99 comments/ 115223 views/ 14 favorites It Started With that Talk By: MattblackUK When Susan walked into the kitchen that morning just before 9am, I knew something was wrong. After 20 years of marriage, we'd both been 23 when we married, there are certain signs that you can pick up on. But I had never seen her looking quite so... anxious and pensive. "Dave," she said: "I... I... have something to say. I know you are not going to like it, but I have to say it, anyway." I noticed that she could not look me in the eye. My stomach did a flip. "What's wrong, Sue? You aren't ill, are you?" "NO!" She startled me by yelling. "No... I am not ill. Though when I say what I have to say to you, you might think otherwise. I... am going to go away and take a lover for three days, starting today." "What the FUCK?" Now it was her turn to jump. "Are you going to leave me?" I was starting to panic, this couldn't be happening! Could it? "No," she said, "I knew you'd think that, but that's not what I said. I am going to take a lover for three days, then I am going to come back to you and we can continue as we have always done, as husband and wife." "Shit, Susan!" I said, as I staggered and sat heavily on a chair by our kitchen table. "You have really shocked me; you have sprung this on me. You are going to do this today? Now? Why? Why not give me some warning as to your plans for this... this... affair?" "Because I knew it would upset you and that you'd try to beg and plead with me to stay, to not go. And I couldn't stand to see you humiliate yourself like that; because there's no way that I wanted that to happen. It would lessen my respect for you." 'Respect? What respect?' I thought. I turned and looked at her. 'Fuck! Fuck it to Hell! It... I mean... she... looks like my wife... but... was she my wife? I mean... just who the fuck was this strange woman standing in my kitchen?' Apparently I had failed to sub-vocalise that thought. She replied: "Oh, Dave, I can assure you I am your wife, your loving wife Susan, the mother of our daughter, Sandi-Sue, but this is just something I have to do for me. It has nothing to do with us, what we have together. Please try to believe that! Please try to understand!" What was there to understand? My wife planned to cheat on me. Was going to cheat on me. I was starting to feel sick. "Susan, please do not do this to... us... to... yourself." "I am sorry, Dave, but my mind is already made up. When I get back... we'll talk and we will work out how I can make you feel better about this situation that I have dumped on you. I know it is not fair on you. But... I will make it up to you, I promise. When I get back, we will have the hottest sex session in our lives. Honestly." She nodded, empathically. As if sex would somehow magically fix her betrayal. "Oh, we will, will we?" I asked her, my shock now becoming tinged with anger. "You do realise that we will not be able to have sex when you return?" "Why ever not?" she replied, looking shocked. "Not until you can produce a certificate that you are clear of STDs and of HIV!" I responded. "What?" Now she seemed to be scandalised. "What kind of a woman do you think I am?" She sounded as if she were getting angry. "The kind of woman who goes off and sleeps with men other than her husband," I replied. I had meant to make my remark sound angry, but to my surprise it came out as flat and defeated. She looked at me, a sudden expression of sympathy on her face. She stroked my right check with her right hand. "Oh, Dave, I am so very, very sorry. You must feel so awful! So confused and upset, right now. I must admit I feel the same way, too. But it is something that I must do for me, and also, I hope that you will eventually see, it will be something for us, too. It'll work out for the best. You'll see." I ignored her last fatuous remark; I looked at her, hard. "Who is it? Do I know him?" She shook her head slightly. "Best you don't know," she said. Shit. That meant that not only did I know him, that I must know him, and reasonably well, too. But who was it? Who could it be? Who would be a big a shit as to help Susan risk our marriage like this? She walked towards the kitchen door, opened it and stepped out into the yard, she looked back and said: "I'll be back home in three days. And that's a promise. I... I am really so very, very sorry about this, you know. I love you." She walked through the door, closing it softly. I said quietly: "I love you, too, Susan," but she could not have heard me through the closed door. I sat at the kitchen table. She was so sure of herself. So certain! But I knew that this was going to end badly. Shit? How could it end other than badly? I thought: 'How in the hell could