by Colin Morley

Created on: June 05, 2009

Linda stopped tapping at the keyboard as she heard a noise. Was he back? She quickly minimised the screen she had been working on at her computer. She knew that her face had gone red and she could feel her heart racing. She couldn't tell if it was racing with excitement or with guilt. Maybe a mixture of both. Whatever, she could not carry on now Tom was home.

As Tom turned his key in the front door, he wondered what kind of mood Linda would be in. These days she was so unpredictable. Sometimes she would welcome him home like old times. Like nothing was wrong. Other times he would get the silent treatment that he so hated. Hell he would rather she yell and scream and even throw things at him than just greet him with a silence that could last for days on end.

Hello Tom! she shouted from her office, as he entered the house. Had a good evening with the boys? The tone of her voice was friendly, welcoming. But it was not genuine. These days she hardly knew the man she had married those ten years earlier. He had become reclusive, obsessed with his work as an advertising manager. He simply didn't seem to have time for her any more. She had become a mere inconvenience in his otherwise ordered life.

Hi Darling! replied Tom, automatically. He had always called her 'darling'. Once upon a forgotten time he had really meant it. She had been his darling. His reason for living. These days she was a thorn in his side. She no longer encouraged him in his work or his ambitions. If she spoke to him at all, it was to criticise and mock.

Thank goodness for the internet, he thought. Was it possible to really love somebody you had never met? He would have scoffed at the idea just a few short weeks ago. Now, though, he e-mailed Jane every day. Sometimes several times each day. They had exchanged photographs (although of course he hadn't sent her his real photograph, but one of a younger looking, more handsome man he had found on an obscure website she would be unlikely to find) Jane had become the woman Linda used to be. She took an interest in what he wrote. True he told her he was a TV producer because that was more interesting than an advertising manager. He used the name Steve (his middle name was Stephen) because he thought it sounded more fun than Tom but still he had opened up his heart about how his marriage to Linda was falling apart and Jane provided a sympathetic ear. Her marriage was shaky, too. Her husband seemed to spend

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