379 comments/ 624676 views/ 357 favorites Requital By: Longhorn__07 Author's Note: This story is dedicated to HardDaysKnight who first suggested I start writing and post some stories on this website. Thanks for the encouragement, pardner. I really appreciate it. Prologue The week before Christmas: Steve Curtis had a smile pasted on his lips but he wasn't really enjoying himself. He'd come to the party with his wife, Barbara, cheered by the holiday season and hopeful the coolness between him and Barbara was coming to an end. It had been a couple of months since he'd first noticed but he had no better idea now of what was causing it than he'd had at the beginning. Tonight should have been a warm, Christmassy evening out with Barbara's coworkers and friends. Steve had made a connection with a few of them at past get-togethers, but he'd thought this would be a good time to improve on that. Instead, his smile was increasingly a forced one. For some reason, the boss's nephew--he'd made a point of introducing himself as such--had made a beeline for this table when he came in the door. Swiping a chair from an adjacent table, he'd maneuvered himself into a scant opening on Barbara's other side. It had irritated both Steve and the man who had to scoot his chair to the side to accommodate the intruder. What was worse, "Jimmie," as Barbara referred to him, was blatantly doing everything he could to occupy Barbara's complete attention. Incredibly, Barbara seemed to be enjoying it, welcoming every new morsel of undisguised, sometimes surprisingly personal flattery. Jimmie and Barbara were laughing, their heads inclining toward one another as they shared a joke about "trailer trash." Steve dropped all pretense. He let the false smile fade and die. Of the nine partiers at the table, only Steve's wife and Jimmie saw the humor in the joke. Steve cleared his throat and let the sour look on his face give his opinion. Jimmie looked around at Steve and grinned broadly. "Hey, Stevie, loosen up a little eh? It was just a joke." Barbara turned to her husband. "Steve," she admonished, "don't take things so serious. Jimmie was just trying to make a point about people with low standards and stuff. For goodness sake." "Yeah," Jimmie joined in. "What she said!" His coarse laughter spilled out all over the immediate vicinity, joined half a beat later by Barbara's giggles. "Actually," Jimmie quipped, "I wouldn't expect you to understand a joke like that. It's not your fault…it's just that there are too many nuances in it for construction workers," Jimmie said with satisfaction. He showed a smiling face to everyone around the table, inviting them to share in putting Steve in his place. Barbara giggled again. She shot her husband an impatient look. Steve worked hard to hold in his temper. It wasn't easy. He took a moment, deliberately slouched lower in the straight-backed chair and tried to relax. He toyed with the base of the wineglass to have something to do with his hands instead of wrapping them around Jimmie's neck. "The point he was trying to make, dear--in addition to calling me an idiot--is that there are people who don't have enough money to buy a big house, or rent a luxury apartment in a high rise on the "right side" of town. Jimmie-boy thinks those people are stupid, lazy drunks and they deserve to be laughed at." Steve had lost the battle to keep his anger in check. "As it happens, you know, I work in a converted mobile home," Steve continued lazily, but very precisely. It was a warning sign to those who knew him. When Steve got very formal and his voice softened to little more than a whisper…those were the times people needed to back away. It had been that way since his first schoolyard confrontation. "That's what we do on construction projects," Steve continued. "We move a trailer onto the site so we can have immediately available, low cost office spaces and places where we can work administrative issues." He looked up to find Barbara glaring at him. "Now…a lot of the guys and their families who work on the construction site I'm supervising right now also live in mobile homes because that's all they can afford. You see, they want--what do they call it? The American Dream? Yeah, that's it. They want the American dream of owning their own home but times are tough for them…always have been…it's nothing new. What it is…is that these folks haven't earned enough of a nest egg yet to put a down payment on a big house in the suburbs." "And they weren't born with a rich uncle either," Steve added. No one missed the scorn in his tone. "Jimmie-boy" watched Steve with his mouth gaping. Jimmie's uncle owned the company and no one dared talk to Jimmie with such naked contempt in his voice. Jimmie started to fume. "As for me," Steve said, "I would never be so crude as to ridicule honest, hardworking men and women who are doing the best they can with what they have. It's just not something I could do and still call myself a man." With his last words, he glanced up from the wineglass to look intently into Jimmie's eyes. Steve wasn't trying to hide his anger now. Actually, he was hoping Jimmie would take offense. Two of the other three husbands around the table surreptitiously readied themselves to interpose themselves between their wives and the coming physical altercation. Ashen faced, Jimmie began to stand. He wasn't that much smaller than Steve and he worked out four afternoons a week. Jimmie didn't know the difference between work-hardened muscles and barbell muscles. He was about to find out. "I COULDN'T AGREE MORE, YOUNG MAN," came the booming voice. Steve glanced around to find a short, balding man in an expensive suit standing at his shoulder. Well past middle age, he still held his slender body stiffly erect. "My mother and father were living in a small trailer when I was born and some of my happiest memories are from when we lived there," the unknown man said forcefully. He had his eyes fixed on young Jimmie. He was not happy with the younger man. Jimmie looked like he'd suddenly tasted something foul. He sat down hard. "Jonas Reynolds," said the older man by way of introduction. He held out his hand to Steve. They shook hands; their was grip firm but not confrontational. Steve appreciated that. Too many men tried to make it a challenge. It was a contest he usually won, but he never liked doing it. "Steve Curtis," he said, introducing himself. Reynolds nodded. "And this would be your wife…the lovely Barbara?" he asked. He offered his hand to Barbara. She aborted a move to rise; there wasn't room to move her chair back and rise without bumping into Jonas. Flustered, a blush began color her throat. Steve's irritation with Jimmie had been deflected. Belatedly, he was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Since the firm his wife worked for was "Reynolds And Sons," he presumed this was the senior Reynolds standing beside him. Steve was wondering if his hotheadedness would cost Barbara a lucrative job. He glanced at Barbara in time to catch a fleeting look of fury in her eyes before she turned away. "Jimmie?" Mr. Reynolds said quietly. "I think you should go find your Aunt Jenny and see if she needs anything." Jimmie's face changed. There was a hint of desperation there, along with protest. "Now, Jimmie." The whip crack authority in Jonas Reynolds voice was unmistakable. Jimmie got to his feet, pushing his chair back with a loud screech, and turned away. With the tip of his ears colored a dark crimson, he stalked away toward the opposite corner of the ballroom. Jonas, and everyone at the table, watched as he moved away. "I'm afraid Jimmie won't be with us much longer," Jonas said. "One tries to do what one can for family…but sometimes it just doesn't work out," he remarked musingly. Jonas held out his hand to Steve again. This time, Steve got to his feet. At six feet and a bit more, he towered over the much slighter CEO. "I hope you won't judge all the Reynolds by one insolent pup," Jonas said. "Barbara is a valuable member of our team and we'd hate to lose her because of an…indiscretion on Jimmie's part," he remarked. He threw Barbara a hooded look. His face was bland, impossible to read. Jonas turned so he could see all of the partygoers around the table. "Ladies…gentlemen…I hope you will forgive me for intruding into your party. Please, enjoy the rest of your evening." He smiled warmly, touched Steve's forearm companionably and walked quietly away. The conversation around the table took a few minutes to resume, but it was lighter and there was more laughter interspersed between the words now. The men all found an opportunity to shake Steve's hand before the party ended. Two of the women patted Steve's shoulder when they passed behind him on their way to the restroom; one touched his cheek and smiled warmly. They all noticed, but none commented on the fact that Barbara had nothing to say the rest of the evening. Jimmie didn't make an appearance for the rest of the night. ******** The silence lasted until they got home. When the front door closed behind them, Barbara's frustration boiled over. "You just had to embarrass me in front of all my friends, didn't you," she said bitterly. "That's all you do anymore. You don't like my friends and you put them down every chance you get. That…that macho act you did with Jimmie…why do you always have to do that? Jimmie is nice. He didn't deserve that." Steve looked at her in amazement. It took a few seconds but anger chased the disbelief from his features. "Excuse me?" he said. "You were the one embarrassing yourself out there. I didn't do a damn thing except watch you make a spectacle of yourself. What the hell did you think you were doing hanging all over that asshole and giggling like a schoolgirl whenever he made one of his stupid jokes? Shit…you were hovering over him like he was some kind of movie star or something." Barbara was taken aback. Steve rarely counterattacked so vigorously in their arguments. When he did, it was because he took the matter under discussion very seriously. She seldom came out on top in a discussion where he dug in his heels. "I…he was just trying to make conversation," she said defensively. "I don't know why you have to be so mean to me. Jimmie is just a really nice guy who makes an effort to come by and talk to me sometimes. What's wrong with that? Is there anything wrong with me having friends?" "Not a thing in the world," Steve replied, "until it gets to the point where you hang on every word he has to say…until you can't be bothered to talk to your husband the whole evening long…or until you start getting so cozy with some guy nobody can ignore it." He glared at her for a long moment. "What the hell were you going to do next…climb up in his lap and play kissy-face with him? You were damn near already doing that. Hell, I couldn't see under the table but I wouldn't doubt you were playing footsy too." Barbara's face whitened, then reddened in the space of two heartbeats. "Well, maybe I was," she said sarcastically. "Maybe next time I will get on his lap," she said defiantly. "Jimmie knows how to be nice to a woman…he's not just some itinerant construction worker!" Steve's lips tightened. He stared at his wife. Suddenly he didn't know this woman. "Barbara," he said quietly. "You sat there tonight and let some other man disrespect me right in front of you. You let it happen and laughed about it. Everyone at the table saw it. I think I was pretty darn gentlemanly about it…and that was because I was thinking of you. Any other time, I'd have yanked "Jimmie" up by the scruff of his neck and taken him out back behind the trash dumpsters to teach him a little respect." He walked slowly toward where his wife stood just inside the hall leading back to their bedroom. "But if I'd done that," he said slowly, "it would have been unfair to him, wouldn't it?" His wife stared at him without understanding. "Barbara," he said gently, "if I was to beat that piss-ant to a bloody pulp for saying what he did to me, I'd have had to leave you lying in the dust right beside him, wouldn't I? After all, it was both of you disrespecting your husband, wasn't it?" He watched her for a long moment. Neither spoke. "But we both know I couldn't do that, don't we?" he growled. "My dad wasn't much, but he taught me a man who strikes a woman is lower than cow dung." They were both quiet. It seemed all the longer because silences didn't usually develop in their conversations. "Barbara?" Steve said quietly. "Do you want a divorce?" Barbara's eyes widened. "I…no…uh…how can…I think you're overreacting, don't you?" She'd stuttered at first, then flashed on a good comeback. She delivered the final words triumphantly and waited for her husband to back down. Instead, he continued looking at her somberly. "Woman," he remarked, "overreacting or not, the next time you take another man's side against me like you did tonight…the next time you laugh when another man insults me and demeans me…the next time you play up to some other man like he means everything in the world to you and I mean nothing…that's the day I assume this marriage is over and I will divorce your ass before you can whistle Dixie. Believe it, Barbara! It will happen." Barbara whirled and fled down the hallway. Steve followed more slowly, almost wearily. He'd been so optimistic about the evening. His hopes had all been crushed and he was left feeling more depressed than he'd already been for the past few weeks. The bedroom door slammed shut. The sound reverberated in the quiet house. When he got there, Steve tried the doorknob and found it locked. He'd expected it. He almost turned to the hall closet and took out a couple of blankets and a spare pillow. He was resigned to sleeping on the living room couch tonight. At least he could turn on the Christmas tree lights. They were nice. They would provide some degree of companionship through the night. Abruptly, the anger he'd felt earlier came back full force. Without letting himself think it over, he put his back against the wall opposite the door, took a quick step, and put his shoulder into the door a couple feet above the doorknob. The door crashed open and slammed against the wall behind it. Splinters from the shattered door and frame flew across the room. Barbara's scream lasted for a long moment. The surprise had been complete; the violence unnerved her. She backed away from her husband, her arms pushing out from her body in an unconscious protective posture. Steve, after propping the remains of the door against the outside wall looked at his wife in disgust. "What the hell's wrong with you?" he asked. "If I didn't do anything to you earlier tonight, you know damn good and well I'm not going to touch you now." He went to the walk-in closet and began to disrobe, carefully hanging his suit coat and slacks on the hangers they'd come from just hours before. "I don't want to sleep with you," Barbara said. Her voice was husky and unsteady. Steve snorted. "So don't!" he retorted. "But I didn't do a Goddamned thing wrong tonight. You did. If you don't want to sleep with me, so be it. But I'm going to sleep in my own bed tonight. If you don't want to, you know where the spare sheets and blankets are." Barbara said nothing. After a while, Steve resumed preparing himself for bed. He ignored his wife standing in the corner. When she slipped past him and out of the door, he made no move to stop her. It was lonely in the bed by himself. It took him a long time to calm himself enough to sleep. Sometime before dawn, he was awakened when Barbara got into bed with him. She stayed as far away from him as she could. Steve snorted, rolled away from her, and was asleep before he completed the move. Chapter 1 - Mid June Cheaters are exposed in so many ways. Sometimes it's an overheard phone call, an email left visible on a computer monitor, or text messages not deleted from a cell phone memory. There's always the chance a friend, a business associate, or a family member will see the wayward wife or husband with the other person. Occasionally, the cheaters are discovered in flagrante