One Slip: A Hard Fall

Donna paused and made sure that Steve maintained eye contact before she continued, "That's a promise, and I'll keep it no matter what you do, you can not release me from that promise. That will be until the day I die." She paused until Steve nodded that he understood that she meant that even if he divorced her.

Donna smiled, she'd made an impression with her last statement, and she saw a bit more anger leaching out of Steve. "Next is that I was drunk. I knew I needed to sober up to drive, that's why I went outside, and you know that means I was pretty far gone. Please believe me; I know that is no excuse. No one drugged me or urged drinks on me. I'm totally responsible for every one of them I took. I also know that when I get smashed, I get very horny. I had no business drinking like that when you weren't there. I will never have even a wine at dinner if you aren't with me."

Steve was silent but when she didn't continue he finally said, "Isn't that a little extreme, I mean if you're out with your girlfriends ..."

For the first time, Donna let some of her self-disgust show. "Never again! Not for the rest of my life!" Seeing his expression, she smiled. "Well, you'll just have to come around so I can have some of my favorite wine every now and then." Then she turned serious. "Look, I've destroyed your trust in me, but I've destroyed my trust in myself too."

Steve looked thoughtful then nodded for her to continue, "Then the biggie, and I don't want this to sound like an excuse either, but I trusted Gil. I felt safer getting a little looped around him than I would any of my girlfriends." She saw surprise on his face, nodded to confirm what she was saying, and then continued, "I haven't said any of the stuff about needed to feel younger. I think that's all crap. I enjoyed flirting with Gil, but you know I'm not a flirt, I can't think of anyone else I do flirt with ... did flirt with. Gil was your best friend and I thought he was mine. This is going to sound so lame, but even when he kissed me, I wasn't worried. My first thought, I think my last thought was something like a few harmless kisses would make me so hot when I got home, I'd rape you. I knew I was vulnerable, but I knew Gil wasn't drunk and I expected him to protect me like I know you would have protected his wife, Nancy."

Donna felt a wave of pain wash over her and tears began to try to form. She broke eye contact and looked at the floor, "Steve, I did try to push him away maybe three times and I was lost. I never decided to do it, it's like my mind shut down. I know I get that way with you. I love getting that way with you, so turned on that I lose control. You've seen the pictures, I can't pretend I didn't enjoy what happened, but those were all at the start, in anticipation. When it got going, it wasn't good. He wasn't good at all.

"When sanity returned and I was scampering to get my clothes back, aside from the shame, all I could think about was how disappointed I was that I was going to miss making love to you when I got home.

"I knew I couldn't be with you after I'd been with him, and I felt like I'd traded a diamond for fool's gold. I still feel dirty, I gave away something very clean at that party and like my virginity, I can't get it back. I'm not the same person sexually and I understand why you aren't attracted to me. I hope ... I will change that, but while I'll do my best to make it up to you, I will not resent how you feel about me. EVER!"

Donna fought hard to keep that first tear from falling; this wasn't the time for self-pity or Steve's sympathy. She looked up at him and said fiercely, "I don't want you to ever wonder if he was as good as you. Please Steve if you don't believe anything else, believe that. How good or bad he was didn't have anything to do with my decision never to be in that situation again, but it's very important to me that you believe that dissatisfaction with my sex life was NEVER one of the reasons that this happened!"

Donna was breathing hard, and she wasn't sure if it was anger or fear. She'd said her piece and now she was studying Steve's face trying to figure out how he was responding. He seemed to be in deep thought and it was only with the greatest of exertion of willpower that Donna held her tongue. She'd always heard the expression "heart was in her throat" but she this time she felt she feel every beat of her heart as she waited for him to speak.

Finally, he looked at her, his eyes boring into her soul just as they had the first time they'd made love. "Donna, I don't know. I've spent these last three weeks trying not to make a decision. My every instinct is to either divorce you or make your life a living hell. I want to hurt you the way you've hurt me, but I can't. I find I do love you. As much as I hate what you've done, I love you. That doesn't mean I have to live with you or that I can't find a way to stop loving you. Still, I have to admit that the idea of you somehow making it up to me has a lot of appeal. There's nothing you can do sexually that will make this 'all better,' but there may be something else. I'm going to think about it. If I can, it's going to cost you."

