I woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. Yesterday clung to me like a fog, the memory of Denise and Tommy playing in a relentless loop in my head. Tommy was watching the game, firing off messages in the group chat like it was any other night, sweating the point spread, laughing at bad calls, and tossing out the same tired jokes. But each message gave me a strange sense of relief. If he was active in the chat, he wasn’t in my bedroom. At least not right then.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand, the distinct vibration I had grown accustomed to, movement from the hidden camera. I reached for it and checked the feed. Denise was already up and dressed, fully put back together. No sign of the wreck Tommy had left behind. She wore a red sleeveless Nike top and a black skirt, her version of Tiger Woods on a Sunday: sharp, clean, composed. Her hair was still slightly disheveled, soon to be tucked under her hat. Glasses on, face unreadable. I got up and started getting ready, going through the motions without thinking.

Sometime in the haze of the night before, I’d made a decision, driven by an obsession I could no longer rationalize. My client wouldn’t know it, but after lunch, I’d claim to be feeling sick. They’d think I was heading back to the hotel to rest, maybe return the next day. But I wouldn’t. I’d be on my way to the airport, heading back to Orlando, gambling that tonight would be just like last night. I needed to catch them in the act, not through a lens, not through a five-second delay, but right in front of me. I needed to see it with my own eyes. To confirm it wasn’t some twisted illusion. The camera hadn’t lied, but it still wasn’t enough. I needed that final, undeniable proof before facing whatever life-altering decision came next.

Before I knew it, my bag was packed, I was checked out of the hotel, and already in an Uber heading to the airport. My client had bought the excuse without hesitation, concerned but unconcerned, the way people are when it’s not their problem. A quick apology, a vague promise to reschedule, and I was gone.

The flight from Atlanta to Orlando was short, but my thoughts never stopped racing. I’d been so consumed with the idea of catching them in the act that I hadn’t stopped to think about what came after. There was no plan. Just this irrational need to see it, to prove the camera hadn’t lied, that I hadn’t made it all up in some paranoid spiral. But where would I even begin? I was flying home not as a husband, but as a spy. Forced into the shadows of my own house, in my own neighborhood. And if this all blew up in my face, I wouldn’t be the victim. I’d be the creep who installed a hidden camera, the guy who flew home early just to catch Denise in the act. Somehow, the shame had started to shift. And it was landing on me.

I landed around 4 PM. As soon as the airport doors slid open, the thick Orlando humidity hit me, heavy and immediate, wrapping around me like a wet blanket. I was still in my work clothes, dress shirt clinging to my back before I even reached the garage. I moved quickly through the lot to the long-term parking structure, where my car sat waiting, right where I had left it. I got in, turned it on, and pulled out without hesitation.

Once I pulled onto I-4, the usual mess of traffic greeted me. It was slow, but steady enough that I knew I’d make it back before Denise’s practice ended. She usually finished by five, and by 5:15, she'd be cruising through the neighborhood in the golf cart, clubs clinking in the back, taking that familiar mile-long ride. It was a routine she followed every day, but it felt different four times a month, the days I was out of town. A schedule carved in stone, reliable to the minute. And on those days, I knew exactly who was on her mind.

As I approached the neighborhood, my phone buzzed with a text from Denise. It was the same message she always sent when I was out of town, perfectly timed, just like yesterday. “Just got home from practice! How was your day?” But now, I knew exactly what it looked like when she sent it, sitting on the edge of our bed, unshowered, still in her golf clothes, her skin damp with sweat from a long afternoon on the course. A text to Tommy had likely already been sent before she even thought to message me.

As the RFID in my windshield activated the gate and I pulled through, it felt surreal typing out a message like I was heading back to the hotel after a long day with the client. “Just finished up, about to eat,” I wrote, even as I was turning onto our street. I had sent that message hundreds of times before, always truthful. Until now. This time, I was less than a minute from home, lying with the same ease I once told the truth.

My chest tightened as I made my way down the block, passing familiar faces just like any other day. Neighbors waved, nodded, caught in their routines, no clue I was supposed to be traveling for work. No clue I might be seconds away from walking into something, if my timing was right. No clue about the years of infidelity that had quietly played out just a few doors down.

I stopped a few houses short of Tommy’s, easing the car to a quiet halt behind a lawn service trailer parked along the curb. It wasn’t much, but it gave me cover. A temporary, hidden spot to watch from. To see if the nightmare I’d been replaying in my head was about to happen again, if it was ever real to begin with, or just some twisted illusion created by a hidden camera and my own unraveling trust.

Through the back window of the lawn service truck, I saw him. Tommy. He stepped out of his garage like he had nowhere in particular to be, moving with the same casual ease as someone going to check the mail. Same basketball shorts. Same white wife beater, snug against his wiry frame. The look was unmistakable, white trash confidence, all swagger and zero shame. To any neighbor watching, he was just the guy next door. No one gave him a second glance. No one had a clue about the python that lived inside those shorts, or what it had done to my wife.