delicto--when a spouse comes home early, for instance. And God help cheaters who talk in their sleep. When you think about it, there are thousands of ways for an affair to be exposed. Steve Curtis, for instance, read of his wife's infidelity in the newspaper. ******** He didn't normally read newspapers. He got all his news online or from the occasional nightly news broadcast. His brother didn't try to hide his disgust at Steve's way of informing himself. Jon was the news director at the local Fox TV station and took it as a personal affront when Steve refused to watch the local news. On the other hand, a man will do just about anything to distract himself in a dentist's waiting room. He'll read every magazine on the rack, count the holes in the ceiling tiles--heck, he'll do anything to keep his mind off the drill's shrill whine coming from the hidden treatment rooms. He will even read a two day old newspaper if he has to. When Steve did read a newspaper, it wasn't the society section. He'd read the national news, of course, and then skip to the sports section, but he had no interest whatsoever in the affairs of the city's high and mighty socialites. Steve read all the want ads he could stomach first. He even found one for a bass boat he found interesting and wrote down the phone number to follow it up when he had the time. The whirring of the dentist's drill back there increased to a scream. He hoped it was the drill. Steve had to find something to do. Against his will, he picked up the section labeled with a big "C" at the top. On the first inside page, below the fold, was a series of pictures taken at a local socialites' estate. The first picture of the overweight host at the event was unspectacular. Steve decided that instead of adding ten pounds, this picture must have added fifty or sixty. He was trying to be charitable. In the second picture of the obese host, off to the side and behind him, Steve's wife was clearly visible walking away from the photographer's vantage point. Her head was turned toward the guy she was with. There was a happy, almost an adoring look on her face. Steve clinched his jaws tight to control a rising anger. He looked closer. There was another problem--a big one. The man's left arm was extended down at an angle in the picture. It looked like the photo had been edited. If it hadn't been cropped, it appeared the man's hand would be just about in the right place to be fondling Barbara's ass. His wife's smile said she was enjoying the illicit contact. Steve's world turned bleak. Without warning, he was plunged into a darkness he'd never experienced before. He was numb; he couldn't feel his hands. They were lifeless. The newspaper dropped from fingers no longer strong enough to hold it. His surroundings blurred as unshed tears watered his eyes. He couldn't think. Nothing would process. Disoriented, he could see only the section of the room directly in front of him. He was on automatic pilot, able to feel only the cramping tightness in his chest. He responded when the dental assistant called his name. He walked, he smiled at a comment she made, he sat in the chair and waited quietly while she fastened a paper bib around his neck. He seemed to be alert and cooperative with the staff in the clinic, but he wasn't really there. It was the least painful tooth filling he'd ever known. He literally didn't feel anything at all. By the time Doctor Willis guided the chair back up to an upright position, it was clear the chunk of ice in his gut had taken up permanent residence. Requital Moving like an automaton, he rode the elevator down to the parking garage but couldn't remember where he'd parked his pickup. He walked nearly every level, scanning each row of parked cars before he found it. He sat in the big black Ram Charger without moving, without thinking, until he could summon enough energy to start the engine. When the motor started, it roared for a long minute or two before he realized his foot was pushing hard on the accelerator. The noise was an assault on the ears that echoed and reechoed off the concrete walls and down the corridors. The original owner had blown the engine in the five-year-old pickup truck. He'd bought a replacement that was bigger and more powerful, and then he'd fine-tuned it so it developed even more horsepower. The guy had just finished adding a heavy-duty suspension to go along with the increased power when he had a massive stroke. Steve had gotten the truck cheap. The man's widow had been eager to get rid of it. She wanted nothing around to remind her of her late husband. The rearview mirror showed the angry face of a man getting into an expensive car on the other side of the aisle. He threw Steve a one-fingered salute and drove off. Finally realizing what he was doing, Steve still had to make a conscious decision to pull his foot off the pedal. Everything was so damned hard now. His world had been blown apart. He was lost, adrift in a sea of misery, rage, and pain. ******* He'd felt it coming though. The Christmas party had been a wake up call, but he'd felt Barbara withdrawing from him even before that. After the party, and the subsequent argument, Steve had redoubled his efforts to show his wife how much he loved her. He put little gifts, like a tiny bottle of her favorite perfume, on the dash in her car so she could find it when she went to work. A vase with an arrangement of daisies was delivered to her office in the middle of a long week of hard work for her and her firm. He sent e-cards to her vowing his love and devotion to her. He tried to close the distance between them using everything he could think of. Nothing seemed to work. It had gotten a little better around Valentine's Day. Barb had come to him, finally sorry for the coldness and even sorrier for the way she'd acted at the party, she said. They'd had a month of renewed warmth in the marriage. He'd gotten into the habit of doing his homework for night school while still in the classroom half listening as the professor explained poorly grasped concepts to slower students. Twenty more hours, sixteen of which he had to take in residence at the university, and then he'd be finished. He'd have a BS in Architectural Engineering and would have finished the last prerequisite for the promotion already promised him. Then in at the end of March, he'd had to go to Washington to represent the firm while they bid on a number of Corps of Engineers construction projects. It was supposed to only be parts of two weeks with the weekend between but he'd been diverted to Little Rock on the way back to work some issues on a building site already two weeks behind schedule. He'd wound up gone three weeks. When he returned, Barbara had seemingly lost all interest in working on the marriage. If their interaction had been cold before, it was icy now. She'd been pale and listless. All she seemed to want to do was sleep. She'd carried herself stiffly around him, as if repulsed by him. A sex life that had begun a slow revival before his trip dropped to nothing when he returned. He did all he could to change whatever was wrong but nothing worked. One day, when he sent her a funny email greeting card, she sent it back with a terse reply that she was getting fed up with his controlling, manipulative ways. Stop smothering her, she said. Yeah, because of all that had happened these past few months, he'd been expecting to find out she was cheating…but seeing the first real proof was still enormously disconcerting. He needed more information. A low-resolution photograph in a newspaper was hardly evidence. For one thing, he needed to see all of what he thought was a cropped picture. He had to see if that man's hand was actually on Barb's ass or not. ******** "Jon!" he said into his cell phone. He'd been driving around aimlessly. He didn't want to go home. Barbara would be there in a while…at least he thought she would. He didn't know now. Was she out with that asshole right now? He wondered. "Hey, Stevie boy," Jon said loudly. Jon was one of those people who didn't really believe the volume on a phone was ever set high enough. He sincerely believed if he didn't raise his voice, he couldn't be heard. Steve had to dial the volume down every time he talked to his brother. He let the diminutive pass this time. Jon was older by fourteen months and never let Steve forget it. Today it was comforting. "Jon--" Steve's voice broke. A sob nearly escaped his throat before he could strangle it. Jon noticed immediately. "Steve, what's wrong?" Jon said urgently. The background noise abruptly decreased by several orders of magnitude. A TV station preparing for the 5:30 local news was not a quiet place. Jon must have shut his office door…something he almost never did. "I…I think Barbara is running around on me," Steve admitted. He took a deep breath while he listened to Jon curse. Steve felt a little better. The cursing did nothing, not really, but it helped to know that his brother was squarely in his corner in whatever was coming. "What can I do?" Jon asked when he ran out of four-letter words. "There's a photograph in Sunday's Observer," Steve told him. "I need to see the whole thing, not just what they fit into a few column inches. Can you think of any way I can get a copy of it…a good quality copy?" Jon was quiet for a couple of heartbeats. "Yeah, Steve," he said at length, "I know a guy over there who owes me a ton of favors. He wouldn't have his job right now if it weren't for me. Let me pull his chain and see what I can shake loose, okay?" Steve felt his twisted gut begin to relax minutely. Someone was working with him instead of against him. He told Jon where the picture was located in the two-day-old newspaper. Jon said the age didn't make any difference at all because they kept digital copies forever in the newspaper industry these days. His buddy would have no chance finding the edition he needed. Chances were the photograph was in digital format too. Many of their photographers went out with high-end digital cameras that were the equal of any of the old 35mm cameras. Jon would see what he could find out and he'd get back with him. Steve thanked him and thumbed the button to end the phone call. ******** It had been hard seeing and talking with Barbara that first night and the next one too. A naturally affectionate man within his family, Steve had no desire to be around his wife for the first time in their marriage. On Friday, Jon brought a thin, oversized envelope to the construction site and delivered it to Steve in the office trailer. Jon was visibly relieved to be indoors--even the insubstantial walls of the converted mobile home were a comfort. There were entirely too many enormous vehicles on the site whose engines roared at unexpected moments for Jon's peace of mind. Just watching the steel girders being slung up to the highest floors by massive cranes was a dizzying, nauseating sight for Jon. He was glad to be inside where Steve could ensure his safety. Steve showed his brother a small grin. Jon's sweating forehead and nervous talk was a tiny moment of humor in an otherwise somber day. Steve walked Jon all the way off the site and back to his Volvo, thanking him again with every step the pair took. Jon shook his hand at the edge of the sidewalk and exacted a promise for Steve to come over for dinner soon…as in, very soon. ******* Night had fallen and everything was quiet. Only Steve and three well-armed security guards were still there. Steve had a big .45 caliber semi-automatic in a holster lying on the desk in front of him. He'd fasten the clip over his belt on the right side when he got ready to leave. Construction sites were dangerous places at night. Crackheads and winos were always hunting a new place to hide and indulge themselves in their vice. Then there were petty, and not so petty, thieves who were always in the market for a roll of copper tubing or something else in the stacks of supplies and building materials they could sell somewhere. After a couple of workers had been beaten up by scavengers on his first job, Steve had obtained a concealed carry permit and gotten into the habit of going armed nearly all the time. After Jon's departure, the afternoon had been hectic and Steve hadn't had time to sit down and review the packet his brother had brought him. Steve's trembling fingers opened the clasp at the end of the big envelope. He didn't want to look; he knew he had to. There were three pictures of the party at the mansion with Barbara somewhere in the photograph. None of the three were exclusively of her and this other man. They were always off to the side instead of centered. They had not been the people the photographer had focused on. The first one was the raw photograph that had been cropped for publication in the newspaper. The 8 X 10 print was clear and sharp. With a magnifying glass pulled from his middle desk drawer, he could see the man's left hand was, in fact, cupping Barbara's right butt cheek. Her short white skirt was hiked up higher on that side. The pleats were badly out of alignment. The man was pulling Barbara closer at the same he was fondling her. Steve had to force his jaw muscles to relax. He was grinding his teeth and the dentist had warned him against that. Working very precisely, suppressing the urge to rip the photo to shreds, he set that picture aside to look at the second. This one showed Barbara and the man standing on a grassy area with champagne glasses in their hands. Barbara had her right arm around the man's waist and was pulling him tight against her body. The man's left hand had been caught in a sweeping caress of Barbara's back. Their lips were pressed tightly against each other. Steve felt his jaw tighten again. He set the photo on top of the first. The third showed Barbara and the man sitting on chairs at a patio table. They were facing each other with the guy slightly offset to Barbara's right. The man was leaning toward Barbara as if about to kiss her. Barbara's face showed her excitement. The magnifying glass showed the man's right hand on the inside of Barbara's right thigh. His fingers had disappeared under her skirt. Detachedly, Steve wondered how far up his wife's thigh this man had thrust his hand after the picture had been snapped. "AAARRRGGH!" He had to let it out or he would go mad. The first roar was followed by a second and a third. It didn't matter. The security guards were on their rounds. No one could hear him in the office trailer. He wished he had something he could punch. There were only the too flimsy walls. He forced himself to be calm. His efforts forced the anger inward. Gradually, he made the fiery rage cool. The surges of fury became fewer and less intense. He closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. His hands rested on the ends of the armrests. He deliberately relaxed his fingers and then worked on all the other muscles in his body. After a long while, his churning stomach calmed. He could think again. From the way Barbara accepted the man's caresses in the photos, the affair had been going on for a time…or the guy worked fast and Barbara was especially receptive to his advances. Either way, Barbara was actively participating in things a married woman could not do. The pain he felt became almost overpowering. It changed to anger almost immediately and it took a while to suppress again. He didn't know why Barbara was doing this but it was not something he could overlook. All that remained was letting go…and a formal recognition of the demise of the marriage by the courts. He would call a lawyer tomorrow. The vibration in his pants pocket was a shock. He hadn't been expecting a phone call. "Hey!" Jon said when Steve answered. "Hi, Jon," Steve replied. "What's up?" "Can you talk?" "Sure, why? Oh…I'm still at work," Steve told him. "Yeah," Jon said. His voice was full of sympathy. He knew why Steve wasn't at home. "Well, anyway, I got a call from my guy at the newspaper," Jon said. "He showed the pics to a friend and found out who this guy is. You got something to write with?" Steve fumbled a ballpoint from his shirt