It was during the second year of our marriage that I realised my wife was a large monitor lizard.

  It was one of those funny little revelations that creeps up on one over time. I think the first clue came when she decided to hibernate for the three winter months. At first it did not arouse my suspicions. After all I myself enjoyed a lie-in, and had once slept in three whole hours past the alarm - on a weekday! - so I did not think it particularly note-worthy when she tucked herself in at the start of December and remained there until late February. Still, it aroused in me some small seed of doubt - for I had never before known her to go even three days without tending to the garden, let alone three months.  

  Her taste in gardening was minimalist, and this I applauded; it may have been one of the reasons I married her, I forget now. Instead of the silly sentimentality of a lawn or a flower patch, she insisted that the entire garden was covered in soft flat limestone plates, on which she would spend a good many hours in summer lying and cleaning her face with her tongue.

  There came other clues. Her tendency to sleep until the sun had entirely filled our little bedroom I found rather charming, but nonetheless it was an inconvenience to tip-toe around her whilst she snored peacefully. Once she rolled quite off the bed and onto my slippers, so that I was left with no recourse but to move her - and all through the process, despite my best efforts ato be gentle, she banged and cluttered about with such a force that I felt sure she would wake up. But she remained sound asleep, and I retrieved my slippers peacefully but puzzled.

  I was a shade frustrated when I returned home that evening. We had failed to finalise the deal with "Steptoe and Son" (manufacturers of diesel powered nuns, and the only company to supply them with co-axial camshafts), and I was in a most irascible mood. I was certainly in no mood for silliness at the dinner table. My wife had provided a rather sumptuous meal (a dead bird with most, but - and this was the clever part - not all of the feathers pulled out) but I was in no mood to enjoy it. I sat across the table from her, distractedly picking at the meat whilst she indolently licked her eyeball. After a while I could take it no more.

  "Dear, if you are going to continue in this absurd fashion, please do it elsewhere."
  She didn't reply and instead began to provocatively lick the other eye. I was not about to be drawn by such childish taunts.
  "If you're going to behave like that I shall sit and eat in the living room." And with that I upped tools and moved into the lounge. I could see her through the partition, swallowing her dinner whole. It was quite an extravagant performance, particularly when it was half down and just the legs were sticking out of her mouth. She could be quite silly when she put a mind to it, and I was forced to laugh when she spat up some feathers. That girl.

  We were watching television together - Countdown I think - when she started to squirm. Well, at first I put it down to her being uncomfortable. But no, she continued wriggling long after it would have been appropriate to stop. So, I made the next logical assumption - she had a stomach upset. They made me squirm something quite appallingly, so I could empathise, and ran off to fetch her an antacid. But when I returned, something quite odd had occurred. My wife was gone - off to do some knitting I suppose - but lying in her seat was a pile of what looked quite like fine cobwebs. I touched it hesitantly with the small finger of one hand, but it didn’t crumple. I fished it up. There before my eyes was a perfect copy of her skin.

  Well, I was quite puzzled as you might imagine. Women were strange creatures to me - aren’t they to all men? - but I had no idea that they could shed their skin. And then, as I watched my darling wife crawl under her rock for the night, it struck me - she was a lizard.

  It was quite a revelation. After all, it is not a conclusion one comes to lightly; which I suppose is the reason I had not reached it when we first met. Yet it descended into my mind with a great clarity, and left me with a certain peace. After all, I might not have realised it immediately, but I had realised it, and it is always pleasing to know that one is correct.

  At first I decided to ignore the issue. After all, we had co-existed quite peaceably for the past two years, and I didn’t see the point in disturbing our relationship for the sake of such a trifling concern. Such rash action could have no positive outcome, that was sure; who knows what scandal it might have caused? A sensible plan - maybe some marriage counselling - would see us through this tricky spot. Then of course, the real revalation hit me.

  Who was the father of our eggs?

  I was stunned. She must have been sleeping around - there was no other way to explain the clutch of eggs in the incubator downstairs. Well, that shocked me I can tell you - far more than the previous discovery. After all, no-one was to blame for that - indeed if anyone was it was me, for my sheer unobservant nature. But this - this promiscuity - was inexcusable. I thought I had a good idea who her accomplice was - that dashing young monitor lizard who belonged to the eccentric  old woman just down the road. I had often seen my wife baring her teeth and swiping her tail at him - and until now, I had had no idea why…

   Well, I had to take the logical course of action. After all, it was no good laying these accusations at her - she was a lizard, with a brain the size of a golf ball. Instead, I went quietly to an atourney at law, and arranged for an annullation of our marriage. It was very quiet and discreet, and when it was all sorted, I took my wife and our eggs out in the car with me to a sand bank at a disused golf course, where I carefully dug a nice nest for her, and let her run off into the sands. She looked quite content in her new home.

  I’m seeing a lovely young girl now. She’s has nice black hair and lots of very long legs. Her family is a bit daunting - it’s extended you see (I think she's foreign) - she has about 200 brothers and sisters. Her taste in art is rather odd - all very abstract, concentric spirals all over the corners of her house. I think she likes knitting.