Adultery When We Were Married by DanielQSteele1

[Ramesh_Rocky]

                                                                 When We Were Married                                                                                                                                         Written by :- DanielQSteele1



                                                          
© Daniel Quentin Steele – 2010

Author's note:" There is a real State Attorney's Office headquartered in Jacksonville. Facts about locations and elements of the office organization has been changed, because it makes for a better story. This time I'm taking a chance by submitting without Lady Pine Rose's input since she's tied up elsewhere so I hope readers will forgive any mistakes on my part. As always, I hope readers enjoy the story and I welcome your input."

[Ramesh_Rocky]

April , 2005

Four words wrecked my marriage and my life. And they're not the four words you're probably thinking about.
Not "we have to talk," or "baby, I've met somebody" or "our sex life sucks" or even "You're not giving me enough." Actually that last is five words, but hey, who's counting.
It was a lot stranger, and simpler than that. I had come into our bedroom on a Tuesday night after finishing a "law and order" re-run on cable and was getting ready to take a shower. I tend to watch a lot of cop and lawyer shows. Coals to Newcastle, really.
I should have gotten enough of that stuff in my day job as an Assistant State Attorney in the Duval County State Attorney's Office. To northerners, that's the same as the District Attorney's Office.. We are the people who prosecute bad guys and put them away when we can. Anyway, I like those kinds of cop shows. Even after 10 years on the job, I still like what I do.
Anyway, Debbie was in bed, lying back on a scrunched up pillow, looking through some travel magazine. She usually brings back a ton of student papers to grade from UNF where she's an associate professor in the College of Business. They generally take a couple to three hours to finish. But she's conscientious and it was 11 p.m. and she was relaxing.
I enjoyed the view. Even though we had been married 17 years, I still enjoyed looking at her. A tall blonde, hair cut fashionably movie star style with Jennifer Anniston bangs, she looked 10 years younger than her true age of 39. The robe she wore was as sexy as a potato sack, but I could still see the curve of her D-cup breasts underneath it. I could also envision her long legs.
I thought about trying to get a real look between them, but stopped myself. She insisted I take my evening shower and brush my teeth before I even tried and she was usually too tired on weeknights to even consider the idea. I looked down at myself. I was five foot nine, Debbie five-ten, and where she was still fairly svelte from working out at the gym, I'd already developed the class middle aged paunch of a guy whose only exercise was getting out on the links every few months. And I only did that when office politics absolutely demanded it.
I walked into the bathroom and stripped off my tee shirt and shorts that I generally wore around the house. We had a full length mirror and I took inspection. Hair thinning and a real bald spot was beginning to develop where I could barely see it at the rear of my scalp.
Then I look at my midsection. Jesus, pasty white and flabby. No wonder Debbie preferred on the increasingly infrequent times when we did have sex to keep the lights off. I looked like a fucking old lawyer. I looked like those old guys my friends and I used to laugh at when I'd started lawyering. I was only 41, not 61. I made up my mind at that point. I'd always told myself that I didn't have the time to join a gym and I had gently teased Debbie about being a little vain. To hell with that. If I was a woman, I sure as hell wouldn't be too eager to have sex with me.
I took my shower and came out freshly scrubbed, but I didn't wear my normal underwear and white tee-shirt. I came out with a towel around my middle and found a pajamas set in the drawer on my side of the bed. I thought Debbie glanced over at me and there might have been a little smile flickering on her face, but that might have been my imagination.
With my pot covered, I slid into bed next to her. I leaned over to kiss her. I tried for the lips but she moved her head slightly so I planted a kiss on the side of her face. She smiled absent mindedly at me.
"The kids asleep?"
Bill Jr. was 14 and Kelly was 16. Bill I'd left trolling on the computer for skateboarding or as he called it shredder sites, but I was pretty sure he was looking for porn. What the hell, he was 14 and had discovered that girls were delightfully different creatures. I had the computers set up with tracking programs. I trusted the kids, but I'd been prosecuting scum too long to be happy and ignorant about what they were up to.
Kelly was, I'm pretty sure from the way she'd lowered her voice and moved as far away from me as she could and still stay in the den, talking to one of her boyfriends. I know she had more than one, because she was a luscious junior edition of her mother.
"No, but they know the rules. I'm sure they'll be in bed in an hour or so. Hey, those were great pictures. Where was that beach, the one with the Tiki hut things near the water?"
"Oh."
She glanced over at me as if surprised that I'd noticed what she was reading. She held the magazine out to me. It was "Travel" with the pages turned to "The best beaches you've never heard of." The beach was on an island I'd never heard of and I couldn't even pronounce the name.
"Man, that is beautiful. What about it, would you like to go there this summer when the college is on break? I know you weren't planning on teaching this summer."
She looked at me as if surprised.
"That's – sweet, Bill...but...I had meant to talk to you. I was thinking about teaching this summer. Larry Carter usually teaches the summer session but his wife talked him into taking her to Hawaii and they need someone to fill in."
"When did this come up? I hadn't heard a word about it."
She looked into my eyes and then away with an expression I couldn't place.
"About a month ago. I'd meant to mention it, but I kept forgetting. Sorry. I didn't think we had any firm plans. You're always working on some case or other. And we haven't gone anywhere exotic in a long time."
"I know, but-"
She dropped the magazine to her hip, then rolled a little so one big luscious breast bulged out against her robe and said, "I'm sorry Bill, I pretty much already told them I'd take the summer session. But, look, we went to some wonderful places when we were married and next summer I promise I'll leave time so we can go somewhere nice."
No one at the office has ever accused me of being slow on the uptake, but it took me a minute after she finished patting me on the hand and then picked the magazine back up before it sunk in.
I said the words to myself silently and ran them over and over, jumbling them up and trying to figure out how I had misunderstood my loving, blonde and very sexy wife.
"...when we were married?"
She looked back at me from the magazine with a slightly puzzled expression on her face as if she'd only heard part of what I said, and asked, "What did you say?"
I didn't realize it then, but from the expression that slowly grew on her face I realized a storm cloud must have appeared on mine as I slowly, with great emphasis and the beginnings of real anger, said, "You said we went some nice places WHEN WE WERE MARRIED. Is there something going on I don't know about?"
An expression consisting of equal parts surprise, embarrassment and what appeared to be shock appeared on her face.
"What are you talking about Bill? You must have misunderstood what I said."
"No. You said it very clearly and distinctly. WHEN WE WERE MARRIED! I kind of thought we were married. That's why I asked if there was something I wasn't aware of."
She shook her head and tried to look me in the eyes.
"I couldn't have said that, Bill. That's crazy. "
"No, just weird. I know we're married, babe, so where did that come from?"
"I don't – oh. I must have meant we've been some nice places since we've been married. That's what I meant to say."
"Oh."
I rolled it around inside my head and I knew she was lying. 'Since we were married,' and "when we were married" aren't close enough to make that kind of mistake. And she hadn't been thinking when she said it. It had popped out without her thinking about it or apparently even realizing what she was saying.
In the office we call those Freudian give-aways. Most people call them Freudian slips. When people's mouths outrun the control of their minds, they can say things that wind up sending them to prison or the death chamber at Raiford.
Any prosecutor or cop knows that no matter how tightly controlled a person may be, the unconscious mind is always perking away down below. And when you're guilty about something, what the unconscious mind is doing is trying to confess something the conscious mind wants to keep hidden.
What was she thinking about, I thought, glancing at her beautiful face and realizing she was still focused in with a laser-like stare on my eyes. She was trying to read me the way I was reading her. Only I was better at it because I'd done it for a living for a long time.
And then I realized with an acidic burn in the pit of my stomach, I'd never looked at her in our 17 years of marriage and two years of dating before that this way: the way I'd stare at a suspect, a scum bag, a perp as our brethren cops dubbed them. I didn't like the feeling I had about her.
I made myself laugh, although it came out as a dry chuckle.
"You're right, babe. Anybody can garble their words. I even do it once in a while. I have to admit, you gave me a fright there. I was wondering if we'd ever been legally married. Was there a problem with our marriage license? Or did you secretly divorce me?"
I tried to make myself laugh again but all that came out was a dry cough.
She searched my eyes intently as if trying to see if I was telling the truth. But after ten years of working a courtroom, I've got that poker-stare down pat. She wouldn't get any hints from my face.
She reached over and did something that shocked and scared me a little. She took my hand and brought it to her lips and kissed it. Such a simple thing. But I couldn't remember the last time she had ever done it. Even when we were getting ready for sex it was kissing on the lips and her jerking my dick and my licking her luscious pussy until she was wet and ready.
But a simple gesture like kissing the back of my hand....it was something lovers did. And I realized we hadn't been lovers in forever.
If she had looked up then, I know she would have known and the game would have been over and our lives would have gone very differently. Because my eyes flooded with tears as I realized the shit that our marriage had become while I was too blind to see it happening in front of me. If she had looked me in the eye then she would have known something was terribly wrong and I would have told her the truth about what I was thinking and our marriage would have changed forever- one way or other.
But she didn't and I was able to squelch the emotions and quickly wipe my eyes with my free hand.
She kept her face tightly against the back of my hand and kissed it again. Without looking at me, she said, "I'm sorry for saying it that way, Bill. You know I love you. You're the only man in my life. I love you more now than when we married. You're the father of my children. This is crazy. It was just a slip of the tongue and it didn't mean anything."
But I couldn't take my prosecutor hat off. I wondered why she wouldn't look at me when she professed her undying love. And I found myself listening to and weighing her words, her tone. I'd listened to thousands of depositions and thousands of witnesses on witness stands. And I found the professional side of my mind, not the husband, weighing her words.
And over and over, my mind went back to the same question. It told me that when she said, "When we were married," she was talking in the past tense. That meant in the present tense, in the now, we weren't married. At least in her mind. Or was it that she simply didn't WANT to be married to me anymore. Or was she planning to make herself un-married in the near future? Was a divorce in the offing?
Which inevitably led to the question: was she simply tired of me and ready to toss me in the garbage and make a new life for herself with another man? Or had she already found my replacement? Was she fucking another guy right now? Was that why our sex life was infrequent, so boring, so bland, so..vanilla. Was that why we had been mom and dad a hundred times more than we'd been lovers, sex partners.
Of course, a part of me kept telling me this whole train of thought was stupid. She had just mixed up her words. Tomorrow morning things would be back to normal and in a day or two I'd laugh at my own paranoia. I had simply been a prosecutor too many years looking deep into the worst of humanity, and it colored the way I looked at everything, even my wife and my marriage.
I wanted to believe that, but everything felt...wrong. It was a simple mistake, but why had she reacted the way she had? If it was nothing she'd simply have laughed it off, went back to her reading and teased me about taking it the wrong way. But she hadn't. She had acted worried, disturbed and now she was acting in an unusually loving manner.
She let my hand go and put the magazine on the drawer by her side of our king sized water bed. She reached up and turned off the nightlight on her side and told me, "Turn the light off, honey." As I reached over to my right to turn off the light on my side I saw her stand up out of the corner of my eye and I held off turning off the light.
By the time I had rolled back to her the robe had dropped and she was stepping out of her panties. Her heavy breasts had fallen with age and gravity, but they were still incredibly swollen and juicy melons even with the nipples pointing down at a 45 degree angle. But I lost focus on my favorite part of her when my eyes drifted down to her pussy.
I couldn't understand what I was looking at first. I found myself looking for the golden fuzz that surrounded her vagina, but it was gone. It was as smooth as baby's bottom. Just the pink of her outer lips and a hint of the red interior. After a minute I realized she had shaved down there. Gotten rid of all her public hair. Why, and for whom, I wondered. I had never suggested it. I'd heard about it from friends, married and bachelor, and it might have been nice but it was never anything I would have brought up. Not in recent years, anyway.
She looked at me, read the expression on my face, and said with a timid smile, "Do you like it? A lot of the girls at the college, especially the younger and single ones, told me this is really hot and men love it."
I just looked at her for a moment, and then I couldn't stop myself from saying, "I bet they do. Have you gotten any compliments?"
She just stared at me until what I'd said sunk in. Now the tears appeared in her eyes.
"How can you say that, Bill. God, how can you say something that mean...when I did this for you?"
The anger that was percolating inside me was coming out and I couldn't stop it.
"And just when were you going to show me your new look, baby? After you finished your article? Or watched the late news. Or were you going to just strip and jump on me, the way you usually do. Oh, that's right, I forgot. You never do that. If I'm going to get any action, I have to give you notice, shower, shave and brush my teeth and get you in the mood first. When was the last time you just stripped and jumped me?"
I pretended to think.
"Oh, yeah. Never. So what's different about tonight. Oh and how long ago did you shave it?"
She climbed onto the bed on her hands and knees, her breasts dangling down like ripe fruit. She knew that almost made me hard as a rock. She reached out and closed her hand on my cock. It was already rigid and I couldn't help release a little groan of pleasure.
"I don't want to fight, Bill. I want you. Inside me. The way it used to be. I'm sorry I've let things slide. I've been so busy with the kids and work and friends that I let the main thing in my life go unattended to. And that's you. I shaved because I wanted to excite you. I wanted you to grab me and throw me down, spread my legs and fuck me the way you used to. We used to love it, remember?"
And I wanted to believe her. I wanted to remember those nights when we were first married and I couldn't get enough of her. I wanted to believe she had shaved herself for me. I wanted to believe that she had been planning to surprise me with incredibly hot sex out of the blue tonight.
Unfortunately, I couldn't. I grabbed her hand and pulled it off my rock hard cock. It was probably the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.
She looked at me as if I'd gone crazy, and she probably thought I had.
"Babe, I really don't know what's going through your mind right now. I don't even know if I know you anymore. One thing I do know. There was no way in hell you were planning on having hot sex with me tonight. You'd have gotten rid of the kids somehow. It's easy enough to farm them off on somebody. You wouldn't have let me waste the night in front of the tube. You wouldn't have been in bed with your –no touch- robe on. You'd have had me shaved and cleaned up a long time ago.
"No, this was just an average, every day kind of night. The kind of night a middle aged, long married couple spend most nights; reading, television, maybe a cuddle, then check on the kids and get enough sleep to get going tomorrow. That's been our life."
I looked at her curiously. She wasn't crying, just looked stunned.
"Everything changed a few minutes ago. When you said those four words....you started loving on me, stripped, showed me that new shaved pussy of yours I had no idea existed, and then you grabbed and started to jerk. I can't remember the last time you ever did that.
"I don't know what's going on, Debra, but something is. Are you going to tell me what it is?"
She put her hands together and cupped her fists as she tried to hold my gaze and then dropped her eyes.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Bill. I just wanted to ...to make love to my husband. You're acting so crazy over what's nothing."
"Are you fucking somebody else?"
At that she did cry. Then she wiped the tears from her eyes, got off the bed and slipped her robe back on. There was real anger on her face.
"You are an asshole. I try to make love to you, to bring us a little closer because God knows we've drifted so far apart, and you accuse me of cheating on you. Fucking another man, to use your words. That you could say that, that you could even think it, shows me our marriage is in really, really bad shape."
I didn't say anything, because she had said it all.
"I'm going downstairs to sleep on the couch in the den, you bastard. I don't think I could stand looking at you or touching you tonight. And tomorrow, try to get out of here without saying a word to me or even looking at me. You think you can do that?"
"I think so."
And she was out the door.
##############################

