Delivery

All characters are over eighteen years old.

DELIVERY

The rain outside had been falling all that day. It was a misty, free-falling type that seemed more annoying than useful. The sun only broke through the clouds for seconds at a time. Catherine’s plans for home and yard cleaning while her husband was at work were put on hold. The persistent and light drizzle was to blame for the lack of progress in the gardens. Instead of making no progress whatsoever, she decided the house needed a deeper cleaning than her usual vacuuming and tidying up.

She stood in the doorway to her bedroom to establish a plan of attack for cleaning the mess her husband often left. She had changed into a sleeveless white t-shirt with the same-colored sports bra. She enjoyed letting her breasts hang free most of the time, but they were large and would swing like heavy pendulums as she was on her knees cleaning. She was a small woman so the 34D’s that hung on her chest were big for her frame.

Her hair was naturally blonde, but artificially darkened by her own preference. She kept it tied up most days unless she was out on a date with her husband. He liked to show her off and felt her long hair was particularly attractive. She had on loose-fitting sweat shorts and remained barefoot that day as she cleaned. When she needed to dump trash or otherwise go outside, she kept a pair of crocs at the door for easy on and off action.

Once her plan was formulated, she put it into motion. She checked every pocket of every garment to ensure they were free of pens, business cards or loose items that might damage the machine or clothes in the wash. She had left behind a single piece in her room thinking it might be too much for the machine. Once she loaded everything else, she determined it would be fine and went to get it.

When she arrived back in the room to snatch it up, she instinctively checked the pockets. From one of them, she pulled out a crumpled pair of panties. She looked at them, then the garment she pulled them from. She didn’t recognize the panties at all and laughed out loud at the situation.

“Well, they’re not mine,” she said before the gravity of the situation hit her.

She let out a frustrated sigh.

“Fucking seriously?” she said with a hint of laughter.

She stared at them long and hard. She studied them to ensure they weren’t hers from any time in her past. She aggressively searched them for any reason she could find to believe they were a pair she had once wore. She even tried to settle on him having stolen a new pair she bought, but the worn fabric on them quickly stole that idea.

She slowly walked downstairs and sat at the large oak table. She laid the panties on the table in front of her and chuckled to herself again. She fiddled with them, turning them around, upside down and inside out. Each time she rearranged them, she hoped memory would explain their presence in her husband’s clothes.

“This can’t be real,” she told herself.

She spent a significant amount of time convincing herself that perhaps they were hers and she had forgotten. Questions were presented and all possible answers rejected. They were not hers. They were in his suit pocket. He was cheating on her.

She had traversed a range of emotions that day. When her husband arrived home, a final emotion took hold. The tips of her fingers were tapping the surface of the table in repetitive order as she waited for his arrival in the kitchen. When he finally decided to grace her with his presence, the panties on the table failed to garner his attention as he walked past his wife to the fridge.

“So, you’re just going to walk right on by this,” she said with a finger angrily pointing at the undergarment, “without acknowledging me or perhaps the panties I found in one of your suit pockets?”

The door of the fridge closed. She watched him move back to the table and look down onto the panties as he drank from the carton of milk.

“You didn’t find those in my suit!” he said without so much a convincing tone.

“I did, actually and you know what? It’s not that you’re out fucking some random bitch behind my back,” she said before violently shoving the chair behind her as she stood up. “It’s that you fucking left these,” she added, picking the panties up from the table and shoving them in his face, “in your fucking suite pocket like we live in some cliché of a movie. Like, what the actual fuck, Bill?”

His eyes shifted between the underwear and her eyes. Back and forth he looked while searching for something to say.

“Don’t bother thinking up any lies or excuses. I hope that pussy was worth it, Bill. I hope it was worth it.”

She threw the panties at his face and began to storm out when she stopped and turned.

“Was it worth it, Bill?” she asked.

Her tone was calm and collected. She needed answers.

“Was the bitch’s cunt that tempting that you were willing to throw all this away?”

