the house Amy and I dreamed of buying and I furnished it with some cheap shit.

I'm not sure how Amy found out where I was living but I would occasionally come home from work and find something I had left at the apartment or a stack of mail on my doorstep. There was a birthday present waiting for me on my birthday. Nothing expensive a nice bottle of scotch and a warm hat. There were no notes attached and I only assumed they were from Amy.

Ms. Anonymous also wished me a happy birthday, that's what I started calling her although I didn't know if they were a she or a he.

Ms. Anonymous said that that the videos of Amy and the two doctors had made the circuit in the hospital. Several other nurses ended up confessing to their husbands and were heading to divorce court. Although Doctor Dreamy was working at a different hospital, someone beat him up after work one night and cut off both of his hands. The hands were never found but he was supposedly told to keep his hands off other men's wives. Who's going to wipe his ass.

I had been interviewed a few days before by the police but they wouldn't give me any details only where I was on a certain night. Fortunately, after Amy started leaving things on my steps, I installed a ring doorbell camera that also showed my car. The cops accepted that as proof I didn't leave my house. It did not seem like they were trying too hard to find Dr. Dreamy's assailant.

Amy left me a Christmas present, since I now had the doorbell camera, I knew it was her. And Ms. Anonymous also wished me Merry Christmas. I spent the day with my family but didn't stay long.

That night, Ms. Anonymous asked me if I was bothered that I got to spend Christmas with my family but Amy did not. Maybe because she didn't have anyone to spend it with she worked a double.

"No I wasn't bothered," I texted her back, "She made this mess and besides, my Christmas wasn't a walk in the park either!"

On the first anniversary of the day I vomited on the table, I received a blank card from Amy simply saying she was sorry.

A year after the divorce, I found my copy of the thumb drive with the videos. Long ago I had deleted then from my computer and barely watched any of the videos beyond what I mentioned earlier. I threw the thumb drive in the garbage. It was time to end the Amy chapter of my life.

Ms. Anonymous continued to keep me informed of Amy's life, not that I cared. My family and friends tried fixing me up with different women but I had no interest in them either. I begged my brother and sister-in-law to stop inviting these women to their barbecues, I could see how the young women's feelings were hurt when I showed no interest in them.

It was a month after I received Amy's anniversary card as I called it that Ms. Anonymous changed her tune on Amy. The source said, "I often despised Amy for the way she was cheating on you, no man deserves that, especially you. If you asked Amy, who despised her the most, I'm sure she would name me. Now I see a broken woman, one who comes to work and barely smiles except for her patients. I know she never joins our girls night out or any social functions at the hospital. Men have stopped asking her out because her 'no thanks' have become brutal. She won't even join any of the other nurses for lunch or coffee. She's still living by herself in your old apartment and never goes anywhere."

I asked her, and I was still assuming the anonymous texter was a she, why did she keep me updated on Amy, that was the ancient past as far as I was concerned.

Ms. Anonymous said, "In the beginning I was embarrassed that I had not spoken up earlier. Maybe if I had it would have stopped before too much damage had been done, before threesomes before it happened in your house. From what I heard, that was the first time they fucked in your house and the first threesome although Dr. Dreamy had been pushing for it."

"Ok," I said, "and I'm thankful for the information you shared in the beginning. But why tell me now how she's a broken woman."

"Jack, I know you haven't gone out on a date since the day you ended your relationship with Amy and I would bet women don't even try any more to entice your interest. I would also bet that your smiles are few and far between. At least Amy has her patients to smile at. I wonder who is more broken, you or Amy?"

I typed a dozen responses including fuck you and deleted them.

Ms. Anonymous texted first, "There was a time I admired how much you and Amy were in synch with each other, you guys would flow across the room as one. And now you are in synch again, no smiles, no social life. You both go to work, come home and sleep. Do you get excited when you go to the grocery store?"

"Please stop," I responded. I knew my life sucked and there was no way out of it besides a bullet. I didn't need someone reminding me. After I hit send I was reminded of Amy pleading with me to stop outside the bathroom door.

After a year on Xanax, my doctor refused to renew my prescription, it wasn't working anyway. Nothing drowned out Amy sobbing please stop. So I started jogging with no plan or route mapped out. I would change when I came home from work and start running until I could not run anymore. My phone's GPS was how I found out where I ended up and most times I would have to uber home. It helped me sleep.

Ms. Anonymous would remind me I couldn't run from my problems. And Amy just takes extra shifts trying to run away from her problems.

"Besides," she said, "you cheated on Amy first."

"THAT'S FUCKING BULLSHIT," I texted her back.

"I just found out Jack, give me a day or two to find the video that was sent to Amy. Do you think Amy just decided to accept Dr. Dreamy's advances one day."

I was so pissed I couldn't respond. I would never cheat on Amy.