this have happened? What could be worse than this?' There had been a cartoon on TV years back, when I was a kid. Some dreadful event would befall the hero and he'd say: "What could be worse than this?" And then, something worse would happen to him, then something even worse, before everything would be resolved to his satisfaction at the end of the show. Before the end of that day, actually before the end of that morning, really, I would learn that things would become much worse and that the impact of Susan's actions would have far-reaching repercussions that nobody, not even Susan, could have predicted, or foreseen. And there would be no cartoon fantasy happy ending to this story... Well under an hour later, my mobile went off. I grabbed it, hoping that it was Susan. Perhaps she'd changed her mind? Perhaps she... But then I saw that it was a call from Steve. My best friend, Steve! We'd known each other since we were six years old. Our wives were best friends, too! We'd even got married at the same time and been each other's best man! I could ask Steve for advice! He was a psychologist! I knew I'd value his input on this situation. But when I answered the call, Steve was whispering. I could hear a woman moaning in the background. "Hi, Dave, old buddy! Thought I'd best give you a call. It's about Susan. Susan doesn't know I am calling you, by the way. That noise you can hear? That's me fucking Susan, your wife! Wow! She's hot! Can't think why I never thought of doing this before! Hey! Just in case you think this is all just some sick joke, soon I'll send you some hot High Definition video of me and Susan 'playing' together. Of course, she doesn't know I am recording this little fuckfest! "Oh, by the way, we aren't at my place, so don't bother to come calling on us! Bye!" I shouted, but he'd terminated the call. I trembled when I thought of the video he would send. Dare I watch it? But then again, dare I not? What should I do? Suddenly, I remembered that, through the company I owned, I had access to all the legal advice that I would require. Bill Wilkes was my company's attorney and he was on contract to my firm to provide legal counsel as and when required. Well, this was as and when, as far as I was concerned. He answered his phone almost straight away. Other people used hired help to answer their direct lime phone, or let it ring a few times to let their caller see how important they felt they were. But Bill didn't. He answered his direct line almost before the phone had rung once. "Bill Wilkes Legal. How may I help?" I managed to croak out: "Bill? This is me, Dave Summers. Bill, I need your help. Something dreadful is happening and I don't know what to do!" I was almost hysterical at this point. He asked me to tell him what had happened. When I told him and advised him that I was waiting for a video of their tryst he said: "I find this so... dreadful... so utterly heinous! I have acted in cases of marital infidelity before but never in a case such as this. It's unique in my experience. But what I can't quite understand is that Steve is supposed to be your best friend? You have known each other since you were five or six? So how in the Hell could this have happened?" "I don't know, Bill. This whole thing has blindsided me. What should I do?" He paused for a moment, before responding. "Wait 'til the video arrives, then watch it, but send me a copy as soon as it arrives. I'll watch it and determine what responses you should make and when you should make them. It's early on day one of their three day... event. Today is Wednesday; we have almost three full days for a plan of action to be formulated, before the weekend." Half an hour later, the email with the video file attached arrived. It bore the subject line: "Sorry, Dave! But the real best man has his way!" I checked the file for viruses and downloaded it to my computer and quickly forwarded a copy to Bill. I watched the video. It was very high definition, with stereo surround sound, too. They were in bed together, fucking. "Hey, Susan!" Shouted Steve. "How am I doing?" "Oh, God, Steve, you are such a fantastic lover!" "Am I better than Dave?" "Oh, much, much better! You are by far the better lover!" 'Thanks, Susan, you fucking bitch', I thought as I watched my marriage being fucked away, second by second. "Say, Susan, has Davie ever tried this?" "Oh, shit! No! That's incredible! Your cock and your hand in my cunt at the same time! Oh, Dave has never tried anything like that! He 'respects' me too much!" Susan laughed at her remark. 