Free My Wife's Li'l Secret by Eve Rabi

her own brother? That’s incest, pure and adulterated, and if I stayed with her, I would be just as perverted.
    As Bear watched, I got out two glasses and poured us a triple Chivas each.
    After downing mine, I resumed my pacing, muttering “Fuck!” every now and then.
    I poured another triple and knocked it back.
    Bear hit pause and turned slowly to look at me, his face ashen, his mouth silently opening and closing like a barracuda. He too loved Liefie, treated her like a sister, and was probably as shocked as I was.
    “Sick, right? Huh?”
    Slowly, he nodded, his eyes staring vacantly ahead.
    Another short silence followed before he said, “You’ve seen his ID?”
    “His ID? Why? Whatchu saying?”
    He knocked back his whisky, which he hadn’t touched till then, and looked at me. “How do you know he’s Liefie’s brother, Big?”
    I stared at Bear like a cretin. Why didn’t I think of that?
    “Yeah, actually, I did see his ID,” I finally said, shaking my index finger at him. “His passport was lying around and I looked at it and laughed at his ugly photo. Taken years ago, of course.”
    Bear fell silent, his brows knitted. Now and then he shook his head as if he was having a silent conversation with himself.
    “I’ve met her mother and father, Bear. They’re all legit. It’s just incest, man. Incest!”
    Bear nodded slowly, his eyebrows becoming one.
    “I can’t do this anymore, Bear,” I said, both hands on my head. “I can’t be with her. It’s over, man. It’s way over. Fuuuuck!”
    His head bobbed as I ranted.
    I stabbed my finger at the laptop. “That image is not something I can ever get out of my mind. Even if I am drunk, mortally at that, I would still see that clearly.” I downed my whisky, then paced some more.
    “I’m with you here, Big. I get what you’re going through. But you know the advice we give clients…?”
    “Dig deeper ’cause there’s more? I know, I know. Fuck, Bear, I’m shaking, man!” I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands, feeling like I was in a dream. A bad one.
    “I mean, my girls…I don’t wanna lose them, but I can’t be with her. It’s not something I can get over, man!”
    “Okay, slow down,” he said as he watched me pour my fourth shot of whisky. Or fifth. I had lost count. “We’ll get Jai involved, dig deeper, obtain more footage, then act. For now…” he put his thumb and index finger to his lips and made a zipping motion. “Huh?”
    How easy it was for him to say that. This was my wife. I loved her. She was my Liefie, beautiful and sweet and …my wife , the only woman I had truly loved.
    Just because she no longer loved me didn’t mean I could turn off my feelings for her just like that. Her betrayal – it hurt. Cut bone-deep.
    As the minutes passed, I thought about her behavior ever since Viggo arrived in Sydney. All the times they talked in Russian, making me feel excluded…
    Guess what? I was right to feel excluded – three was a crowd.
    She was having an affair and more!
    It felt like a serrated blade had been plunged into my chest. Wounded – that’s how I felt.
    I was a man, so I didn’t cry. Outwardly, that is. Inside, I was mush.
    To think I bought pizza and planned to eat while I watched. “I don’t think I can ever eat pizza again without remembering this night,” I said.
    Bear walked over and clamped his hand on my shoulder, then shook it in a reassuring gesture.
    I wasn’t reassured. I couldn’t be. How do you reassure a man who watched his wife, the mother of his children, commit an act of incest?
    You can’t.
    By the time Bear left, I was so drunk, I stumbled to bed and fell onto it.
    But in spite of my inebriated state, I smelled Viggo’s scent on my pillow, on my bed, on my sheets, and I smelled sex in my bedroom. It creeped me out so much, I got up and stumbled to the spare room where I passed out.
    As I did, I remembered thinking: I was right to dislike that bastard Viggo. He is the reason I’m