The Letter A

Both the days leading up to the dinner, and on the night itself, Marie asked me fearfully if I'd deleted that "horrible file" I'd played for her four weeks earlier. Each time, with a loving smile, I assured her that it was gone—and I went to the laptop and showed her that her presentation was there, and would play at the touch of a button.

The last few days were particularly sweet at home. Marie was beginning to feel more confident that she was winning me back, and her loving attentions felt more settled and calm, somehow, and less desperate. At the same time, the pain she'd felt when I'd stayed out all night with Denise spurred her to greater heights in our bed. She fucked and sucked me half to death, and I even had to refuse her once or twice. Knowing that it was all about to end, I savored every moment.

When the big night came, we were there early—me in my rented tuxedo, Marie looking glamorous in a black spaghetti-strap evening dress that showed off her neck and shoulders. We ran through her Powerpoint presentation twice, so she felt reassured that all was well. When she bent over to put her purse beneath the podium, I quickly entered the combination of key-strokes ending with "A". All was in place.

And it all went just as I had anticipated. We ate a nice dinner, chatting amiably with our friends at the table. There were some dull welcoming remarks, then the outgoing President gave Marie a warm introduction, and she nervously went to the podium to the sound of everyone's applause.

By my watch her excitement and happiness lasted precisely 54 seconds. That's how long it was between the start of the Powerpoint file and the moment that her audience began seeing still pictures of her naked body, with an anonymous cock sticking in its various orifices.

Marie didn't freeze, and she didn't knock over a water glass. But she did whirl and stare at me, horror and disbelief in her eyes, before she tried frantically to get the file to stop playing. It was locked, of course.

As the video clips began and their sound filled the room she just stood, slumped, blushing beet-red, looking at the floor. And she made no movement as the audience's surprise was succeeded by outrage mixed with laughter, nor any response to the lewd catcalls that were sent her way by some of the departing crowd.

In only a few minutes we were alone. I sat looking calmly up at her from my seat at the table. She finally spoke—the question from my fantasy.

"Bill ... how could you do this to me? I thought you loved me!"

"Yes, Marie," I answered her. "For the past few weeks I have loved you exactly as much as you loved me for the six years before that."

I walked to the podium and put several folded sheets of paper in her hand. "I'm divorcing you. Consider yourself served. If you stay in town you can have joint custody of Katie and Brian; otherwise I'll fight you for total custody, and you know I'll win."

When I was nearly to the door I heard her cry out, in anger and pain, "But you said you wouldn't divorce me! You said ... we could try to work it out!!"

I turned and looked back at her. "Yes Marie, I did. I guess, after all those years of you lying to me, I told one lie of my own."