The next morning I got up early with the alarm set for 5. I'd already taken a shower. I grabbed a suit from our bedroom closet, slipped out the door without stopping for coffee and in other words, got out of Dodge while the getting was good. I didn't bother to turn on the light in the den but I could see a dark shade huddled under a blanket on the huge couch that is the main feature of our den. That along with the largest big screen television allowed under the law. As I walked past the door to the darkened room, I tried to remember the last time we'd made out on that couch. I couldn't remember.
When I got to work I quickly slipped into the usual routine. A wealthy Ponte Vedra trophy wife had apparently, according to her lover, faked her own kidnapping to extort 1.5 million from her elderly husband. I had to decide what charges to file.

[Ramesh_Rocky]

A 75-year-old husband had been tearfully arrested after a coroner found five times the lawful level of painkiller in his dead wife's cancer ridden body. He swore he hadn't fed her the extra drugs to speed her end. We had to make the decision on whether to charge or not to charge him with mercy killing. Which is basically homicide with a good chance of mercy from the judge after a guilty plea.

The Jacksonville Sheriff was bugging the hell out of our junior assistants and working his way up to me pleading for a little mercy in the case of respected patrol officer who had shot his girlfriend's husband and two brothers-in-law to death when they showed up at his house trying to take the girlfriend home where they said she belonged.
Of course there were three of them, and the cop was pleading fear for his life, but he had blown them away with his Glock and they, unfortunately for him, were unarmed when they were shot to death. Oh, and one brother-in-law had two bullet holes in his back. Kind of hard to argue fear for your life when you shot a man in the back as he was running away from you.
But, there's a symbiotic relationship between cops and prosecutors and the Big Man who signed my checks and wanted to be Governor of Florida someday did not want the cops getting pissy with our office and subtly sabotaging our cases because we'd screwed one of Jacksonville's finest.
As one of the three top assistants under the Big Man, the case got dumped in my hands and I had to make a Solomon-like decision.
And, of course, all the while these fairly routine matters were on my mind, in the back of my head the thoughts and fears aroused last night kept swirling and swirling. As usual I didn't have time to get out of my office so I had a Camel Rider sub with cheese and chopped up hamburger and onions delivered to my office about 1 p.m.
When Cheryl, my secretary for the last five years, brought the lunch in, I told her to call the front desk and tell them that unless God called in with an emergency over the next hour, all my calls were to be held.
She stepped back into the office and looked at me expectantly. I never held calls like that. I looked her over. Five foot six, red haired, dressed demurely in a light red dress that was short enough to be provocative but not enough to be slutty and out of place in a work environment. She wore glasses and her hair up in a bun, but I'd been around a few times when she let her hair down, figuratively and literally, and I knew there was a wild mane of red hair almost down to her ass that was almost hypnotically strokable.
"Do you need anything else Mr. Maitland?" she asked.
"Take off the secretary hat, Cheryl, and I'll take off my boss hat. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."
She looked at me oddly for a minute, then relaxed. We'd been to a few office parties and I'd seen her on her ass drunk and even taken her home once and she knew I'd never touched her when I probably could have touched her anywhere I wanted. She'd never said anything overt, but I got the impression she admired me for not messing with her when I could have.
"What's wrong, Bill?"
"Something has to be wrong for me to talk to one of my favorite secretaries," I said, trying to smile.
"You never hold your calls for an hour, I can't remember the last time you asked me in here for some private time, and anyone in here can take one look at you and tell something is bothering you."
That hurt my pride.
"I'm that transparent? And I was priding myself on my poker face."
"Usually you are pretty inscrutable. But when you walked in the door this morning, I knew something was up. And knowing you, it's personal. You are too cool when it comes to legal stuff. So it's either the kids or Debbie, and if I were a betting woman I'd say Debbie. You guys have a fight?"
I looked down at the Camel Rider and tried to make myself acquire an appetite. I needed some food inside me.
"I wish."
An alarmed expression flashed across her face and she quickly grabbed a chair and pulled it up to within a foot of my desk, close enough she could reach out and touch me.
"Oh, shit, Bill. Is it that bad?"
"I think it could be."
"Tell me."
I thought about it, but in the light of day I couldn't bring myself to give her the details. The more I thought about it, the whole fuss over a single word seemed even crazier than Debbie has said last night. If you weren't there, if you couldn't see her eyes, couldn't hear her voice, it did seem like I was very much exaggerating what had happened."
"We just had a – a – like a fight. Over something stupid. But..."
"What?"
"It doesn't matter. But, I want you to answer me honestly. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Can you do that. I won't get mad. Or upset. I need a woman to talk to, honestly."
She licked her red lips for a moment before answering.
"I hate this kind of thing, Bill. You say you won't get upset, but honesty always hurts."
"I need brutal honesty, Cheryl. I think I've been a good boss, and a good friend. And I think I proved to you that I like and respect you enough not to do anything – that would jeopardize our friendship. I'd like you to do the same."
She reached out and took one my hands in hers.
"You have been a good guy, Bill. Ask away."
"Have you ever thought – when you weren't drunk – about going to bed with me? Would you sleep with me if I really hit on you hard? And do I excite you – as a man – at all?"
She just stared at me for a moment.
"I swear to God I'm not hitting on you. But I need to know."
She looked down at the table, then faced me squarely.
"A few times. When I was between boyfriends or really, really horny. But honestly, I never thought about you seriously. You're not on my short list. You're male. But, you don't – shit this is hard – you really don't excite me. I admire you. I like you. But, I don't get – I don't want to be indelicate, but I don't get wet thinking about you. I guess the bottom line is I could see us in a situation where we might wind up in bed. Another office party might do it. But it would only be a one-time thing."
"So I don't really excite you? I'm not a hunk?"
This time she looked down at the desk a lot longer before raising her eyes to mine.
"You're not a hunk, Bill. Sorry. You're a little overweight, and flabby, and you're losing your hair and no matter what women say, that's important. Bald is not beautiful to most of us. You're a tiger in the courtroom, and professionally everybody looks up to you, but in the bedroom...I'd say you're just another out of shape middle aged guy."
She squeezed my hand and looked for a moment like she wanted to cry.
"That was probably too much honesty, right? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."
I was able to smile at her, even though it had hurt.
"What about Debbie. And I want you to be just as honest. Is she as hot as I think she is? And have you ever seen guys hitting on her at parties? How did she act when they did?"
This time she took a lot longer to answer.
"She's hot, Bill. What can I say. She's tall and blonde and she's got those big boobs and gorgeous legs. Every party I've ever been at where the two of you were there, guys hit on her all the time when you're not around."
"I'm not surprised she's popular. She is hot. Now for the $64,000 question. And this is where I need you to be honest. What does she do when they hit on her?"
She looked down again.
"I really don't want to answer this, Bill. Please don't make me."
"I need to know."
"Is this what it's all about. You think she's – with somebody?"
"I don't know, but I think she could be."
"I guess I've been at six or seven office parties where you guys have shown up, and there was that one year you invited me and my date to that Christmas party at UNF. Like I said, guys are always hitting on her, putting their arms around her, patting her ass, trying to sneak a kiss. Usually she just shrugs it off, puts their hands where they're supposed to be, gets them laughing and walks away. She's pretty good.
"A few times, very few, I've seen her in what seemed to a pretty good clinch in a corner or a hallway, but it's not a deep throat and the guys don't have their hands inside her clothes. I've seen a few of them petting her. But, Bill, to be honest, unless you want to walk about with a cattle prod most women have had that happen to them. That's why you wear stiletto heels. They're wonderful for cooling off guys who get too hot.
"And to answer what I think your real question is, I've never seen her jerkin off a guy or rubbing his dick. I've never seen her out of control to where it looked like some guy could talk her into leaving the party with him. I can't say for sure she hasn't done anything wrong, but I've never seen her do anything you'd divorce her over. And that's what we're talking about here, right?"
She reached out to grab my hand again and squeezed.
"She is a very beautiful woman, and very hot. Trust me when I say that she's like most hot women. She could have a different man every night without doing more than giving them the right kind of smile. And if she was doing that, I don't think there's any way you wouldn't have found out by now. Maybe she's cheating on you, but if she is, being very careful and selective, and I really don't think she is. Just an impression."
I leaned back in my chair and let out a deep breath. I couldn't eat a bite because I had no appetite.