pocket. Suddenly, his heart was racing. Knowing who Barbara's other man was had no real significance. It wasn't going to change a thing, but it felt like he was making some kind of progress. He wasn't just sitting around and taking everything anymore. "Yeah, go ahead," Steve replied. He heard his brother take a deep breath on the other end of the line. "Okay. The guy's name is Rafael Leland Porter. He's Hispanic on his mother's side; his father is Anglo. That accounts for his name. He goes by the nickname "Rafe." Got all that?" "Just a sec," Steve answered. He couldn't write as fast as Jon spoke. "Okay, go ahead. What else you got?" "Okay…he's a well thought-of executive type with Harper Insurance. He's kinda on the lower rung of upper level management and the word is, his star is on the rise." When he heard those words, Steve made an instantaneous decision to see what he could do about that. He knew Barbara was doing what she was doing of her own free will--he blamed her for wrecking their marriage--but there was no reason the guy should get away Scot free. Jon had stopped talking. He knew his brother. He knew Steve was almost certainly running through options in his mind for derailing Mr. Rafael Porter's rise to the top of his little insurance business world. "Okay…I got all that," Steve said finally. "Anything else?" There was much more. Jon's friend-of-a-friend at the newspaper had the man's entire public record available. Rafael Porter was married to Elaine Jeanette Porter, né Anderson. The Porters had been married eight years. There was one child, a daughter, Rachel Marie, who was six. Elaine worked as a sales manager for a fashionable downtown department store, apparently because she wanted to stay busy. The couple certainly didn't need her income. Rafe liked to mingle with the powers-that-be in the insurance game as well as the movers and shakers in the local government. There were rumors he might be contemplating a career in politics but he'd taken no steps in that direction yet. When he had notes on all the information Jon had found, Steve thanked him profusely and terminated the call. It wasn't everything he wanted to know about the asshole running around with Barbara, but it was a hell of good start. He had a good idea of how to develop more, and better detailed, information. ******* Private investigators come in all flavors. There are the "Rockford Files" and "Magnum P.I." wannabes who are in it for the excitement. They have someone gin up a flashy identification card for them, invest in a set of handcuffs, a camera or two, and sometimes a pistol. With almost no regulation of the industry, that's all they have to do. The star struck amateurs buy an ad in the yellow pages and set up shop in out of the way offices where they wait for glamorous jobs to come their way. Then there are the ex-military and ex-cops who want to use their experience in those other professions to jumpstart a career in investigations. They never really examine how a career as an army supply clerk or a traffic cop qualifies them for their new avocation, but they are always quite certain about what they want to do. At the top are a few professionals who scorn the theatrics of the "TV private eye" and view the retirees from other fields with undisguised contempt. These investigators often get their early training as police detectives or from having served in the various military's criminal investigation divisions. Some, a very few, grow up in investigation agencies, learning from masters already practicing the trade. The chief of security for the construction firm Steve worked for had been with the Department of State's VIP protection service. He'd had to retire when he took a bullet in the kneecap one afternoon in Baghdad but he had few regrets. His wife was a lot happier with his new job and he was making roughly six times what he had as a government employee. More importantly, he had cultivated acquaintances with large numbers of policemen and women who knew all the players …and who did what…on the street. With the security chief's recommendations in hand, Steve jotted down a short list of private investigation agencies with thoroughly professional staffs. Most of them provided a broad array of services, but two were specialists in electronic surveillance as a part of their investigations. He selected one over the other simply because that one could give him an immediate appointment to sit with a lead detective. ******** Steve had been pleasantly surprised to find the office was much like any other business office. There was some "elevator" music playing softly in the background. The half-dozen office personnel were working purposefully in cubicles. In overheard conversations, everyone used jargon and terminology with which he had no experience. He half-regretted not bringing the security chief with him to interpret. The initial interview had gone very well so far. The woman was an experienced detective according to the plaques on the walls in her office. Steve assumed she was. Her questions had been probing and complete, as far as he could tell. She had worked on a list of things he wanted the agency to find out for him while they talked. "Mr. Curtis," she said after reviewing the legal pad she was writing on, "most of this information you could get yourself from public records at the courthouse or a reverse street address directory and a telephone book at a public library. Did you know that?" Steve knew some of what he wanted to know could have been obtained from courthouse records. The directory she named wasn't familiar to him. It came up because he wanted to know everyone who lived at the Porter residence, what that address was, their phone numbers, and email addresses. He shrugged. "I suppose I could," he said. "But there's more I want to know that I cannot imagine would be public information…and I can afford to pay you folks to put it into a nice, professional report for me." That was true. After Barbara had set up a separate checking account for herself in early May, he'd closed the joint account and opened one of his own. That had caused an argument--chiefly because Steve demanded Barbara continue paying her share of the household expenses. For some reason Steve couldn't fathom, she'd thought Steve would keep the old account and take care of everything himself. It wasn't the only example of bad reasoning she'd exhibited over the past six months, but it was the one that stood out in his mind at the moment. For the past few months, Steve had deposited all of his salary and two bonus checks his wife knew nothing about into an account Barbara had no access to. He could easily afford having the agency do work that he technically could have done for himself. The investigator nodded. She'd felt compelled to advise her client on his options, but she and her partner were in business to make money. They'd be glad to take care of this for him. ******* Forty-eight hours later, Steve had phone numbers for Mr. Raphael Porter and Mrs. Porter as well as their bosses' numbers. A few workers in each of those businesses, plus the corporation where Barbara worked, had been happy, for a consideration, to provide a dump of all the email addresses they had. After surveying three or four such individuals' email address books, the agency was reasonably confident they had virtually all of the home and business email addresses for every employee in the firms where the Porters and Barbara worked. Requital He had the license plate information and descriptions of all three of the vehicles the Porters owned, the Porter's residence address as well as their business addresses. Good résumés of both Mr. and Mrs. Porter's professional and private lives were included along with a ton of other information he probably could never use. Much of the information was gleaned from records existing in the public domain. Some of it probably wasn't technically supposed to be released to individuals not working in the corporations where the Porters and Barbara worked--or the clubs and organizations to which they belonged--but it wasn't illegal to send emails or possess the addresses. The "report" was a three-inch binder and it took another two days to absorb it all. He took those days off and went to the library to read. The construction of the new building was sufficiently advanced and the staff well enough organized that he could afford the time away. He poured over the photographs, descriptions, and all the other data until he felt he had a good handle on it all. As he worked, the dull anger always with him these days occasionally flared into full-scale rage. He always throttled back his temper before it escaped completely. He wanted to confront Barbara with all the information he had. More importantly, he wanted to catch her by surprise. He relished the image he held in his mind. He couldn't wait to see the shock he on her face when he showed her the fool she was cuckolding wasn't quite as dumb as she thought. ******* Steve was on his way to Barbara's office. It was almost lunchtime and he thought he would invite her to a quick lunch somewhere. It was time to let her know her deceit had been discovered. Pulling into the parking lot where Barbara worked, he caught a glimpse of a late model Ford Thunderbird leaving through the exit on the opposite side. Steve knew Porter drove a brand new Thunderbird. It was the same silver color as the one Steve had seen leaving the lot. It was too much of a coincidence. He raced through the aisles between the parked cars to the other exit and turned down the wide boulevard down which he'd seen the Thunderbird drive. He caught up moments later. It wasn't hard, though his heart had been in his mouth while running two red lights and dodging from lane to lane around slower cars as he sped through the traffic. When he saw the T-bird in the fast lane half a block ahead, he slowed to pace them for a while. He had to be sure. At the next light, Steve took the digital camcorder from his gym bag and used the optical magnification to check the car's occupants through the viewfinder. It was Barbara. There was no mistake. He let the camera run until the light turned green. Just before the Thunderbird took off, she kissed the man's cheek and patted it affectionately. He crept closer through the moving traffic, finally settling his pickup in a line of traffic three or four cars behind the adulterous couple and in the next lane over. Most people don't bother to check their rear view mirrors for someone tailing them. Mr. Raphael Porter was among that group. He and Mrs. Barbara Curtis didn't even know they should be checking. The Thunderbird pulled into the city park down by the river and parked near the water where a stand of trees blocked the view from the road. Steve eased his pickup behind a storage building of some kind. The building was in a low spot. Still, he could barely see over the top of it without straining his body upward in his seat. He held the camcorder up and began recording, checking from time to time to make sure the focus was still good and that he had the two people centered in the view screen. He watched his wife and Mr. Asshole Porter talk for a time. There were three or four kisses, brief pecks early on. Then they got more heated and lasted longer. He saw Barbara slump down. A moment later, she tossed something flimsy and white up on the dash. Abruptly, the fury Steve had been holding in check exploded. He started the engine and put the transmission in its lowest gear. He rolled around the building, down a gentle slope, and was on top of the Thunderbird in seconds. He hadn't known what he was going to do when the anger flickered back to life but he had to do something. He didn't devise a plan, much less consider any probable consequences, but when he pulled up behind the car, he knew what he was going to do. He braked hard but didn't kill the big Ram Charger's momentum completely. His reinforced front bumper was a mismatch for the lower one on the rear of the T-bird. The pickup's bumper quickly rode over the other one. The thin metal of the Thunderbird's luggage compartment crumpled as Steve eased forward. He slapped the transmission into four-wheel drive, gunned the engine, and began pushing the other car down the gentle slope into the slow moving stream. The several hundred horses under the hood were plenty to push the smaller silver coupe into the water with its two terrified and desperate occupants. Steve could hear their high-pitched screams over the roar of the engine. For the first time in a week, there was a grin on his lips, albeit a malicious one. He didn't stop until the water was washing well up the side of the Thunderbird. Giving the car one last thump, Steve eased off the gas, put the truck in reverse, and casually backed out of the river. When all four wheels were on dry land again, he stopped and shifted out of four-wheel drive. He put the transmission in park and turned off the engine. He wedged the camcorder into place on the dash with a rag from the floorboard so it was centered on the sunken Thunderbird. It was only then that he stepped out of the pickup to survey what he had done. Walking back to the water's edge, he watched the two still moving frantically around inside the small passenger compartment. After a few seconds, Barbara and Porter scrambled in unison out the lowered windows. They both dropped into the water and came up blowing water from their noses and wiping mud out of their eyes. Steve could hear Mr. Raphael Porter yelling something but Steve had no interest in listening. He didn't bother trying. He saw Porter was having difficulty getting his pants up. Every time he tried, water filled their interior and the man couldn't pull them into place. Steve didn't care what difficulties the other man was having. Steve's attention was focused on his wife. He watched as she peered up at him. When she finally recognized him, she stumbled backward and fell into a hole in the riverbed. When she came up from her second dunking, she was almost hysterical. "RAFE!" she screamed. "OH, GOD, IT'S MY HUSBAND." Steve took that to be a warning intended for her fuck-buddy since he figured the deity she named already knew who Steve was. Raphael Porter had finally gotten his pants up and zipped. He was coming toward Steve, cursing with each step. "RAFE! DON'T! He's got a gun," Barbara screamed. When he heard Barbara's cry, "Rafe" stopped and even backed away a few steps. Steve's hand unconsciously stroked the butt of his pistol. It was holstered at his waist on his right side, as it always was. It was a part of his wardrobe, a tool. He hadn't consciously thought about being armed in years. He snorted in disgust. If he'd been intending to use it on the two adulterers, he already would have. Steve watched the pair of them. Disheveled and covered with slime from the river, beginning to feel the shock sudden discovery generates in two cheaters, they were a sorry sight. Suddenly, Steve's anger morphed into disgust. These two were involved in something that was slimy and disgusting. That they were covered with river muck was only appropriate. It was quiet now. The faint gurgling of the river's slow flowing water was interrupted only by popping noises from the pickup's cooling engine. "Barbara?" Steve said. His first words made her flinch though his voice wasn't especially loud. His face was blank rather than threatening. "Barbara!" he called again. "What?" she asked, not knowing what else to do or say. "Don't come home," Steve said succinctly. "Go to your Mom and Dad's or something, but don't come anywhere near me, understand?" Barbara nodded. Frightened and soaked with cold river water, she was only beginning to understand the carefully crafted fantasy of her affair had been ripped apart so easily, and in just a few seconds. The harsh light of reality was shining hard on her. Steve looked at her a moment longer, a look of revulsion spreading over his features. He turned to look at her companion. "Mr. Asshole Porter," he said just loud enough for the other man to hear. Steve wanted the man to