Brad couldn’t have felt any less terrible. It was one whirlwind of an afternoon.

His time after Eva had shrunk him and left him locked in his bedroom was mostly him panicking that he would be discovered by Angela. There would not have been any easy way to explain to her what had happened, if there would be any room for explanation at all, considering he doubled down on things he knew were bad. If cheating on your wife wasn’t bad enough, then doing it with a person who was everything that she despised was a surefire way to get in a lot of trouble. He had tried to force his way through the door, but he wasn’t very strong and would never be able to do such a thing. And that was before he was reduced to the size of a small child. There wasn’t even any good furniture for him to use to get higher to unlock the door. He was simply trapped. Naked, shrunken, and in a feverish panic.

Then, to his dread, he heard Angela return home. Brad froze when he heard her, knowing that his his doom was inevitable, and prepared for the worst.

But even his worst didn’t prepare him for what happened next. As he heard the car door slam, there was another door that closed. She had brought someone home with her. He couldn’t tell who it was, but he could hear a male voice through the open window. He had no idea who it could have been, but Angela’s quiet, but giddy, giggling made him believe that it was someone special to her. As they entered the house, he could hear her call out to him, wondering if he was home. He wanted to yell and ask for help, but then he realized that that was the worst idea, since it would reveal his affair with Eva. So he had no choice but to remain silent. He heard her and the mystery man coming upstairs, Angela still calling out to Brad, before she got to the bedroom door and knocked on it.

“Brad? Are you here?” she asked.

Brad hung his head, knowing he couldn’t respond.

“Maybe he’s just taking a nap” the man said.

Suddenly, Brad recognized his voice. It was Jack, their lawyer. Angela said she was going to visit him, but what was he doing at their house? It wasn’t 5, was it?

“Dammit, just like him to be a nuisance, even when he isn’t conscious” Angela grumbled. “Can’t even get some alone time.”

Brad suddenly was able to put some of the pieces together, but he was in denial as to what they meant. But it wasn’t long before it all came together.

“Hey now,” Jack said gently, “He’s just living his life. He doesn’t even have to know. Besides, this time we can try something a bit more frisky and he won’t hear it.”

She giggled before they began to kiss. Passionately.

It seemed like this was the punishment for Brad for what he had done, but he was hoping that it wasn’t like this. Naked and small while his wife was making out with another man just on the other side of the door he was locked behind. He could hear them breathing heavily and sucking on each other’s faces before they stopped, Angela giggled again, and they moved over to the guest bedroom, where he heard the door close.

A few hours passed, Brad listening as his wife had sex with another man, occasionally hearing Angela let out an accidental moan and the faint thumping of the bed against the wall. For each inch of height he gained back, he was growing more depressed as he was sure Angela was taking an extra inch from Jack too. Finally, when he regained his size, he heard the door open and the two quietly sneak out of the house, getting into the car, and driving away. Brad slumped onto the bed and stared out the window, empty, and uncertain what to think.

He had felt awful about cheating on Angela with Eva, scared that he was doing something that would hurt her, but it turned out that she had already been cheating on him, too. While he had remorse about what he had done, Angela seemed to revel in it.

As he lay on the bed he came to a conclusion. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, they didn’t love each other anymore, and their marriage was over.

But before he spiraled further into shame, his phone rang. It was Austin. A rather unexpected call, no doubt, but one that Brad felt he needed to answer just in order to stay sane.

As he answered, a jovial and upbeat Austin greeted him, and said that he had something to discuss with him. It was about what he had promised to Eva. Seeing as how Austin was both their realtor agent, she had called him to mention what had happened and what she had proposed. When Austin asked if Brad wanted to go through with it, seeing as how it was going to be a long and laborious task, Brad had to think about it for a moment.

He had just cheated on his wife. He agreed that in order to bang Eva more often that he would give up his deed to the house to her, should he die, which was a rather curiously morbid thought. Then she left him shrunken and embarrassed and locked him in the bedroom of his own house. And after that, he discovered that his wife had been cheating on him for who knows how long. It was a difficult few hours and one that he needed to process.

Austin understood and told him to give him time. But before he hung up, he said something that stuck with Brad.

“She told me that her mom was going to be in town for the next couple days” he had said, “Apparently she wants to bury the hatchet with the whole house bidding war and meet you guys. I’ll give you a heads up. If you think that Eva was a stunner, then you haven’t seen anything like Mrs. Bulduce. Maybe if you’re super lucky, you’ll get the full package from both of them. See ya, Brad!”

*click*

And like that, Brad felt hope again. If Angela was going to cheat on him, then he would just double down. Hopefully literally.