I've never cheated on my wife.

I've never found evidence or been given a reason to think she has cheated on me.

I’ve been suspicious, more than she knows, and in those few times she noticed my behavior, she either laughed it off or somberly reassured me, “I’ve never cheated.”

But I can’t stop suspecting it.

List of Things I’ve Done to Prove or Disprove That My Wife Has Cheated On Me:

I guessed her phone passcode. When she’s asleep, busy with the kids, or in the bath, I sometimes grab her phone and have a thorough scroll through it. I can access her email, texts, social media, notes, calendar, and photos.

I’ve found nothing in there.

I’ve reviewed a list of numbers she’s called on the report from the service provider. I found nothing there.

I once yoinked a pair of her panties with a white stain in the crotch, my heart beating out of my chest, ordered a test kit online specifically made to test for semen stains in fabrics, and it came up negative. Twice.

I’ve taken a drive to her work to see that her car was indeed there, a dozen times.

And I’ve done other stuff to put my mind at ease. It has kept me from going bonkers, but it hasn’t given me true peace.

I think, “Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”

I think, “Women are the best at leaving no breadcrumbs.”

And I think, “I would catch her if it were a habit or ongoing, but she might’ve done it only once and left no trace.”

One night my wife and I were up late, and she had a drama on. This episode was about a woman who cheated on her husband, and the twist, it turns out, is that the husband had actually been dead for a couple of years and she was just strongly imagining he was still alive and feeling guilty for moving on with this new guy. But before the twist reveal, we were both under the natural impression this wife character was cheating on her still-living husband. There’s a line when the wife character, alone, speaks to her wedding photograph, the two of them young at the altar: “I never believed I could love another man after you, but here I am.”

I looked at my wife and didn’t say anything, but our eyes met.

After about a minute, she sighed. “You're impossible.”

I touched her knee. “What?”

She rested her hand over mine. “What're you thinking? Should I turn to another show?”

“No, no. It’s just a TV show,” I said, stacking my spare hand atop hers.

“I’m not her,” she seemed to read my mind.

“Yeah.” I thought it better to leave it alone, or I was going to say some dumb shit and ruin the evening.

Then, like a fireball from the sky, she said this: “OK. Take this how you will, but... I can cheat on you.”

“What?” I cocked my head as if I were a pup hearing some whistle.

She dug in, deep. “I can cheat on you. I might or I might not. And if I do, I won’t say anything or give you any way of knowing.”

“Hey. What are you saying?” I sat up. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to raise my voice and get furious or if this was her testing me.

“The truth. It’s possible. I might do it, and if… if I do, I think you won’t ever find out.” She shrugged and kept giving me side-eyes, still facing the TV.

I asked in a stern tone, interrogating this bold line she was taking. “Why would you cheat at all?”

She turned the TV down, folded her legs up, and turned to face me on the sofa. “If I were to cheat, I think it’d be because a handsome man became very interested in me and I wouldn’t bring myself to put up hard boundaries. Bit by bit I’d let him get closer and closer until one day we did it. He might be a coworker or a classmate. And then I’d just never say anything so it doesn’t ruin our marriage.”

“You just wouldn’t tell me?” I was stunned she was saying this.

“I wish that I would, but knowing myself, I would hate to lose you. I’d probably deny it even if you had very good proof. I’d make up some explanation or… just lie, lie, lie. You couldn’t slap it out of me.” She said it too defiantly.

“Why?” My mouth fell open.

“Because, as I said, I can’t live without you. I’m human, and I make mistakes. I value our marriage too much to throw it away over some principle or because I slipped up and had stupid sex that doesn’t mean anything in the big picture. I can’t say goodbye to you, not just to clear my conscience. I’d rather carry the guilt and keep you. I’d try to make it up to you by loving you better and being a better wife, and telling you would just hurt you… so… yeah. There’s no way I’d let you find out I cheated, if I could help it.” The room seemed like it was rocking side to side. I steadied myself by gripping the armrest.

"That's not fair. How do you know I would leave you? And wouldn't it be my right to decide that, then?" I always thought I'd freak out and smash furniture or something if she said anything approaching this to me, and yet I was paralyzed, meekly making a case for myself in the hypothetical she "slipped up" onto another man's cock.

"Would you leave me if I told you I cheated on you once?" Her voice was innocent, worried even.

I paused a minute. I wanted to tell her that, of course, I would LEAVE. What kind of man would stay for that? Instead I said, "I don't know if I could stay, but..."

"Then I couldn't tell you. No way." She shrugged.

I ruffled my hair and rubbed my eyes in disbelief. "Let's be clear. Wait a minute. You're not saying you've cheated, in a roundabout kind of way?"

"No. I haven't." That was the reassurance I needed not to faint.

"You're saying you c-could." And I stuttered, pathetically.

"Not in an I'm-about-to or an I-think-I-will way, just an I'm-theoretically-not-immune kind of way? You know what I mean?" She sounded so calm and reasonable.

I had an involuntary reaction to her saying this. I didn't flip out; I didn't file it away calmly either. Instead, my dick inflated hard as a truck tire. And I sat with it as we continued this surreal chat.

"Would... what would..." I tried to find the words, but her admission was shutting down the thinking part of my brain, and all I could picture was her reluctantly surrendering to another man.

"What, honey?" She laid her legs across my lap, and her calves sandwiched my erection in my sweats.