"But what you're telling me is she is a very hot woman who has guys throw themselves at her every time I'm not around, and I'm a dull, sexually unattractive, old man who doesn't excite women. Something seem out of kilter about that picture?"
"People don't stay together just for sex. They stay together for love and companionship and their kids. You guys have built a life together. You think she'd throw that away just for sex?"
"Women do it every day, Cheryl So do men. It may be only sex, but it's the glue that holds marriages together. And we don't have it anymore."
She just looked at me sadly. I guess there's a limit to how encouraging you can be when you're facing a really shitty situation.
For the rest of the afternoon I waded through the common litany of treachery, stupidity, violence, lust, and lawbreaking that is the lot of any prosecutor and tried not to think about what I'd face when I got home. That was the part that was really beginning to hit me hard. My job is stressful. There's too much violence and filth and ruined lives to deal with every day. Home had always been my refuge, where I could be assured of the love of my wife and children and convince myself every night that the world I lived and worked in was not the real world. And now that refuge, that dream of love and loyalty had started to develop cracks.
I got home at 6:30, not real late for me. A lot of nights I'd be tied up until 8 or 9 and Debbie almost always left a dinner in the fridge or microwave for me when I got home. Sometimes she was home. Other times she'd be out at some meeting or other. There were always a lot of meetings, some business, some more social, but it's all part of the office political game you have to play in any institution. I'd accepted it and even when she came home at 12 or 1, sometimes 2 a.m., it hadn't bothered me. Drinking went on, but it had never bothered me.
I've handled enough cases of infidelity leading to murder or mayhem to know the signs. She had never been exceptionally secretive – taking quick showers or concealing her undergarments or trying to hide her body – or exceptionally sexy, wanting to fuck me when she walked in. I had never checked up on her, it had never occurred to me to, but had inadvertently found out many times from other people that she was where she had said she was supposed to be, and doing what she had said she was doing.
What hurt worse than anything else was the unbidden suspicion that now colored the way I thought about her. Where was she now, and who was she with, and how would I know she was telling the truth if she told me? I felt the anger in me growing again. The stupid bitch! All she had to do was laugh off the mis-statement of the last night, make a joke of it, and I would have forgotten about it. Even if she was cheating on me, I'd be fat, happy and ignorant.
Tonight she was out and both the kids were out as well. That was no surprise. I looked around. She usually left a note on the fridge or microwave letting me know where she was if she had to go out. There was nothing. I stood there and just listened. Nothing is as silent as an empty house that usually is filled with the noise of talk, laughter, television shows and radio broadcast songs.
I went to the liquor cabinet and brought out a bottle of Goldschlager. I had never heard of Goldschlager until a few years ago when a friend of Bill Jr.'s had smuggled one into a party for pre-teens. I found it, confiscated it, tried it and found that I loved it. So I always kept a bottle in the cabinet. Of course, it usually takes me three to six months to go through a bottle, but it's great for an occasional drink.
I sipped and walked through the house, making a detour by the two-car garage. Her 2004 Nissan 350Z was parked and cold to the touch. Wherever she was, somebody had come and picked her up.
Eventually I found myself in the big easy chair across from the couch and cattycornered from the Big Screen Television from Hell. I punched it on and settled back into my cocoon with cable news of all the terrible things happening around the world and tried my best to forget about Debbie and where she was and who she was with.
At 9:30 p.m. Bill Jr. blew in through the front door, alternatively talking and texting on his cell phone. I called his name a couple of times and when he continued upstairs toward his room I bellowed, "BJ, come here. Now."
He gave me a startled look as if he hadn't even known I was there. After a moment he said into his cellphone, "Gotta go. Old man wants me. Talk to you later." Then he texted a few words and clicked off. Then he looked at me, without moving away from the staircase.
"What?"
His tone irritated me, but he was a teenager.
"Just wanted to talk to you for a sec. You know where your mom is?"
He glanced at me for a second then shifted his gaze back to the staircase. It was obvious he had more important things to do.
"Haven't seen her. That's not unusual, though. She's out a lot."
He gave me a look with the arrogance and worldly wise contempt that only a 14-year-old can muster and said, "She's your wife. Why don't you know where she is?"
I could have done what my old man would have done at that point and popped him upside the head, but my old man had been a 6-2 inch, 240 pound coal miner from West Virginia and he had lived in a simpler time. Bill Jr. was almost as tall as me and sure as hell, if I left any marks Social Services would be out by the next day, I'd be arrested and my mug shot would be plastered on the front of the TU with a headline saying, "Top SA Assistant Arrested For Child Abuse."
So I just shrugged and said, "You got your homework done?"
He was going to turn around and ignore me when I said, "Walk up those stairs without answering that question and you're under house arrest for two weeks."
He stopped and turned in mid-step and looked at me as if I were some grotesque bug that had crawled out from under a rock.
"You're not going to-"
"Try me," I said, using the tone I wield when informing an opposing attorney that the deal I was offering was going to be off the table in 30 seconds.
"Mom won't-"
"What Mom says doesn't count for shit, and you can tell her I said that. You answer my question or forget about running with your friends for two weeks. And if I have to come home early for two weeks, I will."
He took a deep breath. "I got 20 pages to read in English and two pages of problems in Algebra."
"Alright, get upstairs and start on it."
He turned around but he said just loudly enough that I could hear but he could plausibly deny, "God, what a dick. No wonder Mom stays out so much."
He turned around to look at me slyly and I just grinned at him. I think that's what really pissed him off.
The next time I heard a car in the driveway I heaved myself out of my chair and glanced at the clock on the Wall. 11 p.m. I walked out to the front of the house and looked out through the window into the driveway. A sporty Audi model, a two seater, had pulled up into the circular drive. The car idled for a moment. I could make out two figures inside.
Then the one with long hair leaned over and it might have been, probably was, a kiss, brief but a kiss, and the passenger side door opened. As I expected, my blonde wife slid her long legs out and then got up. She bent over to wave goodbye to the driver and in that instant I saw a youngish dark haired guy at the wheel. I wasn't sure, but I thought he was another assistant professor in the business department.
As Debbie walked to the house I was pretty sure she hadn't gone to work teaching in that outfit. The blouse was low cut and tight, drawing attention to the globes of her breasts, and the dress itself was cut at above the knee. Not quite a mini-skirt, but it would ride high enough when sitting in a car. Not a teacher's outfit. So she had come home and changed, assuming she had gone to work, and then gone out for a long evening.
Doing what, I wondered, and with whom. But I decided I was going to try to be civil.
I went back into the den and sat down in front of the television with a few sips of liquor in my glass and switched between Fox and MSNBC to watch the arguing talking heads. I heard the front door open and then her steps came through the house. The steps stopped as she approached the door to the den. I knew without looking back that she had stopped and seen me sitting there.
I wondered if she was going to say anything. As I'd halfway expected, she didn't say a word, just continued up the stairs obviously heading for our bedroom. After awhile I heard the shower going. Then nothing.
At midnight Kelly came in, gave me a glance in the den and wandered upstairs as well. I sat watching nothing in particular until 12:30 when I realized I had to go to bed. I had been putting it off as long as possible. I turned off the TV and went up the stairs. When I got to the bedroom, all the lights were off. Only the light from the outside hallway showed me a shape on Debbie's side of the bed.
She didn't say anything as I walked in. I had planned to say something, but then thought the hell with it. Let her start the conversation if there was anything she had to say. She was the one who had told me she didn't want to see or hear anything from me that morning.
I took a quick shower, dressed in the walk-in closet, again with pajamas and walked silently to my side of the bed. I slipped under the covers and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. Beside me I heard Debbie breathing slowly and rhythmically. She was pretending to be asleep but I could tell she was awake. Her breathing was too slow and rhythmical. I wasn't going to look over at her to see if her eyes were open.
Finally I rolled on my side away from her and somehow I fell asleep. The next morning I was up early again, dressed and out of the house without saying a word to her. I grabbed a egg bacon biscuit at Hardy's on the way to work. I dived into my world of murder, deceit and mayhem and actually enjoyed the work, probably a little more than usual. I never heard from Debbie, cell phone, office phone, nothing. It was as if I didn't have a wife.
The only thing that brought her to my mind was when Cheryl stopped in my office for a moment and said, "How did things go, Bill?"
"They didn't."
"What did she say?"

