Mary's Affair, Ended

Sally was fucking with my head. It seemed to me that Sally had known all along that what she'd done to Mary had been wrong, but that somehow, she'd buried it deep within her mind. Now, things were coming apart for her and she didn't know what to do to handle it, to deal with it.

There was a knock on the door. By then it was just after 10.35PM. Sally looked shocked. "Who the hell is that? Mary?"

I didn't answer her; when I opened the door I was faced with Rosie and Sheriff Daniels, who had been a shoo-in as the county sheriff after her husband, the previous Sheriff, had been killed in a bank robbery several years back.

"Can we come in please, Mr. Walker?" said Sheriff Daniels.

"Of course, you can, Sheriff."

Sally jumped to her feet and shouted: "I don't want them here! They have no right to come in without my permission!"

Sheriff Daniels shook her head. "We have the permission of your husband to enter this house. Besides which, an hour ago I was at the home of Mike Jones, a magistrate who gave me a warrant for your arrest."

Sally looked stunned and she staggered a few paces back. Rosie took a hold of her and put her in handcuffs, whilst saying: "Sally Walker I am arresting you on suspicion of sexual assault. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?"

Sally nodded, tears in her eyes. "Yes. But it's not fair! I didn't rape anyone. Please, Donna, Steve. It's not right. Don't let them take me away!"

I felt my throat constrict, but Donna sneered, as her mother, and the woman who had previously been the love of my life was taken away in the Sheriff's car.

Before they left the Sheriff said, "Mr. Walker, I'm sorry that this was necessary. Please enquire about bail at the county jail tomorrow morning." I nodded, but I heard Donna mutter, "Bail? No way!"

I found after they had removed a sobbing Sally from the house that I agreed with Donna's instant decision on the matter of arranging bail.

Why the fuck would I want to arrange bail for a rapist? I think that at the back of my mind there was a scrap of jealousy. Yes, I'd found Mary very sexy, but I'd resisted even attempting to seduce her. But my wife, damn her, had just gone right ahead and actually raped Mary. Took what she wanted without any thought to the consequences.

I suppose I was fortunate that Donna was very understanding about my revelation that I had found her friend attractive.

The next morning, I spoke with my lawyer, arranged an appointment for later that morning and got him to set a divorce in motion for adultery. Our state was fault/no fault and I decided that I wanted to go for fault. Petty revenge? No, I wanted to destroy her. There was nothing petty about that.

After I got back from the lawyer, I had a long talk with Donna. We both came to the conclusion that as Sally had raped Mary at the house and had continued the affair at the house, that neither Donna or myself really felt comfortable continuing to live there.

We decided to book an aparthotel suite at the Kentish Hotel for the next six months, leaving Sally to have the house: at least until I divorced her and she either bought me out or we sold it and split it 50/50.

We did have a prenuptial agreement her late father had insisted on. After all, his daughter was qualifying as a psychologist, and there I was a penniless fool who was begging for coins, who wanted to leech off of his daughter. I wasn't exactly penniless, and what he called "begging for coins" was actually a remarkably successful early example of Crowdfunding that raised over $2 million to start off my software company.

Legally speaking, if I wanted to, I could leave Sally homeless and without a red cent. An interesting idea that I toyed with. Oh, how I toyed with it!

Sally arranged her own bail and Donna and I lived at the hotel.

The day after Sally had been arrested, she was taken to the courthouse and was given an arraignment hearing on charges of sexual assault.

The trial was set for two months hence, and by the end of that week I had the divorce papers filed at the courthouse by my lawyer, Peter Maxwell.

"Dad, I can't understand how or why Mom could have treated Mary like she did. It was as if she just used her as a sex toy. But Mom had known her since Mary was a little girl, about 15 years, so how could she do that?"

"I don't know, Donna. I really can't figure it out, either. It's like there's a side of her I never knew and I don't like."

"You are going to divorce her, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I really can't see any other option for me. If she'd have just cheated on me with a man or a woman for either a one-night stand or even a few months, I'd certainly think about reconciling with her. But I cannot see myself staying with a rapist. It's not in me to do that, Donna!"