know Steve knew who he was. "You can call the cops if you want," Steve told him. "They'll haul me off to jail. But you won't like what happens when I get out, shit head…I promise you that." Raphael Porter listened to the husband of the woman he'd brought to the park and knew physical fear for the first time since that fistfight in high school. He didn't say a word. Though Steve's hand was no longer near his holstered weapon, Rafe couldn't tear his eyes from it. Steve spat into the river, turned away, and walked back to his pickup. Stepping up into the cab, he looked at the water-soaked cheaters a final time and his lips curled in contempt. Closing the door, he started the truck and backed away from the scene. Barbara came to her senses and started yelling after him, screaming at him to come back. Steve saw her. He heard the cries but he just shook his head and kept moving. He didn't know how his wife would get to her parents and he didn't care. His life with her was over. She was someone else's responsibility now. Chapter 2 - Third Week Of June For the rest of the week, Steve had half-expected a police cruiser to pull him over every time he climbed into the pickup and went somewhere. By the second day, when there'd been no knocks on the door in the middle of the night and no uniformed cops had come to the construction site to pick him up, he began to relax. His bitter promise to the man who'd been with Barbara not withstanding, he knew he had no legitimate defense to any charge the district attorney might bring against him. While he waited to be arrested, he occupied himself with a visit to an attorney his brother recommended. Jon said the woman was a bull terrier in the courtroom. She'd just gotten one of Jon's buddy's full custody of his three children where there was only a hint of adultery on the part of his wife. Steve didn't need anything beyond a simple, no-fault divorce but he figured he'd go ahead and get someone who would be super aggressive in his behalf. It fit his mood to a "T." The locks were all changed by noon on Friday. Most of Barbara's clothes were packed into a few dozen wardrobe boxes and smaller ones containing all her personal possessions. He'd not spent a lot of time at it. He'd swept her clothing off the shelves, out of her drawers, and off the closet rods and dumped everything into the nearest box. He'd taped them all up and stacked them in the garage. They'd sit there until his soon-to-be ex-wife came and got them. He kept finding things around the house he'd forgotten to put in the boxes. He finally decided to keep one box assembled and open so he could throw new items inside whenever he passed by. When Saturday came and he was still a free man, he decided the jerk who'd been doing Barbara hadn't gone to the police. Barbara had called several times on each of the last three days but Steve hadn't answered. If the caller ID showed her cell phone number or a call originating at hiss, he simply didn't pick up. He figured it had to be infuriating to Barbara. He didn't care. When the phone rang this time, the display showed it was his father's cell phone. Impulsively, Steve decided it was time to break the silence. "Hello, Lloyd," he said quietly into the mouthpiece. There was a short silence on the other end. "Uh…Steve!" Barbara's father hadn't really expected Steve to answer the phone. "Yeah, what can I do for you?" Steve replied. "Uh…Steve…look, I'm just as sorry as I can be about…the problem between you and Barbara. I…uh…we were hoping you might be able to come over and talk about it, son. You know we think the world of you and we don't want a misunderstanding to turn into a something worse." Steve didn't say anything for a long moment. He considered putting the cordless phone down on the end table and just walking away. If he put it face down, it would terminate the call. He was tempted. "Steve?" Steve was quiet a count longer. "Yeah…well, Lloyd, I'll be frank with you. Considering some of the things I overheard Diane saying about me while Barb and I were dating…and after we were married…I'm not exactly sure where this "thinking the world of me" comes from, but I'll let it pass for now. "Barb and I aren't having a "misunderstanding," Lloyd. I caught her cheating on me with another man and I'm not about to let it slide." He didn't say anything more, waiting on his father to carry the conversation if he wanted to. "Okay…so…Steve…is there anyway you could come talk to us. I promise nobody's going to be judgmental. We only want to get this resolved, all right?" There was a note of pleading in Lloyd's voice. Steve guessed the older man was under a good deal of strain. "No," Steve said firmly. He paused. "But if you want to come over here, I'll be here for the next hour or so," he told his father. "I…" Steve heard some murmurs in the background. "Okay, Steve…we'll do that," Lloyd said at length. "We'll be right over." "Sure," Steve replied. "Hey…bring the van, okay? Barbara has a bunch of stuff over here she needs to pick up." "I…okay…we'll bring the van," Lloyd said quickly. He didn't want to start another discussion. "We'll be there in a few minutes. ******** He kept his face carefully bland as hiss and wife came in. Barbara peered all around, noting every change Steve had made during the week. Her lips tightened at each missing picture or knickknack. Steve shook his father-in-law's hand and nodded to Diane. He wasn't especially close to his mother-in-law. She knew why. There was no welcome at all in his eyes for Barbara. The only person he really was glad to see was a surprise. He hadn't expected Barbara's Grandmother, her "Nony," as she called her, to be there. "Hello, Lydia," he said warmly. "I didn't know you were coming." He gave the older woman a genuine smile of welcome. Steve had always gotten along with Lydia. When her daughter, Diane, and Diane's husband had turned up their noses at Barbara's choice of dates and later, her mate, Lydia had always been solidly in Steve's corner. She offered her cheek for a quick kiss and gave him one in return. Steve looked outside, wondering if there was one more of Barbara's family still outside. "Kimberly isn't going to join us?" he asked. Lloyd shook his head. "She's still off at her college prep course up in Austin," he said, "but I wouldn't have brought her anyway…I don't think she needs to be involved in this, do you?" Steve shrugged. "I'm not sure you need to be involved in this, Lloyd," he said without malice. He agreed with his father though. Kimberly had just graduated from high school in June. Her grades weren't that good, so she was attending a short seminar-style course to better prepare her for college. Kim was a dark-haired beauty, fun to be with and outgoing to a fault. She'd been a cheerleader for all her three years in high school and a member of all the favorite social groups. She'd only turned eighteen last January, though, and tended to be a little flighty. Steve wouldn't have included her in this discussion either. Barbara and her parents sat on the couch. Lydia made herself at home on the loveseat and crossed her legs comfortably. She saw Steve watching her and grinned mischievously at him. Steve had told her once she had the best legs of any sixty-seven-year-old woman he ever saw and Lydia had never forgotten it. She recrossed her legs and relaxed on the overstuffed cushions. Steve took a seat in the Lazy Boy and swiveled it around so he faced the trio on the couch. He waited. He watched Barbara. She shifted slightly from side to side, mildly self-conscious under his gaze. Steve looked at her, wondering who this woman was. He'd married her after dating off and on for two years. Those two years had been broken a quarter of the way through for almost six months after an argument about exclusivity. They'd been married for four years now, so he'd known this woman for six years. No, that wasn't quite right. He did not know her. He didn't have a clue why she would betray the marriage. In fact, he decided, he didn't know her at all. He examined her, trying to see her as a stranger he'd just met. She was attractive. She always had been but it seemed these last couple of years she'd grown into what had always been a tall, willowy body. Her legs were long…the thighs slender and firm. Her calves were slim without being skinny. She had brunette hair over green eyes. Sometimes, in the right lighting, Steve saw a red glint here and there amidst the lighter colored strands. She was Irish on her father's side. It was only natural to expect a red-haired gene to express itself occasionally in the family tree. It looked good on her. There was just a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. Her features were eye-catching, but not striking. Barbara's beauty didn't depend upon any one thing about her. It was the total package…her long stride, beautiful smile, flashing eyes…it was everything about her that he loved. He corrected himself. He had loved her. She'd been killing that love for a long time now. He wasn't sure how much was left. He deliberately turned away from Barbara and looked at his father. Steve raised his eyebrows in invitation. It was best to get this little meeting underway…best to get it done with so he could put it behind him like an unwelcome chore. "I…Steve," Lloyd said awkwardly, "Barbara has told us about you seeing her and Mr. Porter at the park and we think you might have misinterpreted what she was doing there with him." Steve glanced at his wife. Barbara was sitting erect instead of reclining against the back of the couch. "Okay," Steve said. "What were you doing there with Mr. Raphael Porter?" he asked his wife. "Or more precisely…what did you tell your parents you were doing?" "I told them exactly what was happening," Barbara returned sharply. She appeared to be barely holding on to her temper. Steve smiled quietly. The smile didn't show in his eyes. He motioned his wife to continue. Barbara took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you got the wrong idea, honey," she said. "It's all very simple and you shouldn't have overreacted like you did." Steve held up a hand to stop her from continuing. Barbara looked at him in confusion. "Don't call me honey, darling, love…or anything like that, okay?" Steve said. "You've forfeited the right to do that and I won't tolerate it." Barbara's lips thinned. Her eyes were alight with anger. Making a visible effort to control herself, she nodded. "Whatever you say…Steve," she said in a conciliatory tone. "Anything to get along." She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. "Anyway, what you saw was perfectly innocent. You see, Rafe has been having problems in his marriage and I've been trying to help him through a bad time. We go somewhere and talk and it seems to help him hear things from a woman's point of view. That's all it was…hon…Steve. Rafe is just a good friend. That's all. I can understand how you could get upset when you saw us out by the river, but…that's all there is to it." Requital She ended her explanation on an upbeat, smiling tentatively at her husband. Steve looked at her for a long moment without speaking. Her narrative sounded well practiced to him. "How did you meet Mr. Porter?" he asked finally. Barbara's eyes narrowed. She hadn't expected the question and didn't have an answer ready. "Before you answer," Steve continued, "I will accept only the absolute truth. If you think you have a chance at saving this marriage…and I guess that's why you're here…then you better not lie about a damned thing. You understand that, Barbara?" After a moment, she nodded. Steve lifted his hand, palm up, while he nodded in her direction. The gesture was an invitation for her to continue. "He works in the same building I do," Barbara said. "We met at the cafeteria downstairs and just started talking one day," she went on. "Actually, I think you'd like him if you weren't always in such a bad mood." Steve let the remark pass without comment. He couldn't quite keep his lip from curling in contempt though. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "So you met him at the little restaurant down in the lobby downstairs where you work and you've been giving him some help with his marriage, right?" Steve asked her. Barbara nodded. "And there was no affair?" Steve asked. She shook her head decisively. "No sex?" Barbara glared at him. "Certainly not," she responded. "No smoochin' or huggin' or…uh…touching you where he shouldn't have?" Steve asked calmly. "No!" Barbara said forcefully. Steve looked at her without saying anything for a long while. His father coughed to break the silence. "So, Steve…you see how you could have mistaken what Barbara was doing, right? I'm not saying she should have been out there helping that guy out…not without letting you know about it and all…but it wasn't what you were thinking." Steve looked at Barbara's dad. He almost pitied the man. Steve shook his head resignedly. He reached down to the magazine rack on the offside of the Lazy Boy. He brought out a thick binder and flipped through it for a second. "I guess you've all forgotten my brother Jon is the news director down at the Fox station," he said absentmindedly. "Folks who have a high-profile kind of lifestyle have files in every news organization. There are certain bits of information that are available to the public." He glanced up at his wife. Barbara wasn't relaxing against couch's the back cushions any longer. She sat at the edge of her seat, suddenly anxious. "And then…I also hired a private investigator. This is their report," Steve said, motioning to the three-ring binder in his lap. Barbara's eyes widened perceptibly. The level of her anxiety rose exponentially. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. "Mr. Raphael Porter is a moderately influential manager in the Harper Insurance hierarchy," Steve continued. "He's pretty well thought of, but his career has stalled lately…it seems some investments he recommended went south…but he probably can put that behind him with some hard work. There's a chance he'll be taking a position at their regional headquarters next summer." Steve's eyes skipped several paragraphs. "Oh…here's something interesting. His office is actually in the Lowry Building downtown…I checked that on MapQuest…it's just over thirteen miles across the city from where you work, Barbara," he said quietly. "Pretty big building you and he both work in huh? "Actually, that's a pretty good distance to drive in noontime traffic just to meet in the lobby restaurant downstairs from you huh? It's awfully far to go to pick up even the "good friend" that you are to him for a one-hour lunch to "help him with his marriage," don't you think?" Steve pretended to be reading more information on the page. He ignored the other four people across the room except to note a look of consternation on his father's features and one of confusion on his mother-in-law's face. Barbara's features revealed a growing apprehension. Barbara's grandmother visibly disapproved of what she was hearing. "Barbara, child," Lydia murmured reprovingly. Steve flipped through the pages until he got to the back cover. He took three photographs from the flap on the inside of the cover. He leaned forward to place the first one on the coffee table in front of Barbara and her parents. Seeing its content, Barbara winced. She closed her eyes. "As you can see, Lloyd…Diane," Steve remarked in a businesslike manner, "this is my wife at some kind of…uh…lawn party at a really cool mansion out in the county. She somehow forgot to tell me about this party but I've figured out when it was." He looked up at Barbara. