Her Husband's Ex
================

Although Ken had never introduced her to his ex-wife nor 
even discussed her very much at all, his wife knew a great 
deal about Sonya. In fact, Caitlin knew much more about 
her husband's ex than she really should have done.

In a sense, Ken was as much to blame as Caitlin's curiosity 
and jealousy. He was the one with the woeful 
understanding of data security. Had it never crossed his 
mind that his wife of two years' marriage and a total of 
three years' acquaintance might want to know more about 
Sonya? After all, they'd been married for over seven years.

When Caitlin first met Ken at that fateful office party, he 
was a huddled diminished figure still moping about his 
recent divorce to his first wife - and clearly not yet 
reconciled to it. Nevertheless, Ken revealed to his second 
wife only the sketchiest of details about the woman who 
had been central to his life for so long, a woman whose 
name occasionally and accidentally surfaced during their 
lovemaking, and to whom she sometimes felt as if she 
were just a successor. But she wasn't Sonya Version 2. She 
wasn't just an upgrade from the previous model. She was 
her own independent woman, even if it was an 
independence that had persisted more or less uninterrupted 
all her life until she met Ken.

Originally, it must have been quite different for Ken and 
Sonya. They were both marketing executives, more at 
home with the nonsense they were responsible for mailing 
to existing or potential customers than they were with the 
real facts they also gathered about the public's perception 
of the products they marketed. Neither of them worked in 
an industry where results were tested by an army of 
analysts rather than by vacuous statistics. Caitlin worked as 
a systems administrator and couldn't understand the ethos 
of a profession focused on customer perception and market 
penetration rather than such reliable indicators as 
productivity and reliability.

However, just as Caitlin had no real appreciation for the 
value of marketing neither had Ken any but the most 
rudimentary knowledge about the operating system or 
software on the laptop computers he'd acquired over the 
years, either for personal use or for work. He never 
bothered with passwords unless they were mandatory and, 
even then, he invariably used the same three letters for the 
password as he did for his first name. And Ken stored 
everything on his laptops, which was secure only in that 
the data was never backed up and therefore could only be 
found on the laptop on which the files were first created.

At first, it was mere nosiness that tempted Caitlin to turn 
on Ken's laptop when he wasn't home and skim through the 
directories that radiated from his My Documents folder. 
They'd been living together for three months by then and 
Ken had just the night before proposed marriage. It was 
only to be expected that Caitlin might want to explore 
Ken's computer to discover all the facts about her fiance 
that he had been so reluctant to divulge.

And that was the first time that Caitlin ever saw an image 
of Sonya. As his ex-wife's marriage to Ken had been a 
childless one, despite all those years of opportunity and 
effort, there had never been a good reason for Ken to see 
her again and Caitlin could see even less reason why she 
should be invited to their wedding. The Sonya in the 
hundreds of photos stored haphazardly in Ken's My 
Pictures folder was a woman who, Caitlin was gratified to 
see, she resembled in almost no detail. Sonya was a slight 
woman with short dark hair and with almost nothing to 
match Caitlin's rather more splendid bosom. She dressed in 
jeans and tee-shirts - but, like almost everyone Caitlin had 
met in marketing, was eager to flaunt the designer labels of 
her otherwise undistinguished clothes. The thin nose on her 
small face was brilliantly complemented by a perfect set of 
teeth and wide green eyes. It didn't comfort Caitlin one bit 
to admit that Sonya was a very pretty woman. And, 
although no one could say that Caitlin was unattractive, 
even if she was less slim than her predecessor in marriage, 
Sonya was patently the prettier of her husband's two wives.

Caitlin resisted the temptation to delete the photo files 
from Ken's hard drive, even if their memory was so vivid 
when she regarded the rather fewer photos of her that Ken 
took on his digital camera and mobile phone. How could 
Ken bear to be parted from Sonya? However much Caitlin 
resisted the calories, however much she spent on 
manicures and haircuts, however much she invested in face 
cream and make-up, she could never hope to match 
Sonya's unadorned beauty. She ruffled her blonde hair over 
her face or pulled it tightly back. She drew in her breath so 
that her breasts became even more prominent and her 
stomach temporarily less so. But whatever she did couldn't 
change the facts. Ken had left a woman that few men 
would ever be so lucky to have known and was now living 
with a woman who very few men before him had ever 
chosen to sleep with. 

