Caught in the Act
Cheating via typewriter
She caught him. She came home from rehearsal almost two hours early. He thought he had a few hours free to write.
“What are you doing?”
“What? Uh… I… uh… I… I’m just writing down some thoughts.”
“I was wondering why you had a typewriter. What the hell is going on? Oh my god! Holy crap, are you a writer?”
He was caught. He had been living with her for five months and had never divulged his secret passion. He never once told her that he was a writer. He remembered the last time he told a woman that…
“Oh my god! You are, aren’t you?!”
He was caught. There was no denying it. He could come up with no excuses. Why didn’t he say that he was writing a letter to his sister or something? Why did he feel so guilty? He was sure that she could feel his guilt. He was exuding guilt like a barrel full of holes exudes water. The moment he knew would eventually come had finally come. He wiped the sweat that was quickly collecting on his forehead.
“I just knew it. I knew there was something about you. Why don’t you just admit it to me instead of living a lie?”
He put out the cigarette that was burning away in the ashtray. He leaned back in his chair again wiping the sweat off his forehead, “Okay. Okay! Yes, I’m a writer. There! Now you know.”
She folded her arms across her chest and nodded her head, “Yup, I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. So… are you going to let me read what you’ve been writing?”
A tsunami of panic coursed through his body. He quickly realized that it was all over. He scrolled out the sheet of paper that was in the typewriter and put it on the bottom of the small stack of papers that comprised the story he was writing. Turning off the electric typewriter, he got up from his chair and walked over to her, handing her the very thin manuscript.
He then returned to his chair where he put his elbows on his knees and his face into his hands. It was all about to end.
Why? Because he had been writing about a different woman.
When she finished the short manuscript she threw it across the room at him, pages flying in all different directions.
That night in bed she slept with her back to him.
A week later she dumped his sorry ass.
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Stories by White Feather
Speaking of a writer’s agony…