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "She told me she and two of her girlfriends were going to go shopping up in Austin on an all day trip," Steve told hiss. "I believed her," he said succinctly. His disgust was becoming more evident. "Uh…now…I don't know if you saw it right off," Steve said sarcastically, "but Mr. Raphael Porter has his hand on my wife's ass and he's squeezing it pretty darn good, don't you think?" Lloyd swallowed hard and shook his head in disbelief. He looked sideways at his daughter. He started to speak but there was nothing to say. "Well…so much for "no touching" huh?" Steve asked brightly. "I guess Barbara kinda forgot to tell you about that party too eh?" He put the second photo on the coffee table beside the first. "Now, here we are at that same party," Steve said. "Remember that "no kissing" thing I asked Barbara about? Well, this sure seems to be a real difficulty to me when I try to understand how she answered no." He leaned forward to tap the area around his wife's and Porter's heads. "Uh…you can see my wife has a real lip lock on that guy, can't you? Clear as a bell, wouldn't you say? No chance of mistake there, is there? You gotta wonder how my dear wife could have forgotten to mention trading spit with her pal like that, don't ya?" There was no reply from any of the three on the couch. Lydia snorted from her vantage point on the loveseat. Diane and Barbara looked up at the old woman disapprovingly. Lydia wasn't in the least intimidated. Steve put the last 8 X 10 on the coffee table. He sat back down in his recliner, leaving all there glossy photos lying nakedly before the people on the couch. "Now…that third one is pretty interesting, isn't it?" Steve asked conversationally. "You can tell just how good my wife is helping Raphael with his marriage, can't you? My goodness, Barbara…you must be doing wonders for him. He's got his fingers pretty far up your skirt there. Did he have them in your panties? In your pussy, maybe? From that smile on his face, he looks like he's coming out of his "marriage problems" pretty well, wouldn't you say?" The edge in Steve's voice was hardening. He forced himself to relax. "NO!" Barbara retorted. "He didn't…he wasn't touching me…down there," she protested. "And I told him more than once he had to quit--" She cut off her own protestations when she saw no one was at all receptive. "Hmmmmmm," Steve said reflectively. "Tell me, Barbara…can you…uh…give us some insight on just why this SOB thinks he has the right to play with my wife's thighs…and her butt…and kiss you like a long lost lover? Would you mind explaining that? I'd sure like to know." Barbara shook her head in denial. "It's not what it looks like," she protested. "I…he…" "Barbara…Barbara," Lydia said from her perch on the loveseat. "Child, you're not helping yourself here." "Mother!" Diane said explosively. "You said you wouldn't interfere." She glared at her mother. "Okay…whatever!" Lydia said disdainfully. She leaned back as a look of derision replaced the discontent on her face. The distraction had given Barbara a moment to recover. "Okay, I admit it," Barbara said defiantly. "I should have made him stop, but you can see in all those pictures that we were in a public place…it isn't like we were meeting in some hotel and…uh…doing stuff." Her voice dropped in volume as she belatedly realized she probably shouldn't evoke any visions of doing anything beyond what everyone had already seen. She rallied, remembering the events at the park by the river. There hadn't been any photographer there to take pictures. "Steve…I'm sorry for the way this looks," Barbara said contritely. "I really am, but we don't need to get hyper about it. Look, you saw us at the park, right? We weren't doing anything but talking there…you saw that." Barbara was certain there was no proof. Steve had his suspicions, but he had no evidence. "Really, Barbara?" Steve said softly. "Nothing going on?" He picked the remote control up from the end table and pointed it at the TV. Once it was on, he picked up another remote. This one controlled his digital camcorder. It was already set to VCR mode and keyed to the point he wanted on the tape. Sitting on the entertainment center beside the cable box, no one had noticed it. Steve hadn't had time to find anyone to transfer the movie to a DVD. While he had some software to do it himself, he had very little experience doing that and hadn't wanted to take a chance at losing the tape's content. Using the camera as a video player had been his only option if he planned to show the recording this afternoon. He'd decided he would. Staring hard at Barbara, he pressed the "play" button. On the big screen TV, the Thunderbird was already in the water and the image jiggled badly as Steve's pickup reversed up the slope. The view and the sound quality were crystal clear. The roar of the engine was almost deafening in the quiet living room before Steve turned the volume down. When the truck stopped, the picture steadied and everyone heard the sound of a slamming door. Steve was seen entering the frame from the left and walking away from the camera, striding almost to the edge of the stream. A moment later, Barbara tumbled from the passenger's side window into the dark water, followed by a man from the driver's side. With mud on their faces and bodies, the two disheveled figures stumbled toward the bank. Barbara's arms waved wildly as she fought for balance. Failing, she dropped into a shoulder deep hole and had to struggle to get out. Once out of the hole and in shallower water, she turned around to retrieve something. Bending over, she yanked her purse out of the water and held it high. Steve stopped the show and pushed the button to rewind the tape. "Pretty interesting movie, don't you think, Barbara?" Steve said gently. He stopped the rewind when the on-screen counter reached the figure he wanted. "You son of a bitch," Barbara said viciously. Seeing herself as she was that day made her furious all over again. No one…no one…had the right to do that to her. She'd been terrified the pickup was going to push them off into deep water where she and Rafe would drown. She'd never been as scared as she'd been right then. She hadn't seen Steve yet and hadn't recognized the vehicle. "You didn't have any call to do that," she said hotly. "Rafe and I weren't doing anything and--" She stopped when she saw Steve was ignoring her. He was busy running the videotape in reverse past the initial opening screen and then jockeying back and forth for a moment. He finally got the frames he wanted frozen on screen. "Now here," he said, looking at Lloyd and Diane, "you can see Barbara's hand kind of lifted in the air. There! See that?" He used a red laser pointer from his shirt pocket to outline a section of the screen. The image was small and indistinct. "Humph!" Lydia couldn't help but express her opinion from time to time. Steve shot a glance in her direction. He couldn't tell if Lydia disapproved of what was happening on screen, the quality of the picture, or his preparedness with the laser pointer. He shrugged. Turning his attention back to the screen, he hit rewind again and stopped it. "Now…here you can see my wife giving the gift of her lips to dear old Rafael again," Steve said facetiously. The two figures seen through the T-Bird's rear window had their arms wrapped around each other and their heads overlapped. "Awwwwww, Barbara," Lloyd breathed disappointedly. "Daddy!" his daughter said in a shocked tone. She'd wanted support from her father, not a rebuke, mild though it had been. "Now…" Steve interrupted. "As you can see, my wife kinda slouches down here…and…then comes back up." Steve's narration of what Barbara's image on the screen was doing was hardly necessary but it served to emphasize what the viewers were watching. "There!" Steve said, pointing the remote at the camera to stop it again on the frames where Barbara held up something white for a scant moment and then tossed it forward. "See that?" Steve asked. There were no replies. They'd all seen it. He glanced at Barbara. Her face was ashen. She and Steve already knew what they were looking at. "What you just saw," Steve said, "was my dear wife taking off her panties for another man and throwing them up on the dash." He hadn't taken his eyes from Barbara as he explained the importance of the vague flash of white on the television screen. His voice dripped with scorn. He pressed the button on the remote to magnify the image. He continued zooming in, stopping only when there was no possible doubt the cloth held in Barbara's hand was a pair of white bikini panties. Steve didn't say anything. Barbara started to cry quietly on the couch. Releasing the pause, Steve ran the videotape forward to the point where Barbara had turned around to snatch her purse out of the water. He stopped it when she was bent over, reaching into the stream. "I guess Barbara didn't realize her skirt was pushed up that high when she was getting out of the car…or that hole or something." He didn't say anything else. Barbara's skirt was hiked up in back on the TV. The bottom edge had apparently gotten entangled in the belt around her waist. Her bare ass, white and obviously naked, was starkly defined. There was no mistaking what they were seeing. Steve punched the play button and the video ran for a few seconds. "Here…we have a front view," Steve said as if he were a guide explaining the sights to a group of tourists. "You'll notice that my dear wife's tits are bouncing all over the place. For some reason, Barbie didn't bother to wear a bra to the park that day so she could…uh…help Mr. Porter with his marriage." He stopped the tape again. Barbara's nipples, hardened by contact with the cold water…or Porter's ministrations…were clearly poking through the soaked fabric of her blouse. Steve didn't bother to say anything more. Instead, he rewound the tape again, stopping where Porter was just getting out of the car's window. The man's penis was dangling limply out of the opening in his boxers. Steve turned off the camcorder without any further comments. None appeared to be necessary. "So…Barbara," Steve said. "No sex, no kissing, and no touching huh?" Lloyd had his head in his hands. He'd been unable to watch for the last few moments. Diane cleared her throat, not knowing what to say. "I didn't have sex with him," Barbara said brokenly. "I didn't!" "Well…not this time, anyway," Steve retorted. "I didn't give you the opportunity, did I?" he said contemptuously. "Quit trying to bullshit me and everyone else. You went out to the park with this guy, got rid of your bra somewhere…'cause I know you had one on when you left the house…took off your panties for this guy and you damned sure were about to fuck him. You would have if I hadn't been there." He watched his wife cry for a while. Barbara's mother didn't know what to do for a bit. After a moment, she put her arms around Barbara and patted her back while Barbara sobbed. "I never had sex with him," Barbara said in a whisper. "I might have that day…I was all confused…I didn't really want to…but he was saying it would be all right…I didn't want to have sex with him." She took some deep breaths. She shrugged off her mother's enclosing arms. "You caught me, Steve," Barbara said more strongly. "You won't believe it, but I'm glad you did. I was getting into something I didn't really want to be in…and…" Steve's loud, disdainful snort cut off her protestations. "I didn't!" Barbara insisted. "How many times did you fuck him?" Steve asked. His voice was harsh. Barbara shook her head violently. "I told you…I never did," she said emphatically. "Horseshit," Steve returned. "That man had his dick out and you were damn near naked. That doesn't happen on a "first date," dear. How many times did you have sex with him?" Steve asked again. Barbara shook her head. "How many?" Steve demanded a third time. Barbara refused to look at him but she shook her head again. "Uh…Steve," Lloyd said tentatively. "Look…they really didn't have any sex…you made sure of that, right? Uh…and those other pictures aren't pretty but it's still not like they were having any sex at that party either. Listen…can't we all take a step back here…take a deep breath and work on solving this…problem?" He looked at Steve hopefully. "Steve," he said, "couples have worked past something like this before. You and Barbara can do it too," he suggested. Steve looked at his father stonily. "Lloyd," he said finally, "you're trying to pretend Barbara got caught swiping a piece of bubblegum from the corner grocery. You think if she gives it back and apologizes, then everything is all right again because she's learned her lesson…but she's not a little girl anymore and she can't put this marriage back together by just saying she's sorry." Steve got up and paced between the TV and recliner for a bit. "Look, Lloyd…she's been lying her ass off, telling me she's going places she doesn't go…telling me she isn't doing anything wrong…hell, she lied to your face, Lloyd. You're her father and she told you a series of bald-face lies. I tell you…I'm thinking our whole marriage has been a lie right from the word go." He paced up and down again. "Did you cook up some kind of story to tell Elaine Porter?" he said suddenly, catching Barbara by surprise. "No…what?" she said in a confused voice. "Who's--" She cut herself off before completing the question. "You really should make an inquiry here and there before you start screwing a married man, Barbara. Elaine, for everyone's information, is Mrs. Porter, Asshole's wife." Steve paused for a second. "I wonder what their daughter is going to think of her father now?" he said quietly. Barbara wilted and began sobbing again. Steve waited her out. He wasn't moved by her tears now. They would have devastated him before reading the newspaper in his dentist's office, but not now. "Now you're all concerned?" Steve inquired. He didn't wait for an answer. The break his inquiry caused in his wife's crying was a space in which to ask his next question. "Okay…so, what did Asshole tell his wife about his little fling with a married woman?" Steve asked mockingly. "I don't know," Barbara said defensively. "I haven't talked to him since the day you saw us." "You haven't talked to him?" Steve asked skeptically. "You haven't seen him? You haven't spoken to him on the phone…you haven't text messaged him…you haven't emailed him?" Barbara shook her head decisively. Steve returned to the Lazy Boy and pulled a sheet of paper from the binder. Walking quickly to the three-legged table near the front door, he peered into Barbara's purse and pulled out her cell phone. "HEY!" Barbara shouted, suddenly desperate. "You can't do that! You can't just go in my belongings and--" Requital "SHUT UP!" Steve roared, drowning her out. "You lost all your rights to have anything resembling privacy in my house when you decided to cheat on me." The look in Steve's eyes made her sit back down and drop her head into her hands. She began crying again. "Now…let's see…ah, okay." Steve looked at the sheet he'd taken from the binder given him by the private investigators. He walked over to his father. "See this here, Lloyd?" he said, showing Barbara's father the cell phone's display screen. "That's Barbara's call list. It'll show the last twenty or thirty calls…I forget how many. Anyway, you see those at the top? You can only see four, but if you scroll down…yeah, there are a ton of them to just a couple/three numbers, right? "Well these first four are Raphael Porter's cell phone number and those two calls there…that's his home phone…the next three are his office…well, you can see what's happening, can't you? All of those were made yesterday except the two on top. Barbara made those calls this morning. Hell, Lloyd, she called the bastard half an hour before you came over here! "She just told us thirty seconds ago she hadn't talked to him since the day I caught them together…and it was all just more Goddamned lies." Steve snapped the phone shut and hurled it in the direction of the front door. "Do you really think there is any way I can ever believe this woman again, Lloyd?" Steve asked. His father could only bow his head again. He was biting his lip. There was nothing he could do or say that had any meaning. "Steve," Barbara said in a dead voice. "Please…I've made a bad mistake but I can make it up to you. I promise you, I won't talk to him ever again. I won't." Steve didn't bother looking at her. "Steve…I love you…please think about