It was Just a Fling Pt. 02

My name is Janet Moore and my husband of five years is Dick. I know, "Moore Dick". He hears it all the time. Truth is, he's not so much Moore and Lester. Think about it. Anyway, Dick hasn't always been the perfect husband; he works late way too much and he often seems distracted, but I've known women with far worse husbands. In fact, I have several friends with husbands that have cheated on them. God, I hate a cheat! It's bad enough that they need to find themselves some strange to play with, but all those lies are just insulting! The women, my friends, trusted those creeps and every day they were working some con on the side. I swear that if I ever see the husband of a friend of mine messing around with some bimbo I'll drop a dime on him so fast that his wife will have the locks on the door changed before he gets home. I hate a damn cheat!

So like I said, my husband isn't perfect; but he is mine and I love him. Every time he tells me that he loves me I get that warm feeling inside. For better or worse, he is mine and mine alone; or so I thought. All of that ended the night that the door bell rang. Dick was upstairs packing for yet another business trip. He seemed to go on those damn trips every couple of weeks. He was in a good mood for once, not like his usual grump the night before a trip. I even caught him humming a tune while he shaved. If I didn't know him better I'd swear he was looking forward to being away.

When the door bell rang I answered the door and saw Bob and Julie Denkins standing there. I'd met them at the office Christmas party and they seemed like nice people. Truth is, I was disappointed that I'd not seen them since. I hardly ever saw any of Dick's coworkers; so it was a pleasant treat to see them standing there, although it was a bit late for a visit. Then I saw it - they weren't smiling. There was nothing resembling a smile on either of their faces. In fact, if I didn't know better I thought I saw fear on her face and anger on his. Then with a bit of an apology, Bob said, "Janet, we're sorry to bother you this late at night, but is Dick here?" I said he was and as I turned to get him Bob said, "Actually, we were hoping to talk with you both."

I had a growing sense of unease. Something wasn't right, but I invited them into the living room and headed up the stairs to get Dick. When I told him who was here he got visibly nervous. The color drained from his face and he just stood there for the longest time. "Tell them to leave. We don't have time for them tonight." Dick was angry and nothing seemed right about any of it. I mean, who visits this late at night and what's the problem finding five minutes for friends even if you are packing for a trip? I told him that they wanted to speak with us both and that seemed to upset him even further. Something really wasn't right here and I told him to calm down and come talk with them; they wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.

As I walked back into the living room I offered our guests a drink. Julie just kept fidgeting with her hands and looking at the floor while Bob tried to make an uncomfortable smile. He said, "Thanks, but we need clear heads tonight; and, Janet, I am sorry for what is about to happen. You don't deserve this."

I was becoming very uncomfortable and extremely nervous. "Can I ask you what this is about?"

Bob just said, "I think it's important that Dick be here for this."

A moment later Dick walked slowly into the room, never taking his eyes off our guests like he was walking into the lion's den; he came over and stood next to me. I'd never seen him so uncomfortable. "Do you want to tell me what this is all about?" He wasn't being at all friendly to our guests. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was almost threatening them and he never seemed to take his eyes off Julie. At the same time Julie wouldn't take her eyes off the floor or stop kneading her hands. Something was very wrong and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"Well, Dick, I think you know why we are here. We need to speak with your wife and we thought it would be best if you were present." Bob was practically seething. Dick was making fists and I put my hands onto his arm to calm him. Bob turned to his wife. "Honey, dear, do you have anything you want to say to Janet?"

I could see that Julie was near tears. The slightest thing was going to put her over the edge and I was beginning to realize that I was the only person in the room who didn't know what was going on.

Julie was taking short, sharp breaths and spoke only faintly, "Janet, I am so very, very sorry. I've never done anything like this before in my life and I don't know how to ask your forgiveness."

Maybe it was all the tension in the room or the visible anger between Dick and Bob, but I was beginning to feel the anger rising inside me as well and I didn't know why.