"What kind of guy would you ever cheat on me with... if you were to?" I asked.

She turned her gaze away and spoke as if in a daydream, soft and beautiful. She said, "He'd keep asking me about myself; he'd listen and tell me what he thinks. We'd turn out to have a lot of the same interests, and we'd just talk and talk, forgetting what time it is. I could fall for a man who connects with me effortlessly." She began working her foot around my enlarged bulge, pressing it with her big toe. "What's this?" she asked. "Are you aroused right now?"

I ignored her question and asked my own, "You'd cheat to punish me?"

She shook her head. "I'm not like that. It wouldn't be about you. It would be about me. Even if we were happy and all-good together, I could cheat just the same as if we were having a super bad stretch." She poked her toe under my waistband and peeled my pants down enough to expose my standing dick. She clasped my rod between her toes with their pink-white painted nails.

"Have you met a guy like that?" I closed my eyes and rested my head back.

"Don't be mad. He's gone, but there was a temp hire to cover Connie when she was on maternity." She stroked my cock between the arches of her soles.

"Who?" I didn't dare look in her eyes.

"I'm not telling you his name; it doesn't matter. He's gone, and nothing happened." She sounded consoling. She curled her legs behind her and pivoted so that she was leaning on me, one hand on my shoulder and the other taking hold of my dick to begin a slow jerk.

"Nothing happened?" I believed her, but later-me might doubt.

"No. But if he had pursued a little more..." She did a yes-no shake-nod with her head, her hair swishing this way and that in my face, and she smelled too good.

"What?" My core tightened in anticipation of what she'd tell me next.

"... then I could've crossed the line." Her voice pitch lilted as if that was obvious.

"You're serious?" I was a man in her palm, figuratively and literally.

She eyed my dick, like an old friend maybe. "Yes. Or... I was serious. I dressed better, showed skin, paid extra-attention to my hair and makeup, and acted sweet to him. I giggled like an idiot at anything he said. We went to lunch together and texted on the pretense of work collaboration; I was just helping him adjust to a new position on short notice, but I half-wished he would make a move."

"A move?" I let her walk me down this dark, burning scenario of what might've been with this other man.

"I daydreamed he would take me to the inn across Aimard Avenue and give it to me. And then we could pretend nothing happened, his contract would expire and we'd never see each other again." She let out a long sigh and leaned in closer, opening her mouth only enough to envelop my glans between her lips.

That sensation of her teeth and the tip of her tongue pressed to my cock-head was totally disarming. "Did that happen?"

She turned her head to look up at me, side-eyed, my cock brushing her cheek. "No, it didn't happen. While part of me wished he'd disappear so I wouldn't have to teeter another day, I kinda wish it did happen. I sometimes regret we didn't just do it, he and I. Yet, I'm relieved we didn't. I have been loyal to you. Maybe not in my imagination always, but in my actions."

"You dressed for and flirted with him, you went out with him..." I planted my hand on the back of her head, seizing a fistful of her hair.

"It didn't add up to anything." She defended herself so matter-of-factly; I believed.

I gave her head a light jolt, a pull of her hair. "You have to promise me that you'll never cheat."

"I can say the words, but that could prove to be a lie. I can promise I'll try hard, that I'll remember you when I'm tempted and resist, but I can't promise it'll never-never happen." She opened wide and stuffed my dick into her mouth, running it along the ridges of the roof, and mashing into her tonsils.

"You have to. Just promise it." I begged, beginning to pant.

She reared back, looking me in the eye. "I won't. You'll have to deal with it, that I might, and that I'll not let you know, that I'll keep it my secret."

And then she shut up, and sucked. She sucked so well, with energy, with power. She was like a hungry calf wanting milk. She was like a porn actress putting in a good performance. I lasted maybe 3 minutes before my toes curled; I slap-slap-slapped her ass cheek, and done! It came spurting out over my lap as she let my dick erupt, and she kissed me, our tongues entwined.

"How do you feel?" she asked, her lips still on mine.

I thought about it, and told her, "I think I feel better, somehow."

"Because you found a little acceptance with the unpredictable?" she asked, wiping the semen off my thighs and balls with a tissue she yanked from the coffee table.

"I don't know." I cupped her about her ears gently and pulled her in for another kiss.

"Because you want me more when I have the potential to betray you with another man?" She stood and lowered her panties, revealing herself, and I inferred what she wanted.

"I don't know. Why did you do this? Why did you tell me this today?" I got onto my knees and parted her thighs a bit, as she stood. I eyed her pussy cleft and pubic hair with... trust? I can't put words to it.

"Honey, it's a long story. But I feel sorry for you." Chin in her chest, she looked down on me, again... literally and figuratively.

"Sorry for me? Why?" I asked as I lapped at her pussy lips.

In a loving and cool tone, she said, "You obsess over it. Spying on my phone, hovering, following me to work, stealing my panties looking for stains. You sank low, and I've been embarrassed for you."

My face went white; she knew! "Babe! I'm sorry. You have to understand."

"No need. Will you stop trying to find evidence I did something? For your own sake, please." She placed a fingertip on the top of my head and softly pressed me back into her crotch to feed.

"I'll try not to," I murmured, my mouth pressing, nudging, licking its way into her.

"Good. And I'll try not to, also." And I listened to her breath deepen as she flooded my mouth with her thick flavor.