A Dangerous Affair

It was late at night when Ashley drove up to her house. To her surprise, the lights were still on, meaning her wife was still up. Ashley, not looking forward to the encounter, stepped slowly out of the car and entered her house.

As she expected, Madison was sitting in a chair frowning with her arms crossed. “Hi, hon,” Ashley said with as much warmth she could muster. She tried kissing Madison’s cheek, but she dodged her lips.

“Where were you?” Madison asked, her tone icy.

Ashley inwardly cursed. It was times like these she wished she had friends she could pretend she had been hanging out with. All of the friends she had were Madison’s friends, and none of them would be willing to lie for her. Failing to think of anything better, she said, “I was at work.”

“Work,” Madison repeated, not at all buying the excuse.

“Yeah, it was a project,” Ashley replied, not even trying anymore to sound convincing. “Look, I’m pretty tired, I’m going to head to bed. I’ll see you there.”

Before she could take one step up the stairwell, Madison said, “I know your secret.”

Ashley pretended to be calm. “What secret?”

“Cut the crap, Ashley!” Madison was now shouting and pointing at her accusingly. “I know what you’re actually doing when you're out this late at night! Don’t try to feed me your lies!”

At that moment, a million ways to kill Madison popped into Ashely’s head. Another million ways to dispose of the body came soon after. To Ashley, killing and disposing of bodies had become instinct, something that came with being an experienced serial killer.

Ashley took a deep breath. There was no need to act hastily, Madison might not even have enough proof to turn her over to the police. For all she knew, Madison could have just been paranoid and somehow guessed correctly without having the suitable evidence. “What do you know?” Ashley asked.

“So you’re not even going to deny it?” Madison sounded hysterical, but Ashley’s face betrayed no emotion. Enraged by her wife’s indifference, she continued. “I looked through your phone and search history.”

“You did what?” Ashley almost emoted that time.

“Don’t act so high and mighty! Like you have any right to privacy after what you’ve done!”

Ashley’s knuckles were turning white from how hard she was gripping the banister, but she stayed silent, wanting to hear about the rest of Madison’s detective work.

“I saw you buying ropes in your search history. Why were you buying so much rope, huh? Can you even think of an excuse, because I can only think of one reason you would need rope for anything! Especially when the rest of your search history involves instructions on how to tie people up!

“And when I snooped through your phone, it was so obvious. You weren’t even trying to be subtle! Downloading a dating app? Were you trying to get caught? And let’s not forget what you were telling all of them. ‘Come back to my place.’ 

“At first I thought you had the audacity to bring them into our home, but then you give them a completely different address. I drove up to that address, asked some questions, and found out a woman that matches your exact description owns that apartment! I don’t know what would have been worse honestly. Finding out my wife was doing those disgusting things with strangers in our own house, or finding out my wife had her own apartment without ever telling me about it!”

Madison was out of breath after she finished her rant, something she clearly had been practicing in her mind while she waited. Ashley meanwhile looked at her wife calculatingly. “So what are you going to do next?” she asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to leave you! I obviously can’t trust you anymore!”

“I can’t let you do that.” Ashley walked slowly towards her wife.

“Nothing you can say is going to stop me from walking out that door! You had your chance to admit everything and make amends, but you didn’t! Tonight will be the last time you’ll ever see me again! I never want to see your face!”

Ashley stopped. Now that she thought about it, this reaction seemed odd considering the situation. She had always imagined someone discovering her secret to be terrified, not righteously angry. And to confront her directly, despite knowing what she had done? That was basically suicide. Unless Madison had blurted her secret to others.

“Have you told the police?” Ashley asked, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

Madison looked at her, evidently confused by the question. “What?”

“Have you told the police?”

“Why the hell would I do that? It’s not like you did anything illegal.”

Now it was Ashley’s turn to be confused. “What?”

“I said you didn’t do anything illegal. But it doesn’t make what you did any less horrible! There’s no excuse for you to have cheated!”

At first Ashely became more confused, not at all seeing the connection between cheating and being a serial killer, but then it all clicked for her.

“Honestly, Ashley, you could have just told me you wanted to spice things up in the bedroom!” Madison sunk back into the chair. All the anger had left her and now she was just exhausted. “I never tried BDSM or bondage, but don’t you think you could have just asked me if I was interested? Did you really think that cheating was the best way to get what you wanted?”

“I’m sorry.” Visibly Ashley looked mournful, but on the inside, she was elated. Her secret was safe, and she even had a cover for what she had been really up to.

“It’s too late for that,” Madison replied bitterly. “It’s too late to salvage this relationship. I want a divorce.”

“But-”

“I’m not going to budge on this.”

The two stared at each other. Ashley broke eye contact and walked up the stairs, slowly to make herself look defeated and guilt-ridden. It’s a shame, she thought, I really did like her. She was a good distraction.

She grinned. Well, it could have gone worse.