No wonder Ken had found the break-up so difficult. 

"Why did you and Sonya separate?" Caitlin asked Ken 
after they had made love and he was at his most 
vulnerable.

"Divorce," corrected Ken bitterly, with a grunt.

"Divorce, then," said Caitlin, not to be distracted. "Why?"

"Well, you know," said Ken as inarticulate and evasive as 
ever. "Things. Stuff. It just wasn't to be."

"Did she split from you or did you split from her?" Caitlin 
persisted.

"Neither. Both. I don't know. Mutual. Why do you ask?"

"I just want to know about the man I'm about to marry," 
said Caitlin, tweaking her fiance's still slightly tumescent 
penis. "Is there some dark secret I should know about? 
Why did you and your ex-wife divorce? Was there 
something you did?"

"Erm..." said Ken, whose penis was beginning to twitch 
with reawakened desire. "It wasn't me."

"Are you sure?" asked Caitlin with a teasing smile as she 
cupped Ken's testicles in her palm and pecked her lips on 
its awakening glans. "You weren't unfaithful, were you? 
You weren't playing the field?"

"No, I wasn't," confessed Ken. "It wasn't me who was 
unfaithful. It was Sonya."

"And who was she unfaithful with?" persisted Caitlin, 
pushing her advantage as she lifted herself up over her 
fiance. "Not your best friend, was it? The usual cliche?"

"No, not at all," said Ken increasingly desperate to return 
to the lovemaking Caitlin was directing his desire towards. 
"It was a work colleague. Someone in advertising."

When Caitlin next accessed her fiance's laptop, she pored 
through the photos for any evidence of the man from 
advertising that tempted Sonya from her husband. But, 
although Sonya was photographed with many men, both 
friends and colleagues, there was no man whom Sonya 
seemed any closer to than the husband so clearly besotted 
with her.

Caitlin still had access to Ken's private data after they 
married, though there was no evidence of Sonya on the 
newer laptops and a great deal more of Caitlin. Which is 
how it should be. Sonya was becoming a progressively 
distant memory and Caitlin was now the woman in Ken's 
life. But was it merely a guilty and secret jealousy that 
returned Caitlin to those old photos on Ken's old Sony 
Vaio? And why did she have a persistent curiosity about 
her husband's former life? Caitlin recognised it as a 
symptom of her insecurity. After all, she had got together 
with Ken on his rebound. What was there to ensure that she 
wouldn't just be wife number two in what could be an ever- 
longer series of wives stretching into the future?

Every now and then, Caitlin would turn on Ken's old 
laptop and scan through the pictures stored there. Unlike 
printed copies they didn't fade at all with time and looked 
as fresh and immediate as when they were first taken on 
what must once have been an expensive digital camera. 
And there was Sonya, smiling and tightly gripping Ken's 
hand. Or was Ken responsible the one for the tight grip? 
There was something desperate about it. His body language 
didn't suggest confidence and contentment. He must have 
known the end of their relationship was nigh. But who was 
the one who would take his wife from him?

"Don't you know?" said Ken's marketing colleague, 
Vincent, when Caitlin discreetly asked him while her 
husband was in the pub toilet. "You two have been 
together yonks and you don't know! It was quite a scandal 
in its own small way."

"What was?" asked Caitlin, anxiously eyeing the swing 
door where Ken had left the crowded pub. He wasn't a man 
who usually wasted time on the lavatory.

"The person who Sonya left Ken for wasn't a man at all," 
said Vincent.

"A woman?" guessed Caitlin.

"I guess it couldn't be anything else, could it?" said 
Vincent. "It's not likely to be something other than a man 
or a woman. Yeah, it was Liz. What's more, she worked for 
our company. Not for Sonya's. She's still around - though, 
luckily for Ken, she's not based in the Burgess Street 
office. Advertising moved over to North Road about two 
years ago. Just before you and Ken got married."

Caitlin nodded. Then she noticed the toilet door open and 
Ken emerge. He was shaking the dampness off his hands 
that the drier hadn't blown away.