'Oh, I used to respect you, Susan...' I thought, tears streaming down my face. "What a wimp he is!" laughed Steve. "I have to ask you a question, Susan. Who do you prefer? My cock or your wimp husband, Dave?" "Oh, God, Steve! Your cock, without question! Keep pumping me! Don't stop! Please!" They fucked for a minute or so more, until Steve spoke again, in a deliberate way that made my flesh crawl. "Susan, would you ever give my cock up, again?" "Oh. No, lover of mine! Never! I'll never give it up!" "Well, what about another comparison? How do you compare what my cock is doing to you, to, say, your daughter, Sandi-Sue?" Susan was puzzled. "What do you mean, Steve?" "Let's go back to the question I asked you a while back about your wimp husband, Dave. Who do you prefer, Susan? My cock or your daughter?" "Oh, God! Your cock without a doubt! It beats Sandi-Sue, to my mind! Just keep on doing me, Steve! Please!" "So, you like my cock, huh, Susan?" Hell, yes! I love it!" "In that case, I want you to promise me that you will never let Dave anywhere near your cunt, again. At least, not until I give you permission, OK?" "But... but... I promised Dave I'd give him some really hot sex after I got back after our little tryst, Steve, to make it up to him," Susan whined. "Well, you'd better unpromise him! If you followed my instructions and denied him any sex over the past month, whilst following my special exercises so you could accommodate me and my hand, you know that the poor little bastard isn't going to be able to get any purchase down there for a good while! So best to hold back on any mercy fucks for hubby for a time, in any case! You want to make it up to him? Cook him a meatloaf!" They both laughed. I felt numb. So... numb. It was a typical North California summer's day, but I felt cold. The sex was bad enough. Seeing my best friend and my wife, together. But maybe I could have gotten over that. But the disrespect for me and especially for our little girl, Sandi-Sue? To my mind, that was unforgivable! The video then stopped. It had been somewhat under 10 minutes. But it had seemed much longer. A few minutes later, my phone rang. I heard Bill's voice. "Dave, Bill here. I just watched that video. That's the most fucked up thing I ever saw or heard in my life! What the fuck was going through her mind? You want to try for reconciliation or for a divorce?" "If it had just been me she insulted, well... maybe a reconciliation. But for her to turn on Sandi-Sue like that, damn it, Bill, divorce is the only option I can think of!" "For what it's worth, I agree. Look, my spidey sense is tingling. Where is your daughter?" "She's helping a friend today with some college project. She's in town, at her friend's house." "Get her to come back home, immediately!" "Why?" I asked. "Because of the way Steve set your wife up to insult both you and Sandi-Sue, I have a horrible suspicion that he could well send a copy of that video to your daughter, too! Tell her to come back home, but if she has an email from Steve that she is NOT to open it and view the attached video by herself! And I'll make a start on the divorce paperwork and also on orders to keep her and Steve away from you, Sandi-Sue and your house." I followed Bill's instructions, and just after 1pm, Sandi-Sue arrived at our house, flustered and anxious about my call. "Dad!" she shouted. "Just what the Hell is going on? And where's mom?" I caught a glimpse of my face in the wall mirror, at the same time Sandi-Sue saw me. I looked stricken. "Daddy? Have you and mommy had a falling out?" "No. Well... yes, actually, I think you could say that." I explained to her what had happened. "Daddy, I can't get my head around this idea. My mom and... and... Uncle... Steve? What the fuck does Auntie Helen think about all this?" That's something I hadn't thought of! Surely Helen would not approve of Steve having a three day fling with her best friend? I steeled myself to act as normally as possible as I put the phone on speaker and used the speed dial for Helen's cell number. She answered on the second ring. "Oh, Hi, Dave! How are you today? How's Susan?" From her bright and cheery response I realised she had not got a clue about what was happening. "Oh, I'm OK, I guess! Susan's busy, somewhere. I am getting a little behind with some projects for work. How are you and Steve?" "Oh, we are both fine. I had to go to help look after my sister's craft shop as her husband Brian is in hospital having a knee operation. I wanted Steve to come with me, but you know how he is with his psychology and counselling practice. He really can't take time off from his patients, so he's stuck working at home whilst I am trying to work out the prices on various craft items!" "Oh, that's a pity," I said. "Steve really loves the coast, doesn't he? Say, how about getting together for a Barbeque at the weekend?" I