[Ramesh_Rocky]

"Not a word."

"How-?"
"When I came home she was out. She rolled in about 11 o'clock in a car belonging to good looking young professor that works with her at UNF. I think she kissed him goodnight. Then she walked in, took a shower and went to bed. Not a word."
"God, Bill, I'm sorry. But why didn't you-"
"Didn't feel like it, I guess, Cheryl. I'm starting to think there's not much doubt about what's going on here. And she's the one who needs to start clearing the air."
Cheryl just gave me a look then said, "I know it's going to be hard, Bill, but you guys have to talk. Hell, you're an attorney. You know things have to be talked out."
"I'll take it under advisement."
I knew I should have gone home, but I couldn't make myself do it. I was looking around for a bar and on the way home to my Mandarin home I saw one that had just opened up a few weeks before. "The Last Call." It was a fairly big bar near a small strip mall. On an impulse I stopped and went in.
The inside was modernistic, all dark wood and mirrors, chairs set at small tables, a long bar, greenery in the corner. There was a slightly raised area at one side with a piano so there would obviously be entertainment at some times. Fortunately there was nobody there right now because I wasn't in the mood for music.
A medium height Hispanic guy with a big head of black hair came to my seat at the bar, introduced himself as the owner and offered me a free drink on the house as part of a first week celebration. I told him to bring me a beer. I could afford maybe two, and then I was heading home. I couldn't, as a high ranking SA, afford a DUI arrest.
I nursed the first beer as long as I could watching the customers come in. The place had gotten fairly full in the two hours between 6 and 8 p.m. Then I ordered that second beer and nursed it until nearly 10.
My cell phone hadn't rung the first time. Debbie was used to my running late, but usually by 8 she had checked in with me to find out when I'd be home. I wondered if she hadn't called because she was out of the house with her young professor.
I couldn't put it off any longer and got back on the road and was home in 20 minutes. The lights were on in the kitchen and in the den. I used my key to enter the house and checked in the kitchen first. There was a pork chop and some rice and vegetables on a plate in the microwave. As before, I didn't have an appetite. I was tempted to dump it in the trash but I put it back in the fridge. Maybe the kids might eat it tomorrow.
As I walked by the den I glanced in and saw her sitting in the chair in front of a large glass coffee table. It looked like she had papers out grading them. She had a glass filled with what looked like white wine and she had a favorite album compilation of Cranberries and Human League songs on the stereo. She didn't look back at me as I walked by and I didn't say anything to her.
I went upstairs, took a shower, and hit the bed. I don't know why, but I was suddenly exhausted. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. When I woke up in the morning, I was alone in bed and it didn't look like she'd been in it all night long. I looked in the den as I prepared to leave the house and saw she had curled up on the couch. She was still wearing a blouse and skirt combination that looked like what she'd worn to work. It was wrinkled as hell.
As I stood there, she suddenly raised her head, shook it a little and opened her eyes staring into mine. I think we were both equally surprised. After a moment I walked out with my briefcase and got into my Escalade and drove to work.
It was a Friday and we were just preparing for a round of trials that were going to kick off with jury selection the next Monday. There are always ten million little details that have to be ironed out on that kind of Friday so I worked my ass off and I didn't even turn the lights off in my office until 10:30 p.m.
It was 11:30 p.m. before I got home. As usual the house was dark and silent. I looked on the fridge and saw notes from Bill Jr. saying he was spending the night with a friend and one from Kelly saying she was going with friends to a concert and would be spending the night with a friend's parents. Both kids had left contact numbers and I quickly called both numbers. Their stories checked out and I knew both sets of parents so I rested easy about them.
Where was Debbie? Her Nissan was gone. I went by the den and up to the bedroom. She was nowhere to be seen. I began to wonder why that surprised me. And for the very first time, I started to wonder who I might contact to handle a divorce if that was the way it turned.
I shook my head as I realized what I was thinking. A divorce, a few days after one argument? What the hell had happened?
I almost reached for my cell phone to call her. And then stopped myself. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn't make myself dial her number. I hadn't done anything wrong. She was the one who sparked everything and then made it worse by her goddamn unbelievably suspicious reactions. Maybe I shouldn't have accused her of cheating, but dammit, you'd have to be a complete moron not to wonder what was going on after the way she had acted.
She was wrong. She had frozen me out. She was out with people I didn't know, riding home with strange young men, kissing them. She was being friendly and wonderful with everyone except the poor slob who had spent 17 years working his ass off to make a good life for her and the kids. It shouldn't be me making the first move.
Tonight I didn't even have to think about what to do. I barely had energy to get into the shower, wash off the grime and sweat (and yes, even attorneys get sweaty during a long day) and hit the bed. And again I was unconscious instantly.
I had one of those moments where you don't know quite where you are when you first wake up. A few seconds later I realized I was in my own bed. But something was strange. And then it hit me. I was alone in bed. I looked over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 10 a.m. I glanced over the bed. She had never been in it.
I rolled out of bed and headed downstairs. Maybe she had come in late and slept in the den. Maybe she had gotten up and was cooking breakfast. Not that she did that much anymore, but it was possible.
The house was bigger, and quieter, and emptier than seemed possible. Her Nissan was still gone. There was no sign she had ever come home the previous night. I toured the house three times, but it didn't change the facts. I tried to remember if anything like this had ever happened in our 17 years of marriage. I knew it hadn't.
One fight, four little words, and it seemed like our marriage was crashing down like a sand castle as the tide washed in. Was it possible to be so damned blind that I had completely missed all the signs for months, or years?
I could have started calling around. But, I was the prematurely old, sexually unattractive, clueless husband whose wife was spending the night out without any word on where or what she was doing. Fuck her.
I got dressed and headed for a nearby Waffle House. Al l their food items were cardiac health hazards, but I loved their fluffy omelets and right now I didn't give a damn about watching my waist line. It looked like it was too late for that anyway.
It was nearly noon and I was washing the last of the omelet and crisp bacon down with a fourth cup of coffee when my cell phone range. I automatically answered it, figuring it was one of the kids.
"Bill."
I swallowed the last of the coffee and answered, "Hello Roy."
Roy Bascomb was my father-in-law. We'd always gotten along pretty good. He owned a tire store on the Northside and had a few rental properties as well.
"Hi, Bill. I...uh...I tried to call you at your house, but I didn't get an answer."
"I'm not there."
"Yeah, I figured. Uh, Bill, I just wanted to call and let you know...Debbie is at our house right now."
"Debbie, that's interesting. I used to know a girl named Debbie. We talking the same person."
There was a pretty good silence and then, "She told us that you guys were....having some problems and that you might be....upset...when I called you. But I didn't want you to worry about where she was."
"Now why would I be worried, Roy? Just because she doesn't come home one night, all night, and doesn't leave me a word to let me know if she's dead or alive or fucking a dozen guys somewhere? You're acting like I actually have a wife, or something, instead of a woman who spends my paycheck and then goes off with other men."
"Bill, stop talking like that. You're talking about Debbie. Your wife. Our daughter. The mother of your children. You know she's not...running around on you."
"I do, Roy? How do I know? She's off a lot of nights and I only have her word about what she's doing. And night before last I see a young guy she works with drop her off at 11 p.m. and she kisses him goodnight. She tell you about that? By the way, what time did she get to your house last night?"
"God, I think I'm seeing what she's worried about. She said you guys had a fight about something stupid and you accused her of cheating and haven't been willing to say a word to her since then.
'And you're mistaken about seeing her kiss anybody. She told us about that meeting. It was a college meeting, and the guy who dropped her off was a friend. A lady she works with picked her up but had an emergency and had to leave early so the guy you saw volunteered to take her home. There was no kissing.
"As to when she came here, Bill, she came over straight from the college, at 5:30 p.m. and she was here all night. Unless you think we're lying for her. Is that how far around the bend you've gone?"
"Roy, she's your daughter and I know you're going to support her. Although, I would think after 19 years of knowing me and seeing that I've been a good husband and good father to your grandchildren, you might give me a little benefit of the doubt.
"And if she was going to see you, why didn't she leave a note. Or call. Or do any damn thing so I wouldn't wake up this morning and believe she spent the night out with somebody else, and start thinking seriously about how we're going to divide up our assets."
I felt the anger start to rise inside me, a black rising tide, and fought to keep my voice calm.
"And come to think of it, if she's so concerned, why the hell isn't she talking to me right now? Why does she have to get her father to call me?"
After a moment he said apologetically, "I know she was wrong not to let you know where she was, Bill. I told her she should have. And she's not on the phone because she doesn't want to talk to you.
"I have to tell you, I've known you guys since before you were married, and I've never her seen her like this before. She is so pissed with you. I think you really hurt her when you...accused her of being unfaithful. I don't know...I don't know if those are words you can take back."
I took a last swig of my coffee.
"Well let me see if I follow this. She said a few words that upset me, but I'm supposed to get over it, and I said a few words that upset her and she's acting like the marriage is over because I said them. Is that right?"
When he didn't answer, I said, "Well, if you would, pass on a message from me to your daughter. Tell her if that's the way she feels, I don't give a damn if she ever comes back. Oh, and be sure and tell her this, word for word: Fuck you!"
I clicked off before he could respond, although I doubted he would. I sat back and thought about the call. In one sense I was relieved. She hadn't been out screwing her UNF buddy last night. But hell, she could have done that at any time if she'd been inclined. And staying out all night and deliberately leaving me in the dark was not the kind of thing a loving wife was supposed to do.
I sat back for a moment and thought about what I'd do today and Sunday. Normally I'd hang around the house, watch some TV, maybe do a few honey-do list items, go out to eat or do a little shopping with Debbie. I could go back into the office, but...
Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do. And it had the added benefit of keeping me in the house if Bill or Kelly came back. I drove home and sat down at the big desktop computer I used in the little office adjacent to our bedroom. I started the slave spy program I'd installed on all the computers and laptops in the house. Since we were on DSL, any signals sent or received on any computer were copied onto the slave program.
I knew my passwords and those of Bill Jr. and Kelly, so I simply eliminated them and any left, even without knowing Debbie's passwords, were automatically hers.
I had all day so I dropped back six months and started scrolling through messages to and from her. Because she was a professor, there were tons from students, other professionals, the university, and a few from friends from our college days. But nothing too unusual.
I didn't notice them at first. I was routinely flipping through messages when it occurred to me that the name on a message to her sounded familiar. I looked at it a little more closely. LanceAlot4U. The one I was looking at was from three months ago and it simply talked about a meeting that had been cancelled for a Tuesday evening. Lancelot said he knew she had left early and the Chair had asked him to contact her so she wouldn't make a useless trip. Nothing personal.
But I started scrolling backwards and I found more, from him to her and from her to him.
Messages about lesson plans, meetings that were called or cancelled, office politics, just saying hello. Once in a while she teased him about a hot date he was going to be going on over the weekend and telling him to be careful if he couldn't be good. The closest I could get to anything personal was a quick quip on one from him to her that he wouldn't have to be careful if she'd go out with him because he knew she was a good, Christian homemaker. But in her very next response she wrote him back:
"Lance, don't even joke like that. That's how ugly rumors get started. Let someone in the office see that, or if someone at my house were to see it, and they wouldn't know that we're just good friends. You know that you can't tell a person's tone of voice from a computer screen. I know you're joking, but my husband wouldn't. I'd die, God, if he ever thought I was even flirting with you."
And in his next, he wrote, "Sorry, Deb. You know I would never do anything to cause you embarrassment. I wasn't thinking. You and I both know you're the hottest woman on this campus, but I don't mess with married woman and I know you love your husband from everything you've ever said to me. I won't tease like that any more."
I thought about what I'd read. It was perfectly innocent except for the initial flirtatious hint and she had shut him down immediately. I didn't know why, but I was sure this was the dark haired young man that had dropped her off at our house that night.
Btu while it was innocent on the surface, perhaps it was my dark prosecutor's heart digging for the dirt underneath innocent words, I sensed a friendship that went beyond normal colleagues, at least on Debbie's part. And Lance wouldn't be the first single guy to swear to a hot married woman that he would never mess with a married woman – until she fell into his bed.
So I continued reading forward.
Two months ago: Deb to Lance: "I can't thank you enough for helping me with that evaluation project. It would have taken me another month without your help. And you don't get anything from it except my thanks because it goes under my name. I feel bad about taking advantage of your good nature. You should be out dating and chasing young girls, not wasting hour after hour doing work I should be doing at home. But if I tried to do it all myself, I'd never see my kids at all."
Lance to Deb: "De nada. I'd probably be getting drunk and into trouble chasing women if I wasn't doing this to help you. Keeps me out of trouble. And I feel good about giving you more time with your kids, and with your husband of course."
Deb to Lance: "My kids. Bill is more interested in what's on TV than what I'm doing. He comes home and the first thing he does is plop down in front of what he calls our TV Big Screen From Hell. Sometimes I think he gets more excited by that than me. Oops...I didn't mean that. It's just that..."
Lance to Deb: "I understand. You guys have been married a long time. And he's what- 40 or 45? Guys slow down when they hit that age. I have a hard time imagining anyone preferring to watch television rather than spend time with you, but...I'm a kid. When I hit 30 I'll probably feel differently."
Deb to Lance: :) You child you. Somehow, when I see you walking around the campus I don't think of you as a child. :) Anyway (blushing) I can't see you ever letting yourself go the way Bill has. I tried to get him to join a gym with me but he keeps saying he doesn't have the time. He's gotten that middle aged spare tire. I never really believed you could bounce a quarter off a guy's abs, but what you did at that party last month blew my mind. I can't ever see you with a spare tire. And on that blushing note, I've got to go to bed."
Lance to Deb: "Sweet dreams, Deb."
Deb to Lance: "You forget I ever wrote this, but if I keep thinking about your abs I'll have some really sweet dreams. Night."
I sat there after reading that exchange and wondered if I wanted to keep reading. Short of saying she wanted to suck his dick, I couldn't imagine any way she would be more open about wanting him. And the son of a bitch knew what he was doing when he put me down as an over-the-hill lover. And my sweet loyal wife instead of defending me basically told him she wanted his abs over my middle aged middle.
I kept reading.
A month ago:
Deb to Lance: "Sorry I didn't have a chance to talk with you today. I was jammed. I've really enjoyed our lunches. To be honest, the day doesn't seem near as much fun when we can't meet for an hour or so. But, there's always tomorrow. Did you hear the latest bit of hot gossip?"
Lance to Deb: "I missed you too. Don't take this the wrong way, but you know you're eye-candy, right. That's what the kids call it. Even if we're only friends, I still like looking at you. I'm a pig. I plead guilty. And as to the gossip, I assume you're talking about Professor Amarilla and Coach Johansen?"
Deb to Lance: Yes, could you believe it. In his office, no less. They said that her husband burst in on them – in the middle of – you know - consummating things. I've met her. She's pretty, but old! She must be in her 50s and Johansen is only, what, 35 or 40? The story I've heard is that her husband threw her out and she's moved in with Johansen."
Lance to Deb: You mean fucking, don't you, Deb? I don't mean to shock you, but the story I heard is that Johansen is huge and was pounding her to a pulp and even after her husband barged in there she told him to get out until she was through! :) She must have really enjoyed what he was doing.
Deb to Lance: That's indelicate, Lance, you pig. :) But you're right. Consummating is like....what Bill and I do. Oh, God, I can't believe I wrote that. But...it's been so long since I've been really FUCKED that sometimes I forget what it was like. I think we used to have that, if I can remember that far back. But now...Bill was never huge to be honest, but the last few years I think he's shrunk. I'll kill you if you ever let a word of this slip. And he gets winded in five or six minutes.
"I feel guilty even telling you this, but I can't talk to him about it. And sometimes I think I'll scream if I can't tell somebody what's happening – or not happening – in my life. I don't know how I made it through the days before we met. I can be honest with you, because we're not married, or lovers. We're friends, and a friend is what I need now."