"Janet, I am so ashamed. I've been having an affair with your husband for the past three months." She was sobbing so hard the words barely came out. I was in shock; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I don't know how I let it happen or why I did it, but we started going to lunch together and then one thing led to another and then... and then one night when Bob was out of town and you were at the PTA we got a room and... we got a room and I had sex with your husband."

I vaguely heard shouting in the room, but I was in shock and all the voices seemed muffled to me. Then I realized it was Dick yelling at Julie and Bob was moving between the two of them. Julie was still looking at the floor and the men were going to come to blows if I didn't do something quick. I didn't think it through; I acted on impulse. I turned and I slapped my husband in his face as hard as I could. "You lying cheat! You shit! How could you? You tell me you're working late and you spend your time fucking HER?" Dick turned to face me with his hand on his cheek and started yelling that he'd never touched her, but I could see the desperation in his face with his eyes darting back and forth as he spoke and I knew he was lying. I buried my knee in his groin with all the force I could bring to it, and watched my husband double over in pain and collapse on the floor.

The room went suddenly silent. Julie was looking at me now and I saw real fear on her face. "You, me, in the kitchen, now!" Julie looked terrified and she had good reason to be scared. I had murder on my mind and I wasn't sure which cheating shit was going to be first. She looked to her husband for protection, but Bob offered her none. Slowly, reluctantly, she stood. "Bob, you're free to defend yourself, but I expect you to leave him be if he doesn't come after you. We don't keep guns in the house, so you needn't worry about that. Somehow, I think you can take care of yourself if you need to. Otherwise, I have questions for him and I want him able to provide some answers." Bob nodded and Julie followed me into the kitchen. Her fear was palpable, but it didn't measure up to my anger.

It occurred to me later that I had left Bob incapacitated and at the mercy of an irate husband with a cheating wife. He could have killed Dick, but at that moment I had more confidence in this man I hardly knew than I had in my own husband.

I sat Julie down at the table and stood with my back to the sink. I needed to gain my composure before we started our talk, woman to woman, wife to wife. She just sat there with her head down, looking at the table and her hands, never looking at me. She was broken. I had to stay calm, but I wanted to claw her face and make her bleed. I knew she'd offer no resistance in her condition, but I wanted answers more than revenge.

"Who started it?" That was the question I wanted answered more than any other.

"I don't know. It just happened." She was sobbing with her head hanging, defeated, ashamed.

That was not an acceptable answer. "Somebody started it. It didn't just happen. What did you do?"

"Nothing sinister. He joined me for lunch a few times and then suggested that we go out to lunch one day. It was all perfectly innocent. We started going to lunch regularly. He told me about the problems the two of you were having. I'm really sorry about that. I didn't mean to make them worse. He has such a nice smile. Then one day he suggested we go to dinner just as friends. It seemed harmless, although I didn't tell Bob about it. I told him I was working late. He wouldn't have understood that it was just friends going to dinner. There was dancing around the corner and Bob hasn't taken me dancing in so long, so I didn't think there was any harm."

"If there wasn't any harm, why not invite Bob to join you?" She had no answer to that. I was beginning to think she really didn't understand how it all happened. She was looking more and more like a foolish wife who was too easily manipulated into risking her marriage by a practiced predator. Was it an act? I no longer knew what kind of man I was married to. "By the way, we aren't having any problems, or at least we weren't until tonight. What kind of problems did he say we're having?"

"I don't know. He just said you weren't getting along and weren't spending time together. He said you didn't appreciate him."

"Well, maybe we'd spend more time together if he spent less time with you. As for not getting along, that's news to me; but I'm finding there are a lot of things I didn't know."

There was silence in the room for a time, a long and very awkward silence, while I let it all sink into both our brains. I still didn't understand how it happened and I was beginning to think that she didn't, either.

She finally looked up and I saw the fear and shame in her eyes. "Bob said that I have to give you this. I am so ashamed. I don't want you to look at it, but if I don't give this to you my marriage is over." She was crying and as she said it she held out a large, yellow envelope. I sat down opposite her at the table and opened it. The photographs made me sick to my stomach; so much for any lingering doubt.