asked. She replied that was a great idea and as she wouldn't be getting back until Saturday morning, it had better be at our place, this time. After we said our goodbyes, I ended the connection. "So, Sandi-Sue, it looks as if Helen knows nothing of what is happening. Fuck!" Sandi-Sue looked at me and said: "Dad, you mentioned an email from Steve. You told me not to open it. I have just checked on my Blackberry and I do have an email from Steve. There's a video attachment. Is that what caused you to call me in such a blind panic? That title makes me think that Steve and my mom are starring in their own porn video. Have you seen it? Exactly how bad is it, Dad?" I looked at her, and said: "Sandi-Sue, it's the very worst. What they are doing is bad enough. But it is what they are saying that really hurt me." Sandi-Sue growled: "What? They'd better not be saying shit about MY Daddy or they'll have ME to answer to!" I tried to smile at her. "Thanks, honey. But it's not just me that they were talking trash about." Sandi-Sue looked at me and said: Dad... what the fuck are you driving at? I want to watch that video." "You can't! It's too... horrible!" "Dad, you can't stop me. I'm 18 and it's on my email account. Either you let me watch it here, with you, or I'll watch it by myself, later. So... what's it to be?" I stared at her for several moments before nodding my agreement. I knew what she said was true and if she was going to watch it, I could not risk having her 18-year-old mind twisted by what her mother and Steve did and said during that ten minute video, if she watched it alone, in her room or someplace else. We watched the video, sitting side by side in the lounge; I'd fed it through our big screen TV. On reflection, that might have been a mistake. "Jeeesus Chrrriiiist!" Sandi-Sue shouted. "Fuck! This is so sick! OMFG! That's soooo gross!" When she heard them comparing me unfavourably to Steve's cock she shook her head and muttered. But when she heard what they said about her, about my little princess, it broke her heart. She suddenly cuddled up to me and began to cry like a very frightened little girl. She spoke in a voice that chilled me because it sounded exactly like she'd sounded when she was five. "Daddy! Daddy! Where's my mommy? I want my mommy! I want my mommy, NOW!" She began sobbing, horribly, gut wrenchingly. It hurt my soul to hear her crying like that as I cuddled her against me, tears streaming down my face. It took me back to that time when Sandi-Sue had been five and her mother had fallen ill and spent a couple of weeks in hospital. She'd cried and called for her mother, then, using those exact words... I began to wonder at the wisdom of letting her see the video when suddenly Sandi-Sue was back in the room, as it were. She gave a self-depreciating chuckle and said: "Now, where the fuck did THAT come from?" She looked at me, frowned, scrubbed her eyes with her hands and said: "Dad, this is some weird shit, right enough! Something just changed in me. I dunno what, but... maybe I just grew up? Anyhow... you are going to divorce the bitch, hah?" "Sandi-Sue, that's on the cards," I said. But I didn't feel happy with the idea. Just resigned to it. I phoned Bill with the information I had gleaned from my phone conversation with Helen. Bill agreed with me that it was likely that, despite what Steve had told me, that they were at Steve's house. Bill always works fast. Later that afternoon he had divorce papers and temporary protection orders preventing them from coming into contact with Sandi-Sue or myself and barring them from the house. Bill had decided that it would be better to have a uniformed officer serve the papers so he had them delivered by a Sheriff. I wondered how they felt when their plans for a three day tryst were blown out of the water. One of the most awkward and horrible things I have ever had to do in my life was to phone Helen and tell her what Susan and Steve had been doing. At first she thought I was joking, but when Sandi-Sue took the phone from my hand and spoke softly to her, Helen finally had to understand that it was real. And that life would never be the same again, for any of us. Helen came back from her sister's home and threw Steve out of the house. Susan had already gone, someplace, but I didn't care to know where. Bill arranged for a meeting at his offices which are in downtown San Francisco the next Monday morning. We trooped into his main conference room, Bill, Sandi-Sue and myself on one side of the massive oal table and Susan and a young blonde man who was representing Susan, at the other. Susan had spent the last several days in a hotel. I didn't know or care where Steve was. When the young blonde man