what is happening here. Please don't overreact…please, honey." "Overreact?" Steve said incredulously. "Overreact? My wife's been out fucking another man and I'm not supposed to OVERREACT?" He bellowed the last word, suddenly furious at his wife's attempts to minimize what she'd been doing. Steve turned away. He didn't want to do something he'd regret later. Barbara's low voice came from behind him. "Please…I know you hate me now," she said unsteadily, "but I will never do anything like this ever again," she pleaded. "Please, Steve, let me come home and I promise you I'll--" "You don't live here anymore," Steve said, cutting her off. A spark flashed in Barbara's eyes. "This is just as much my house as it is yours," she retorted hotly. Her father and mother took heart and seemed about to rejoin the fight. Steve looked around to where Lydia sat and watched silently. "Didn't you ever tell them?" he demanded. Lydia shook her head. "Never thought it would come to a time when it would make a difference," she said. "What?" asked Denise suspiciously. "What do you mean?" "When Lydia signed over the title to this place," Steve said quietly, "she put just my name on it. I didn't even notice until a year after Barbara and I were married. Lydia never bothered to change it, even when I asked. I own the house, not Barbara and me." The room was silent for a moment. Barbara and her parents stared at Lydia. For her part, the old woman didn't appear at all repentant. She shrugged. "Oh well," she said, without further explaining herself. "Mother!" "Nony!" "Lydia!" The older woman stood and walked toward the front door. "What's done is done," she said briskly. "Nobody can change what's already been…all you can do is make the best of things and move on." "I think we've all said just about what we came her to say, haven't we?" Lydia asked the trio. Lloyd nodded and got to his feet. The two women, pulled along by his and Lydia's examples, stood and moved slowly toward the door. Lloyd looked back, half apologetically. He looked down, shook his head, and turned to leave. When they were off the front porch, Steve closed the door firmly. He leaned back against it. "Move on?" he whispered. "No…I'm sorry, Lydia…but there's no moving on from this…not this time." Chapter 3 - Last Week of June The rest of the weekend was quiet. Steve spent Sunday refinishing the back deck and cleaning out the Jacuzzi. It kept him too busy to think and that was its own reward. Sunday evening, he took a couple loads of Barbara's things over to her parent's house. They hadn't remembered Saturday to take anything with them. No one had been home so he'd just off-loaded the boxes on the driveway right against the garage doors. Steve thought he saw Lloyd's car turning the corner down the street as Steve was driving away on the last trip, but he wasn't sure. He didn't care. By the Tuesday following the confrontation, Barbara's parents had apparently recovered from the shock of seeing visual evidence of their daughter's infidelity. Steve guessed this was so because the phone calls started back up. There were three calls from Barbara Tuesday afternoon and one each from her parents. Steve didn't take any from Barbara but he returned the ones from Lloyd and Diane. Wednesday saw twice as many calls, and when Steve got home Thursday, there were eighteen messages waiting for him. These were in addition to a couple on his cell phone, though he'd asked them not to call him on that number. The general gist of the calls was that Barbara was deeply sorry she had hurt him; that he was exaggerating the significance of the photographs and videos; and couldn't he please find it in his heart to forgive what she'd been about to do so everyone could get on with things? ******** "Steve?" "Hello, Lloyd," Steve said tiredly. When his cell phone rang, he'd automatically opened the flip top instead of checking the caller ID. It was late and he was tired. He wouldn't have taken the call if he'd known who it was. "Yeah…listen, Steve, have you had time to think things over? Barbara's been crying just about non-stop and we…Diane and me…we were hoping you could find a way to sit down and talk things out with her sometime soon." "Nah, Lloyd, I really haven't had time to think at all. I've been ass deep in alligators all week long with a bunch of problems down at the site…but it wouldn't have made any difference. The thing is…Barbara made a choice to cheat on me and this time it's final." "Aw, Steve," his father said disappointedly, "I was hoping you might find a way to get over your mad and see some reason here." Steve didn't say anything. His temper had flared at the suggestion he was being unreasonable. Still, he didn't want to say something he'd wish he hadn't someday. "No, Lloyd," Steve said carefully, "I'm not ever going to get over my "mad," as you call it. Actually, I don't understand why you think I should. "Consider this, Lloyd. How would you feel if Diane suddenly began seeing another man? Would you like to see Diane bare-assed naked climbing out of some guy's car one day? How would you like watching your wife kiss another man while he fondled her? Is that high on your list of things you want to do, Lloyd?" "No…" Lloyd said after a brief pause. "I wouldn't like it very much but if I stopped it all from happening again…since I caught it in time…I think I would work with my wife to get past it and move on." Lloyd was quiet. So was Steve. "Steve, don't you think you're overreacting a bit?" Lloyd finally asked. He said it in a rush, not really wanting to use the words he did, but forced to anyway. Steve bit his lip and counted to ten as his mother had made him when he was young. He had to do it again. Sometimes counting just to there wasn't enough. "Lloyd," Steve said softly, "the next time I hear someone say "overreacting," I think I'm going to explode. I'm just telling you that so you can not be in the vicinity when I do it…sir." There was no reply. "Now…Lloyd, I'm tired. It's been a long day and I need to get some sleep…so please don't call me again tonight, okay?" "Ah…sure, Steve. I'm sorry, I didn't even notice how late it was, son…get some sleep and have a good day tomorrow, all right?" "I will, Lloyd. Thanks. Goodnight." ******** He was exhausted but couldn't sleep. "Overreacting." The word had gotten a lot of use lately. After rolling around restlessly in the bed for thirty minutes, Steve got up and padded down the hall to the study. He got online and brought up his email program. Overreacting? He knew what he'd seen. There wasn't any overreacting to that…not hardly. Barbara was still in contact with this Mr. Porter and that stuck in Steve's craw. Well, she had been on Saturday and nothing had happened to change that. He knew…there was no proof, but he knew she was still talking to Porter and probably meeting him somewhere to boot. He had a good idea how to stop that. He'd been toying with it for a week now. Taking out the three-ring binder given to him by the private detective agency, he flipped to the page he wanted. It took him two hours laboriously keying in all the information by hand, but it felt good when he finished. He'd feel the effects of the loss of sleep tomorrow…but tonight he was satisfied it had been worthwhile. "Overreact?" he chuckled. "React to that, people." ******** She had been "served" leaving work yesterday afternoon and the world had come crunching down on her all over again. Seeing the words in black and white…reading legal documents petitioning the courts for a divorce between her and Steve was a blow she hadn't been prepared for. This morning, she was unhappy, disoriented, and completely bewildered. She'd tried all last night to figure out how she'd gotten to where she was. It had been futile. Her mind was so clouded she could barely think. She hadn't slept but a couple of hours. On the way to work, she realized the gas tank was almost empty and had to stop at a gas station. She was afraid to try and make it all the way in with the red light flashing on the instrument panel. Steve used to take care of things like that. It had been so long, she had had to read the instructions just to get her credit card in the slot correctly. Tired and confused, she hadn't seen the card needed to be yanked out quickly and she'd had to cancel the first couple of transactions. Then she discovered she'd forgotten to push the button in the glove box to unlock the fueling door. She hoped this wouldn't be an experience she'd have to repeat very often. If Steve would just come to his senses, things could get back to normal. After all, she hadn't actually had sex with Rafe. Well, she hadn't let him stick his stupid thing in her mouth…or down there either. Rafe was too nice a guy to push her into anything she hadn't wanted and had told her they would go slow. No pressure, he'd said. She still wondered if she would have done it that afternoon Steve had destroyed Rafe's car. Rafe was still in a rage about that. Steve had no call to do that, Rafe said. It was completely over the top…uncivilized. Still, he hadn't called the police or anything. All he'd done that day in the park was reach back into the car for his cell phone on the dash and call for a tow truck. He was thinking of suing Steve, he said, but as far as Barbara knew, he hadn't done it yet. She was confused about everything that had happened to her lately, bewildered about where her life was going, and beset with small tasks she didn't normally have to deal with. Her mind jumped from one thing to another without giving her a chance to rest on any one topic long enough to think it through. By the time she finally got to work, her nerves were pretty well shot. She was late, and she hated that. It made for a bad start and it always seemed to set the tone for the whole day. Nothing was going right lately. When she got up to the sixth floor, she felt like everyone was watching her. She was a little sensitive about that anyway but today, it was worse. After Steve went so overboard last week, she'd felt like she was being spied on all the time. It was uncomfortable. Now everyone was looking at her. It was creepy. Was there a private investigator still tracking her every move? "Hi, Barb," Tom said. He craned his neck to look behind her down the aisle between the cubicles. "No one with you today?" he inquired. His face was bland, but Barbara saw something in his eyes. "Hi…no…not at all," she replied, perplexed. She turned to look behind her down the passageway to see a number of other employees watching her and her coworker. She didn't really understand Tom's question and she was doubly surprised to see people standing in the walkway watching her. Two of them, women Barbara didn't like…and who didn't like her overly much…both had nasty grins on their faces. Unsettled, she gave Tom a final glance and continued on her way. "Hello, Barb," Katy said. "You're all alone today?" Unlike Tom, Katy didn't stop for conversation. She continued on her way, having tossed the comment at Barbara as she passed. Barbara was uneasy. Something was going on and she didn't know what it was. Suddenly June was at her elbow, hurrying her along to June's desk. "Come on…don't talk…just come," June remarked when Barbara opened her mouth. She didn't like this hurrying around. It wasn't dignified. Her skirt kept riding up. She blushed. She'd wanted to wear a longer one but all of those were among the ones Steve had crammed in those boxes and they still were waiting to be taken to the dry cleaners. This skirt was one Rafe had bought her. She usually felt naughty wearing it, but she didn't like that feeling today. Sometimes Rafe and his suggestions wore a little thin. June hustled Barbara inside June's tiny cubicle and made her sit in front of the computer station. Taking a deep breath, June clicked on her email. "Barb, honey, I don't know what's going on with you and…well, with anything, but this must have been sent to every single person in the whole building." June clicked on an email with the forbidding subject line of "Have You Seen This Man And Woman?" When it opened, June scrolled down until Barbara could see the text. "Have you seen this man and woman? They are both cheating on their spouses and have been for a long time. If you see Barbara Curtis and Raphael Porter together, please call the number shown below to report when and where you saw them. All calls will be held in the strictest confidence." Uncomprehending, Barbara read the message again. June scrolled down to reveal side-by-side pictures of Barbara and Raphael. Beneath them was the home phone number Barbara and Steve had shared for the past four years. "Oh God…oh God…oh God," Barbara moaned. She didn't know what to do. She looked up to see Bill, all six feet and seven scrawny inches of him peering over the partition. He pantomimed searching all around while glancing repeatedly at a printout of the notice. Pretending disappointment because there was no one there besides June and Barbara, he slowly lowered himself into his seat. At one point, he'd stopped with only his eyes and forehead over the cubicle wall. Barbara fumbled her cell phone out of her purse clicked the speed dial number for home. Holding back the tears, she looked up at June apologetically while the connection to her…formerly…home phone was made. It was ringing on the other end. "Steve!" she said sotto voce. "Damn you," she whispered, cupping her hand before her mouth so no one else would hear. "Damn you…pick up," she said impatiently. It rang twice more before Barbara heard a series of two clicks as the answering machine cut in. "Hi…you have reached the Infidelity Hotline." It was Steve's voice. Barbara knew it well. There was a new note in it now though. Something unfriendly. "If you have seen Raphael Porter kissing, holding, making out with, fondling, squeezing any body part, having sex, or just hanging with Barbara Curtis, please stay on the line. Your call is very important to us. At the beep, please give the date, time, location, and what type of cheating activity they were involved in when you saw these two cheating spouses together. Remember, all information you provide is completely anonymous. No representative will visit your home. Thank you for your concern and support." Barbara heard the shrill beep in her ear. She knew the answering machine was recording but she couldn't think. She had nothing to say. Terminating the call, she pressed the first option on the speed dial. She needed to talk to someone else. She waited impatiently for the half second between the phone being picked up and a voice answering. "Daddy?" she asked forlornly. ******** Steve had heard the phone ring, but he ignored it. He'd already received twenty-eight calls, most of them just prank calls with no information. A few had been abusive, wondering why he couldn't keep his wife from going out on him. Those bothered him. He wondered just how the callers would suggest a man keep tabs on a woman twenty-four hours a day and still have a life. That kind of call bothered him, but they were so patently ridiculous he dismissed them quickly. The answering machine picked up the latest call and he lifted his fingers from the laptop keyboard to listen for a moment. The voice was soft and tired. There was a universe of suppressed emotion there, as if the speaker was trying desperately not to break down. "Is anyone there?" she asked. She waited a moment. "I…I'm calling about the email…I don't know what is going on," she almost whispered. "Please…I have to know." Cold chills chased each other down Steve's back. He suddenly knew who it was on the other end of the line. He reached for the handset and picked it up. "Mrs. Porter?" he said quietly. "Yes…who is this?" she said huskily. "I'm Steve Curtis," he said. "I…I apologize to you for the way you've found out about…this, Mrs. Porter." He started to say more. It had been cruel of him not to think about her when he sent out the email, but he hadn't been thinking of anything but exposing the putrid little affair and stopping it once and forever. "Is it true?" she whispered. "You've seen them