The Smart Mattress Caught My Cheating Husband Chapter 1

Three days into my business trip in Dubai, the four-hundred-thousand-dollar smart mattress we’d just bought sent a chilling notification: it had registered 99 intense vibrations.

I stared at the screen, my brows knitted into a tight knot.

My husband, Dominic, was lecturing halfway across the world in Australia. The house was supposed to be empty.

As doubt began to coil in my stomach, the app flashed again. The mattress had registered 199 forceful impacts and had automatically initiated the “Intimate Contact” Mode for protection.

I was reaching for the phone to call Dom when his new post popped up on my social feed.

[Another day in Australia missing my wife. Busy and fulfilling.]

I looked at the photo, tagged with a Sydney location, and absently double-tapped it. Then I booked the first flight back to the States.

* * *

My first instinct was that we’d been robbed and, insult added to injury, the thief had decided to rest on my bed. The thought made my skin crawl with disgust.

But when I meticulously cross-referenced the 'Intimate Contact' timestamps with the interior security footage, I found nothing. Not a single trace of an intruder. The antiques, the artwork, the limited-edition handbags—everything was accounted for. The house was immaculate, with no signs of disruption. Dom’s favorite bespoke suits and his Rimowa luggage were gone; he was definitely not home.

Could the smart mattress just be malfunctioning?

Still uneasy, I decided to check the building’s main entrance surveillance with the property manager.

As I walked out, I bumped into Maria, the cleaning woman who looked after our floor.

“Ms. Ashford, you’re back from your trip? Let me come in and clean up a little for you.” she said politely.

“That would be a help, Maria. Thank you.”

Maria was a single mother, working hard to put her daughter through college. I knew her situation and often helped them out. Out of gratitude, she insisted on cleaning our house once a week, refusing any payment.

I watched her start mopping the marble in the living room and casually asked, “Maria, have you seen any strangers coming in or out of our unit the last few days?”

“No, I haven’t, honey. Not since the Professor left for his lecture… Did something happen?”

Seeing her sudden anxious expression, I managed a soft laugh.

“No, nothing at all. Just curious.”

Before she left, I pressed the expensive hand cream I’d brought back from Dubai into her hand. The weather was turning cold, and with all the manual labor she did, I knew she’d use it.

If no one had come in, was it truly just a faulty mattress? But this four-hundred-thousand-dollar system had only been installed three months ago. If there were a hardware issue, the manufacturer would have been alerted immediately and contacted me for an on-site repair…

I started cleaning the mattress with a heavy-duty sanitizer, my mind still reeling over the bizarre incident, when I heard the chime of the smart lock unlocking.

A shiver of genuine fear ran down my spine.

Before I could hide, a shadow lunged forward, pressing me onto the bed.

“Surprise!”

It was Dominic.

Shaken, I pushed him back slightly. “I thought your teaching commitment in Australia was for a full week. Why are you back early?”

“Because I missed you, of course.”

He pressed a light kiss to my forehead. “No, seriously, my college needed me back right away to lead a major grant proposal. Had to ditch the outback early.”

The look in his eyes was so profoundly sincere that the creeping suspicion of infidelity began to waver. Dominic was the youngest, most celebrated professor at his university—a classic heartthrob. I’d heard the whispers and the rumors, but every time I looked into his deep, earnest eyes, the doubt evaporated.

“But you came back early too, darling.” He gently stroked my cheek.

“I got a notification in Dubai that the mattress was… vibrating wildly.”

“No one was home, so I was worried. I flew back to check.”

Dominic pulled me into his chest. “Oh, that was just a minor tech glitch. An engineer was remotely calibrating the system from the backend.” His voice was low and reassuring. “I didn’t want to bother you while you were working.” He even pulled up a technician’s log on his phone.

I let out a long breath, a genuine smile finally easing my face.

But later, after dinner, when I turned on the living room TV, intending to stream a sophisticated drama, the playback history showed 20 episodes of Two and a Half Men.