spoke, I was surprised that he had a very strong Australian accent. "Hello! My name is Peter Briscoe, I am the attorney for Susan Summers. And despite the Oz accent, please be assured I am a US attorney. In fact, I emigrated to America from Australia when I was 10, I am now 27 and, as you can tell, my Oz accent shows no sign of ever going away!" Bill introduced everyone and the battle commenced. Susan shouted at me: "You are an absolute bastard, Dave! I told you it was only going to be for three days! But you had to be controlled by your damned, pathetic male ego! Well, let me tell you buster, I am going after you for every penny I can get! And what is Sandi-Sue doing here? What have you told her?" Bill raised his left hand, in it he was holding an old fashioned ink pen. "Now, Mrs Summers, there's no need for that, is there? We need to try to deal with this horrible situation as best we can and as maturely as we can." It Started With that Talk Briscoe intervened: "Thank you, Bill, I appreciate that. But at this point can I say how concerned I am that Dave and Sue's daughter is here? Isn't that somewhat unusual?" Bill smiled at him, saying: "You are perfectly correct. It is unusual, but when we share with you the evidences we could be putting before the courts, I am certain that you will agree that the decision to invite Sandi-Sue here was the correct one." Briscoe then began: "Despite your wife's talk with you at your house last Wednesday morning, what evidence do you have that a physical affair actually took place? That your wife really did commit adultery with anyone? Don't you feel you are being a bit premature, Mr Summers?" "Mr Briscoe, I have a piece of information that I believe my wife is, as yet, unaware of. About an hour after she left our home, I received a phone call from Steve. He advised me that the moaning sounds I could hear was my wife having sexual intercourse with him. Up until that moment I had no evidence of a tryst, nor did I know who Susan was having her affair with. But that phone call left me in no doubt." Before Briscoe could respond Susan let out a loud gasp and clapped her hands to her mouth. "Oh, babe! Oh Dave, sweetheart! That phone call must have devastated you! Oh, I am so sorry! I had no idea he had done that! Please believe me!" Briscoe looked at her, askance. He said, almost to himself: "Well, that's put paid to that!" Sandi-Sue looked at her mother, smiled and said in a fair imitation of the Valspeak dialect that Susan had used as a young girl: "Well, mom, about that sex you had with 'uncle' Steve. Was it, like, totally awesome? Was it worth it?" Susan said nothing, but her face became flushed. Briscoe glanced at Sandi-Sue before speaking again. He looked toward Bill and said: "I note that you said 'evidences', Bill. What other evidence do you have that you might be able to present to the courts?" Bill smiled at him, in a not unfriendly way, and said: "We feel that the clincher evidence would be the sex video that Steve made of him and Mrs Summers. Which he kindly emailed to Dave, whilst he and Mrs Summers were together." Briscoe forgot himself and muttered under his breath: "Oh, fuck!" Susan looked sick and she shuddered, but said nothing, clutching the edge of the table. She seemed barely able to hold herself together. Her distress did not move me. 'Was this how it was going to be from now on?' I thought to my self. Bill continued: "What I propose now is to play the video." He pressed a button on a remote and a large screen TV dropped down from the ceiling at one end of the room. "No!" Shouted Susan, suddenly agitated. "I'll not have my baby girl exposed to such... filth... I mean such material!" "It's too late, Susan," said Bill mildly and in a kindly way: "I am afraid that your lover Steve Evers has already sent Sandi-Sue her very own copy of the video. She has already seen it." Susan let out a sob at that, but said nothing. I noticed her lawyer was playing with his pen. He looked distinctly unhappy. We watched the video. It still made me feel physically ill, Sandi-Sue was glaring at her mother, Bill was trying to look cool and unflustered but he looked anything but, Susan whimpered and Peter Briscoe started to look as if he was having trouble keeping his lunch down. When the video was over, it was his Australian accent, now broader and thicker than ever, that sounded out. And he was angry! Furious, in fact! "Well, fuck me sideways! Christ, that's bloody-well buggered it! Ding! Ding! End of the tramline! Everyone off!" He turned to Susan: "It might be possible to argue about the admissibility of that video in court, but that doesn't matter, does it, Susan? Because your poor bloody husband and your poor bloody