together…or something?" Steve drew in a deep breath and sat back down at his desk. "Yes, ma'am," he said as gently as he could. "I have photographs of them at a fundraiser party a few weeks ago…and a video I made when I found them at City View Park last week." "The park? But that's where my husband's car was totaled by a hit and run driver." Steve snorted. "No ma'am…I specifically did not run, but I did do a number on his new Thunderbird." She was quiet for a long time. "Can I see the pictures or the video somehow?" she asked. Her voice, if anything, was fainter. Steve didn't like the sound of it. "Mrs. Porter…yes you can see them. You can see everything I have. Do you have an email address I can send a few pictures?" She gave him an address for her business. She frequently checked it from home and downloaded emails from the store's server. Steve sent them. A few seconds later, he heard the dual-note tone through the phone that announced a new message in Elaine Porter's email. She put the phone down and Steve heard some rapid mouse clicks. There was no sound for a moment. Then he heard her crying softly in the background. He felt like a heel. He doubted his motives for last night's impulsive mass email transmission. He listened to her cry for a while. Her sadness cut him to the quick. "Mrs. Porter?" he said…hoping to get her attention so he could apologize again. "Mrs. Porter…?" "Yes…I'm here," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Mr. Curtis. I've suspected something for months…but it's still…hard…when it's something you can't ignore any longer," she said. There was a short silence. Requited at Last "It's time we found camp, Kitten." Gogh could see Vara's shoulder had long since been slumping. She was stumbling, which was unusual for the agile elf. "You are going to fall over." Vara wanted to argue. The noble-elf pride in her tried to force her to argue, but she couldn't work up the heat for it. She was tired, her legs were shaking, and the last fifty steps had been hell. She had dragged herself as far as her body would let her. She had reached the end of the line. Vara gave a slow nod, and wished suddenly that she hadn't. The headache that had pounded behind her ears after the chasm ordeal had left her feeling drained. She wanted nothing more than to stop and rest, and yet she fought it. She fought it because she knew the moment that they stopped her and Gogh would begin talking. They would start talking about what happened. Vara very much did not want to talk to him. She had given into at a moment's weakness. She had decided a long time ago that there could never be anything between her and Gogh. They had kissed once many months ago. It had been Yule. Seven months before. It seemed like forever ago. They had been caught up in the Northlands; the ground had been covered in several feet of snow. Everyone had gone off to bed in the inn where they'd been staying. Everyone that is, excepting Gogh and Vara. They had sat in front of the fire for a long time. They had been talking. Just talking. Then, as they were walking to bed, he had noted that all night they'd been sitting beneath a bit of mistletoe. She'd smirked and intended on giving him a kiss upon the cheek. But no, he'd been Gogh; he'd grabbed her and given her a firm kiss. A kiss that had haunted her for a very long time after that. She had expected to be disgusted by such possessive roughness. It had not happened that way. It was like some dark part of her had woken to that kiss and relished in it. She had worked very hard to forget that feeling. To lock it away and pretend like it never happened. They had both agreed that it was a bad idea to get involved. A terrible idea. The incident upon the bridge had broken open that carefully crafted lie. She had clung to him, and he to her in a way that was far more than mere friendship. They had both known it. "There's a hall up here...It might lead to a place where we can spend the evening." Gogh said leading on. He wasn't even humming. It was almost like he was being very careful not to make to much sound. Like he would frighten her off. It was probably very close to the truth. She didn't see the hallway he mentioned at first, and then it came into view; some trick of stonework had hidden it from the eye until they were very nearly upon it. It was a small hall, small enough that they no longer walked side by side. "Alright." Vara said hugging herself. It was colder where they were now. But she could see a room off to the side now. The small hallways bloomed into a massive circular room. It took only glance from the word 'temple' to enter the mind. Pillars had been carved directly into the stone walls. Each statue was decorated with a carved picture etched along its surface. They seemed to form a story. The first picture was of a woman in childbirth. The woman had a dragon on one side of her, and a human on the other. She herself seemed to be a mix of the two. The next pillar was carved with a picture of the woman holding three children in her arms. Once again the female seemed to have given birth to a dragon, a human, and a Draconum. The next few pictures showed her doing the things that women did when they had children, breast feeding them, rocking them. In all three the children were somewhere around her. The same man and dragon from the first picture were always nearby. The last pillar had all six figures curled up and sleeping. Brinia would have loved the room. At the very far end of the room a stark white statue had been placed atop a pitch black dais. Both colors of stone were so different from anything else the group had come across it was obvious that they had been imported from somewhere else. The statue was of the woman. It was ten feet tall. She had the look of a human at first until you noticed the massive rough horns perched atop her head. She had daintily clawed feet. Several of her clawed toes had broken off, either from lack of care or age. Possibly a mix of both. She had flowing hair that fell nearly to her knees. She had a wide hipped and full breasted build, like some tribal goddess of fertility. Her face was beautiful, soft smooth features and a full ripe mouth that curled into a delicate smile. Curled up around her were the three children from the pillars. You could see them better now. The dragon child had tiny underdeveloped wings, and the smallest little horns poking out of the top of his head. The young Draconum was shaped almost exactly like the female figure, simply in male form. The human was a plump almost cherubic child with curling hair. All seemed to be male. Surrounding the circular dais was a pool. Despite the fact that it was stagnant water the pool itself was crystal clear. "A sacred pool to a Goddess." Gogh said plopping down to one side of it. Vara motioned to one of the pillars. "A baptismal pool." She said pointing towards one of the pillars that showed the three sons being baptized in a pool very similar to this one. "She was probably a goddess of childbirth motherhood..." Gogh nodded, grunting as he began to wash his face and hair in the pool. "Gogh! Have some respect. This is a sacred place." He looked up at her blandly, "Excuse me, Princess. But in case you failed to notice this is a blessed pool. I doubt a little blood and sweat is going to offend a goddess of children. She's probably seen her share of sweat and scraped knees." Vara couldn't argue with his point, but she could bring up something else. "You haven't called me princess in a very long time." Gogh grunted once more. "I call it like I see it. You've been walking with your nose in the air. Saying as little to me as possible. Acting jut like some highborn elf." He looked up at her from where he knelt. Water was making a wild pattern down his neck as he pulled off his fur and leather cuirass. Vara wished he wouldn't. It was very difficult to argue with someone you were obviously ogling. Not that Gogh wasn't work a look. He was so massively built. Orcs usually are. He had a wide shoulders, and a chest that boarded on being to muscular. Hi stomach and hips tapered down, all of it seemed to be made of lines and definition. His skin wasn't just green; it was the color of healthy moss. Except of course where he was scared, those were several shades darker. On some people scars took away from their attractiveness, but on Gogh...on him they were beautiful. He had a massive slash across his neck from an axe that had dug deep enough to ship his collar bone. Another decorated his hip....others made a pattern across his shoulders and back. He, like all orcs, had tattoos. His family symbol was stretched across his back, a wolf risen up, howling at a tribal knot work moon. His own symbol curled across the upper part of his chest, a runic mark of strength and honor that wound its war like a wave around her nipple. He stood slowly. Vara felt her breath catch as she watched the play of muscle beneath his flesh. She knew her eyes darkened with feminine appreciation. She couldn't stop it. "Now, that is a look worthy of any orc, Princess." His tone had dropped o a deep rumbling purr. Vara shook her head and lifted her eyes deliberately to his face. Not that this helped her in anyway. Gogh would never be thought beautiful by any race. He was, however, striking. His cheekbones were carved high upon his face. He had a delicately sloped nose that flared wide at the nostrils, and soft lips. But it was his eyes that really caught ones attention. They were shaped like almonds, and save for the surrounding white there was no color differentiation between the pupil and the iris. It was perfectly, pitch black. Right now those eyes were trained on her, and filled with black fire. It was very much the look a man gave a woman when he realized that they were alone, and that there was interest. "Why do you deny me, Princess?" He took a step forward. Pride alone held her in place when she very much wanted to flee. "I can smell your desire...like honeysuckle on a summer night." He made the sentence deliberately crude. If he had gone for something more elegant, coyer...more elfish It would have reminded her how much he wasn't one of her own kind. But he reminded her of what he was. She shook her head, "You fool yourself, Gogh." She said stubbornly. "I am not the fool here. You have never given me a good reason why I would make an unworthy mate." "Have you looked in a mirror lately, Gogh of the Kogoth?" "Well now, no one ever said I was pretty." He chuckled. The sound was not light; the sound was like black velvet rippling over water. Vara wanted to wrap herself in it. "That isn't what I mean, Gogh." "Oh? I assume you mean the fact that I'm so...large." That brought a flush to her cheeks. "Now you are just being crude." "You are right, Princess. I am. I'm being very crude. You see me as nothing but an Orc. No matter what I may be, no matter where I am, or what soil my feet put themselves on. I am an Orc. I am a proud one. You I think wish you could be more like me. I think you want to let go. To give in to all that it means to be an impassioned people. I think you grew so tired of the games and folly of the elfish people that an orc like me looks pretty damn good. Someone wild...free. No, if you are using our different races as an excuse...it's a poor one." He surged forward suddenly, gripping her shoulders, "You CARE for me, Vara I know it." She looked up at him, her teal hair a shinning halo around her face. "Is this Orcish seduction then?" She asked, deliberately baiting him. "No, Princess, this is." He hauled her up against his broad flat chest, crushing her delicate curves against him so hard the air whooshed from her lungs. His mouth descended on hers; hard enough to surprise a gasp form her. He took the sound as invitation and tilted his head, deepening the kiss. His tongue snaked into her mouth, flicking possessively against hers, the move was so expertly done, so wild and glorious, she moaned with need. She felt him lift her, his hands cupping her taut buttocks. Her legs wrapped around his hips, her ankles linked at his back. The kiss became frenzied as her fingers trailed across that family tattoo, dancing their way upwards to sink into his locks of thick black hair. She felt the wetness from the water sink into the small scabs at the tip of her fingers; the delicate pain brought her back to herself for a moment. "Gogh..." She whimpered pulling back, her breath coming in deep uneven gasps. "I don't know...I don't know if I can do this." "Why, kitten?" He asked gently, "What good reason do you really have for denying what we both know is there?" "The Duke..." She whispered softly, looking down. Vara had left her home a little over a year ago, fleeing from an arranged marriage to a particularly sadistic Duke. Duke Travian was called the Black Hearted for one reason. He was as dark as they came. He had three wives before her, each of them having died mysteriously, all except the last that had killed herself in a very public way. But the Duke had her father's ear, and she had been given to him next. The Duke wasn't just a cruel man; he was also the leader of half of the army of the Honithian Kingdom of Elves. He was a battle master in his own regard. She had left before the wedding party. Gogh felt his eyes widen in response. "Vara, if you declare yourself mine. If we take one another as Mate then not only can I keep the Duke from you, but you will have the name of my Line, we will keep you safe." "Gogh, I do not want to ask that of you. If the Duke finds out..." "The Duke is a vicious man, Vara. It would kill me if I didn't protect you." Gogh pressed his forehead to Vara's. "I don't want you to die for me." She whispered, "I do not know if I could handle that." "Vara, I would die for you anyway..." Vara looked at him, really looked at him. She knew it was true. She'd been keeping it from herself, but she knew how very true what he was saying was. Even if she didn't declare him Mate. Even if she didn't take him as a husband by Orcish tradition. He would still fight for her. He would still d whatever he could to keep her safe. "Oh Gogh, I'm sorry...so sorry." He placed a finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him. "Don't say you are sorry kitten. Say you'll be mine." "Yes, Gogh....yes. I'll be yours." His mouth found hers once again. This time it was soft. It was a delicate caress of the lips. It was her this time that deepened it. She gave into the hungry taste of him and reveled in the warmth of his mouth. He pulled away, looking down into her smoky violet eyes. "Let me show you what it means to belong to the clan of Kogoth." He whispered in her ear. She felt a shiver in her spine as he laid her down. His mouth was on hers before she could breath. He kissed her like he would devour her from the mouth down. He loomed over her, making her feel dainty and doll like. She ran her fingers down his broad green chest, taking time to trace his scars. She felt a dark delight fill her as her fingers traveled over that textured flesh. Elves rarely scarred. It took a very powerful spell or special enchanted weapons. Scares were considered taboo, but on Gogh they were beautiful. They were a mark of strength and survival. She drew her hands down his chest till she got to his breeches. It was here that she paused so she could amuse herself by running her fingers across the brim of his pants. She knew he was hard. She knew he was hard enough to stretch the leather of his pants. He wanted to be touched. Elves were masters of foreplay and she would not give into his ferocity that easy no matter how desperately her desire rode her. She pulled her mouth from his and kissed her way across the warm flesh of his neck. She was very gentle. Her lips were like a butterfly moving over his skin. Her tongue darted out when she found his pulse; unsteady but strong. She loved the feel of it, jumping against her lips, knowing the effect she was having on him. She continued on down the plane of his neck, into the broadness of his shoulder. She kept the movement feather light. "You are tempting me, Kitten." Her response