Donna patted me on the arm. "Yeah, Dad. I not only hear what you say but I agree with it 100%. Whenever I read about some lunkheaded woman who has decided to stand by her man, even though he is a convicted rapist, I think 'Girl! Get some damn self-respect!' And Daddy... Dad... I'm glad you aren't standing by Mom, after what she did to Mary. I don't think I could have coped if you had done that."

I was beginning to understand that by her self-centered desires to use Mary, her daughter's best friend as a human sex toy, Sally had almost destroyed Mary, Donna and myself.

Sally had obtained a lawyer to fight the divorce.

She asked for a meeting to be held at the offices of her lawyer, and on the advice of my lawyer, I agreed.

Her lawyer, her name was Sandra Jackson, and Peter, my lawyer, shook hands and briefly chatted as we all sat round a conference table.

Pete said: "Mrs. Walker, this is your meeting; how do you wish to proceed?"

"Thank you. I don't want a divorce. I don't see any reason for a divorce. I can't see why Steve needs a divorce. After all, what's done is done and it happened nearly five years ago. Steve, can't you just get beyond the hurt to your ego?"

I shook my head. "Sally, this is not about my ego. As I explained to you, this might be old news to you, but to me it's fresh and hurtful. I have two problems that, to use your expression, I have to just get beyond. Firstly, you cheated on me. Secondly, and this is, despite what you might think about my ego, the biggest issue for me, you raped Mary, our daughter's best friend.

"Besides, I didn't know that you were a lesbian. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't, or rather, I'm not a lesbian. I guess you could say that, at least for a period of time, I was bi-curious.

"I admit to having the affair, a fling of only three months, but I deny I raped her. Our relationship was fully consensual."

"After speaking to Mary, I realized that you coerced her into having sex with you. So, what you did was rape. And Donna agrees, as do the police and the DA."

Her lawyer then said: "Let's get back to talking about the divorce. We believe that a fair and equitable arrangement would be 70/30 in the favor of Mrs. Walker. With Mrs. Walker keeping the house."

Pete said: "Please, tell me that's a joke? Why on earth would you feel that 70/30 would be in any way equitable to Steve?"

Her lawyer continued "Because Mrs. Walker has been suspended from her job and there's a real chance that she might lose her job and her license, therefore she'll need the lion's share of the marital resources."

Pete laughed and shook his head. "I'm sorry Sandra, but that's a total crock. It will not do. Back in the 1970s, there was a show called Baretta, the theme song was "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow" Part of the lyrics go: 'Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time, Yeah, don't do it.' Now, if Mrs. Walker hadn't wanted to be suspended from her job and run the risk of having her license stripped from her, then perhaps she shouldn't have started an affair with a vulnerable girl the same age as her own daughter?

"Besides which, Mr. Walker and Mrs. Walker signed a prenuptial agreement at the insistence of Mrs. Walker's father. And as far as Mr. Walker and myself are concerned, it's still as valid today as the day it was signed."

Sandra shrugged. "Oh, come on, a prenuptial agreement signed two decades ago? A judge could throw that out within minutes."

Pete responded, "Yeah, that's possible. But with the prenuptial agreement between Mr. and Mrs. Walker that's not likely to happen. Why? Because it's an airtight legal document. However, Mr. Walker is not an unreasonable man, he is willing to offer Mrs. Walker certain inducements above and beyond that which is covered by the prenuptial. The house they own and which is currently occupied solely by Mrs. Walker is worth $4 million. Mr. Walker is willing to offer Mrs. Walker the house outright, but with no alimony, but with a modest lump sum payment."

"That's not acceptable to my client."

"That's too bad. What we intend to do now is to proceed with the divorce with the prenuptial agreement in force. But please do remember that we made you an alternative offer in good faith and that you rejected that offer."

We left their offices and the divorce went ahead. They tried to get the judge to rule that the prenuptial agreement was null and void, but he wouldn't agree, stating that it was an object lesson in the crafting of a prenuptial agreement. He refused to rule that it was unenforceable.

Eight months later the divorce was done and dusted. The house was sold and I kept all of the money from the sale. After an investigation by the School District, Sally had been fired and the State Licensing Board revoked her license to practice as a psychologist.

Just when she perhaps thought it couldn't get any worse, her trial for sexual assault came to court.

