The husband brought his mistress home and said, “We’ll live together, the three of us.” He didn’t expect me to smile — and offer his mistress a deal…
Vadim didn’t come home alone. Behind his broad back, half-hiding and peeking out at the same time, stood a young woman.
In her hand, she clutched the strap of an unnaturally bright handbag, and her eyes drank in every detail of our hallway with greedy curiosity — the massive oak-framed mirror, the onyx key holder, my watercolor painting on the wall.
“Katya, meet Veronika,” my husband’s voice was calm, almost businesslike, as if he were introducing me to a new employee or a distant relative who had come to study in the city. “She’s going to live with us now.”
I slowly tore my gaze away from his face — which showed not the slightest trace of shame — and looked at her. Pretty, yes.
Young, with a fresh blush and that spark of defiance in her eyes that only people confident in their own irresistibility have.
“She’ll live with us,” Vadim continued casually, kicking off his shoes. “I thought about it for a long time and decided this would be easier — and, you know, even more honest for everyone. We’ll live as three.”
He waited for an explosion. He expected it — tears, screams, accusations, broken dishes — all the theatrics he despised in other women and had secretly waited for from me during our ten years of marriage. But he didn’t get it this time either.
I smiled. A calm, easy, almost polite smile — the kind that made the corner of Vadim’s mouth twitch for the first time in the whole conversation. He was ready for anything — except that.
“All right,” I said simply.
He froze mid-sentence. The girl’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, her confidence wavered for a moment.
“But I have one condition,” I said, turning my gaze to Veronika and completely ignoring my husband, who suddenly seemed like an unnecessary piece of furniture. “And it concerns only you. Let’s go to the kitchen — we’ll discuss it over tea.”
I turned and walked first, feeling the confused silence behind me hang in the air. A moment later, I heard hesitant footsteps following.
In the kitchen, I set the kettle on and sat down at the table, gesturing for Veronika to take the chair opposite. She sat down cautiously, clutching her screaming-pink handbag like a life preserver.
“So, Veronika,” I began, looking her straight in the eye. “Do you really want to live here? In this house? With this man?”
She nodded nervously, lips pressed together.
“Excellent. I don’t mind. You can use everything you see. But in return — you’ll take over all my duties in this house.”
Veronika frowned, puzzled, her pretty face reflecting confusion.
“All of them,” I repeated clearly, enunciating each word. “You’ll get up at six every morning to cook him a three-course breakfast, because he doesn’t eat porridge.
You’ll make sure his shirts are perfectly ironed — not a single crease. You’ll manage grocery lists, pay utility bills, schedule his dentist appointments, and remember his mother’s birthday.”
Everything I had done for the last ten years. “And I,” I added with deliberate pause, “will finally take a break.”
She glanced around — the spotless kitchen, the expensive Italian appliances, the park view from the wide window.
In her eyes, a flicker of excitement appeared. She saw only the glossy surface, unaware of the daily grind behind it.
“I… I agree,” she breathed out, clearly imagining herself the new mistress of this cozy paradise.
“Then it’s settled,” I smiled again. “Welcome to the family, Veronika.”
The first act of this absurd theater began that very evening. I sat in the living room with a book I hadn’t managed to finish in months. For the first time in ages, I didn’t listen for the oven timer.
From the kitchen came sounds of frantic but clumsy activity — clattering dishes, hissing oil, and the sharp smell of something burning that slowly but surely replaced the usual delicate scent of sandalwood from my incense sticks.
Vadim walked into the living room, wrinkling his nose in displeasure. He looked at me, then at the closed kitchen door.
“Couldn’t you help her?” he asked in a tone that brooked no refusal. “She’s clearly struggling. Already burned two pans.”
“That’s out of the question,” I replied without looking up from my book. “Veronika and I have an oral agreement. And you, dear, were its silent witness and guarantor. You wanted honesty — here it is.”
He wanted to argue, but just then Veronika appeared in the doorway, flushed and disheveled.
“Dinner’s ready!”
Calling it dinner was generous. The chicken was charred on the outside and raw inside; the pasta was slimy and overcooked. Vadim poked at it with his fork and pushed the plate away.
“Thanks, I’m not hungry,” he muttered, standing up from the table.
Veronika pouted. I calmly ate the salad I’d wisely prepared for myself earlier that day.
The following weeks became a slow, methodical collapse of Vadim’s once-comfortable world.
His perfectly pressed shirts now hung wrinkled in the closet — Veronika didn’t know how to use the steamer.
The morning coffee was sometimes too bitter, sometimes watery.
The house filled with a new scent — the cloying sweetness of Veronika’s perfume mixed with the fumes of her culinary disasters. That heavy, sticky smell followed Vadim everywhere.
One evening, he snapped. I was sitting on the balcony with my laptop when he approached me. Veronika was loudly chatting on the phone in the bedroom, gossiping with a friend.
“Katya, this is unbearable,” he hissed. “I come home, and it’s a mess. The food’s disgusting. She can’t do anything! She doesn’t even know how to book a table at Metropol!“
“You chose her,” I said calmly, not looking up. “You brought her here. You said we’d live like this.”
“That’s not what I meant!” he shouted. “I thought you’d still… you know, keep things as before. And she’d be… well, for the soul.”
“For the soul,” I echoed, snapping my laptop shut. “That requires conditions. You destroyed the old ones — and couldn’t build new ones. Veronika is doing her best. She’s keeping her side of the deal.”
“What deal?!” he exploded. “This is my house! I want it clean, with proper food and—”
Continued in the comments.