Two days later she sent me the video. A guy who looked like me was fucking a woman in a doggy position. I didn't recognize the woman or the room. The video wasn't clear, sometimes I actually thought the guy looked like me, same build, same hair color, he even sounded like me. What the fuck kept running through my head. I knew it wasn't me but it wasn't hard to see how other people would think it was me. Whoever was recording this was much more focused on the woman then the man, making sure they got a good view of her tits swinging back and forth as he circled around them. I was trying to understand how I could have fucked somebody, let myself get recorded doing it and have no memory of it.

I went for a run and when the uber dropped me off, I started watching it again. The last frames showed the guys ass as he pumped into the woman, not something I wanted to see even if it was my ass, but it wasn't my ass because I have a scar on my ass from an accident when I was a kid. It wasn't a big scar, but it took forever to heal. I took a snapshot of the video, the one showing the best view of the guy's ass and I took a picture of my left cheek and sent it to Ms. Anonymous.

"It wasn't me," I said.

She didn't respond so I did, "Whether it was me or not, Amy owed me the opportunity to discuss it with me before doing a threesome with Dr. Dreamy and all the horrific shit she did with him. How long was she fucking him before I caught them."

"One month," was her response.

I didn't know what to do. I think I was angrier now than the day I vomited onto the table. The scab had been ripped off.

And life went on just like before, I worked, I ran, I ate, I slept, repeat. There was nothing new from Ms. Anonymous.

Amy had dropped off the second anniversary card and as usual, I was jogging to nowhere after coming home from work the next day. When I was exhausted, I looked up and found myself in front of Amy's apartment. It had to be a good twenty mile run if I ran the most direct route. I sat down on her step, my body could not move so I sat. My water bottle was empty and my legs were cramping.

And then Amy's car pulled in. I don't know if she saw me. She just sat in her car with her head on her steering wheel. When she looked up, she saw me and wiped her eyes. Amy sat down on the steps next to me. Her eyes were puffy from crying.

"Why are you here Jack, are you okay, are you hurt?"

"I was jogging and wasn't paying attention to where I was running. I found myself here and out of gas. Normally when that happens I call an uber to take me home. Are you okay Amy, why you were crying?"

"It's not important Jack, would you like to come in?"

"I don't think I could do that Amy. I just need to sit for a bit."

"Is it okay if I sit with you?"

I mumbled a yes and noticed that Amy was sitting close to me, we were actually touching each other. And then she took my hand in hers. She was crying again, not sobbing, but just a tear every so often running down her face.

"Why were you crying Amy when you pulled in, before you knew I was here?"

"It isn't important Jack, do you need a drink or something?"

"I need you to tell me why you were crying when you pulled in."

Amy buried her face on my shoulder, her grip on my hand tightened, "This is the worst part of my day Jack, coming here to what had been our home, knowing you won't be inside, that you never will be inside again and wondering why I get up every day. I was told that wasn't you in the video and I know I fucked up, a fuck up I can never come back from. I cry, every time I come home I cry and wonder why not just end this nightmare. And then I dream of you sitting here just like this and it gives me enough hope to do it again, at least for one more day."

Then she really started crying, worse than when she sat outside the bathroom door and that sobbing still haunted me two years later. I held her hand and sat there, I had no words. 'why not just end this nightmare' was echoing through my head. How many times did I have similar thoughts as I tried to fall asleep and repeatedly heard, 'please stop Jack.'

I wrapped my arms around her and said, "We're both broken Amy." That made her cry harder.

The first lightning bugs of the evening were out, a reminder of how long we had been sitting there. Amy had stopped crying a while ago but I didn't want to let her go. She didn't want me to, I think, but really I didn't know what to think.

Amy's face was still buried in my shoulder when she said, "Let me drive you home Jack but I need to pee first."

She was running inside when I remembered I needed a drink and asked for a bottle of water. Amy handed me the bottle and we got in her car. Neither of us spoke as she drove to my house. When she pulled into the driveway, we just sat there, I made no move to get out of the car and outside of putting her car in park, neither did Amy. The ball was in my court, I needed to decide and a thousand choices went through my head.

"Do you want to come in Amy and see the place?"

"Ok Jack." She turned off the car and we stepped out.

My mouth started rambling, "It's not very big, nothing like the house we were saving for. Since its small it's easy to keep clean. I wasn't expecting company so hopefully I didn't leave dirty underwear laying around. And I haven't done much to furnish it, just some cheap stuff for now."

I showed Amy the living room and kitchen, the two completely empty bedrooms and then the master bedroom.

"Thank god, no dirty underwear laying around," I said.

"Jack, why is our wedding photo sitting on your bedside table."

I knew why but I was never going to be able to say it, not without sobbing like a baby. Instead I hugged her and said, "It gives me enough hope to do it all again, at least for one more day Amy."

We spent another eternity holding each other.