Donna nodded. "It won't be as hard as what I'm prepared to do." Her voice was flat and so certain that she saw Steve pick up on it.

"Just what are you prepared to do, Donna?" There was suspicion in his voice.

Donna felt her jaw clench, "It's not that I don't want to give you any ideas, but you'll think less of me if you know. Please don't ever ask ..."

Steve's face hardened, "I am asking, if I'm ever going to learn to trust you, there can't be secrets."

Donna sighed deeply, "I would agree to "die" to you and the kids. You could divorce me secretly and we could fake my death for the kids so they wouldn't think I'd abandoned them. Then I would never have any contact with you or them for as long as I live. That would allow you to find someone new and she could replace me in their hearts. I've read that the death of a parent is much easier on kids than divorce and the aftermath. I haven't done the forsaking all others very well, but your happiness is more important to me than even my children." She dropped her head and said, "Steve you don't know how many times I've wished that instead of going outside to sober up, which allowed that son of a bitch to ... Well I wish with all my heart I had had a fatal crash on the way home instead. It would have been less painful for everyone." Donna had tried but she couldn't stop her chin from quivering and as the silence stretched, she couldn't control the tears. She turned away, and when she still couldn't control them, she left. It was the God's honest truth and she didn't want any sympathy for how she felt.

It took several minutes to get herself back under control in the kitchen, but then she began to bustle around trying to get lunch started. As she began to prepare a heart healthy lunch, she thought,'You knew this was going to be hard, your tears aren't making it any easier for him, so shut off the water works.'

Aloud she mumbled too herself, "I'd be a lot easier to not cry if he hadn't made me confess what a horrible mother I am too. Crazy too, 'fake funeral!' I can't believe I said something that harebrained. Oh God I do wish I'd died."

She felt Steve's strong arms around her restraining her, not holding her just restraining her, "I'm not a monster, I would never agree to something like that. Our kids love you, and ..." his voice choked up.

Feeling his arms around her thrilled her. She began trembling, but managed to get herself under control. Donna turned in her husband's arms so she could look up at his face, "Steve, when I decided I would do anything, I had to think about the worst thing I could imagine. That's it, not just leaving our kids but also trying to get them to replace me. I don't want to hurt my kids, but if I have to choose who to hurt, I have to choose not to hurt you."

Steve pulled her to him, not in a sexual embrace, but a comforting one. "No Donna, I could never let you do anything like that. The idea is to limit pain, not multiply it. I'm going to need to do some deep thinking for a while. I'm not hungry, why don't you just order us a pizza, but let me stew alone until I have some answers?"

Donna was torn, she hated the idea of letting him eat something as unhealthy as pizza, but she was elated about the way his thinking seemed to be going. This wasn't the time to pick a fight about food. She looked at the ultra healthy if unsatisfying lunch she was starting and said, "Sure, I'll order a mushroom pizza for both of us."

As Steve was walking away he answered, "That'll be fine as long as my half has sausage pepperoni and double cheese on it. You said you wanted to make me happy...."

Donna glared at his back, turned, and called in a Mushroom pizza light on the cheese. When she hung up the phone she muttered, "I'm going to make you happy, if it kills me, and you'll be alive for me to do it, buster." This was a fight she wouldn't back down from. Curiously that made her feel better about ordering the pizza.

Steve:

Steve didn't want Donna to see just how shook up he was by her attitude. When she said she wished she'd tried to drive home drunk and died, he had almost snapped "Me too!" That thought had horrified him. Would he really have rather Donna had wrapped herself around a tree than fucked Gil? It hurt him where he lived that the question wasn't rhetorical.

It had taken him just long enough to answer it that he hadn't noticed Donna leaving the room. Then another thought had occurred to him. What he would have done if Donna or Gil had called and told him how drunk she was. He knew that when Donna had one drink too many she shed most of her inhibitions. It was something she'd always been careful about. Even when they were dating, she'd never let herself go until she didn't have to worry about trusting him not to take advantage of her.

Steve grinned and snorted, some of their best sex, and most of their experimentation had been when she was a bit wasted.