Deep down, Bill was impressed with her word choice. He’d expected a more medical or scientific description of the mysterious woman’s lady parts. She waited for him to answer. They stared at each other. She waited for him to offer some kind of excuse as to why he went outside their marriage for some random pussy to fuck. She intended to hold her ground until he answered but a thought came to her.

“You’re still fucking her, aren’t you?” she asked.

She walked toward him and narrowed her eyes.

“Is that what it is? Who is it, Bill? Is it Betsy?” she asked.

Betsy was his partner at the firm. They shared a young secretary named Holly Patterson. Catherine named his partner first in hopes that at least he wasn’t going full cliché and was fucking the nubile and clueless young secretary.

She continued barraging him with questions without receiving a single answer. She wanted to know what was happening. She needed answers if there was any hope of her being to regain control of her life that was then spinning out of control. She stared; hopeful he was mere seconds away from telling her everything she needed to know until something happened that hadn’t even crossed her mind.

He picked up the milk carton and took a drink.

In her head, she asked him if he seriously didn’t give two fucks about the situation. In the reality of the kitchen, she slapped the carton away from his mouth. The carton hit the window above the sink before resting behind the faucet. Milk splattered everywhere. Bill made no effort to move, dodge her hand or even react to her violent response to the situation.

“I’m going to my mother’s. If you want to salvage the life we built then you’ll first come clean about whose panties those are, how you got them and why you kept them. Then, you’re going to bring that bitch to me so she can apologize to my face for wrecking our home. If I find reason after that to forgive you, then maybe I’ll come back.”

She waited in vain for an answer. When she had waited enough, she turned and walked out without another word said. She knew her husband was not a man of many words, but his refusal to at least continue denying what she seemed obvious to her confirmed for her that he had a side chick.

She retrieved a bag from the closet in her room and threw it on the bed. She stepped out of the casual outfit she had on. She changed into lightweight pants knowing her distaste for wet jeans and a different, sleeved T-shirt. She put her phone in her pocket and stormed back to the kitchen on the way to her car.

“If I find out you fucked that heifer in our house, you’re going to find yourself living with that skank!” she said as she angrily grabbed the keys from the hook in the mud room and stormed off toward her car.

Her anger clouded her mind and made her take leave of common courtesy. She never warned her mother of her pending arrival that night and her intense focus on her thoughts diverted her attention from the road. She suddenly arrived at her mother’s house without a single memory of anything that took place during her journey. She shook it off and angrily exited her vehicle. She looked around and noted a car parked at the curb she didn’t recognize. She took it for a neighbor’s car and walked to the door. She used the key her mother gave her years before to open the door and let herself in.

“Mom!” she announced as she walked in. Anger still consumed her as she yanked her bag through the door like a misbehaved child after having been punished.

She heard the muffled sounds of hushed words and frantic movements. She furled her eyebrows in confusion and slowly made her way to the back of the house. Her mother appeared suddenly from around the corner.

“Catherine! What are you doing here?” she asked.

Catherine was still adjusting her clothes and straightening her hair when she continued her line of questions.

“Why didn’t you call or text me? I have a guy friend here and was,” she started as she paused to look back at her bedroom before looking back at her daughter, “kind of in the middle of something,” she finished with a wink.

“Of course, you’re doing that. I came here after catching my husband cheating on me to find you fucking some rando out of nowhere,” she said feeling defeated.

Her mother casually waved her hand is dismissal of her daughter’s accusation.

“He’s not a rando, Catherine! He’s the pizza guy I’ve been banging for a while now.”

Catherine’s mouth remained agape in disbelief.

“The pizza guy,” she said slowly. “The pizza guy you’ve been banging! Mom! That’s the kind of thing that made dad leave you!”

Catherine was getting angrier with each passing moment. Her mother was never shy about telling her daughter why her father left.

***

Denise was married to a devout Christian at a young age. There was a lot in common between them except for a major issue his parents took issue with. She was not religious and didn’t attend church. At the time of their marriage, she figured it would be a great way to bring children into the world. They would see both sides of the playing field and make their own choices without having one school of thought shoved down their throats.