"Don't tell Ken I asked," hissed Caitlin. "I don't want him 
to think I've been prying or anything."

"Of course not," said Vincent standing up to let Ken 
squeeze through to the seat next to Caitlin. "Want another 
drink?" he asked the couple. "It's my round."

This new revelation radically changed Caitlin's view of the 
people who surrounded Sonya in the photographs on Ken's 
hard drive. It wasn't a man she was looking for in the 
smiling posed figures that tempted Sonya away from her 
husband. And it wasn't one of Sonya's less frequently 
featured friends or colleagues. It was one of those sharp-
dressed advertising women who hovered around the 
periphery of Ken's marketing colleagues. But which one?

Was it the woman in the too-short skirt and the too-red 
lipstick? Was it the one with the twiggy legs that were not 
at all flattering in her ridiculously short skirt? Was it the 
slightly chubby woman in checked trousers and short hair? 
It was a cliche, of course, to assume that Sonya's lesbian 
lover would have short hair and wear trousers. Plenty of 
straight women preferred to cut their hair short and not 
wear a skirt. It might well be that the woman whose 
qualities were deemed greater than even those of Ken's 
might be the woman with mousy hair that fell straight onto 
her shoulders and had a predilection for lace and tortoise-
shell. 

Up until now, Caitlin had viewed Sonya as some kind of a 
rival. She wasn't a rival in the sense that she and Sonya 
were actively vying for her husband's hand in marriage, but 
more one for the primacy of his affection. Caitlin never 
before had any real sympathy for the woman, although she 
reluctantly recognised a debt of gratitude to Sonya's 
infidelity for releasing Ken from wedlock and blessing 
Caitlin with three years of pre-nuptial and marital bliss. It 
was true that Caitlin found Sonya attractive, but that had 
rather the opposite effect of endearing the woman to her. 
Only now had Caitlin discovered an unsuspected allegiance 
with her husband's ex that softened her hitherto negative 
attitude.

Despite her love for Ken and her undeniable appetite for 
sex with him, there had been a time in Caitlin's 
adolescence when she wasn't convinced that this was the 
flavour of sex for which she was destined. Caitlin wasn't 
certain she found men attractive at all. Although her 
friends gushed about the supposed merits of the boys they 
fancied, whether in real life or in the movies, whether 
exhibited in the school playing field or in the glossy girls' 
magazines, Caitlin wasn't convinced. She had less 
difficulty in appreciating the allure of other women, a 
preference that still remained with her however much she 
now associated sexual satisfaction with a man's body and, 
most of all, his penis.

But, in these early confused days when Caitlin's bosom 
merely hinted at the glories to come, when her closest 
friends and confidantes were other girls and when boys 
were distantly viewed acne-covered figures, Caitlin was 
persuaded that it might be other girls rather than boys 
towards whom she was most drawn. However, despite a 
few discouraging fumbles and an embarrassed kiss and 
cuddle with her closest friends, this phase of Caitlin's youth 
was soon behind her. She now believed she was 
heterosexual and that, although she still didn't really find 
much physical appeal in men, there was a whole lot that 
more than compensated. After all, what tackle did a 
woman carry that could compare with what a man had 
between his legs?

Caitlin's interest in her husband's ex-wife remained mostly 
academic until she noticed a new and different pattern 
emerge in Ken's behaviour. The bouquets of roses and the 
passionate lovemaking may have been designed to allay 
Caitlin's suspicions - but combined as they were with late 
night meetings in the office and a new need to work extra 
hours they had rather the opposite effect. Caitlin had read 
her women's magazines carefully and knew that it was a 
common phenomenon for a cheating husband to try and 
compensate for his guilt by being more rather than less 
romantic with his wife. And, in any case, Caitlin detected 
cat's hairs on Ken's suit. They didn't own a cat and none 
were likely to be wandering about the office. There was 
also a slight whiff of perfume quite unlike any that Caitlin 
used but which invariably accompanied Ken after a late 
night out. And always the same brand of perfume. 