was a gentle purr that made him strain against his leather pants even more. She continued her train of light kisses squirming her way beneath him so she could trail her tongue across that spiral tattoo that surrounded one nipple. Her mouth closed suddenly over that circle of even darker green. The movement eliciting a sharp gasp from him as the sensitive skin tightened against her delicate tongue. Her fingers began to draw lightly down his broad muscular back. The sensation tickled down his spine more than scratched. The teasing made Gogh's breaths come shallow and quick. He was used to women taking, or being taken. There was little foreplay where orc lust was concerned. It was wonderful, however, that she seemed to enjoy him as he was. Elf men were lithe pretty creatures, hairless and almost delicate. Gogh was none of these. He had been secretly worried that Vara would be disgusted by the broadness of him, the muscular form, the dark patches of hair upon his chest and belly. But even as he worried of this she nuzzled them. "Soft..." She whispered almost in surprise, "Like a puppy." Gogh chuckled. "Woof." She chose just this moment to slide her tongue further down. He was hard enough that the length of him had pushed his pants up just enough that the tip of his shaft was visible through the little arc of cloth. Her thumb slipped inside the fabric, swirling the smooth flat surface of that fingers across the tip of him, simultaneously closing her mouth over the utterly masculine line of one hip. He bucked suddenly as she swirled her thumb and sucked hard, leaving a mark behind when he pushed her back. "You are playing a dangerous game, Kitten." Gogh growled his voice going low and strangled. "My patience is not unending." A dark part of Vara wanted to break him. To draw out that wild beast she'd seen in battle. She wanted him to loose control. She dropped down still further, till she could see him, pressed hard and firm against the leather of his breeches. That sight made her want to pull down the pants so that she could see him in all of his barbaric glory. She restrained herself. She was going to draw this out until he jumped her. She breathed out, purposefully hard. The heat of her breath caressed him through the fabric. She opened her lips wide, and took the tip of him into her mouth, suckling her through the leather. Her tongue drew a long wide circle. "GAH!" He growled out hauling her up suddenly. He glared sown at her with those dark eyes. For a moment she worried she had done something wrong. Then, as if by magic, a slow smile spread across his lips. "Teasing wench....it's your turn, Princess." He tore the bodice firm her body like it was paper. She had barely a moment to mourn the garment before he descended upon her breasts with wild sort of fervor. He lipped at those pink buds. She was not endowed as human women were, but among elves she was considered quite curvy. He lipped at them pulling them into his mouth and swirling his tongue like he would draw milk from them. He dipped his mouth lower; licking the swollen underside of her breast drew a line with his tongue between her breasts and did the same to the other nipple. He went back and forth until she whimpered, arching her back pushing those mounds into his face. Her fingers tangled in his still wet hair while she whimpered. "Gogh! Please!" He chuckled; hauling her up till his face was planted between her legs. Her breeches were still on, so he could only do so much. What she did not expect for him to do was sniff at her womanhood like a beast. She squealed trying to squirm away, but he held her firmly. "Gogh! Don't do that! He seemed to come back to himself for a moment, tilting his head in confusion, and peering up at her from between her legs. "Why not, Princess?" He asked, obviously confused. She felt a deep flush crawl its way to her cheeks. How does one explain utter embarrassment? She looked away and struggled to say, "The....smell." She explained lamely. He chuckled there, against her most private of places. It was a deep rumbling laugh...a most masculine sound that made her squirm for completely different reasons. "Yes, Vara...your scent. A woman's flower." Then an idea struck him, "Are you ashamed?" "I..." She started wondering once more how she would explain this sort of embarrassment to him. Of course she was ashamed. Any civilized female would be. It was a perverse place, and no one of normal inclinations would go around just sniffing one another crotches. "You are!" He rolled onto his back and laughed a full bellied laugh. "Is this what it means to be an elf?" To be ashamed of something you all have? Well half of you at the very least. Are the men afraid of their cocks as well?" "Of course not! That's ridiculous." He rolled unto one side, looking at her evenly, "Any more ridiculous that being embarrassed by the scent of your pussy?" Now that's just being lewd." Vara stated in her most Princess like tone. "No, Princess." He said firmly, "This is lewd." He fisted his hands in her pants and tore them down her body till they bunched round the tops of her boots. He couldn't get them completely off, but he did not care. She was smooth, as all elf-folk are. He drew a thick green finger across her creamy satin flesh. Requited at Last "This is NOTHING to be ashamed of, Kitten." His hands cupped her bare ass and he dragged her upwards. He pushed her legs together and gripped her by the ankles sticking her legs straight up in the air so that her cleft peeked between her legs, seeming somehow to frame her sweet pink and cream flesh. He took one moment to revel in her womanhood before her dove in like a man possessed. His mouth wrapped around her entire mound, sucking on her cleft while his tongue darted out to taste her folds. She tasted of earth, honey, and of woman. She wanted to push him away but his mouth had pleased her into compliance. She had never felt anything so amazing. He was not as practiced and precise as her elven lovers had been, but his wild impassioned movements brought her body to bliss. He licked like a man who wanted it, who enjoyed it. She let him; she basked in the wet firm feeling of his mouth on her. She wanted to feel shame in the fact that she was dripping wet, but she could not bring herself to care. She was beyond such 'civilized' logic. No matter how many times her mind had told her that this was lewd...dirty...her body reacted. Her body responded. Her hands dove into his hands once more as she sought to contain the slick feeling. She rode that edge of physical enlightenment. In another circumstance she might have pulled away, but not here....and not now. His mouth fastened over that plump pink bud between the lips of her womanhood. He pressed his tongue flatly against it, pushing HARD on that pink button. She squirmed and he slide on thick finger into her hole. Her body weight was balanced on her shoulders. His finger crooked, and she gave. Her body bowed, her fingers dug into his scalp as she fought to hold unto something...anything while she rode herself into oblivion. She did not know she was mashing herself against his face, she did not know she was screaming his name. All she knew was that her body was a myriad of sensation, light lightening meeting water and slamming into fire. She wasn't a princess...she wasn't even an elf....she was feeling. He pulled his mouth away as she began to relax; he shoved a second finger into her tight wet hole. His thumb flicked over that same pink button "Too much!" She screamed finding that her mouth could still form words. She tried to pull her away. He gave a monstrous growl and pushed her flat against the ground ramming his fingers into her over and over again. He placed one hand upon her belly and held her flat. "AGAIN!" He demanded. "I want to see it again!" She looked up at him, her violet eyes meeting his black ones and she did not know if she could. His fingers were filling her, stretching her open. It shoulder hurt, but it didn't. Her body reveled in the feeling. She was dripping across his fingers; a thin layer of sweat had formed across her breasts, making her glow as he fingered her wildly. "GOGH!" She screamed out. Feeling that bud of pleasure build once more. "Yes, Princess....come on kitten....do it....DO IT!" Her breathing came in a wild pant, that feeling did not burst as it had the first time, it ripped through her. She balanced her legs on her toes and bucked her hips up, greeting the slaps of his palm like a wild woman. She felt her nipples go taut and she let the feeling engulf her. It ended quicker this time. Her eyes flew open, "Gogh...now...now please..." He knew what she meant. He smiled down at her, pulling his fingers from her softened hole slowly. "Strip, Vara. Let me see you naked beneath me." She unlaced the tops of her boots, and slid them off taking her pants with them. She lay out beneath him and blushed when he looked at her. She'd seen him look at a beautiful weapon in much the same passion. His eyes lingered on her every slope and curve. He took a moment to run his hands across her possessively before he moved himself between her legs. "You are a beauty, Kitten." He hooked his thumbs in his pants and pulled them down slowly. He revealed himself to her in inches. The male hip lines formed an etched V leading her eyes to that patch of silky fur that seemed to frame his length The sight of him made her go still. He was large. Free of his pants his length hung there, thick. It was as long as the space between her wrist and her elbow. He was not circumcised; the silky slip of flesh framed the blunt tip of him like a budding flower...an odd euphemism...but fitting. "Gogh, I don't know that I can do this." He looked down at her, confusion coloring his visage. "Have I done something wrong?" She eyed his length and shook her head. "No, Gogh. It is not you...all right. I lie. It is...well you." She motioned to his length. "It's nothing you have done; but I don't know if I am physically capable of doing this." She looked up at him apologetically. "I am not an orc woman. I was not built for something so....grand." He frowned now. He most certainly did not want to hurt her. He looked down on her. That long line of female flesh lying out before him like a pagan offering. Her swell of hips, the soft belly, the hairless cleft, long smooth legs, the wetness of her that seemed to fill his senses. He struggled with the urge to spear her soft body upon his shaft till she screamed. He closed his eyes and pulled away. She placed her hand upon his arm, stopping him. He felt her sit up, and felt her warm silky hand wrap around his thickness. "Vara..." He breathed, "If...if I cannot..." She leaned close, whispering into his ear. "I never said we could not try." His eyes popped open and she lay back down. Guiding him over her with her hand still wrapped around his length. "Vara are you..." "Shut up and fuck me Gogh." He shivered hearing that crude tone come out of his little elf. She brushed her other hand across her still wet slit looking up and him purposefully. She was tempting him, he knew it. It was working, and they both knew it. "I will try to be gentle." He promised moving her hand from her womanhood and licking his way across her fingers. "At least let me lay down the bedroll for you." She moved aside and let him unwrap the thick fabric. Laying it out by the pools edge. She smiled watching him anxiously ready the makeshift bed. His shoulders and hands shook with the effort to be gentle when he laid her back down beneath him. He caressed her again, drawing his hands across her body. He crawled over her and looked down. "Vara?" "Yes?" "I love you." With that he began to push into her. The thick blunt tip of him pressed inside of her and she mewled. He stretched her open. It was an unusual feeling, it boarded just to the side of pain, but she looked up at him, looked at him shivering above her. She realized he was trying so hard to not just take her. He was holding himself back from her and she did not like it. She closed her own eyes and took a deep breath, she shifted her body, changing the angle to one that let her open her legs further....and then she sighed. It felt good. No it felt better than good. She must have made some sort of sound for he held his place, afraid to move. "Gogh....don't stop." She begged. "Hmm?" He asked as if he was sure he misheard her. "Gogh...don't stop. More...give me more!" "Vara...are you sure?" "Great merciful mother, YES! Gogh do it...please do it." He took her at her word and slid further in, she lifted her hips to him. He was wonderfully thick, hot. He stretched her so very open that she could feel him pulsing inside of her. It was euphoric. "Gogh! Take me." She growled digging her fingers into his buttocks. It was all the incentive he needed. He pushed every inch into her suddenly. He bumped against the deepest parts of her and it still was not enough. She struggled to move him deeper into her and she growled when it would not go. She looked up at him once more and she saw him, eyes closed, still struggling to be gentle. She felt anger flood her. He thought she could not take it...she'd prove she could. That she was strong enough. She raised her hand and swatted his buttocks hard. He gasped and looked down at her. "What..?" "You are still being gentle. Stop it. Take me Gogh. Mate with me. I am yours...make me yours." She growled and swatted him again. "I want it. I need it. Fuck me!" She begged once more. "Vara...I..." "I don't care. Do it." She grabbed his face roughly in her hands and forced him to look at her. "Am I unworthy?" Her words spurned fire in him. Of course she was worthy. But she....he growled, "Fine....have it your way." He gripped her hips and slammed into her. Her eyes flew wide open and she screamed. He retreated from her body and then slammed in again. Then again. And again. She screamed in bliss. Throwing her head back. She looked glorious. He speared her unto him. Sitting back on his haunches and hauling her into his lap. He grabbed her hips tight and began to bounce her up and down in his lap. "Vara....ohh Vara!" He moved her up and down on his length watching her bounce wildly. Loving the way she looked bathed in lantern light and sweat. "Gogh....Gogh..." She purred his name like a mantra gripping the back of his head and pulling his face to her breasts. He knew what she wanted and he gave. His mouth wrapped around her already hard nipple and he suckled. She rode him, taking every thick inch of him into her over and over again, her wetness growing. "Now Gogh! Now!" He pulled his mouth away, leaving her nipple wet and glittering. He grabbed her hips once more, bouncing her harder...faster....Her hips were a blur in his lap and he threw his head back, howling to the unseen sky. He said no real words, he was beyond that. His eyes glowed and he slammed himself firmly into her spilling his seed deep inside of her warmth and wetness. She screamed a second later and responded with her own high. She rolled her hips panting his name out like one possessed. She collapsed against his chest, her ear placed over his heart. "Great Mother to us All, Gogh. That was..." He chuckled as she struggled for a word. He lid them both down upon the bedroll, sliding himself from her slowly. She grunted feeling soreness set in. "Oof." "Too much for you?" He asked wiggling his brows. "Hah. I can take it." He smirked and rolled a finger over her. "Oh?" She squirmed away. "Okay...maybe not." He chuckled and pulled her bedroll over them using it as a blanket as he spooned in behind her. "It's all right, Kitten. I still love you." "I love you too, Gogh. So very much." He wrapped an arm around her pulling her close. kissing the back of her neck gently. He loved her more than words could say. She was strong, surprisingly so. She carried herself with such an air. He smiled and watched her fall asleep. He pushed a lock of her teal hair out of her face and kissed her cheek once before falling asleep with her. So tired and distracted they were they did not notice the delicate glow of the statue that loomed over them.