I felt sad for Mary because she would be facing her rapist in court. Donna and I could not be called as witnesses because all we knew, we knew second hand, so our evidence would have been hearsay. We were allowed to sit in the public gallery, but Mary knew we were there for her.

She'd resigned from her job at the college, moved back to our city and I'd arranged for her to have a job with a friend of mine. I'd suggested that she could come work for me, but the DA had nixed that idea as she was worried that Sally and her lawyer could use that as a way to have the case thrown out. As I didn't want to risk that happening, I arranged for her to work for a friend, instead.

The witness list was fairly sparse. It was just Mary and Sally.

The first day of the trial started badly for Sally with Mary crying and the judge only moments away from having the defense attorney hit with a contempt citation.

The DA was taking this case herself, a sure sign of how seriously she viewed the charges. She gently and kindly questioned an obviously embarrassed and nervous Mary and managed to tease out her answers.

Then it was the turn of the defense attorney. Her first question was: "Isn't it true that the relationship you had with Mrs. Walker was entirely consensual?"

Mary replied: "Yes, but I think she..."

"So, it was consensual? When she 'raped' you, did you enjoy it?" The bitch actually made air quotes around the word rape.

The DA jumped to her feet, but the judge, a man in his late 60s, raised his hand. He said mildly, "Angela, I know what you want to say. But please, let me handle this?"

She sat down and he addressed the defense attorney. "Congratulations. Single-handedly you have been able to set rape and sexual assault trials back some 60 years. Asking a person who is giving evidence in a rape trial if they enjoyed the rape is something that we were taught never to do when I was first training as a lawyer, 40 years ago. And as for the air quotes? You ever, ever pull a stunt like that in my court and I'll report you to the State Bar Council. Understand me? You are lucky that I'm not holding you in contempt."

The attorney shivered and apologized.

She asked a few more questions, how long the relationship had lasted. She screwed up one more time because she asked why the relationship had ended, and Mary told the story that she'd told me.

Then the defense called Sally to give evidence. She was given soft questions about how the affair had started, how long it had progressed, and so forth.

As the defense attorney sat down, Mary looked smug. She obviously felt she was going to get away with it. But then the DA arose.

"Mrs. Walker, when you targeted Mary Jones for your seduction, why did you do that?"

"I didn't target her deliberately, the relationship just grew and developed."

"Were you unaware of the troubled background of Mary?"

Sally looked nervous. "That depends what you mean by troubled."

"I'll refresh your memory. Mary's father developed cancer when she was a young teen. Her mother then abandoned both Mary and her father, never bothering to contact them again. Then when she was 16, her father died and she had to live with a cousin. Her mother didn't even send a sympathy card, let alone attended the funeral. You are a psychologist, aren't you? Would such a series of dreadful events be damaging to a sensitive young girl?"

"Yes, I guess they would."

"So, why was it that within a couple of years of these traumatic events, rather than reaching out with a hand of friendship to Mary, your daughter's best friend since they were four years old, you actually seduced her and sexually assaulted her?"

"I didn't sexually assault her! It was always a consensual relationship! Always!"

"Why did you arrange to be alone with Mary in your home when you should have been on a break with your husband and daughter?"

"I didn't! Someone had called a long meeting on that Friday so I couldn't go away with my husband and daughter."

"Actually, if necessary, the prosecution will be able to call a rebuttal witness who would establish that it was in fact you who called that meeting, and that despite what you just said about that meeting being long, it was barely half an hour in length. Do you want that rebuttal witness to be called?"

"No. That will not be necessary. Okay, you are correct, I did call that meeting."

"Why?"

"It was so I could spend the weekend with Mary. I was fascinated with her, I wanted to get to know her and I wanted to make love with her."

"You didn't tell Mary of your plans for her?"

"I didn't."

"Why not?"

"I was concerned that she'd say no."

"So, despite the fact that you knew that if you had approached her directly, she would have rejected your advances, you set up the situation so that you could get her drunk on a couple of bottles of wine and seduce her? Did you use any illegal drugs? And please do remember you are on oath."

"Yes, I guess you are right. That was what I did. As for drugs? I took some E tabs and gave Mary some, too. Just to lighten us both up and enhance the mood."