[Ramesh_Rocky]

Lance to Deb: You know you can tell me anything, Deb. I wish I could help you. I mean, physically. I'll never push it any further than you say, but you're too beautiful a woman to have to play with yourself to achieve a climax. Does he know you use the vibrator when he's not around?"

Deb to Lance: "No, and he never will. How can I tell him he doesn't do it for me in bed anymore; hasn't for a long time. That I have to use a big vibrator and shove it in there way further than he ever gets to climax. I fake it with him, but sometimes I think he must be able to tell the difference."
Lance to Deb: "You think you'll be able to go on like this forever?"
Deb to Lance: "What choice do I have? We've been married for 17 years. We have two children. He's done everything he can to keep me happy. I know there nothing in this world I could ask him to do for me that he wouldn't do. The hell of it is, he's such a good man. And I should love him a lot more than I do. Don't misunderstand me, I do love him. Even though you and I flirt sometimes, and maybe I carry it further than a middle aged married woman should, I know you know that I love him. If it wasn't that I loved him, I'd –"
Lance to Deb: "Don't say it. Don't write it. I know what you're thinking. But, I know you love him. You love him, not me. And I'm not going to be the guy that breaks you two up."
Deb to Lance: "I know you could have...well, you know If you were an asshole like a lot of the younger guys around here are. But you've been a gentleman, a good man. That's why I like you so much. I'll just say that I hope you know just how special a friend you've become. And now I'll sign off."
I thought the screen had suddenly become blurry and then I realized my eyes were filled with tears. It was one of those moments when you wonder why you can't just have a heart attack and get it over with.
My wife was falling, had fallen, in love with another man. The beautiful blonde I'd cum inside of for so many years wanted another man's cock inside her. She all but admitted it. And he knew he could have her, and I knew and I knew she knew he was going to have her. She was just trying to gather the courage to fall into his bed. And once that happened, our marriage was over.
The fucker was 10 years younger than me, had rock hard abs and my wife drooling over him and admiring his restraint for not throwing her down and fucking her. Jesus, he had her every which way. And I was a fat, balding, middle-aged bore whose dick had shrunk to the point that I couldn't even get my wife off anymore. There wasn't even any suspense here.
I forced myself to keep reading. There weren't many incriminating messages after that last one. Then I found one from Deb to her Lancelot dated two weeks ago.
Deb: "I'm sorry I didn't come by for lunch today, Lance. I meant to call and give you some lie about being busy or something coming up at the last minute, but then I found I just couldn't lie to you like that. We've become TOO good friends. You deserve the truth.
"I've decided we need to cool it, back up a bit. I know that you consider me a friend, but I also know you're sexually attracted to me. That's flattering. You're a hunk, a beautiful young hunk, and you have no idea how much you've flattered my ego by flirting with me. But I always made it clear that I was a married woman – a faithful married woman.
"Notice I didn't say a happily married woman. You know me too well for me to say that. I've been a lot more honest with you about my marriage and the problems we're having than I should have been, than I would have been with anybody else.
"The worst of it is, I feel so much closer to you than I do to Bill. He's my husband, but he doesn't even know our marriage is dying slowly. He's clueless. Such a smart, smart man, so skillful in the courtroom, but in real life, in our marriage, he's a loser. He's lost my lust, and my respect and slowly he's losing my love.
"I feel like an animal caught in a trap. I've tried a thousand times to think of some way to start breathing life back into our relationship, our marriage. I've thought about trying to invigorate our sexual life. But...dammit, I'm not that good an actress. I fake orgasms all the time, but I can't fake excitement. And he doesn't excite me any more.
He's gone to pot and his dick doesn't feel or look as big and hard as it was. He doesn't get anywhere near as excited as I remember. He used to strip me and throw me down and fuck me hard. Now, he squeezes my breasts, licks me and then rolls on and pumps for a little while, gets off, and rolls over.
"It doesn't matter how smart he is, or how good an attorney, as a man, a male animal, he is not satisfying me anymore. And hasn't for a long long time. I wonder sometimes, if he even misses the hot sex we used to have. I think maybe he's content to be a father and a successful attorney and climb off and on me once or twice a month and get his rocks off.
"I always knew he was – sedate – dull I guess. He wasn't a party animal in college, and I used to love dancing and partying, the more the better. But it's gotten worse as he's gotten older. He has to be dragged to parties and he only goes when there's some political reason to be seen there. He doesn't dance, or doesn't like to.
"I've made a life without him. A lot of times when I tell him I'm at a faculty meeting, I'm out with some girls from college, or girls and guys like the times we've gone out dancing. I haven't done anything wrong, but I want to be someone other than a wife and mother for a few hours. I want to have men look at me and admire me. I wish to God I wanted him to be one of those men, but I really don't care anymore. I don't think of him that way.
"I can't fake being excited in bed and I can't tell him I've been going out and partying without him, even though I haven't done anything wrong with men, because what do I say when he asks me why I lied about where I was going? Do I tell him I'm happier when he's not around? It's the truth, but it would go over like a lead balloon.
"Anyway, Dear Friend, I didn't mean to write a novel here. I just wanted to let off some steam and let you know why we won't be having lunch or seeing each other much anymore. Somehow, somehow I feel like things are getting ready to explode, to change. I don't know how. I don't know what I might do. But I don't think I can go on much longer like this.
"And if – if the worst, or best, happens and I'm not married in a few months or more, I don't want you to be anywhere near the wreckage. I don't want anybody, Bill or my kids, or our friends, to suspect that our relationship, our friendship, had anything to do with my marriage ending.
"Because it didn't. You've been a gentleman and a friend when I needed a friend. You will always have a piece of my heart and if I – somehow – work things out with Bill, I will never forget you and I hope you go on to have a happy life. Your friend always, Debbie."
I must have sat there for hours because the next thing I knew, the quality of the light coming in from outside had changed. I glanced at the clock. It was 6 p.m. I don't even know what I'd been thinking about during those hours. I think I must have been envisioning the way my life was going to turn out.
I wondered what it would be like coming home to an empty house or apartment when Debbie was with another man. What it would be like to see my kids only occasionally and I wasn't even sure that would happen. What would it be like to lie in a bed and for the first time in half my life, lie there alone and not hear her breathing beside me? What would it be like not to be able to put a hand out and rest it on the soft skin of her arm or shoulder. How would I shop for groceries for just me?
Little things, but after 20 years, they were as important as the sex. She had been a part of my entire life, and losing her was going to be like having a part of my body torn out and ripped away.
Because I had no doubt now, there wasn't going to be an 'us' in the future. There wouldn't be a Maitland family living in a comfortable Mandarin home. That was history. And now I knew why in her mind our marriage was already a part of her past.
Somehow I made myself come alive again. I batch printed out copies of all emails to and from her for the last six months, including the pertinent emails to and from Lance. Not that I needed them for any legal reason.
Adultery isn't a factor in divorces today, at least not in Florida where no-fault divorces have been the law of the land for over a generation and she could even claim that she hadn't even been having an emotional affair with another man. I could argue it was an affair, but so what. She apparently hadn't slept with the guy, hadn't fucked him, maybe kissed him a few times. It didn't make any difference.
I knew I should confront her with the emails. Make her admit that she had fallen in love with the guy, or least had fallen out of love with me. But again, so what? If she admitted it, what difference would it make? I'd lost her.
Oh, I could fight to force us into counseling, try to slow things down enough to give me a chance to woo her again.
But who was I kidding? With what I knew now, counseling wouldn't make a difference. And I thought she'd just laugh if I tried to play the stud in bed. Every time I was with her I'd see that mental image of her lusting over Lance's flat abs and comparing them to my old man's belly. And if I could work up a decent erection, I'd lose it at that point.
By 8 p.m. neither Bill Jr. nor Kelly had shown. I called the homes where they were staying and was told their mother had picked them up. She'd obviously taken them to her parents to spend the weekend. Great. I'd have the place to myself.
I sat in front of the dark TV from Hell and tried to think of what I wanted to do. I felt like a turtle that little boys had picked up and placed on its back. I could spin around, but I couldn't move, couldn't advance and couldn't retreat.
When I did start moving, I amazed myself. I found myself going up to our bedroom, pulling two suitcases out of a closet and then systematically putting in enough pants, shirts, shoes, coats, and miscellaneous clothing items to go a couple of weeks without having to wear the same items twice.
I filled the back of the Escalade and then went back in and got miscellaneous court files and computer discs. I did a second mass print of all Debbie's emails to make sure I didn't miss any and to have a copy in case anything happened to the first set, then wiped them off with a scrubber program that left no copies that anybody would ever be able to recreate.
I thought about scrubbing Bill Jr.'s and Kelly's, but she would have expected me to be monitoring their computer use. I didn't think she'd ever expect me to be monitoring her, and if it hadn't been for the events of the last few days, I never would have looked at hers.
I would have been much happier if I'd never looked at them, of course, but I don't think anything would really have changed in the long run, except she probably would have completely blindsided me when she left and it would have hurt me even more.
The very last thing I did before leaving and locking up was to go into the bathroom. With the aid of Vaseline and a lot of torque that took the skin off underneath the ring, I managed to get my wedding band off. I had gained so much weight in the last nearly 20 years that the knuckle had swollen and the flesh of my finger almost encased the metal. But with only a little bloodshed, I managed to twist it off.
I grabbed a piece of blank copy paper out of the copier attached to the main desktop and scrawled a few words on it. Then I put my ring, and some of my blood, on it and closed the lights of our bedroom.
I locked the house behind me. I'd turned off all the lights and only a dark hulk of a building remained. I had lived there for almost 10 years with my wife and children and I really didn't think I'd be coming back. As I drove the dark night streets to downtown I tried to figure out what I was feeling. But I was just numb.
I made my way downtown, past the courthouse and legal complex on the St. Johns River, past the Sheriff's Office called the CopShop by everybody except the Sheriff and drove two blocks further down, then turned to the river side of the road. The very expensive Riverfront Condos were located here and our office kept one rented at all times in case an SA, witness, or anybody else needed to stay over. As one of the three head SAs, I kept a key to the condo on my key ring and let myself in.
I looked at the doorknob which I had opened with my left hand. Shit, there was blood all over it. I must have torn my ring finger up a lot more than I thought when I was getting it off. I went into the bathroom and washed the finger off, found a bottle of rubbing alcohol under the sink, and cursed for a few minutes after I liberally doused my abraded flesh.
Then I walked back out to the car, unloaded and lastly threw my body onto the bed. I had enough energy to get most of my clothes off and fell asleep watching one of the cable news shows on a little/big screen television in the corner dressed only in cotton underwear and a t-shirt. I listened to them describe the machinations of Cardinals in Rome as they maneuvered to take the post of the revered Jon Paul II who had died earlier in the month.
As my mind drifted away it was oddly comforting to realize that politics was still everywhere, even in God's holiest city, Arabs were still killing Jews, robbers were still hitting banks, teens were still doing incredibly stupid things, and the world continued to spin, even if my world had crashed and burned.
I came to instantly alert and wide awake the next morning. I knew where I was and what had led me to this unfamiliar room. I lay there for a few minutes because for one of the few times in my life, there was absolutely nothing I had to do. I didn't have to wake the kids, take anybody to church, run any errands, buy groceries.
I was absolutely free and I remembered that great old rock and roll line from the 70s, 'Me and Bobby McGee,' :"freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." It was still a great line when I'd heard it in the 90s. Damn, Janis had nailed that one.
I knew the feeling. I was absolutely empty, absolutely alone for the first time in more than 20 years, and absolutely free. I wished that I wanted to go somewhere, or do anything. I thought about calling somebody.
But I realized I didn't have any friends. I had colleagues, guys I worked with, but nobody I went out drinking with. As Debbie had said, all I did was work, come home and watch TV and enjoy my family. Any friends we did have were Debbie's friends from the University. And I'd feel odd as hell about calling any of them.
There was my mother and stepfather. They lived a little further south in a suburb of Orlando in the center of the state. But damned if I wanted to hear the sympathy and pity in either of their voices when I told them I'd split from Debbie. Nor did I want to explain why I had.
Eventually I showered, shaved and went out and grabbed a breakfast sandwich meal from Burger King, rode around the downtown, sat on a Riverwalk bench watching Sunday boaters cruising along the St. Johns, and felt like the only person on earth. I thought about calling Cheryl, but I'd be imposing. I thought she had just met a new guy and I'd be a definite third wheel.
Somehow the clock wound slowly around until 9 p.m. I'd had a steak at a downtown steakhouse, called a couple of lower level SAs who were going to be leads on the cases the next morning to make sure they were ready for the openings, and then went back to the condo to watch – what else – cable news.
At 9:15 p..m. my cell rang. I always keep it charged and I always keep it with me. It's the first rule for cops or prosecutors. You always have to be available, 24/7.
I almost didn't take the call when I saw Debbie's ID pop up, but I did and said, "Hello."
"You son of a bitch."
"Well, hello. I love you too."
It sounded like she was gasping for air, fighting to find the right words to attack me with.
"You no good crazy bastard...goddamn it...how could you...how could you pull a stunt like that where Bill and Kelly would see...bad enough you show me how crazy you are but they're kids...what is wrong with you."
"Slow down and take a deep breath, honey. Don't have a stroke."
"You are one sick son of a bitch...what...don't you have any decency...what are the kids supposed to think?"
"I gather you're talking about my ring?"
"Yes, you go crazy because of a few words I said and call me a slut and then when I go see my parents for a few days, you leave me...you move your clothes and stuff out and leave your bloody wedding ring out where everybody can see it...how could you? I'm going to have you committed, Bill. You have lost your mind."
"Did you read the note?"
She almost lost it and screamed into the cell phone so shrilly I had to hold it away from my ear.
"You bastard...asshole...motherfucker... I don't even know who you are."
"That's okay. I don't know who you are either. But did you read the note?"
"You think that was funny? 'this should make it easier for you' As if I'm the one who wants out of this marriage and not you."
"I'm not the one who spent the night away from home without letting me know where she was. I'm not the one who picked up the kids to spend the weekend with your parents without giving me a heads up. I'm not the one who was kissing on a "friend" the other night when he drove you home, no matter what cock and bull story you fed your parents."
I didn't know why I didn't rub her nose in the damning e-mails I'd found. I knew she'd go crazy accusing me of spying on her and not trusting her if she knew I'd bugged her laptop. But more than that, I hadn't gotten what I'd thought was one honest word out of her lying mouth in nearly a week. I'd found out that the woman I thought I had known was some stranger. Let her hang herself with her lies, lies of omission if not flat out lies.
Maybe it was the prosecutor in me. There was nothing sweeter than catching a hostile witness or a defendant in a lie, when you'd let him or her run it out and tangle themselves in a web they could never talk themselves out of. How in the hell had it wound up with my trying to trap my own wife in her web of lies.
I almost hung up. It almost would be better to walk away, just forget the woman I'd loved for half my life than wind up proving to my own satisfaction that she was a lying, traitorous slut bitch; an unfaithful wife which was the worst name I could hang on any woman.
But dammit, she wouldn't stop lying.
"I shouldn't have stayed away without calling you. I'm sorry. I was so angry at you. But about that kiss.... Dad said you told him that story. It never happened, Bill. Douglas was nice enough to drive me home. I never touched him, never kissed him. It was all taking place in that sick mind of yours.
"What's happened to you? I've been angry enough to call you crazy, but you're scaring me now. First you go crazy because I twist some words, then you accuse me of cheating on you, then you imagine you saw me kissing a sweet young man who would never even think of touching me. That's not – that's not rational, Bill."
I almost called Douglas "Lance" but that would give away the game. I wondered if that was a pet name referring to his "lance" that he wanted to bury in her.
"So this guy, Doug, how close a friend is he?"
There was a long silence.
"Doug is an assistant prof in the business department. He came in about a year ago. I have to meet with him because they assigned me as his mentor. They partner all new staff with experienced professors. We've had a few lunches together. A few times I've danced with him at events, but I don't think you were at any of them. You know how you hate most parties and events like that. Even if you'd been there, I'd still have been dancing with him. You hate dancing and he's pretty good.

[Ramesh_Rocky]

"He's a nice boy, but that's all. I'm more than 10 years older than him, for God's sake. And I have never kissed him."