The radio hummed low through the speakers, a gritty track from the Lithium channel on XM, one of those songs from the '90s that used to feel like comfort, now just background noise to something I couldn’t ignore. Tommy reached the sidewalk and turned right, heading straight toward my house. Almost the exact time as the day before. Right when Denise had gone silent. When the texts stopped. When the camera feed lit up and confirmed everything I didn’t want to believe. This wasn’t coincidence. This was routine.

I sat there, motionless. My heart was pounding, hands clenched around the steering wheel, foot hovering just above the pedal. I could’ve pulled out from behind the truck, tires screaming, cut him off right there in the street and demanded answers. Confronted him face to face, no more games, no more pretending. I could’ve texted the group chat, broken the silence, called him outright. Anything to interrupt what was unfolding. But I didn’t. Because deep down, I wasn’t there to stop it. I was there to see it. To confirm that what I kept pretending was a paranoid fantasy captured on a camera was actually real.

A glutton for punishment, I picked up my phone and texted Denise as Tommy disappeared up our driveway. “What are you up to?” The words felt empty, almost theatrical, like I was acting out some sad routine, fully aware of the ending. I already knew what she was up to. Just like yesterday, I knew I wouldn’t get a reply until long after she’d been taken by Tommy, left worn out and sweat-soaked, her body limp and quiet on our bed.

Almost without thinking, I pressed the accelerator. The Tesla eased out from behind the lawn service truck, gliding silently past Tommy’s house, then the three others that separated his from mine. I turned into the driveway slowly, the electric motor quiet enough not to wake a mouse. I didn’t open the garage door like I always did. I didn’t want to announce anything. I just sat there at the top of the drive, staring at the house where Denise and I had built a life, piece by piece, year after year.

Everything in me screamed to turn around. To leave. To let this moment pass and pretend it never happened. Maybe someday I could. Maybe, with enough distance, I’d be able to forget. But not today. Not now. I couldn’t make myself turn away.

I stepped out of the car slowly, easing the door shut behind me with barely a sound. The heat wrapped around me like a second skin, dense and unmoving. I moved along the side of the house, slipping between the hedges, every step measured. Then came the distinct vibration in my pocket, the one I didn’t have to think twice about. An alert from the outlet camera. I didn’t need to check. I already knew what it meant. Tommy and Denise had just entered the bedroom.

At the side of the garage, I stopped at the narrow, rarely used door tucked out of view. My fingers moved automatically to the keypad. I punched in the combination, our anniversary date. The irony didn’t miss me. A soft click followed, the sound small but deafening in the silence. I wrapped my hand around the handle and hesitated before pushing the door open slowly.

I stepped inside the garage, easing the door shut behind me until I heard the soft, final click. The air shifted immediately, thick, hot, and suffocating. It was somehow even more humid in the garage than it had been outside, the heat sealed in and unmoving, trapped under the low ceiling and closed doors. The Florida air clung to me, soaking instantly into my work clothes, my dress shirt sticking to my back as if it had been holding its breath all day just to collapse against me now. My breathing felt louder in the stillness, each inhale sharp and shallow. Everything felt amplified: my heartbeat, the silence, and the weight of exactly where I was.

My eyes were drawn straight to the golf cart. It was parked at an angle, left exactly as she’d pulled in fifteen minutes earlier, with no attempt to tuck it into the tighter space typically required to make room for my car. There was no need; she didn’t expect me home. I was supposed to be a state away. The charger hung untouched on the wall, the cart not even plugged in.

The smell hit me immediately: sharp, pungent, and familiar. That lingering mix of sunblock, sweat, and the faint chemical trace of the course still clung to the unmoving garage air. Her clubs were still strapped to the back of the cart, finally at rest after pounding thousands of balls throughout the day. The towel she always used was crumpled on the seat, tossed there to keep the sun-scorched vinyl from burning the backs of her thighs on the ride home. I’d seen this scene thousands of times before, never thinking twice. But today, it didn’t feel routine. It felt like evidence.

I stood there in the suffocating silence, staring at the solid metal door that led from the garage into the mudroom. My hand hovered just inches from the handle, but I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My entire life flickered through my mind in fractured snapshots: vacations, anniversaries, lazy Sundays on the couch, all layered over the brutal clarity of what I knew was happening upstairs at that exact moment. Denise. Tommy. Right above me in my bedroom.

I struggled to comprehend how fast it had all escalated. Just weeks ago, everything felt normal, or at least stable enough to pretend. Then the truth was ripped out of her, forced out mid-orgasm while she was strapped to a sex contraption hidden behind a bookshelf in our VRBO in Ponte Vedra Beach. She had no idea what she had done, screaming Tommy’s name at the peak of an orgasm only something his size could cause. That device hadn’t just broken her down, it had destroyed her career, ended what was likely her final tournament as a pro, and shattered whatever was left of the life we thought we had.

The phone in my pocket burned against my leg, practically screaming to be pulled out. The app was waiting, ready to serve up its five-second delayed silent feed, a cruel preview of what I’d soon walk into. I tried to resist. I really did. But my hand moved on its own, reaching into my pocket and pulling the screen to life. I tapped the alert.

And there it was. Just like yesterday, except now right above my head.