"How could you do this?" I was shouting. I was furious! "What the hell is wrong with you? You're a wife. How would you feel if some slut started fucking your husband?" She was recoiling and I was losing control.

Just then I heard a shout come from the living room followed by a loud thud. I ran into the room and saw my husband again lying on the floor, but this time in a different position.

"I felt threatened." That's all that Bob said, but I thought I saw a little smile in the corner of his mouth. Fair enough. Dick deserved it. After what I'd just seen I had no sympathy for him. He deserved whatever he got and more.

As I turned toward the kitchen I saw Julie standing behind me. She was looking at Bob and she looked worried.

"Don't worry, Sweetie, he's ok." Bob's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"It's not him I'm worried about! Damn it, I love you and I don't want the police hauling you off! I don't want to be the reason you have to suffer any more than I've already made you suffer." With that she broke down and wept with loud, mournful cries. "I'm so sorry. You don't deserve what I've done and I don't know how to make it up to you!" Julie collapsed to the floor and wept. I guess she finally found her voice.

I knew now. I had my answer. She wasn't experienced at cheating; it was Dick who was the instigator. He was the predator. He was the one who seduced this foolish woman into throwing away her marriage. I was married to a calculating, lying bastard. I returned to my living room seat and I waited for my husband to pick himself from the floor and sit on the chair next to me.

Bob walked over to his wife, helped her off the floor, and led her to her seat where she collapsed in her shame and her grief.

"Bob, I left some photographs on the kitchen table. Would you be so kind as to get them for me? I think Dick needs to see them." My head was clear. That awful sense of not knowing what everyone else already knew had left me. I could feel my heart had slowed and my breathing was regular and deliberate. The pain was gone and I had an anger I'd never felt before.

As Dick picked himself off the floor he began to tell lies and make excuses. "Janet, I don't know what she's talking about. I hardly know this woman. Everyone at the office knows she's nuts. You know I would never cheat on you; it's not in my nature."

At this point Bob brought me the photographs.

"Not in your nature? That's a relief. Perhaps, then, you can explain these photographs of you humping Julie over there? I know you wouldn't cheat on me, but you do seem to have your dick in her. How did that happen if you would never cheat on me? Did you trip and somehow fall into her as your clothes magically flew off without you knowing it? Maybe she attacked you, ripped your clothes off, and pulled your dick into her while you struggled with all your might to preserve your virtue?"

OK, Dick is an idiot. We could all see that now. "Janet, you can't believe everything you see. Photographs can be altered. This doesn't mean anything. I was never with this woman." Bob almost laughed at this point and probably would have if his anger and pain weren't so great.

"OK, dear husband, how about this P.I. report? I suppose you think it's faked as well? Maybe tomorrow we can go down to the P.I.'s office and have a talk with him? We'll confront him and his associates and accuse them of faking the photographs and the report. We'll see what he has to say. Maybe then we can go to some of the hotels mentioned here and talk to whoever was at the desk when you checked in? Maybe they remember you or still have you on their security cameras?"

Dick folded. "I am so sorry, Janet. I tried to behave, but she came on to me. She kept flirting and laughing at my jokes; she kept making suggestive remarks until she wore me down."

"You lying son of a bitch! You fucking asshole, you piece of shit! I never came on to you. I told you I was married, I talked about my husband all the time. You kept hitting on me and asking me to go out with you! You were the one that said we should go to bed together, that it would be ok, that no one would find out. You kept saying I'd be happy, but you've brought me only pain. I can't believe I ever listened to you. I ruined my marriage and for what, for you? Oh, God, I wish I were dead!"

Dick jumped to his feet and stepped toward Julie, but Bob got to him first and Dick went down to the floor for a third time. Any other time I would have felt sorry for my husband and called the police, but I had an almost uncontrollable desire to kick him in his junk while he was down. I don't know for sure who started this mess, but I was damn sure now that no one put a gun to either his or her head and made them do it. Both chose to cheat. Who initiated it no longer mattered to me.

I was going to need time to think. I didn't want to do or say anything more until I'd thought it through.

"Julie, are you going on this business trip tomorrow?" I don't know why I asked, but my thinking had turned around 180 degrees since I answered the door this evening.

