However, this level of freedom will come in very handy as I try to juggle Leah’s life with my own. Just so long as I make it back next Friday.

You’re probably wondering why I was so upset about the affair given the state of my marriage. I don’t care that they were fucking. I care that they both gave so little of a shit they carried it on for so long. And I care that I’m far too afraid of what he would do if I tried to leave him. Despite everything he’s done, I will still have to smile at him next Friday, pretend that everything is OK. It’s exhausting and frustrating and sometimes I hate who he has turned me into. Especially now he has turned me into a murderer.

Seeing as I’m already in the bathrobe, I decide to have a bath. Leah has a tub that is big enough for two fully grown adults and it comes complete with jets and a range of settings. I am just about to get in when Leah’s phone emits a beep: Sea Lanes Hotel. A week on Monday. 5 p.m. I have a treat for you. Xx

The message is from Chris.

Sea Lanes is a gorgeous little hotel in Dorset. Chris took me there for our anniversary last year and again about a month ago. I think he has taken her there before. Taken her there so she can sip Mai Tais in the bar.

I sink below the bubbles and the world around me disappears as I try to think of how to prevent Chris getting suspicious about it not being Leah he’s interacting with. But as he begins to send me a fairly constant stream of increasingly explicit (and terribly written) texts, it becomes very clear that I don’t have the stomach to pretend to be my husband’s mistress. I always thought I was quite open-minded, quite experimental. I am in fact a naïve child made nauseous by the predilections of the man who shares my bed. I won’t go into details but some of it is filthy and degrading. Some of it I don’t even really understand and I’m not going to google those terms, no matter how intrigued I am.

If I don’t show up at the hotel, he will know something is wrong. If I do show up, he will know it is really me by the disgust on my face I won’t be able to conceal. I need to palm him off, somehow, without making him angry or suspicious.

His final message of the night: Wear the blue underwear. The photo freaked her out. We could do so much more xx

So there it is. The final confirmation. Chris has been fucking with me, I guess I should be angry, but actually I’m just relieved. I feel a bubble of laughter threatening to escape and sink back under the water so it erupts into a geyser. I’m just a toy to him. Was just a joke to her.