“The order form says six cameras,” said Arthur Fletcher, the security guard for Webb and Simpson.

“Well! We’ve got one spare then, haven’t we?” replied the installation engineer. “You needed six but they sent seven, and I’m not taking it back. How it gets re-input into stock is a nightmare, so where would you like it?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “We’ve got both gates, goods inward and goods outward, reception and stores covered. What else can we do with it?”

“Can you put it in my office please?” shouted John Freeman the company accountant and secretary.

“Anywhere you like mate – just as long as I don’t have to take it back.”

“What do you want it for?” asked Arthur.

“To make up for the lamentable failings of ‘Security’” joked John. “I want to catch the bugger who’s nicking the biscuits from my drawer,” he laughed.

“Right mate, show me where and tell me what you want it linking up to. I’ll set it to be triggered by movement.”

The next morning John Freeman checked his drawer and found all his biscuits accounted for and no cam recording registered. It made him suspect Arthur from ‘Security’ of being the culprit. As there had been no biscuit theft, and Arthur had been in the know about the spare camera…? Well, he would pull his leg about it sometime.

The following day, however, biscuits had been scoffed. Not only were biscuits missing, but there was a cam recording registered on his computer.

“Now I’ll have the blighter” thought John. “I’ll watch it over lunch.”

An hour later he left the office complaining of an upset stomach – he wasn’t sure he would be back the next day, but assured the site manager that his assistant could handle anything that came up.

“What are you doing home?” asked Ellen cheerfully when he walked in their door.

“Skiving. Told them I was feeling sick so I’ve come home. Here give me a hug doll?”

“Here get off! – I’ve got things to do.”

“No, seriously love – come here.”

John took hold of his wife by her waist and drew her to him. He went to kiss her and she gave him a quick peck but pushed him away when he tried to feel her breasts.

“What’s got into you?” she demanded crossly.

“I want to take my darling wife upstairs to bed and make love to her, and I want to do it NOW! You haven’t seemed to want me for a bit, but I want you now; please Ellen, please!”

“What the hell has suddenly got into you John Freeman?”

“I’m asking you as nicely as I can Ellen. Please, please can we go upstairs and make love now? There was a time when you would have jumped at the chance of a quickie. Now I want to make love to my wife; slowly and with the passion we are not up to when you get home in the middle of the night. I want to show her I love her, and I want her to show me that she loves me. Please El – what is it you’re doing that can’t wait?”

“I do love you John, you know that. I’m just not feeling like sex at the moment.”

“My darling Ellen, I really want to have some sex with you now. That’s why I’ve skived off work."

“Well! You’re going to have to wait John Freeman– maybe when I get off shift tonight, or perhaps the weekend. Now! What the hell has brought all this on?”

“OK darling wife of twenty years – I’m sorry you don’t want to come upstairs to our bed and make love. You are not on shift for four hours so it isn’t a case of there not being time is it?”

“I’m getting annoyed John.”

“I was just trying to find out who was nicking my biscuits. I now know it’s the evening supervisor Derek Goddard. He scoffs them to get his strength back after fucking you in my office. I have the whole thing on this memory stick Ellen. You were wearing a red bra and knickers last night – his underpants were navy blue. The clock on the wall shows it was 9.05 when he pulled his cock out and sprayed your face with his spunk. You never let me do anything like that do you El?”

“Would you like to sit and watch it with me now on the laptop? Oh! I’m sorry – if you haven’t time to go upstairs and make love to me, how can I expect that you’ve got time to watch a recording of you making love to someone else? Silly of me.”

Ellen Freeman was ashen faced and collapsed into a chair.

Her husband kept up the pressure.

“We ordered six cameras to monitor both gates, goods inward and goods outward, reception and stores. They sent seven, and I told the engineer to set it up in my office. I expected to catch Arthur nicking my snacks, not my wife having sex with her line manager. It’s no wonder you don’t fancy a quickie with me is it Ellen?

“Oh my God John – I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what Ellen? Sorry for the fact that Derek Goddard will lose his job; caught on film pilfering from a colleague’s desk, not to say fucking said colleague’s wife on said desk. Sorry that Mary Goddard might not say hello to you in the supermarket? She’s getting a copy of this. Sorry that your Mum and Sister might be upset – they get copies too?”

“Or, are you sorry Ellen, that when I asked you for an act of love; you said no? Because a ‘yes’ might have put us in a very different place just now; but it’s been a straight ‘no’ since I got home hasn’t it? In fact it’s been a straight no for a while hasn’t it? Your flaming shift pattern has made a mockery of our love life but you’ve made sure you haven’t gone without haven’t you?”

“John, love, please what can I do?”

“I don’t know Ellen. Obviously you don’t want to take me upstairs and make love to me, so I suppose you’ll carry on doing what was so dammed important ten minutes ago; whatever the hell that was?”

“Please John!”

“Ellen,” he said softly, “do you want to be my wife, or do you want a divorce?”

“I love you John! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I promise I’ll make it right for us; what can I do?”

“Let me ask you first – what had you got planned for my dinner tonight?”

“I got you a bit of mince,” she replied, horribly aware how uninteresting it suddenly seemed.

“Nicely made up into a cottage pie with some fresh vegetables for me to steam? Or perhaps just a potato to do in the micro wave?”

“Ellen my darling I have a suggestion as to how we might move forward from here. Do you think I might explain it while hugging you?”

Ellen moved towards him quickly.

“First, as of this instant you stop work at Webb and Simpson – you don’t go there today. We don’t need you to work for the money, but if you do want a job then find one that doesn’t have crazy shift patterns that mean we can’t have a life together.”

“Second, I have said that I may not be in tomorrow and after that it’s the weekend. You have tonight to persuade me not to go into work tomorrow, and the weekend to make me feel loved and wanted. I hope this will mean we make love, but you might also want to re-visit the plans for tonight’s dinner.”

“Third, when I do go back into work I will have a quiet word with Derek Goddard and he will decide it’s time to look for a job elsewhere. It goes without saying that you don’t see him again.”

“Do you want to try this Ellen?”

“Oh yes John, I do please. Look, would you mind if I just dashed to the shops.”

In fact it was nearly an hour before she returned, but she had phoned him twice to re-assure him. When she came back she had a couple of M&S bags.

“I’m sorry it’s not very imaginative my darling – Moussaka – 40 minutes in the oven but a lot better than the mince I had. I spent more time in the lingerie section than the food hall. Tomorrow I have all day to be creative. Now, have another glass of wine while I dash upstairs; I’ll be down in a jiff.”

When she did come back down she was wearing a stunning scarlett and black lingerie set and she plonked herself on his knee.

“Now John we are going to go upstairs and play. I didn’t mean for Derek to spray my face the way he did – I just didn’t want him coming inside me. Now we shall spend a little bit of time deciding just how and where you want your first lot to shoot on me, or in me; nothing is out of bounds. Then we will come down and I will serve the Moussaka and more wine, then afterwards we will go back upstairs again.”

Just as John was enjoying the finest blow job of his life, and Ellen was playing with his spunk in her mouth, there was consternation elsewhere. Derek Goddard was looking at the monitors of the new security cameras as he stood alongside Arthur from Security. Arthur casually mentioned that seven cameras had been delivered instead of six, and that Mr Freeman had asked for the spare to be installed in his office.

“He wants to try and catch the bugger who keeps nicking his biscuits,” he laughed. Derek Goddard was suddenly a very worried man. He had heard that Mr Freeman had gone home early; and Ellen had not reported for her shift.