"Is he a good friend?"
"Bill! He's a friend. We talk sometimes and we've worked on projects together. But he's no more of a friend than a half dozen other male and female professors on the staff. Are you going to start obsessing about Doug now?"
"No, not if you say he's a casual friend. But why did you wear that blouse that shows off your tits and a skirt so short he had to see your pubic hairs – sorry he could if you still had any – to the meeting that night? Not really professor type nightwear, is it?"
Another long silence.
"You – okay, it was a little revealing. But, Bill, I'm not 75. Only 39. I'm still a young woman. It's not – not that I want men to ogle me, but...dammit, I've got a great set of boobs and great legs, according to most guys, and once in a while I like to show them off. I don't flash guys. I don't have affairs. But I'm not dead."
"You've never worn that outfit to any event I attended."
"Oh, God, Bill, do we have to talk about this?"
"Why not, Debbie? Don't all the self help books say couples have to be honest with each other? That they should talk out their problems. If I'm paranoid and obsessively jealous with no reason in reality, why can't you answer a simple question? Why do you wear revealing clothes that show off that great body of yours – when I'm not around?"
"Can't we talk about this when you come home?"
"I'm not sure I will be coming home."
A very long silence.
"Why the hell am I bending over backwards trying to hold you when you obviously don't care if we continue as a marriage and a couple. You want to know the truth about why I dress up for other men and not for my loving husband? Because unless you're naked and rubbing my tits, I might as well be part of the furniture.
"You don't notice what I wear, or when I change my hair style, or get a new bra. You don't kiss me on the back of the neck when you come in from work and try to feel my tits. You don't grab me in the middle of the day when the kids are gone and try to seduce me. You haven't taken me out and got me drunk to get into my pants in ten years. You haven't worked to get a piece of ass from me since we were first married.
" I wear those clothes for other men because I want to remember what it was like to be desired by men, or any man. Is that honest enough for you?"
This time, for the first time in days, I thought she was being honest. And what did that say about me? Suddenly, I had nothing to say.
"I'm sorry, Deb. I'm sorry for everything. "
I know she didn't understand what I was saying because she didn't know I'd had a secret look into her heart and soul and the secrets she was keeping from me. She didn't know I was apologizing for letting myself get old before my time, for not retaining the passion of our early years, for letting myself become more involved in my work than my wife's life. I was apologizing for letting her love slip away until she now belonged more to another man than she belonged to me.
"So, are you coming home?"
Why wouldn't I? Because she was still more in love with another man than she was in love with me? Because I still had no chance in a competition with Lance to win her love, or sexual devotion?
"No, Deb. I'm not. I'm not – it's not that I'm angry with you. But, I just feel like, maybe, we need some time apart."
After a long time, she said, "Alright, Bill. But someday, someday, you are going to regret this. You will hate yourself for what you're doing right now."
"Maybe. Kiss the kids for me."
"They're a little too old for that, but you probably haven't noticed that. And it should be you."
She hung up.
I turned off the TV and lay back looking at the ceiling bathed in moonlight from a picture window on a balcony looking out over the St. Johns. She might never know it, but I already regretted the hell out of everything that had happened in the last week. But, I corrected myself. It hadn't been going on for a week. This shit, this rot in my life and our marriage had been going on for six months according to the emails I'd read, and if I was honest, the decay went back a lot further than that.
Monday came as it always did. There were no big cases. Just cases; murder, manslaughter; and a Navy guy from the Jax Navy base who had in a fit of rage at his wife taken their little eight month old daughter who wouldn't stop crying and shaken her until her brain hemorrhaged in her skull. But his parents were loaded and they had spent money to buy a cracker jack legal whiz kid from New York to teach the hicks down in North Florida a few new legal tricks.
There was a separated first-of-three trials of scum bag drug dealing brothers who had been trying to teach a competitor to stay off their turf by spraying his Northside home with bullets and managed to kill an eight-year-old boy who had thrown himself down on his two younger siblings to save them and gotten a bullet in the brain for his bravery.
That was almost a waste. They were all going to the gas chamber, sometimes called the death chamber because Florida had never had a real gas chamber. We used lethal injection after the old faithful electric chair was retired.
All three scumbags knew they were going to die in the death chamber; we knew it, their attorneys knew it, the little boy's family knew it, their own scumbag family knew it, but we had to go through the motions three times to make sure the little boy
got a small measure of justice.
Not really that unusual a week. But motions had to be made, jury selection had to begin, witnesses had to be coddled or have their spines stiffened. As usual, the days would be endless and the nights brief pit stops to get enough rest to keep going the next day. I didn't do a lot of courtroom theatrics. My job was to make sure everything ran smoothly.
Sometime during the day, between two crises of earth shattering importance which would be completely forgotten by the next day, Cheryl trapped me in my office.
"They tell me you're staying on the River? You moved out on Debbie? And your kids?"
"Shit happens."
She closed the door behind me.
"Bill, what is going on?"
"Too much to tell you about in the middle of a busy day, and there's a lot of stuff I couldn't tell you anyway. There's no separation. I just wanted – some time away. Give us both a chance to get a chance to breath."
"You know that a lot of times when you move out, you never move back?"
"I don't know if that will happen."
"You should have said, that will never happen to us."
When I didn't answer she just shook her head.
"God, I hate seeing another marriage go down the tubes. Don't do this, Bill. I don't know what you're thinking, but don't walk out on your marriage without fighting for it. Jesus, you're a fucking pit bull in the courtroom. I've never seen you give up on anything. Don't let her go, don't let them go, without a fight."
"You can't have a marriage without two people who want to stay married. And that's all, Cheryl. Open the door and get out of here."
We got into initial jury selections in all three trials. The New York whiz kid played enough tricks to please Mom and Dad paying the freight for their son's defense. I thought it was money wasted, but hey, he was their son. If I'd raised a scumbag like him, I'd probably fight just as hard.
It was just another Monday full of surprises and unexpected problems and unhappy witnesses and irritable judges who really did need to keep rolls of toilet paper, as Somerset Maugham once suggested, beside them to remind themselves that they weren't really little tin gods, only men and women who had a temporary powerful position.
At 7 p.m. I was getting ready to call it a day when my cell rang. I keep it on buzz during the day, but I've got a loud buzz so I always know when it's ringing.
"Bill, what in the ever loving hell is wrong with you?"
"I'm not sure I know how to answer that question, Roy. In what regard?"
"Debbie called this morning and said you've moved out of the house. And left your wedding ring behind. How can you see to walk around with your head stuck so far up your ass?"
I couldn't help laughing.
"That's a great mental image Roy. Thanks, I needed a laugh about now. If you're serious with your question, I haven't moved out. I just took some things so I could spend a few days away from Debbie. Things have been getting...too tense. I'm afraid I might say something I don't want to say to her. You know, the kind of thing you can't take back or get past. So I'm just giving us some breathing space."
He was quiet for a moment and then in a calmer tone, he said, "Bill, I've known you for 20 years. I'll admit, I haven't thought you were the best husband or father in the world. You've let yourself go physically, and when you're married to a woman that looks like Debbie, that's a stupid thing to do. I've thought plenty of times that you spend too much time in that damned office and too little time with Deb or the kids.
"A marriage isn't a house where you stop off from time to time to eat meals or get your clothes washed, or ....spend time in bed. You can't set a marriage on auto pilot and forget about it. I'm older than you, Bill, and I know what I'm talking about. You have to WORK to make a marriage last. That's the only real problem I have with you. I think you gave up on your marriage years ago."
Now it was my turn to be quiet. Finally I said, "I can't deny there's some truth to what you're saying. Part of it is my fault. I know that now. But, there's other stuff..."
"What, what the hell are you talking about? Something happened last week and its blown things up in your house? What was it?"
"I- I'm sorry. It's.... can't talk about it. It just – kind of brought things to a head. And made me realize I have to think about things."
"Alright, you don't want to talk about it. I love Debbie and the kids. I even like you, although I think you're being an asshole right now. I'm asking you as a personal favor, Bill, go home. Go home tonight. Living in two places can't make anything better. Can you do that for me? I can't remember ever asking you for any kind of favor."
I thought about it. I still had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that we had passed some point of no return and there was no going back. But I still found myself at 8:30 p.m. walking back into the home I'd left with no intention of ever returning.
I could hear Bill Jr.'s stereo blasting out of his room and as usual Kelly was probably still out. As I walked past the den Debbie came to the door. . She wore shorts and a light blouse over a bra. From the look on her face she wasn't expecting me. She took one look at the briefcase I held and another expression crossed her face.
"Is this just a pit stop? You're leaving everything at the River?"
"I wanted to come home for a night. Is that alright?"
"Why? Why do you want to spend the night with a slut who's cheating on you and showing herself off to other men? I didn't think you'd have any use for me or the kids anymore."
"This is my house as much as yours, but I'll ask you again. Is it all right if I spend the night here? In our bed?"
She turned and walked back into the den. Over her shoulder she said, "Like you said, it's your house too. You want to spend the night, knock yourself out. I don't know if I'll be in the bed, but you're welcome to it. Oh, and there's no food for you. I didn't expect you."
To her back I said, "I'll find something in the fridge. No big deal."
I put the briefcase up by our bed and found my wedding ring sitting on the table beside the bed. I tried to get it back on and had a hard time, even with Vaseline, getting it on but eventually I slid it over the knuckle. Then I went down and found a half package of kosher franks, fried them in a frying pan and put three of them between bread along with a lot of hot mustard. I ate in the kitchen.
I went back upstairs and instead of taking a short, utilitarian shower, luxuriated in a long, long hot shower. I leaned against the wall of the shower and rested my head on the tile as the hot water streamed down around me. In my mind I tried to see myself as I had been, a flat bellied 18-year-old with a full head of hair. I'd never been God's gift to women, but I hadn't been that bad.
"Are you going to leave me any hot water?"
I opened my eyes and looked at her standing just outside the sunken shower stall. I should have shrunk from the look on her face, seen myself as the flabby husband she saw. I should have been so hurt by her emotional betrayal that I couldn't stand to be naked in front of her.
But for some reason, I felt free. I didn't think she loved me any more, or as much as Lance, so what the hell did it matter to me what she thought about my naked body.
"We could share. Save some cash."
A look of surprise flashed across her face, followed by...what, disappointment, disdain. That should have hurt, but it didn't.
"That's okay, you fin-"
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the shower stall. She stumbled and I caught her under her ribs, my left hand rising to grip one of those huge soft titties so she didn't fall.
"What- Bill, what the hell, let me –"
I had to stand up a little on my tiptoes, but I shut her up with my mouth. She tried to push me away but I kept her under the shower's blast as her hair fell around her face and the blouse and shorts melded to her skin. She fought to keep my tongue out, but I caught hers and sucked on it until she gasped and sucked back. With my left hand I pushed and squeezed and milked the soft breast flesh until I felt the nipple harden under my fingers.
I had gotten hard and was pushing up against the wet fabric of her shorts at the groin. She managed to push me away. She talked as water ran into her mouth.
'No, you bastard. You think you can come in here – accuse me to cheating..and"
I kissed her again and as she pushed me away I saw the anger growing on her face and then she slapped me hard. For a second I thought she might have busted my lip. I grabbed her hand, pushed it back against the shower stall and planted my lips on hers again and wouldn't let her free.
I pushed her shorts down with the hand I had been milking her with. The wet shorts and panties slid right down and off. She wasn't helping me, but it didn't seem like she was fighting that hard either.
She broke free again.
"No, Bill stop it. This isn't funny, or romantic. Damn you."
I'd started milking one soft titty, but stopped and yanked on the blouse. A second yank sent buttons flying and another tug pulled it down one arm and onto the floor of the shower. The bra resisted for a moment and then snapped at the back and I threw it away.
She pushed at me and I fell back but caught myself by grabbing her arm. She was turning and I caught her, carrying her down to the tile shower floor. I grabbed her under her arms and although it was a struggle I managed to pull her to her feet and push her against the wall of the shower. I squeezed her breasts, found her nipples between my fingers and rolled them. I think I heard a sharp intake of breath as I did. My dick felt as hard I can remember in years
I rubbed in up into the crack of her ass and down until I almost had it positioned over her wet pussy. She twisted away from me and managed to get out of the shower. She was turning when I caught her in a modified football tackle that carried her onto the bed. Her legs hung over the side as I dived into her pussy with my tongue.
She bucked and humped and tried to pull my head out by grabbing my hair but I pushed her hands away and kept burrowing deeper into her. The wetness of shower water was quickly succeeded by a tangier moisture and she started humping up into my tongue as well as trying to bounce me off her.
Oh, God....stop...stop it...you baaasstard...don't.."
Then she was whimpering, "stop it, ohhhhh stop stop....bill, the kids....they could walk in....stop please...."
I lifted my face from her pussy, stuck three fingers in and started rubbing and pushing them in and out, saying, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a shit. I want your pussy and I'm going to have it"
I worked her pussy and then stuck first one and then a second wet finger up an inch or so up her ass and felt the electric shock that galvanized her body. As she trembled, I got up from the bed, opened my briefcase on the dresser and pulled out the large black object I'd bought on the way home.
She had her eyes closed when I slipped the head of the big black vibrator into her pussy, turning the power on at the same time. Her eyes snapped open and she stared at me in disbelief, eyes growing wider as I pushed it further in.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
A third inch and a fourth and then six full inches followed, opening her up as the vibrator's width, that of a large cucumber, stretched her pussy wider. As I pushed in, I rolled it around to increase the sensations and she responded, rolling her ass and hips in the same motion.
"Oh, Bill...you are such a bastard, but don't stop, don't stop..."
"I'm not, Deb, not till you've got a full foot of syntho-cock up your pussy and then I'm going to take your ass and you're going to love it."
She shook her head.
"Oh yes. We may not have a future, but I'm going to fuck your brains out tonight, and that's a promise."
By and bye I got the whole 12 inches inside her and I began to believe what she had emailed Lance. When I sunk it all the way in and started twisting and turning, she practically levitated. She grabbed my by the ears and tried to swallow my tongue, reached down and if she could have gotten a good grip would have either pulled my dick off or crushed it into paste. God, she had a grip.
As she screamed, and I thanked God that Bill Jr. loved his music very, very loud, I slid over and placed my dick in front of her mouth. As she screamed away I plugged it with my dick and she swallowed it down to my balls and began sucking and licking at the same time. I was surprised, but she gagged enough to make me believe this was something a little new to her. She was good, but I don't think she had been practicing on anybody else's large dick. Anyway, the gagging made her let me go a few times to catch her breath, but she gamely went right back to deep throating.
It was more the expression on her face, and the wildness in her eyes that I hadn't seen in so many years, more than the ungodly sensations of her mouth and tongue and that sucking action that sent me over the edge. I let go of the vibrator and left it humming and grabbed her head with both my hands and held her steady and firmly planted on my cock as I felt the first rushing of the tide and then the squirting deep into her throat. I wouldn't let her go but I didn't feel her fighting me. I did feel her swallowing as I unloaded into her.
My first reaction was to sink down beside her, but I remember why I'd started fucking her and I went back to the vibrator. Before she could come down, I started working it back in and around and around and within moments she was thrusting back against its length and making little orgasmic noises.
I didn't know if it was possible to have a closing act, but as she kept cumming I rolled her over onto her side, got up to lock the bedroom door, and grabbed some Vaseline off the bathroom counter. She was working the vibrator in and out with her own hands as I played with myself to see if I could get a second erection, and somehow thank God, I got it up.
Lubing her ass with two fingers, I got her thrusting back against my fingers and then forward against the vibrator. A moment later I was slipping my dick into the small opening to her ass. She gasped and moaned for a second, but she must have been as excited as hell because it didn't take more than a few seconds until I felt the head of my dick popping through the anal sphincter and I was inside her.

[Ramesh_Rocky]

I wait for a second, then pulled her head back by her hair so I could ravage her mouth with my tongue while she kept pushing and pulling 12 inches of hard plastic in and out of her pussy and then I started pushing forward into her ass.