Tommy stood there completely naked, his clothes abandoned without a second thought, tossed again in a careless heap at the foot of the bed. Denise knelt in front of him, still fully dressed: the red Nike tank hugging her tan, athletic frame, the black golf skirt slightly bunched from how fast she’d dropped to her knees. Her head moved in a steady, relentless rhythm, her mouth wrapped around him with a hunger that felt completely foreign to the woman I thought I married. She milked him with a cadence that would’ve ended most men in thirty seconds. It wasn’t affectionate. It wasn’t even seductive. It was deliberate. Competitive. Like she was in a blowjob contest, and fully intent on taking first place.

Tommy stood over her with that arrogant smirk, the same one he flashed after hitting a football parlay no one expected him to win. His hands rested on his hips, chest slightly lifted, like he was the one doing the giving. There was no surprise on his face, no hunger, just calm, practiced expectation as he looked down at my wife, who moved like she had something to prove, even after doing this for eleven years.

My heart pounded as I closed the app and slid the phone back into my pocket, its presence suddenly meaningless. What I’d just watched was still happening, playing out above me in real time. The phone didn’t stop it. It never could. It only confirmed what some part of me still hoped wasn’t true. I reached for the doorknob, my hand moving against my own will, driven by a mix of twisted curiosity and naive denial. My palm was slick with sweat, forcing me to grip tighter just to turn it. I hesitated, breath caught in my throat, then pushed the door open.

A wave of cool air hit me in the face as I stepped inside, cutting through the stagnant heat I’d just left behind in the garage. I eased the door shut behind me, careful not to make a sound. No alarms. No chimes. Nothing to signal I was home. As I’d mentioned before, our house had never been wired for smart tech: no sensors, no speakers, no cameras. Well, except for one.

I stood in the mudroom, which doubled as our laundry room, barely breathing. The bedroom was directly above me. I heard footsteps: soft, steady, unhurried. I didn’t need to wonder. The sucking had stopped, and Tommy was preparing to do what he was put on this earth for. Denise moved across the bathroom floor toward the linen closet, grabbing a fresh towel to lay across the bed, part of the ritual by now. I didn’t need the feed anymore. I was inside it, living in the quiet, undeniable truth of what was happening above me.

I stood there frozen, my eyes drifting to the corner of the laundry room where the chute from our master bath emptied into an overflowing basket. Clothes had spilled onto the floor, forming a careless pile that would’ve gone unnoticed on any other day. But not today. The room smelled like the golf course: sunblock, sweat, and underneath it, unmistakably, sex. It hung in the air, clinging to everything she hadn’t bothered to hide. Right on top was the beach towel. The same one that had been sprawled across the bed, protecting our comforter from their mess.

Next to it lay the rest of her outfit from yesterday. The pink sleeveless shirt, wrinkled and still saturated from hours on the course. The beige golf skirt, twisted and limp. And her granny panties, full-cut, beige, sitting right on top of the pile like a cherry on top. It looked less like laundry and more like a museum display of everything I had witnessed the night before.

I could imagine her routine, let it build up until Thursday. One load to wash away the entire week. The sweat, the sex, the towels, the panties. All of it tossed in together, spun clean, folded, and put back like nothing had ever happened. By the time I got home, the basket would be empty, the bed would be made, and the house would smell like dryer sheets instead of him.

I moved through the laundry room and into the hallway, catching a straight view into the kitchen. The sight made me pause. Dishes were piled high in the sink: crusted plates, half-filled glasses, utensils floating in cold water. It looked like something out of a college dorm, not the spotless kitchen of the woman who always had everything in order when I was home. Denise, the image of order and control, secretly living like a slob the moment I was gone. Another layer to the life I never knew she was leading.

But the dirty dishes faded fast.

A grunt cut through the ceiling: low, guttural, unmistakably hers. It pushed down through the floorboards and into the hallway like a shockwave. It wasn’t just noise. It was the sound you’d expect a woman to make when something too big to handle first forced its way inside her. The same sound she made strapped into that gynecological chair in Ponte Vedra, when the dildo’s thick, cartoonish helmet breached her for the first time. Only now, it wasn’t a toy.

It had started. And I couldn’t stop it.

The grunt gave way to moans, then climbed into something more; screams. Loud. Full. Unapologetic. The kind of sounds I’d never once heard from her in all our years together. Not during sex. Not during anything. My body moved on its own, pulled forward against my own control, like instinct had taken over where reason should’ve stopped me.

It was surreal, hearing her moans echo through our home. The house I paid for. Slept in. Trusted her in. But now, it felt like I was trespassing, like I didn’t belong here at all. Denise was upstairs, unraveling for someone else. And the sounds, more intense than anything the machine had ever pulled from her, weren’t distant or artificial. They were raw. Human. The kind of sounds that came from being completely taken, not by force, but by choice. It wasn’t a machine this time. It was him.

At the foot of the stairs, I stopped and looked up. The bedroom door was cracked just enough to blur the line between not knowing and knowing too much. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear everything. I placed one foot on the first step. Then the next. Each creak under my weight felt louder than it should have, but it was nothing compared to the sounds pouring down from above. Denise was screaming. And still, I climbed. Step by step, toward the woman I thought I knew, and the man I should’ve never trusted.