It would be a waste of time to confront Ken directly. It 
might, after all, precipitate exactly the breakdown in their 
relationship that Caitlin dreaded most. Instead, she took the 
easier option of logging onto her husband's poorly secured 
laptops. Caitlin was able not only to browse through the 
data files Ken had saved, but also to view his mail. In any 
case, the files were generally rather boring. There were a 
few downloaded pictures and movies that did little more 
than confirm to Caitlin that her husband shared the same 
general sexual fantasies as most other men. The e-mails 
stored in Outlook were not really much more interesting. 
Ken was no more forthcoming and articulate in print than 
he was in person. However, when Caitlin switched to 
Internet Explorer and clicked on the Hotmail bookmark 
then she found what she was looking for.

In truth, it wasn't that compromising. The woman that Ken 
was corresponding with - assuming that Q18-Sunshine was 
a female nym - was quite discreet and Ken - imaginatively 
known here as Ken123456 - stretched his prose only as far 
as specifying dates and places at which they could meet. 
But what disturbed Caitlin the most was that although the 
woman Ken wrote to had a nym beginning with a different 
letter, she signed off as S and was addressed as such by 
Ken - who signed off, inevitably, as K.

However, nothing was conclusive. Many women's names 
began with S, not just Sonya, and it was just possible - 
although this was an increasingly slim hope - that Ken was 
not so much having an affair but simply a platonic 
friendship that he understandably didn't want his jealous 
wife to know about. But when, one day, Caitlin found 
Ken's mobile phone lying on the floor while he was 
watching a football match on television, the temptation to 
find out more was overwhelming.

The phone was no more secure than the laptop and Caitlin 
had no difficulty in scanning through the list of received 
and sent calls. There were rather a lot associated with the 
single initial 'S'. There were also many associated with 'C', 
which Caitlin assumed was herself, but that was little 
comfort to her. Who was 'S'?

"Ken!" answered an excited female voice at the end of the 
line when Caitlin speed-dialled the number. The 
respondent obviously also kept a name in her list of 
Contacts.

"Sonya," said a rather less excited voice when Caitlin 
redialled the number from her landline, after she had 
abruptly cut off the earlier call. "Hello. Who is it?" the 
voice asked more cautiously as Caitlin paused while she 
wondered what to say.

"It's Ken's wife," said Caitlin baldly.

There was embarrassed silence from the other end of the 
line, followed by a hesitant: "Erm...?"

"I found your number on Ken's phone," continued Caitlin. 

"It was you who just...?"

"Yes."

"Erm..."

"I think we've got something to talk about," said Caitlin.

"Yes," said the thoughtful voice at the other end. "Caitlin, 
isn't it? Yes. I guess we do have something to discuss..."

In the many films and television programmes Caitlin had 
seen, few of them gave her any practical advice on how 
best to react to her current situation. Generally, the bad 
news of discovering one's husband's infidelity was 
associated with a scene cut-off usually accompanied by 
some kind of a tune. This would sometimes be 
melodramatic, sometimes melancholic and never 
celebratory. However, when Caitlin put down the phone 
she didn't burst into tears, as she always imagined she 
would. Nor did she feel especially inclined to smash any 
crockery. Several cups and plates had already been secretly 
destroyed on the basis of rather less conclusive evidence of 
her husband's infidelity. In fact, Caitlin felt something 
rather akin to excitement in her anticipation of at last 
meeting her husband's ex.

Ken didn't suspect a thing. Caitlin imagined he'd make the 
perfect foil in a movie about aliens masquerading as 
normal people. The only thing he did notice was Caitlin's 
renewed enthusiasm for sex. This was not quite what 
Caitlin imagined would be the case. Wasn't she supposed 
to be tearful, resentful and, above all, reluctant to indulge 
in that most intimate of intimacies? Instead, she persuaded 
her husband to fuck her more and for longer and with more 
variety than she normally did. Anal intercourse was usually 
a special treat, reserved for anniversaries, but as Ken's 
penis slid into her from behind Caitlin reflected that fairly 
soon there may no longer be a suitable occasion.