As I licked her lips, I halted my conquest of her ass again and said, "I may be guilty of ignoring you for my job, Debbie, but I never stopped loving you. And I never stopped being turned on by you."
As I continued speaking, I emphasized each word with a hard thrust deeper into her ass.
I...want....your.....ass....and./....your ....mouth...and....your...pussy. I ....want....yoouu.."
With the final "you," I made a last thrust and began squirting.
Not a whole lot, mind you, but she definitely knew I was in there and having a good time.
When I finally stopped I pulled out and rolled onto my back beside her. After awhile, she pulled the vibrator out and turned it off, than rolled to lie facing me.
"What the hell was that all about? And a vibrator? Why, how?"
"Look, Debbie, I've had time to think. I was wrong to accuse you of cheating on me. I believe you haven't been. It's just that....I can't help thinking that's you're not happy. I can't help believing you're thinking about us – you and me – in the past tense. And I know some of that is my fault. I have been too focused on my work. But you...two people have to try to save a marriage. One of them can't. And I'm not really sure you want to save our marriage."
She looked into my eyes and I know there was satisfaction and I think there was affection, but there was also sadness.
"Bill...I just never...expected that you would pick up on that one little thing I said. But you're right. There is a problem....a problem in our marriage. I – I can't...I wish I could talk about it...we need to talk...but I can't right now. And....the sex just now was great. It was like the old days. But one good – one great fuck – can't make up for years....years.."
I put my finger to her lips to stop her.
"I know it can't, Deb. No magic bullet, but I just wanted to let you know that I still want you...and I need you...Just remember that....okay. Oh, and I didn't know this was going to happen, but I saw some vibrators a few months ago when we were prosecuting that call girl ring case and I thought about getting one for us then. As I was coming home tonight, it just popped into my head that you might get a kick out of it too."
She gave me a little smile.
"I did. Thank you."
"My pleasure, really."
And then again, "Really, really."
She gave me a small smile. "I could tell. Twice in a few minutes. It's been a long time."
We talked a little more, but finally I rolled over to turn out the light on my side of the bed and after she walked out of the shower she slid into bed next to me. But if I'd expected her to move next to my body, to snuggle, I was wrong. She lay on her side of the bed, back turned to me and I watched her breath. From time to time there would be a deep breath and then a shuddering exhalation. There was no sound, but she could have been crying.
It was then that I knew Roy's advice was well intentioned, but dead wrong. We'd had a good roll in the hay, but as she said, nothing had changed. I hadn't conquered her body, left her a quivering mass of nerve endings and re-conquered her heart. All I'd done was given her some orgasms and a pretty big surprise. And from what I knew about the emails, tonight hadn't and couldn't make a difference. I didn't see how it was possible, but I felt more depressed lying next to my well-fucked wife.
The next day we made progress in seating juries in the three cases we had launched and I found myself as usual up to my eyeballs in crises, demands on my time and energy and I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about my home situation. It was easy to fall back into the normal groove of devoting 110 percent of myself to work.
I got home at 10 p.m. Monday night. Both the kids were upstairs in their rooms. When I walked in Debbie was at the computer console in the den. She looked up at me as I walked in and casually hit the button that took her out of the internet. Whatever had been on the screen was replaced by a page from a lesson plan.
I glanced in the room, walked over to her and leaned down to give her a casual peck on the side of her cheek. Her face seemed a little flushed, but she smiled at me. Tentative, but she was trying.
"Hi, sorry to be so late but as usual everybody in the world needed me today."
She turned to look up at me and the smile faded.
"I know, Bill. Everybody wants a piece of you and there's only so much to go around, isn't there?"
I went upstairs, read a few pages of depositions and then showered and went to bed. Debbie didn't come in until I was almost asleep. The spy program was on the big desktop in my office and there was no way I could get to it without arousing her suspicions so I couldn't find out what she'd been doing tonight. But I would.
On Tuesday despite everybody in the world pestering me, I took an hour and a half for personal time and drove home at noon. I knew everybody would be out. I logged on and read the last few emails she'd sent and received.
In one sent Monday afternoon she'd told Lance in great and graphic detail about our fuck session Sunday night.
Lance to Debbie: "Wow. You think somebody slipped some Viagra into his coffee at work? That doesn't sound like the husband you've been describing to me. At least, at least you must be a lot more relaxed today. : ) Funny thing is, you didn't seem that relaxed today. Didn't his doing that get you thinking about maybe staying with him? Sounds like he's really trying to change. I'm honestly, selfishly, a little sorry to hear that, but you got to give the guy credit for trying."
Debbie to Lance: " I know, Lance. I know. But-"
Lance to Debbie: "But what?"
Debbie: "Oh shit, Lance, I don't even know how to say this. Even to you. But, I think Sunday night convinced me....we're not going to make it."
Lance to Debbie: "But you said he was horny as hell and that's what's been missing. He may be late, but it looks like his heart is in the right place."
Debbie to Lance: "That says it all. His heart is in the right place. Mine isn't. He pushed all the right buttons and it was flattering to realize I still get him that excited. But...it was just sex. I realized afterwards that we had sex, but we didn't make love. The vibrator made me cum all over myself, not him. When he was inside me, it was okay, but...."
Lance to Debbie: "So have you decided what you're going to do? And are you going to tell him about the award ceremony at UNF Friday night?"
Debbie: "I haven't decided, exactly, but it won't be long. No, I'm not going to tell him about the awards dinner. I'll tell him it's just business and that spouses aren't encouraged to go. But I have to be there. I don't want you to get that award as one of the two best new young professors on faculty without your best friend being there."
Lance to Debbie: "You know I want you there. It wouldn't have been near as much fun this year without you as a friend and – mentor."
Debbie to Lance: "Don't use that word, mentor. It makes me sound so damned old. I don't think you think of me as being an old lady, do you?
Lance to Debbie: "No, definitely not. You're younger at heart than most of the female students around here. And you definitely don't LOOK like a mentor."
Debbie to Lance: "That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. Stop it. I'm having a hard enough time keeping my head straight right now. I need to – finish – things with Bill before we start talking like that."
Lance to Debbie: "I understand. I won't put any pressure on you until things get settled at home. But I have to tell you, I can't wait until Friday."
Debbie to Lance: "BE GOOD!!"
Lance to Debbie:" I will, but it's hard. God it's hard."
Debbie to Lance: : ) I know. You forget, I saw you trying to stand up that day in the restaurant. When I wore that low cut blouse. It is VERY VERY HARD. : ) Bye."
And that was it. The whole ball game. She had gone from being a friend to an almost and soon-to-be lover. She was going to lie to me to be with her boyfriend on his special day, and then she was going to leave me. I doubt she'd make it a day without going after his VERY VERY HARD dick.
I don't know why I was even surprised. I had known it was coming. But even knowing it was coming..I barely made it to the bathroom and still got some vomit on my pants leg. I changed, copied and then scrubbed her emails off the system.
When I left the house this time, I knew it was for the last time. No more doubts, no more hesitation. I hadn't bothered to take my ring off. My finger was still sore as hell and the symbolism really wasn't important anymore. There was no marriage to end. I felt like a 100-year-old man, like a walking dead man, but the sun was still shining as brightly outside, I could hear kids playing nearby, and the world went on.
That night about 10 p.m. I called and when no one picked up left a voice mail message saying I'd have to work insanely late and that I'd be staying at the River apartments for the next few days rather than try to commute. I never got any return calls so I guess it was alright with everybody.
Friday, as it usually is, was sort of anticlimactic. The only time Fridays are exciting is when a jury is bringing back a verdict. When we're in the middle of trial, judges usually try to wrap things up early. They want to go out to eat or clubbing, although in Jacksonville that's more of an expression than a reality, just like anybody else. And so do the jurors and witnesses and cops. So things usually started running down by mid-afternoon and by 5 p.m. the Courthouse is usually a ghost town.
I was home by 6:15 p.m. and I'd had to break a whole bunch of traffic laws to get home that early. As I walked in Bill Jr. was outside hopping into a friend's car and Kelly passed me going out the door. As she did so she gave me a small smile. It was almost embarrassed.
And that shouldn't have surprised me, I realized. She was old enough now to see what our marriage was like and I was sure she had picked up on the 'friendship' of her mom and a young UNF professor. I wondered why she hadn't tried to warn her old man. But when I saw the embarrassment on her face I knew it was me that embarrassed her, not a relationship between her mother and another man. So far I was batting 0 for 3 in terms of any love on the part of my family members.
As I walked in I saw Debbie coming down the stairs. She was gorgeous, and obviously a little startled. She had clearly been trying to get out of the house before I got home.
"Oh, Bill....I thought you'd be later getting home."
"You know, or I thought you knew, that I usually get off earlier on Fridays unless there's a verdict. Everything wrapped. Where are you headed dressed up so pretty?"
She wore a black dress cut low in the back and low enough in front to show just a hint of cleavage. Over it she wore a gauzy wrap that concealed and revealed at the same time. It was sexy and elegant and entirely too dressy for almost any kind of college event I was familiar with.
"Oh, there's a – an event tonight. It's kind of mandatory for college officials and staff. I – just felt like dressing up. But it's business. I don't think any spouses are coming. Look, you've been working so hard all week. I didn't think you'd want to waste an evening sitting through speeches and college administration stuff. Why don't you take it easy, order a pizza and we can make plans for this weekend when I get home. I'll try not to be late."
Just for the hell of it, I almost insisted that I wanted to come along, even if it was boring as hell, but I let it go.
"Alright, baby. You do look fabulous. Every guy there is going to be in for a treat. But look, you do what you have to do. Don't worry about trying to get back early. I know how those business things go on forever. Stay out as late as you want. I'll probably hit the bed early tonight. We'll do something tomorrow."
She smiled in relief and gave me a sisterly peck on the cheek. She started to say something, and I wondered if some little vestigial lingering guilt she felt about what she was going to do tonight was crossing her mind. But it wasn't enough. She turned and walked out the door.
She was already outside and couldn't hear me as I said, "Goodbye."
UNF has a huge campus. A curving drive leads you around the entire campus and it brought me to the UNF Arena, a huge structure where graduations and basketball games and a lot of other events were held. I showed a campus cop my ID and got to park in a secluded lot on the other side of the road.
For a purely business event, there were a lot of fancy dressed men and women entering the building. I didn't have an invite, but my ID and a comment that I was Professor Maitland's husband got me in. They had a dais at the far end and a lot of tables for four to six people set around the big hall. I noticed there was a cash bar on my side of the building.
There is stadium seating on both sides of the hall and I made my way to the bar but stepped into the seating area before I got to the bar and climbed nearly to the top. I was alone and I had a bird's eye view of the crowd.
I spent ten minutes carefully searching the crowd with a small pair of binoculars I had brought before I spotted her. She was seated at a table with five other people, three men and two women, only a few yards from the dais. Well, if Doug/Lance was in line for an award tonight, that made sense. Doug was tall, slender and dressed in a tux.
They were seated close together, his hand on her shoulder, his head turned whispering something into her ear. I glanced at the two couples with her. From the glances my wife and Doug were getting, they were an accepted couple. Now I understand the looks I'd gotten on the rare occasions in the last three months when I'd made an appearance at any university function at Debbie's side.
I watched from high up the stadium as they laughed and whispered to each other, made those little touches and gestures that are common to lovers everywhere. Their body language made it obvious. They even fed each other a couple of times with intertwined arms. Jesus Christ, talk about making it obvious. That pissed me off as much as anything else. If Debbie was going to cheat on me, at least she could be a little bit less blatant. I had to be an object of high amusement every time I showed up with her.
I seated myself on the top row of the stadium seating and watched as the people below ate and had a good time, then listened to the speeches and eventually saw them call Doug up to the dais to receive an award as one of the two outstanding new faculty members. He called out to Debbie and despite her protestations she allowed herself to be called up to the dais. She stood beside him blushing as he thanked her for her help during the year and complimented her for her "youth and vitality."
And then damned if he didn't tilt her head up toward his – did I mention he was about 6-3 so for a change she had to look up at a man instead of looking down at me –and kissed her on the lips in front of God and everybody. There was a roar of approval. It was like the moment in a romantic comedy when the hero finally sweeps in to grab his love and take her away with him.
She kissed him back for a moment and then broke away blushing. She sure as hell didn't look like a happily married mother of two teens.
The awards ceremony went on for another 45 minutes and then they announced there would drinks and dancing as long as anyone had the energy to stay on the dance floor where half the tables had just been removed. A band started playing 90s romantic tunes and some faster 2000 pieces.
They were a cute couple. And from the looks other couples gave them, I wasn't the only one who thought so. I wondered what people who knew she was married thought about what was happening. Had she told them we had an open marriage, or that I didn't mind, or that she was going to be free soon? Or maybe academics just didn't give a damn about outmoded concepts like marital fidelity.
I took a deep breath and stood up. Time to put an end to this crappy melodrama. I made my way to dance floor and through the dancers. I was dressed in a suit but no tie and so I stood out as I walked through the mostly tuxed men and women in evening dresses. I caught a whisper, murmurs as I made my way closer to my wife and her boyfriend and I knew I'd been noticed.
Then they were in front of me, so deeply absorbed into looking deeply into each other eyes they never noticed me until I said, "Congratulations Professor, on the award and on stealing my wife, all in the same night."
They stopped so fast that they almost lost their balance. Debbie stared at me, her eyes open wide in surprise. I almost laughed at her expression. Doug's mouth gaped open for a minute and he stared from Debbie to me and back to her as if not believing his eyes.
"Bi...Bill," Debbie finally said softly. "What – what – what are you doing?"
Then the shock started shading into anger as her mouth tightened and she said, "Why Bill? I told you spouses weren't coming tonight. Why didn't you listen to me, wait for me at home?"
At this point I couldn't help laughing.
"And miss all this, baby? Come on, I'd have paid admission to see this. How often does a husband get to see his wife kissing and loving on another man in full view of about a thousand other people? Can't accuse you of false modesty. You don't hide anything, except from your husband."
Doug stepped partially between us and raised a hand as if to push me back, saying, "Mr. Maitland, I'm sorry to meet you like this, but I hope you don't misunderstand. Debbie was just here because she's my mentor."
I grinned at him even as I felt any good feeling I had curdling into fast growing rage.
"Oh, I'm sure she's probably taught you lots of things, Doug. But I'm also sure you're a fast learner."
Debbie stepped closer to me and whispered under her breath, "Bill, don't do this. Not here. Not now. Not in front of people I work with and for."
"So it's okay for you to kiss him and rub yourself all over him and be his girlfriend in everything but name in front of people who know you're a married woman, but I'm an asshole for showing up to spoil your fun?"
"You talking crazy again, Bill. Nothing like that happened."
Now other people were close enough that I knew our conversation was being overhead and would be the subject of water cooler gossip for weeks if not longer.
I lost the smile and just stared at her like I'd stare at road kill that had been dead and spoiled for a few weeks as I told her, "You stupid bitch. I've been here all evening. I saw you being lovey-dovey. I saw you FEEDING him, you bitch. I have no doubt you probably were rubbing his dick under the table. I saw him kiss you, not like a mentor, and I saw you kiss him back. He probably got some tongue out of the deal."
Doug stepped in closer and I saw one hand close into a fist. I was attacking his girl and his reaction was obvious.
"Bill, I know you're angry but you have no right-"
"It's Mr. Maitland to you, sonny, and I have every right. In case you forgot, she's my wife. She might not be for much longer, but I'm the guy she's supposed to be kissing and loving on, at least until she tells me she wants out."
That stopped him for a moment and Debbie turned red as she realized a crowd was gathering around us.
"By the way, you're a business professor, right? You teach any business ethics? What are the ethics of moving in on a married woman, breaking up a marriage. Maybe not a real happy marriage, but it was a marriage.

[Ramesh_Rocky]

I could tell he was losing it as his hands closed into fists but he was trying.