"Yes, I mean no. I was going, but now I'm going into the office tomorrow to speak with my boss. I'm going to come clean and request a transfer that will mean I don't have any reason to speak with your husband. It's going to be humiliating and I may not have a job when I'm done. Worse than that, I may get a reputation as the company punch card. Whatever happens, I'm going to prove to my husband that he's more important than anything else and hope I can earn his forgiveness." Julie looked at Bob and said, "I fully expect I'll be divorced soon, but I'm hoping that my husband will give me another chance. Oh, God, I don't know what prompted me to do it. I hate what I've done, what I've done to you and what I've done to myself. I'm so ashamed."

By now Dick was crawling back into his chair. "Oh, what does he care? It was just a fling! I was never any kind of threat to your loving husband. You were never going to leave him for me! I knew that. If you'd done your job he'd never have known and never cared."

When Dick said that I fully expected Bob to launch himself off his chair and try to kill my husband. Instead, I looked into his eyes and I got the biggest shock of all. I saw surprise and then a smile came over Bob's face. I knew his mind was going a mile a minute, but he never left his chair.

He turned to his wife, took her hand for the first time that night, and said, "OK, Julie, it's time we go home now. You did what I asked. This piece of shit is no longer our problem. We have things to talk about and work through. It's going to take time and we're going to sit with a therapist. You're going to have to be honest with me and we'll need to work together if we want to get past this. I know now that it was Dick who put those ideas into your head. What I need to know now is why you listened, why you were so susceptible to his lies, and how he was able to get you to set aside your marriage vows. I'm still not making any promises other than I will try."

Julie fell into her husband's arms and wept. I watched and listened, but made no such offer to my husband. Dick just kept making excuses and denials. I decided then I'd get no truth from him tonight and possibly ever. "Dick, I want you to go on your trip tomorrow. I need time away from you to think. Meanwhile, tonight I want you to sleep in the guest room. We'll start making decisions when you get back."

Epilogue:

Julie left the Moore house with her husband and for the first time that night she thought she might have a future with the man she loved. She really had no answers to the questions he raised. She couldn't understand why she'd allowed Dick to talk her into betraying this man, the man she'd taken a vow to love and honor all her life. The shame hadn't left her; if anything, it had intensified because for the first time she was feeling a taste of her husband's potential to forgive and she knew she didn't deserve it. Her only real hope for regaining her self-respect was the thought that someday she might earn that forgiveness; someday she might again be the wife she always wanted to be and thought she was.

For his part, Bob knew that his wife hadn't made a habit of betraying him. He didn't know what, exactly, had happened, or how Dick had gotten to her. He didn't know why she betrayed him or how she came to rationalize her behavior. He only knew that for now her regret was sincere and maybe they could heal. They were going to need help. This wasn't the woman he thought he'd married, but he thought there was a good chance she was still in there. She still would have to provide answers to some very difficult questions. There was no more than a chance, but there was that much and it was a start. He'd loved her since not long after they met and he wasn't going to throw away that love easily. So long as there was a chance, he would take it.

As for Dick, he didn't fare so well. Janet saw through his claims of innocence and his protests that he was set up. She asked around the office and found several of his coworkers who were more than willing to talk about his past adventures. They were soon divorced and with two young boys he found himself supporting a household where he was no longer welcome.

Janet took her time after the divorce. She knew she would need to work through the pain and disappointment before she entered a new relationship. Two years after the divorce a coworker introduced her to her brother. They hit it off and in time she decided to take a chance again. Husband number two turned out to be worthy of the chance and two years later she had the daughter she'd always hoped for.

Julie's boss was an older man who'd been married 30 years to the same woman. He understood the challenges of marriage. Where she expected him to judge her, she found sympathy and compassion. Her confession to her boss brought a transfer to a position that actually suited her more; she had a job where she found a measure of satisfaction and recognition at the end of the day. He kept her secret and she never gained the reputation she feared. In fact, she came to be regarded as efficient and helpful; she was respected and appreciated by her coworkers.