"Did Mary know you gave her E tabs?"

Sally shook her head. "I didn't tell her."

"So, you used alcohol and illegal drugs to seduce her and have sex with her?"

"Yes, but that makes what I did sound horrible!"

The DA shook her head. "So, let's see how this goes. You are a Doctor of psychology, a qualified school counselor, you knew that your victim was, through no fault of her own, troubled and vulnerable. Yet you didn't let that stop you from seducing her, did it?"

I could see Sally's face from my seat in the public gallery, and I think that it was finally sinking in that she had fucked up, that she had raped Mary. But I knew Sally and I guessed, correctly, that she would just try to brazen the situation out.

The DA finished her questioning.

After the final speeches from the DA and the defense attorney, the judge gave his summing up and the jury all filed out to the jury room.

Two hours later, they returned and the foreperson of the jury passed the judge their verdict on a piece of paper. He read out the guilty verdict. It was weird, at least to me, that the only person shocked by the guilty verdict was Sally. I really think she believed she would get away with it.

The judge said that he would sentence her in a week's time. He added: "But please do be aware that I am going to give careful consideration to all sentencing options, including some jail time. Also, I will be inviting Mary Jones to make a victim impact statement to the court at that time."

I felt ambivalent about the whole mess. My wife had cheated on me, and worse, had just been found guilty of rape. Donna squeezed my arm. "Come on, Dad. Can we take Mary out for a meal?"

"If she'd like, yeah. Why not?"

Unsurprisingly Mary didn't feel like eating, but we went out for drinks in a bar near the courthouse.

We helped Mary write her Victim Impact statement. By the time we were done with it, it was a very powerful and damning document.

Through the DA it was sent to the judge so that he could take it into consideration before the sentencing, but Mary decided to use her right to read it out in open court.

"Good morning, your honor, good morning everyone. My name is Mary Jones and I am a victim of rape and sexual assault.

"The woman who sexually assaulted and raped me was Sally Walker. Mrs. Walker was the mother of my life-long best friend, Donna Walker. When my own mother bailed on me and my dad because she could not cope with the fact that he was sick with terminal cancer, Sally Walker said: "Don't worry, Mary. I'll be here for you. Just think of me as being a surrogate mom to you.

"Yeah, right! But what mother sets up her own family to be out of the way while she gets her surrogate daughter drunk and rapes her?

"Sally, Mrs. Walker, you ruined everything! You raped me, you cheated on your husband, you destroyed the relationship that I had with Donna, your daughter. I actually tried to end my own life twice. Why? Because you wanted to have sex with me and you just took what you wanted.

"I trusted you; I respected you, but you didn't respect me, did you? You messed me up so much that I haven't dated anyone in the five years since you raped me."

Mary sat down, and folded the paper up after she did.

I looked over at Sally, who looked stricken. "Too little, too late, you fucking bitch!" I thought to myself.

The judge said: "That's a very powerful Victim Impact Statement. Thank you, Ms. Jones, for having the courage and the determination to write that and to read it out."

He turned to face Sally, who was seated next to her lawyer. "Mrs. Sally Walker, please stand. You have been found guilty of sexual assault and rape on a girl who was young, naïve and vulnerable. You were a family friend of the victim, you knew of her troubled past, we heard in the Victim Impact Statement from your victim that you had told her to consider you as her surrogate mother.

"As I have already pointed out, you were a qualified psychologist and a school counselor, so you had to know that what you did was utterly wrong. You tricked your husband and your daughter, your victim's best friend, into being absent from the family home so that you could carry out the rape. Your behavior was utterly reprehensible and utterly vile.

"You destroyed your victim, you destroyed your daughter, your husband and caused your marriage to end. Why? Because you took what you wanted with no thoughts to the consequences.

"Under the circumstances you must have been well aware that you were breaching your Special Elevated Duty of Care. But that was the last thing you did, wasn't it? You didn't care about Mary, your young, vulnerable victim in the slightest, did you?

"After careful consideration I have decided to sentence you to six years imprisonment, and I direct that your name be placed on the sex offenders register for the rest of your life, as I don't think you can ever be trusted."