When Caitlin lay on her side with her back to her 
husband's back as Ken breathed gently in his sleep, the 
thoughts that preoccupied her were as perverse as any she'd 
ever had. She had an image in her mind, not so much of 
letting rip with her bitterness and anger at Sonya when the 
two would meet, but of something altogether different. 
After all, Sonya was an extremely attractive woman and it 
was unlikely that Ken would ever truly lose his love for the 
woman he'd lived with for so long. Perhaps the only way to 
resolve the situation would not be by conflict and 
eventually, almost certainly, another divorce - only this 
time rather more acrimonious - but by some kind of 
compromise. And given that Sonya was so beautiful and, 
Caitlin had to admit, exactly the sort of woman she could 
envisage getting to know in a physical way, perhaps there 
was a satisfactory outcome that would be amenable to all 
interested parties. To Sonya. To Caitlin. And, given the 
nature of some of the images stored on his laptop, of some 
satisfaction to Ken - the apex of this triangle. 

When sleep eventually overwhelmed Caitlin in the early 
hours, the erotic image that remained with her was not of 
Ken's penis thrusting into her but one of the more innocent 
photos on the laptop of an office party which showed 
Sonya smiling and laughing in the arms of one of her 
female colleagues.

"It's Sonya, isn't it?" asked Caitlin the following day of the 
slender woman who was nervously looking around at the 
sofas arraigned in the Starbucks where they'd agreed to 
meet. She was wearing a denim jacket and crushed velvet 
trousers, and what Caitlin thought was a terribly 
pretentious peaked cap over her short hair.

The woman nodded her head. "Yes," she said nervously. 
"I'm here. You know. Here to face the music."

The two women sat next to each other on the double sofa 
that was all that remained available in the relatively 
crowded coffee shop that Saturday lunchtime. Ken was 
with his friends, preparing to watch a football match in the 
living room of a friend whose long-suffering wife was 
either more accommodating than Caitlin or had found ways 
of being elsewhere when her home was invaded by a mass 
of testosterone and alcohol.

Both women had rehearsed their lines and contemplated 
their respective strategies. Caitlin recognised from her 
husband the marketing mentality in Sonya's approach, 
which was essentially to emphasise the positive aspects of 
the situation while glossing over the negatives. Not that 
there were many such positives. But what the two women 
had in common was that they had both independently 
reconciled themselves to admitting that mistakes had been 
made and to finding a painless way out of the situation.

"You must understand," said Sonya, who Caitlin found 
steadily more enchanting as she became less tense and 
more relaxed. "Ken and I...We were married for so long... 
It was sort of inevitable... I know it's not good for you, 
but..."

"It's not that I don't understand," said Caitlin who found 
Sonya's habit of fiddling with her dangling ear-rings 
endearing, even while reflecting that the same personality 
tic could just as easily be considered irritating. "But why 
then did you leave Ken for... for this other... Why did you 
leave him for this woman?"

"You mean Liz? Yes, I thought... Well, I'd always been 
attracting to women... I thought she was the one. But it just 
didn't work out in the end."

"And why was that?"

"I guess I wasn't as much a lesbian as I thought I was."

"Oh!" said Caitlin, who was actually quite disappointed by 
this discovery.

The conversation with Sonya went remarkably well. That 
is, considering that the two women were ostensibly on 
opposing sides of what was a situation with no room for 
compromise. Sonya's view, and one which Caitlin couldn't 
really argue with, was that, in practical terms, it was Ken 
who would have to decide. Sonya might agree to no longer 
see Ken, but would Ken necessarily agree not to see 
Sonya? And Caitlin made it fairly clear that she would 
much rather that Ken stayed with her, however much she 
privately believed it unlikely.

"I live just round the corner," said Sonya when the two 
women had stared long enough at their empty mugs of 
mocachino. "We can continue discussing things there."

Caitlin's heart jumped. What was there left to discuss? 
Surely this was just an excuse which would be a prelude to 
realising the sexual triangle whose possibilities she had 
been subconsciously considering as she studied Sonya's 
small tapering fingers, her long arching neck and that little 
mole just under her lip?

However, when Caitlin followed Sonya up three flights of 
stairs to her small one-bedroom apartment just two streets 
behind the main road, she soon knew for sure that sex was 
most certainly not uppermost in Sonya's mind. At least, not 
sex with Caitlin. It was more an opportunity to break open 
a bottle of Argentinean red wine, sit on her battered old 
sofa and, against the backdrop of a wall lined with 
paperbacks and CDs lit up by countless low wattage lamps. 
And for Sonya to reminisce about her life with Ken, 
agonise about her foolishness in divorcing him, and 
apologise, profusely, for having resuscitated their 
relationship.

