"Regret is the bitchy older sibling of reflection."

Those words screeched from Gary's television as he lounged on his couch; cherry-flavored ice cream rested on his lap as he devoured his favorite television program, Cheaters. He sat in darkness to enhance the glare of the show, scooping greedy spoonfuls of cherries and scheming his dark secrets. The scene was so tranquil until it wasn't.

He heard it before his eyes witnessed it, the thunderous footsteps of his wife storming down the stair to disturb him. She wasted no time kicking his door open, posturing a wide grin with a thick stack of papers in her hand. He cocked his head back and held back a groan.

"Babe, guess what? Your brilliant, gorgeous, and creative wife just got published." She said. Her arms flew like an inflatable tube woman at a car dealership as she flicked on the lights.

The light's glare attacked Gary as he clapped and refocused on the television. "Great job Pani! I'm sorry, I was kind of in the middle of some-"

"I want you to read it." Pani thrust the manuscript at him, stalking him down like a predator. Then, she burst into a sprint as her prey began his escape.

"Never been much of a reader, you know that," Gary said. He jumped over the couch's ledge and paced around her, hoping to slip past her into the staircase.

Nothing doing. Pani nipped his escape attempt in the bud, cutting off his route and closing in on her prey.

"I want you to be the first to read it!" She cupped his hands together and plopped the manuscript into them. "Most men would be honored if their wife held them in such high regard."

"Most men don't hate their wives making them read as much as I."

"Me." She said.

"Exactly. You want to make me feel stupid with your fanciful words and speech."

"Prose."

"See? This is just your way of punishing me for no reason." He paused. "Wait. I'm not even the first to read it. Didn't the publisher have to read it to approve it?"

Pani darted her eyes to the side; she courted with several cheeky remarks before saying, "you're the first who matters to me." She rubbed his slumped shoulders and said, "don't worry, the message in my novel is so clear I know you'll get it.

"You sure? You know how everyone whispers jokes about me? If you ever want to keep a secret from him, just put it in a book. You know the man can't read."

"Yes, but if you ever had a secret for me, I'm sure it'd be on a tv show somewhere."

They both laughed, and Gary caved in, flipping to the first page of the manuscript and reading:

The green-eyes man was in a band. Stand the green-eyes man said. Cand. Is what the green-eyed man land. Hand is needed for the man to befriend. Wuh-wuh-wuh-sand.

Gary couldn't believe it. His eyes glossed over, his arms went limp, and his jaw slacked as he processed. That sounds like some shit I'd write. Oh, dear. He looked everywhere he could beside his wife's unguarded eyes as he gathered the right words, the right words to avoid an argument.

"Good." He said.

She stared at him as if he was the god of ignorance. "You've read one page."

He flipped to the end and smacked his fingers. "Mmmmm, mmm, finger-licking good story right here."

"That's cheating! You don't just go to the back of the story!"

"You know I don't like reading."

"You could be great at it if you exercised a little commitment!"

Argument unavoided.

The following two weeks were rough for poor Gary. Pani refused to speak, look at him, or even nag him. The tension in the air was ripe as a Georgia Peach. How a woman of her miniature stature could emit such animosity was the next great wonder of the world, or a great question, something like that. It was a secret she knew, and Gary had his own secret.

He adored his wife with all his heart, yet she wasn't the finest apple in the orchard. She could satisfy hunger pains from time to time, but she lacked that lushness, that utter fulfillment factor you got from biting into a juicy morsel of forbidden fruit. The peaches are always sweeter in someone else's yard, as some would say, or maybe that was just him.

Gary isn't his novelist wife, so let's be straightforward. He was cheating on her.

Almost every month, like clockwork, he'd meet his Mistress - Emma - at a hotel on the third Saturday of the month. Today was that Saturday. When his wife approached him, he was fully prepared to go on another 'purposeless drive' around town. But her words cut through that plan.

"Baby, the Galleria Mall has a 90% off sale on lotion and hand soaps. Do you think you can get some?" She asked.

The Galleria Mall was in Houston. Four hours from their home in San Antonio. A ridiculous distance for lotion, regardless of price, but a chance to get out of the dog house.

"Sure, I wouldn't mind at all! You know I love my Saturday drives anyway."

She wrinkled her nose and kissed him. "Sure do. Thanks, babe."

He hopped in his purple-coated Chevrolet Corvette and marched to the Houston mall, wishing he'd picked a better lie for his Saturday excursions. He'd always hated driving.

Shoppers crammed into the mall, making it nearly impossible to move. The lotion store's line overflew, extending past the Gamestop several stores over. Awkward conversations between image-sensitive women and men who didn't own mirrors occurred.

I'll just tell her they ran out. It wasn't much of a lie; surely they'd run out when he made it through the line. He pocketed his hands and whistled the Cheaters tune, eyes scanning the scene.

A lot of beautiful women out were in the mall. Everywhere he looked, he saw nines, tens, elevens out of ten. Everywhere except one location, a cardboard cutout of his wife enshrined with novels.

He walked towards the bookstore - Novels-A-Million- and felt his jaw drop. Young girls were practically fighting to pick up a copy of his wife's novel. All for a copy of that trash? There must have been something good in the middle section he skipped.

He wrestled with a Zoomer for one of the last copies, licked his fingers - he's seen it on tv, and turned to page one.

A few things shook him.

Most pressing, his wife's name was in the story. That was different from when he had read the story before. His reading skills weren't that bad.

Pani was a superhero in this story. A magical woman adored by men and women alike. In the story, she fought the forces of evil, all demons of sin.

She fought a demon of pride, lust, and so on. His wife was crazy for sure, so many enem-

He fingered the words on the page, the demon of adultery, Gary. Surely a coincidence, he continued to read the story:

Emma, Gary's dumbass assistant, aided his demonic endeavors. Emma was a bimbo with a robust body, able to bring a grown man to tears. Not from their eyes but from where the sun doesn't shine.

Gary felt his blood freeze over. Emma? Did she know about her? Flustered, he flipped to the back of the book.

...and when Gary returned to his little lair, he found it empty with divorce papers on the counter.

The book escaped his fingers and crashed as he rushed back to his car. He raced home, unlocked the door, and ran to the kitchen. He stopped at the sight of an emptied room. A stack of papers lay on the kitchen counter.

Halfway through the manuscript his wife shared with him, lay divorce papers.