The grin faded and Steve was aware of how his face hardened. Gil knew about Donna's weakness too, although he'd never seen it, Steve had discussed it with him. Had Gill called, he would have trusted Gil completely, just as Donna had.

That didn't excuse her, but it gave him another choice. Upon whom did he want to focus his revenge? His anger? Donna might have been swept up by circumstances, but Gil had been cold eyed and calculating in what he'd done. Donna had said no one pushed a drink on her. But based on what Gil had turned out to be, a whoremonger with a string of corporate whores, he probably did encourage her to take one too many. That son of a bitch tried to turn his wife into a whore, and an unpaid whore at that!

Even in his anger he had to acknowledge that Donna had never lied to him. He also knew that if he had been asked a hypothetical question he would have said not to reveal a one-time slip. What Donna did was devastating, but was it fatal? It wasn't an affair, and it wasn't something she had planned. She hadn't gone to a motel or even walked to a bedroom or even a couch. She certainly proved that she never intended to let it continue. How much difference did those things make?

Steve had been doing a lot of thinking in the last three weeks, most of it about what life was going to be like after he divorced Donna. Yesterday he'd visited with one of his 'old man' friends when Donna had thought he was at work. The man had spent much of the time talking about forgiveness. He said there were really two different kinds of forgiveness. The first was a willingness to forgo vengeance, but not to try to repair the relationship. The man had said that giving this type of forgiveness was just plain good mental health. He had asked, "How much does your hatred hurt the other person and how much does it hurt you? What will your vengeance cost you? Will it ever be enough? Is there anything you can do to keep the hate from eating you up except to release it?"

He had continued that this type of forgiveness was what allowed you to stop letting what someone had done to you to control your life. It did not mean that you had to spare the other the consequences of what they'd done. "You don't have like them or even wish them well. The important thing is that you can't forget about them until you decided to forgive them."

"Forgiveness is a decision not an emotion." He had said that Steve needed to think about finding a way to forgive Donna no matter what else he did. Donna would always be the mother of his children and they would never be able completely separate as long as the children lived.

He'd gone on to say the other kind of forgiveness, he called it full forgiveness, was much harder. It involved trying to re-establish the relationship as it had been. "The thing is though that that full forgiveness is only possible if the other party repents and also works to repair what they've done. Thank God that's so rare that you seldom have to worry about it."

He'd put a fatherly hand on Steve and said, "Let me tell you a true story. This isn't just about wives and husbands you know. I had to forgive my only son a few years ago. He got messed up with the wrong girl in college, he stole a lot of money from me and they disappeared for almost a year. I can't tell you how close I came to siccing the cops on him. Then he showed up, said he was in trouble, and needed my help. The girl had been pregnant but now he didn't think it was his. DNA tests cost a small fortune back then and he wanted to borrow the money.

"I wanted to tell him that 'he'd made his bed now he had to sleep in it' so bad I could just taste how good words were going to feel. The only thing that stopped me was that it might have been my first grandchild and I had to know. I told him that, and paid for the test. It wasn't his, and he disappeared again. I had to spend a lot of time getting over my 'mad' with him, wanting to get even for what he'd done. It was killing me, until I just decided to forgive and forget him. I wouldn't loan him money and I didn't care if I ever saw him again, but it gave me peace. It made a world of difference, I could finally sleep nights and I stopped fighting with my wife.

"Then I began getting checks in the mail from him. No return address, just notes saying he was very sorry and that he'd pay me back no matter what. Well, at the rate he was paying, it looked like he'd still be paying when my ghost reached the century mark. Then it struck me, the kid wasn't just 'sorry,' he was trying to make things right and I had to decide if I wanted a relationship or not. I decided I did and I tracked him through his bank. I helped get him back in school and you know how close we are now. Working with him, I was able to give him full forgiveness. He's almost running my company, and he is the reason I can take it easy these days and play with my grandkids. I've gained more than I ever could by any sort of revenge that I might have been able to cook up."

That talk had been more than he'd been able to digest. Steve loved his kids and he knew what generally happened in a divorce with the kids and later the grandkids. Dear old dad ended up sucking hind tit. Just thinking about it had made him mad.

