John’s heart skipped when he noticed his phone in Sandra’s hand.
She was looking through it.
John suddenly felt exposed, like a man caught in the act.
He stopped in the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
The question escaped him before he could stop it.
Sandra looked up.
“Looking for Sara’s number,” she said. “I don’t seem to have it.”
John hesitated, unsure if that was all.
“Yeah… not sure I have it,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
Sandra kept scrolling for a moment, then looked up again.
“You have quite a few Saras.”
She paused, still holding the phone.
“By the way… who’s Tony? He seems to wish you almost every day.”
“Ah… Tony. He’s from work,” John said.
The explanation sounded weak, even to him.
Sandra placed the phone back on the table.
“I just heard Sara has been diagnosed with cancer,” she said, looking up at him. “She’s not on Facebook, so I thought you might have her number. Maybe you could ask Mark.”
John swallowed, trying to sound as earnest as possible.
“Oh… that’s bad,” he said. “Yeah, maybe Mark still has her number.”
The evening passed like any other evening.
Dinner. Small talk. Sandra updating him about the neighbors.
John nodded when he had to, his mind wandering, trying to follow her words but losing them halfway through each sentence.
Eventually the routine arrived where it always did — good night, lights out, sleep.
But once in bed, John’s mind refused to settle. His heart beat heavier than it should have.
One word kept returning.
Tony.
If only he could have told her who Tony really was.
The next morning unfolded like any other.
John left for work. Sandra did too.
He dropped the kids at school, then stopped at the coffee shop he visited most mornings.
He ordered his usual and turned toward the pickup counter.
Tony was there.
She smiled when she saw him.
John noticed the earrings immediately — the small silver pair he had brought back from New York. She was wearing them today.
Their eyes met.
Neither of them said much, but the glance lasted just long enough.
In that quiet moment something passed between them — reassurance, recognition, the silent confirmation of a bond that did not need words.
John drove to work and settled into his routine, but his thoughts were still at the coffee shop.
Once at his desk, he picked up his phone and texted Tony — Lisa.
The reply came quickly.
A playful message. Then another.
Within minutes their familiar rhythm returned — light, teasing, quietly intimate.
The flirtation warmed him in a way the morning coffee had not.
By the time the workday properly began, John felt a surge of energy he hadn’t felt the night before.
John turned his attention to work.
A new case had come in that morning, one he would be handling himself.
As an accomplished divorce lawyer, he had read hundreds of files like this, yet he still approached each one with the same careful attention.
He opened the folder and began reading.
The husband wanted a divorce.
He believed his wife was having an affair.
The wife denied it. She insisted there was no affair — only distance.
According to her, her husband had grown cold toward her.
John took notes as he read through the file, occasionally marking the margins and jotting down questions.
He asked his paralegals to pull a few related case files.
By the time he finished reviewing everything, it was already lunchtime.
John stepped into the break room.
The usual group was there — colleagues gathered around the table, half eating, half arguing.
John joined them quietly.
Today’s topic was Ashley Madison — the website infamous for promoting affairs.
Someone had mentioned it in passing, and the discussion had quickly turned animated.
Some called it blasphemy.
Others dismissed it as hypocrisy — people pretending to be moral while doing the same things in private.
A few simply laughed it off.
John listened for a while before anyone noticed Jonathan speaking.
“Why is an affair bad?” Jonathan said.
Everyone in the group paused and looked at him.
He shrugged lightly, as if the question had just occurred to him.
“Is an affair really more harmful than drinking? Smoking? Gambling?” he continued.
“Well… no, not really,” John said after a moment.
“But an affair leaves ‘unknown victims.’”
“Scars you can’t see.”
“Trust… slowly eroded.”
He paused, then added quietly.
“So an affair is a vice,” Jonathan said.
“If not exactly a crime.”
“But it doesn’t harm anyone’s health.”
“Or their finances.”
The conversation faded as everyone drifted back to their desks.
John did the same.
The rest of the afternoon passed quietly.
By evening he was driving home, the road stretching ahead in familiar silence.
But his mind kept circling the same phrase.
“Unknown victims.”
As the evening passed, John found himself returning again and again to the same thought.
Who was the victim in his affair?
Sandra?
Lisa?
The children?
Would Sandra break when she learned the truth?
Or would Lisa be the one shattered when she discovered Sandra?
And the children — what would they think?
Would they hate him?
Friends, colleagues, neighbors — how would they see him?
His phone vibrated softly.
Tony.
A simple message wishing him good night.
She wrote how much she had missed him that day.
John’s mind raced until, slowly, a realization began to settle.
It wasn’t love.
Not passion.
Not even loneliness.
Something else was driving him.
The excitement of feeling young again.
The reckless thrill of acting like the man he had once been.
It was like a drug.
A sensation more intoxicating than anything else he knew.
An affair does have a victim.
It fuels a person like a drug — intoxicating while it lasts.
But when it ends, like any other addiction, it leaves the person broken.
John sighed softly.
He turned onto his side.
And finally drifted into sleep.
