Inevitable I was tempted by the opportunity of talking to someone completely outside my normal circle, to mention my fears about my husband.

   He suggested that perhaps the most important thing was to decide what I would do if he was being unfaithful. Then I could decide whether there was any advantage in finding out.

   If I were to choose the 'do nothing' option then arguably there was no point in knowing. On the other hand if I were to select another option, knowing would be a worth while. We decided the other options were to:

   a) kill him

   b) kill myself

   c) get even

   Well I couldn't see myself killing him or myself but also I didn't think I could live with it. This seemed to leave surprisingly only one option.

   However, eventually, we agreed that there was little chance of my fears being true. There was no evidence. It would be out of character - he's an accountant after all.

   Talking about it had made me feel a lot better - safer, more secure. I'd explored the angles. The stranger had proved a good listener.

   The crunch was that I couldn't do anything about an investigation anyway. A private detective would be out of the question because it would cost too much. I had no spare money except what I could get from my husband.

   Therefore when he made his offer, I hardly hesitated at all before accepting.

   "Having gone through what I have gone through", he said. "I hate to see others suffer in the same way. Why don't you let me be an amateur private detective. It could dispel your fears handsomely and it would give me something to do besides sitting around waiting for replies from job applications. After all, to him, I'm a complete stranger."

   It seemed so harmless. A little conspiracy to offset the imagined hurt of my husband's deception. We agreed to meet a week later at the same time and in the same public place.

   To my enormous relief, the news that he brought me the next week was reassuring. His neatly itemised account showed my husband's movements to be completely innocuous. I contacted my friend to tell her but she didn't seem interested. She had recently mislaid the little box anyway.

   I felt a weight had been lifted from my heart but also felt slightly ashamed that I had ever been suspicious. Nicolas and I met again a week later and I received a second report which was also uneventful. We chatted amiably about this and that and, eventually, I told him I was grateful for all his efforts but didn't think he should put himself to any more trouble.

   Additionally, I had begun to see that this unkempt man was attracted to me. Naturally, as people are, I was flattered, but, in my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine myself returning his interest. His appearance had become even more dishevelled. That week and he exuded a suburban shabbiness that was frankly distasteful to me.

   In return, he joked about what I would have done if the outcome had been different. He put his hand over mine, soft, podgy and a little moist.

   "Perhaps you would have taken your revenge with me", - his smile was distinctly unsavoury.

   Not wanting to appear ungrateful, after all he had put himself out for me, I replied lightly:

   "Any port in a storm when the sea rages high."

   But when I saw the look of hope in his eyes, I had to tell him

   "But without a storm .... there's no need for a port." And I firmly withdrew my hand.

   "Furthermore, this will have to be the last of our lunchtime meetings. Otherwise, my husband might think that it's me that's having an affair", I joked.

   I was surprised, therefore, when three weeks later the bespectacled and perspiring figure of Nicolas threaded his way through my lunchtime cafeteria and sat down opposite me again.

   He was even scruffier now with a ragged beard and hairy arms protruding through rumpled rolled up sleeves.

   "Just thought you might like to know, I've got the proof", he said.

   My legs turned instantly to jelly. I felt as if my stomach had been punched. Things had been going so well at home recently. My husband had been very loving - we'd been an ideal couple. I felt the world tilt around me.

   He mopped his brow and massaged his temples. My summer dress that had seemed so cool in the morning now seemed tight and clinging.

   "You must be absolutely wrong - I don't believe it", I scoffed. I was cross and scornful taking attack as being the best defence.

   "Anyway who gave you permission to go snooping about."

   "You didn't say I couldn't", he said truculently. "Only that you didn't think it was necessary. Well I've now proved to the contrary."

   "And the proof", I raged. "Where's your proof - I bet all you've got is suspicion and jealousy. My marriage is perfect - you just wish you were in my shoes."

   "All I ask is that you let me show you", insisted Nicolas.

   "If you come quickly now, in your lunch hour, there is a chance that we might catch them at it - what more do you need."

   Well who could say no to an offer like that. The need to know was too compelling.

   Near the small town where I worked, there was a disused railway line. As we approached, with a feeling of mounting despair, I saw my husband's car pulled into an old cutting.

   Then, from the security of an old rhododendron bush, I watched aghast as my husband tupped another woman.

   Back in the car, my suppressed anger exploded in a violent rage:

   "How on earth could you have known and why should you be so interested in finding out."

   The breath from his mouth smelt foul as his seedy voice leered back his reply:

   "Well, my dear, at the end of every day, there is very little that 'Old Nick' doesn't see."

   My senses reeled and the world spun around me. In the distance I was dimly aware of the locks of the car doors clicking shut.

   He had my wrists now in a vice like grip. It was then that I heard the words that I had dreaded:

   "Any port in a storm when the sea rages high, you said - and now, according to our little contract, I believe it's time for your revenge."

   The fire began to crackle again and there was a light burst of applause. Smiling sadly, the lady inclined her head to thank the audience.

   Tom's voice rose above the general hubbub as people around reacted to what they had heard.

   "Truth or Tale - it is for you to decide!"

   "Well at least we know that one was a tale", commented a fresh faced young man in jeans by the bar. "Old Nick the devil acting as a private eye. It may be a good story but that's all 'tis."

   A couple of his friends joined in the laughter, nudging each other and raising their glasses derisively at the lady.

   The expression on the ladies face could have chilled an iceberg. Slowly she got up from the tellers chair and, in a sudden icy silence, approached the young man unbuttoning her blouse as she went.

   She stood in front of him and gazed sadly and deeply into his widening but still disbelieving eyes. With head held high, she allowed the blouse to fall from her shoulders revealing a skin silky white with a delicate blush. All eyes were on her as she turned on her heel and walked, dismissively, to the door.

   Two deep red wheals the width of a cloven hoof ran down and scarred her back from shoulder blade to waist.

The end

© Rob Hopcott 1999

All rights reserved. All characters are fictitious in this story and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.

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The Blooding of Amelia-Rose is a romance thriller. When Amelia-Rose finds herself without a husband, she retreats to an idyllic country cottage where she discovers strange country customs, dangers but also romance lurking in the valleys and moorlands of Exmoor...
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