"Bill – Mr. Maitland, I know it may have looked bad, but we're just friends. We've gotten close over the last nine months, but I wouldn't mess with a married woman."
I gave both of them a contemptuous glance, because I really couldn't believe they were stupid enough to keep trying to carry on this act.
"Doug, give it up. I know my wife must have told you what I do for a living. I read people; body language, expressions. You're in love with, or at least you want to bang my wife, and she's hotter for you than you are for her."
I could say the devil made me do it, but in all honesty it was probably just two weeks of simmering rage that launched my right fist toward his face at that point, but it was as if I was moving in slow motion. He just leaned back casually and then his right hand balled into a fist caught me on the right side of the face and sent me stumbling backwards.
I ended up on my ass staring up at the horrified or amused faces of the people crowding around us. I looked up to see Debbie just staring at me. She seemed more angry than concerned about her dear husband.
I shook my head to clear it. I hadn't been in a fight in 25 years and I'd forgotten what a hard shot to the face felt like. As I tried to get to my feet I heard Doug saying, "I'm so sorry Deb. I didn't mean to hit him, but when he swung I just reacted automatically."
I got to my feet, swaying and pushed away someone who apparently was trying to help me up,.
"Alright, asshole, let's try that again..."
I ran at him swinging awkwardly. Like I said, it had been over a quarter century since I'd tried to hit someone for real and he just swatted the punch away and somehow pushed me so that I ended up on my face. The first laughs started.
He looked down at me and said, "We don't have to do this. Let's act like grownups."
I got back to my feet and stalked toward him slowly. Blood was dripping down my check. Debbie shook her head and said, "Please, Bill, don't do this. God, you've already embarrassed me badly. I've got to face these people. Please."
I swung again and when he blocked my right I managed to sink a left into his stomach. He just "whuffed", more out of surprise than anything else and smashed his fist into my nose. Blood was all over the place and I staggered to stay upright. For a moment I could hardly see for tears in my eyes. Jesus Christ, that hurt.
"Bill, get out of here," Debbie hissed. "You have managed to ruin everything. This was the biggest night of Doug's career, and you have to show up and make as ass out of yourself."
I ran a hand over my face and it came away bloody.
"I haven't started yet, my loyal and loving wife."
I could hear titters behind me and Debbie stared at me as if she couldn't believe my words, as if the mere thought that I might able to hurt her young stud astounded her. Her absolute confidence that I was harmless hurt more than anything else.
"Go away, Bill. Don't be stupid. He will kick your ass. He's younger and bigger and he can box. You've already humiliated yourself and me. Don't make yourself an absolute laughing stock."
"Your concern is touching. Go to hell."
I moved closer and swung again. An anvil or something equally heavy hit one eye, then something smashed into my mouth resulting in another spray of blood and something else slammed into my midsection, doubling me over. I couldn't help hurling as I went down."
I knelt on one knee and tried to bring my vision into focus, could sense the movement of people around me and nervous laughter and I knew Debbie was standing with Doug and probably gloating in his triumph. I tried to remember when she had ever loved me.
A hand grabbed my arm at the elbow and I heard Doug saying, "Come on, Bill, it's over. Let it go. Let me help you up, we'll get you cleaned up and out of here."
I didn't consciously plan anything. I just rammed forward with the top of my head as hard as I could and hit something relatively soft and heard Doug moan and fall forward. As he did I reared up again as hard as I could and bounced his face off the top of my head.
I was standing somehow and Doug and all his flat bellied glory was flat on his back holding his hands over blood spurting from his nose and mouth. If I could just stay upright for a few more seconds. I managed to make it to him before anyone got in the way and kicked him in the face as hard as I could.
Debbie's screaming behind me only made it sweeter.
"Oh, God, Doug..."
I was gang tackled by what felt like an entire posse and dragged to the ground. I could see Debbie standing there between us, looking from one bleeding prone figure to the other. Then she ran to Doug and knelt down beside him. She was crying. She had made her decision. God, I asked myself, could she be any more of a treacherous bitch.
As the old saying about bang goes, when it's inevitable...So I just lay back and let about four guys in tuxes hold me down. Debbie was using any kind of fabric she could lay her hands on to try to stop the blood gushing from Doug's face.
I heard someone saying, "Call the cops."
"Security is right here. Get this asshole out of here."
Someone else said maliciously, "Let's see how tough you are in a holding cell..."
There was a tall, distinguished looking, grayish elderly gent standing near Doug and he asked solicitously, "Professor Baker, are you alright? Should we call an ambulance."
Then he looked over at me.
"And you, sir, whoever you are, are going to rue the day you assaulted one of our staff."
I made an educated guess.
"You must be President Myers, right?"
He was getting ready to leave but something in my tone of voice stopped him.
"Yes, I'm the President of UNF. And you are?"
"William Maitland, Head Supervising Assistant State Attorney for the Third Circuit, and the husband of the blonde consoling your professor Baker over there."
His eyes widened a little as he looked from Debbie and Doug to me and back again. He might be an old fossil, but there was nothing wrong with the speed of his mental processing.
"In that case, Mr. Maitland, I would not like to be in your shoes. You're an officer of the court assaulting a man in plain view of hundreds. Not good. But, I think we might be willing to extend some forbearance here. -"
"I think, President Myers, that your ass, and that of your institution is about to become grass, and I am going to be the lawnmower."
His face tightened. He wasn't used to being addressed in that manner. I knew he came from old money and had social and business ties that extended from Atlanta to Miami. That's why they had tapped him as President.
"I don't understand-"
"Why don't we go somewhere and I'll explain it to you, before you and this institution step into a whole swampful of shit."
He didn't like that either, but he wasn't stupid and he was used to making snap decisions. A nod from him resulted in two of the men jerking me to my feet. We walked to a toward the rear where there were restroom signs. I noticed that Myers had Doug and Debbie practically frog marched along with us.
When we had gotten far enough to speak in relative privacy we stopped and he said, "Alright, Mr. Maitland , explain yourself."
Doug had pretty much staunched the bleeding, but he was still hurting. Debbie had her arm around him and if looks could kill, the glances she sent at me would have laid me in my grave.
"I don't know how closely you monitor things, but I don't think you're stupid. This is fairly simple. My wife has been 'very close' to Professor Baker for awhile, too close for my tastes. I know he took her home the other night and kissed her in my driveway while was wearing a very, provocative, outfit.
"I know she engaged in very loving, and intimate behavior with Professor Baker both on and off the dance floor tonight, and like you said, I have hundreds of witnesses. I know he gave her a very, un-collegial, kiss tonight in full view of many of your staff and I heard them cheering and whooping as he did so. I don't think I'd have any trouble convincing a jury when I sue UNF for being a party to the Alienation of my wife's affections, that her behavior was common knowledge."
I thought Debbie was going to launch herself across the space separating us. She could have started foaming at the mouth for a little bit.
"You bastard," she said loudly. "President Myers, my husband suffers from mental problems. Namely an obsession that I have been unfaithful to him. It's all in his head. There is absolutely nothing improper going on between myself and Professor Baker. Don't listen to anything he says. Please have him removed."
Myers glanced at her and said mildly, "I might be inclined to agree with you, Professor Maitland, but unfortunately for both you and Professor Baker, I was on the dais and I witnessed the display between the two of you, and particularly that kiss. I was under the impression that no woman in her right mind would have engaged in that kind of activity unless she had an 'understanding' with her husband, which you obviously didn't."
He looked at Doug and shook his head.
"As for you, Professor Baker, I'm disappointed. I had thought you a sharp and rising addition to our faculty. But whether there was anything improper going on between you and Professor Maitland, the fact remains that you should have had the good sense to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and you obviously did not. I will have to reevaluate your future role in our university."
I somehow managed to avoid laughing at the expressions that crossed both their faces.
Myers looked back at me.
"Regardless of our future internal activities, Mr. Maitland, the fact remains that you are in a much more tenuous and dangerous position. If we report this, I expect you'll lose your position with the State Attorney's Office. You might be disbarred. Why shouldn't I simply call the security officer?"
"You're right. I could be fired. And disbarred. But if that happens, I will sue the university for alienation of my wife's affections and actions that led to the destruction of my marriage. I might not win, probably won't. But I'm a well known prosecutor, my wife and Professor Baker are respected academics. And, more importantly and to the point of this discussion, my wife is a hot, big tittied blonde and Professor Baker is what I would call a hunk.
"When the word gets out of a sexual and romantic triangle, alleged adultery, hanky panky in academia, I think UNF is going to get a whole world full of unwanted press attention. Not the kind of attention you want; not the kind of attention that will do you a lot of good when it comes to attracting the kind of big money, old money, corporate donors that you need to keep an institution like this running smoothly."
I stopped and we all stared at each other for a moment or two. I noticed four or five university security cops huddling a little distance away.
Finally Myers sighed and said, "You really don't care if you win the suit, do you?"
Without giving me a chance to reply, he said, "What do you want? Professor Baker is new and doesn't have the academic protections that come with longevity. We could probably get rid of him. Your wife has more protections, but we could make it – advantageous – for her to seek employment elsewhere."
One of the chief regrets of my life is that I didn't have a camera to catch the expressions on the lovers' faces.
I shook my head.
"I just want to walk away from here and get some medical attention. I don't want you to take any retribution against either one of them."
Myers looked surprised.
"You are a surprising man, Mr. Maitland. Why did you come here and create so much havoc tonight if you didn't want revenge?"
I looked at Debbie. Surprise and an emotion I couldn't place played across her face. Doug just looked like his whole world had fallen apart around him. I had my doubts about his long term future with UNF regardless of what I said.
"My marriage is over. I know that. My wife isn't in love with me anymore. That hurts, but it happens every day. I don't want to destroy her. We have two children and I want her to keep her job for their sake.
"No, I came here tonight because I just wanted my wife to know I'm not a complete idiot, that she couldn't walk out dressed for a hot date and feed me a line of crap about going to a boring academic meeting that spouses weren't invited to.
"As to Professor Baker....I wanted – well, I don't blame Baker that much. He's an asshole for playing with a married woman, but I would go after my wife if I hadn't been married to her already. She's a beautiful woman. So I didn't want to ruin his life. I just wanted a little payback for stealing my wife."
He took a last look at me, said, "You're an interesting man, Mr. Maitland, please don't come back here again," and walked away.
The little crowd dispersed and Debbie started to walk away with Doug Baker, but stopped and came back to me. She had blood on her dress and wrap and the fire in her eyes had burned down to a wary sadness.
"Thank you, I guess, Bill. I've got a job, but I don't know how much of a career I've got left. All this crap, and for what? All of this is in your mind. I'm not having an affair, and despite what you saw, Doug is just a friend.
She took a deep breath, then caught my gaze in hers and said, "Don't come back to the house tonight, or any night, Bill. I'm going to get a protective order keeping you away from me and the kids. You've shown that you're a dangerous man prone to violence and I question your mental stability.
"I think we need a formal separation, for a while anyway. I don't know what will happen to our marriage, but we need some space and time before....we do something permanent. You can make arrangements with the Sheriff's Office to come by and pick up anything you need."
And with that, she went off with Doug and I went back to the River.
##########
A week had gone by and I hadn't heard from Debbie or the kids. Of course, I hadn't tried to call them, but they hadn't called me. So we were even. I had made a temporary home at the River condo, but I knew I'd have to look for more permanent digs.
It was near noon Friday and the case of the sailor who had shaken his daughter to death was drawing to a close. We'd probably have a verdict in time to let the Presiding judge, Herman Herring, get out in time to catch a new play opening at the Times-Union Theater for the Performing Arts.
A younger SA, Billy Parker, had made the first close and the defense attorney Bob Becker had made his passionate defense final argument. We were on break until we got our last shot at the jury.
I grabbed a sub I'd ordered from the sandwich shop downstairs in the courthouse during the break and tried to make a tactical decision. Parker had done a good job in the initial closing or final argument. He'd summed up the case and the evidence against the young sailor, Van Horn, clearly enough that the jury had a good sense of the case against him.
Because Becker, the hot shot from New York, had put Van Horn on the stand, we had one last bite of the apple. I could let Parker take the final argument, but I was thinking of grabbing this one for myself. I felt like cutting somebody's balls off in court...I needed something to cheer me up.
Cheryl stuck her head in my office and said quietly, "She's on the phone, Bill."
"Great timing. Okay."
I picked up the phone and punched in her call.
"Hi Debbie."
"Hello, Bill."
"To what do I owe this honor? You got another court order directed at me?"
"No, Bill. Remember, we talked about a separation until we could get things...straight between us."
"I remember."
"I'm filing for a divorce this afternoon."
"hmmm...well, thanks for the heads up."
"Bill....I don't see any way out. I haven't been happy in a long, long time...and if you're honest, once things settle down, I don't even think you'll miss me that much. You'll still have your job and your cases. That's what your life is all about, what it has been all about for so long."
"Very perceptive. Good to know you're thinking about me. How is Doug, by the way? Did he need surgery on his nose?"
"....No, Bill, he didn't. No thanks to you. And I know you're thinking it, because you have been ever since you went crazy, but I'm not doing this for Doug. I'm doing it for me. I just don't love you anymore, Bill. Not like that. I'm sorry."
"That was all you needed to say, Debbie. I'll get an attorney and I'll have my guy call your guy. Have a good life."
I hung up on her.
I sat there and tried to figure out what I was feeling. At least I wasn't vomiting. It was all so anticlimactic. Almost 20 years of my life drawn to a close with a single one minute conversation. It should have been raining under overcast black skies. But that was bullshit. It was just another day.
I buzzed Cheryl.
When she came in I told her, "Call Parker. I'm taking the close. Van Horn's got a date with the death chamber."
I grabbed a few bites of the sub but again I just wasn't that hungry. I threw the remainder in the trash, got up and grabbed my briefcase and headed for the door. Before I got there Cheryl was standing in front of me.
She just pointed to my face. I didn't understand.
"What? Do I have something in between my teeth?"
She held a makeup compact up to me and flipped it open to the mirror. I saw the tears rolling down my cheeks. I took out a handkerchief and wiped my face, eyes and then my nose.
"Make a note of the date and time, Cheryl. Those are the last tears I'll shed for that miserable bitch."
I headed for the elevator and I almost thought I could smile. For the first time, I felt sorry for that son-of-a-bitch Van Horn. He was going to take his last breaths strapped down to a hospital gurney in Raiford watching the lethal chemicals mix before entering his body. And at least a small part of the blame, or credit, for what awaited him was due to my loving, cheating, almost-ex-wife.
As the elevator doors closed behind me, I stepped into my new life.
END OF CHAPTER ONE
There's obviously going to be a Chapter Two and Possibly Three. I know some people don't like the longer stories, but that's the way this one played out.