It was so unfair. What he really wanted was his old life back and Donna had made that impossible. Or had she?

If he were going out on the meat market looking for a replacement, would he consider a woman with Donna's history? He'd probably consider himself lucky to find one with that few miles on her. What about Donna, despite her pledge, did he believe, for even a second, that Donna couldn't find a good man to replace him? A good man who would trust her? Hell, Steve knew a dozen men that would pant and paw the ground to forgive her and make her theirs.

Even before his friend's story, he knew he'd have to do something to release his anger, and forgiveness did seem the easiest way. 'Is forgiveness actually a choice?' He nodded his head. 'Is it a choice I can make?'

He remembered what he'd read in a book about someone who had been in the Nazi concentration camps. He thought it was Corrie Ten Boom. She said that the Nazis had taken all her choices away. All except how she chose to respond to them. He knew that it was Corrie Ten Boom who had said, "Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart."

Steve didn't know the temperature of his heart, but he did believe that he didn't have to rely on his feelings and emotions. He believed that he had ability to choose how he was going to respond to Donna, and if he forgave her, he would treat it just like he had the decision to stop smoking. Every time he'd been tempted to light up, he'd just reminded himself "I don't smoke anymore."

Was it as easy and as hard as that? Then there was the question what kind of forgiveness. Why was he obliged to give her the full kind of forgiveness if she repented?

It was clear from this morning that Donna was trying to repent. If Donna was repenting and was prepared to sacrifice to make him better, was that worth more to him than trying to start over with someone new?

He thought for a long time, hours and hours. Then he thought again for a very long time.

Then --- he decided.

He called Donna to join him as he was walked into the den. He deliberately didn't sit on the sofa where she might cuddle up to him. Instead, he chose his recliner, the "daddy chair" next to the remote. Donna came in looking very apprehensive, "Sit down Donna, I've made some decisions."

She sat, on the very edge of the sofa, her hands clasped in her lap, her eye beseeching him. He tried to give her a smile but thought it was probably more of a grimace. "Gil is going to jail for a very long time, but that isn't enough for me. I am going to hit Gil's company with the biggest lawsuit in this state's history. They profited from what Gil did with those other women just like Gil benefited. He seduced you on their property, at their party and recorded it in their premises. He intended to make money for his company by using you. They are going to pay through the nose for that!"

Steve sighed, and then continued, "I had asked Mike if he could 'lose' the pictures and the tape of you two. He promised that no one would ever see them, but he said he couldn't destroy evidence. I glad that's the case now, because I'm going to have to use that evidence."

"If I sue, that tape will become pubic record. Your friends and even the kids can see it if they want to, I expect you to testify ..."

Donna left the sofa and knelt by her husband's chair, she looked up at him and said, "Steve, I'm not that brave, the only way I can do that is if you hold my hand. I want you to do it, Steve! I want you to get whatever you can to make you feel better. I'm not saying I won't do what you want, but I can't stay here afterwards, knowing that every man I meet might have seen me rutting like a cheap porn slut. If you leave me, I'll have to leave this town. I won't be strong enough to face it alone. I'll do anything you ask, but unless you stand by me, I won't be able to live here after that comes out.

Steve was quiet for a long time, and then stood, bent down raised her up and took her into his arms. "I had been thinking about selling my company and moving across the country with the kids, that would shield them from the ugliness, but I couldn't take them from you. I guess the only solution is to take you with us.

He held her out from him and said, "Donna, I don't know if we can make it. I love holding you like this, but then I see those images in my mind and ..."

Donna interrupted, "And you get furious with me. Why shouldn't you? Look, we might need professional help, charge the bastards for that too, and if mother's articles are true it's going to take a lot of time. It won't be a straight line from bad to good either. There will be hills and twisting valleys along the way. There will be other issues that grow out of this mess. One is that I think I'm going to look for a church. It will probably be months before you're comfortable having me in your bed. I will always want you to accept me faster than you will be capable of doing. I'm going to have to work hard not to resent it when you don't trust me. One thing I promise is that I'll never say anything like 'why don't you just get over it?' Steve, if you'll agree to let me work to make you whole again, I promise that will be the purpose of my life.