My secret weapon

I met him at the office Christmas party, such an awful cliché. He worked in another department and a friend of mine at work knew his manager, so we went over to chat to her, and he was there next to her, looking sophisticated. It was love at first sight really. I started talking to me and we found out that we had everything in common, even down to the same obscure taste in music. We’d both kept a pet snake before, so many weird coincidences. I was smarting from a very bad break up from my son’s father a year previously and I’d not had the remotest of romantic interest from anyone. I remember thinking at the time that it was too good to be true.

Of course it was too good to be true. After flirting heavily for half an hour I looked down and noticed his wedding ring. He looked sheepish.

“Wife not able to come tonight?” I said, raising my eyebrow.

“One of our daughters is a bit under the weather so she opted to stay home” he said quietly. I’d written him off as taken, but he still went out of his way to speak to me for as long as he could every time we bumped into each other at work. We got into a pattern of lunch together and things escalated from there. He had a friend at work, when we first started seeing each other, with whom he’d gone on weekend hiking trips. As luck would have it, his friend moved abroad. It was all too easy to go from lunch time catch ups, to spending weekends together, because he was clever enough not to mention anything when Freddie moved to Australia. He used to send her pictures he’d pulled from Google images so she’d really believe he was hiking with a friend who was actually thousands of miles away.

As time went by though, it stopped being the no strings, naughty fun it had been. I’d get fed up of never seeing him for Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and his birthday. He complained about his wife constantly. When I first asked him when he was leaving her for me he looked a bit more shocked than he should have. He promised me that he’d leave her the day after his twin daughters turned 18. I believed him.

The years went by and their birthday approached. A few weeks before I tried to discuss his action plan, but he told me he needed to wait until the girls were at university. They turned 18 in September so they had a whole year until they had both finished their A Level exams and were starting University. Then one of them decided to take a gap year, before University, so he said we'd need to wait until they were 20.

I kept nagging him and he became more distant, sometimes not speaking to me for a week. I used to make a diversion on the way back from the supermarket, just to see their big beautiful house. I'd think about how his wife was living the life I should have. I realised I needed to get rid of her.

I slipped an anonymous note through his door, addressed to her, asking her to not say anything to him but to meet me at a restaurant I’d often gone with him the following Saturday. I didn’t say much in the note, just that I had information about her husband that she needed to know.

My fingers tensed around the secret weapon in my pocket, ready to pull it out at a moment’s notice.

 His wife was late so I ordered my favourite food, boiled rabbit. When she did come I was surprised. Over the five years I’d been competing with her for the attention of her husband, I had built her up in my mind to be some sort of goddess. I knew what she looked like; I’d looked at pictures of her on social media at least once a day for five years. Yet, somehow, seeing her in the flesh was like an anti-climax. I’m not sure how, but it was.

“What was it you wanted to talk about then?” she asked. She looked like she had not slept and was on the verge of tears. I did feel bad about what I was just about to do, but then I thought of my six year old son. His so-called Dad left before he was born. I know her husband will be a wonderful father figure for him. I'll do anything to give my beautiful boy the life he deserves.

“I’ve been your husband’s mistress for the last five years. He loves me and I’ll make him much happier that you ever could”

I took the weapon out of my pocket and pointed it towards her. A few seconds later she’d collapsed and was lying on the floor.

A waitress rushed over.

“What’s happened?” she asked “Should I call an ambulance?”

“No its ok, she’s coming round” I say. My rival opens her eyes.

“I didn’t want it to come to this but you need to leave him, because of this. You know you do.” I set my secret weapon down on the table, My love rival staggers to her feet and sits back down, face grey as granite. I keep telling myself that I’m doing the right thing, that this is just a stage that me and my lover have to go through to create eternal happiness. I don’t enjoy seeing her in this state but I’m sure she can find her own happiness with someone else.

My lover’s wife picks up my secret weapon. Amazing what a drastic reaction a small piece of white plastic and two blue lines can create. She threw it at me, tears streaming down her face, and stormed out.

This all happened yesterday. I’m at home now, baking flapjacks with my little boy and waiting for my lover to call to tell me she’s served him with divorce papers. The nastiness of having to get rid of his wife will be all over. I’ve not heard anything yet but I’m sure he will call as soon as the dust settles. Things will be difficult for a while but I know that when I put our child into his arms for the first time, love will overwhelm him. He’ll know in his heart that our future as a family will be a wonderful thing and all he ever wanted, and his old life will be forgotten. 

I pat my pregnant belly and smile.