Affairs, Cheating, and A Short Story Taking Longer than Expected!

I started writing How to Lose a Wife in 2 Days back in 2012 when I was a bartender at Myett’s Beach Bar in Cane Garden Bay, BVI.

I wrote it on observation of an ongoing practice that came as a shock to me when I learned about it – the conscious act of vacationers, coming to the Caribbean for a premeditated fling from their spouse.

This content is taking a lot longer to compose than I want it to and has matured from a short story to a novelette that I will be sending out to my Google Contacts list.

As I travel through memories of the British Virgin Islands 2009 – 2014 that inspire this story, I remember this embarrassing moment at Nanny Cay Beach Bar.

Drinking my usual Jose Cuervo Gold Tequila with two cubes of ice, I was talking to a woman about the whole monogamy situation or lack of it in the Caribbean.

She confidently replied that her husband was “one of the good ones” and that she was very lucky.

When her husband approached, my eyes widened and I took a deep sip of my drink.

She introduced him and he grinned.

‘Yeah, I know him,’ I said. ‘This is your husband? This is your husband?’

I don’t know if the shock in my voice or the repetition of the question revealed my horror–as I really wasn’t being subtle at all–but I quickly made an exit because the man she’d introduced was a guy who I KNEW was having multiple flings with vacationers any chance he got.

I recall two other conversations with women, educating me that their mothers had taught them that it’s okay for husbands to have affairs. The words were: “men are going to do it anyway but make sure they don’t come home smelling of another woman’s perfume or lipstick on the collar.”

I’m fully aware how naïve I sound when I declare my surprise to learn these things, but at that point, I really was shocked.

It was only a matter of time before I felt the sting of betrayal in this orgy of treacherous liaisons and relationships and further, felt my morality slowly dissolve under the pressure of a hedonistic society. But that’s going to be part of the story Taking off My Shoes…