While Caitlin sat opposite Sonya, sipping her wine and 
regarding the CD collection that in so many ways was 
much more to her husband's taste and not at all her own, 
she contemplated the facts of her situation. It was no longer 
theoretical. It was real. Sonya wasn't going to leave Ken. 
And Ken wasn't going to leave Sonya. It was Caitlin who 
was the anomaly in the triangle, not Sonya. All that was 
required was for her to step aside so that Sonya and Ken 
could resume their relationship from where they left off. 
Then they could cuddle up on the sofa listening to those 
awful Oasis albums, watch those horrible Robin Williams 
movies and, no doubt, also watch those violent American 
television programmes that Ken loved and Caitlin found so 
disagreeable. And that huge white cat cuddled up against 
the radiator could now shed its fur on Ken's suits with 
impunity.

It was halfway through the second bottle of wine that the 
time came for Caitlin to leave. Sonya was now rather 
maudlin as she reflected on the love for Ken she claimed to 
have now accepted would never be the same again. In any 
case, Caitlin knew she really must get home, although she 
was far too inebriated to confront her husband about his 
infidelity this evening. A conversation with Ken after he 
had spent an afternoon of drinking cans of beer with his 
friends was unlikely to be very productive. 

That confrontation would have to wait until tomorrow.

"So it's up to Ken," slurred Sonya as she accompanied her 
guest to the door.

Caitlin hesitated. All through the previous hour she had got 
steadily quieter and more reserved. What was there for her 
to say? She had maintained the pretence, partly for own 
sake as well as for Sonya's, that this was an incident that 
could be patched over. And, inappropriate as it must have 
been, Caitlin's thoughts vacillated from imagining her 
husband having sex with his ex to imagining what it would 
be like for Sonya and her to be making love. Never, 
curiously enough, of the three of them in bed together. She 
gazed into Sonya's eyes as she stood by the door, and past 
her at the room where they had been sitting for so long and 
where she had mostly spent her time looking for evidence 
of Ken, not only as the philandering husband but also as 
the man whose earlier soulmate was the beautiful woman 
in front of her.

She knew Sonya was saying something. It seemed to be yet 
more of the stream of apologies by which she had been 
purging herself of guilt. But what Caitlin wanted to do was 
take advantage of the small and vanishing window of 
opportunity that would surely be closed altogether once she 
and Ken separated and had initiated the legal proceedings 
that she now knew was inevitable, and which she was 
already relishing as her revenge on the man for stealing 
three years of her life.

Caitlin squeezed Sonya's hand in hers. The woman seemed 
confused, but continued to speak about how much she 
hoped this conversation would help patch their 
misunderstanding - as she now termed it. Sonya was even 
more confused when Caitlin grabbed the slighter woman 
around the waist, her fuller bosom against Sonya's much 
smaller one. And she was distinctly alarmed when Caitlin's 
lips pressed against hers and her guest forced her tongue 
onto the teeth whose whiteness and perfect symmetry had 
so mesmerised her.

There was a moment, not too long but certainly not to be 
forgotten, when Sonya abandoned herself to the affects of 
the wine and her own confusion. This was brief but long 
enough for two mouths to tangle savagely, teeth clashing 
on teeth, tongue on tongue, and mascara and eyeliner to 
smudge. This was the small opportunity that became the 
only moment of pleasure, however sourly it might be later 
recalled, in the many months of separation, suspicion, 
pleading and resentment that would soon accompany the 
breakdown of Caitlin's marriage to Ken.

The two women disengaged the one from the other, 
panting and red with both unresolved passion and 
embarrassment.

"I don't know what happened to me..." said Sonya, who had 
already forgotten that it wasn't she who had initiated this 
moment of passion. "It must be my anxieties... It's just..."

Caitlin pressed her hand on Sonya's shoulder.

"It's all right," she said. "I understand."

And with that Caitlin left, turning her head back just the 
once to see her husband's ex for one last time. Ever. 

As she now knew so well, Sonya may once have been her 
husband's past, but she was now destined to also be her 
husband's future.