daughter now know exactly what you really think of them! Well, I think my work here is done! I won't even bill you, Mrs Summers. I'll..." He stopped when he noticed that Susan had fallen out of her chair and had started to fit. "Shit!" He shouted. He went into action. "Call 911!" He put her into the recovery position and after a while she stopped fitting and seemed to fall unconscious. Scant minutes later an EMT team were ushered into the room, they examined her, put her on a trolley and took her away to the ambulance. "Dave," said Bill, "I know things are shitty for you right now, but I'll offer my advice to you as your legal counsel and as a friend, go to the hospital for Susan. If you don't and something happens, I know you, you'd never forgive yourself." Sometimes events just take on a life of their own. Happily married man to wouldbe divorcee to man anxious about the health of his wife. In what seemed like the beat of a heart. I parked our car in the hospital's underground parking garage and Sandi-Sue and I went up into the San Francisco Central Hospital and made our way to the Emergency Room. We were greeted by another culture clash. We'd already met an Australian attorney, now we met an Indian Doctor with a Cockney accent! Dr Kaur was a slight but no nonsense woman who, she told us, had been born and bred in London. She asked us how Susan had come to go into a fit. When we told her she frowned and shook her head. "Bloody 'ell! Blimey, I can see why that would upset her, but even so, there's something that is bothering me about your wife's case. Her pupils are... not quite right. I want to get some very comprehensive tests done on your wife. Blood, urine, hair and a full body scan. I presume she's still on your health insurance?" I assured Dr Kaur that Susan was still on my insurance, so the treatment began. And things began to get even more fucked up. They had quickly transferred Susan to a room in the psych section of the hospital and were keeping her calmed with a sedative. The next morning I visited her, Sandi-Sue had refused to come with me, but whilst I had wanted to avoid seeing Susan, I told myself I did not have that luxury. After I had sat with Susan for a while as she dozed, one of the nurses in charge sent for Dr Kaur who asked me to see her in her office. "Please Mr Summers, take a seat. I have some disturbing news for you." "Christ? What now?" I felt a sense of panic. "Is she HIV positive? What?" "It's nothing like that... we could not tell about HIV for several weeks, only. She also does not have an STD. Can you please tell me what medication is your wife on?" I marshalled my thoughts for a moment, before replying: "None, that I am aware of. We are both fairly lucky with our health. Why do you ask?" "Because with blood, urine and hair analysis we were able to establish that your wife is on a significant cocktail of drugs. Fairly heavy duty psychiatric drugs, at that. Who is her psychiatrist?" "She doesn't have a psychiatrist. If she did, the payments would have shown up on the insurance? Wait... Steve, her lover, is a psychologist. Could HE have given her medication?" Dr Kaur looked at me and replied: "I fear that he might well have done, but as he is a psychologist and not a psychiatrist he is not allowed, by law, to prescribe. He would not have legally been in possession of the medication. "I have read the case notes of your wife, but please, to help me, tell me all you know?" I told her what had happened, or what I knew about it. When I finished she shook her head and looked furious. "You say she was 'trained' by your so-called friend? Could that training have involved a CD or DVD, by any chance? Go to your home and see if you can find one. If you do, please bring it to me." I must have looked confused because she continued: "The drugs your wife was on are very powerful, taken in combination and IF there was any element of hypnosis involved, it could be that Steve was using mind control techniques with which to ensnare your wife into having an affair. In effect, first, he raped her mind, then he raped her body!" I somehow managed to get back to my car, although I still can't recall leaving Dr Kaur's office. I rang Bill, gave him the update and then somehow drove home. When I got home I parked the car, ran into the house and I rushed into downstairs bathroom and began vomiting. I was kneeling down, clutching the toilet bowl, sobbing and retching. Sandi-Sue rushed in to me. She knelt beside me, stroking my forehead. "Daddy! What's happened? Is mom worse?" "No, Sandi-Sue," I was able to choke out. "The Doctor we spoke to, that British Indian woman? She told me that Susan was pumped full of drugs by Steve and probably hypnotised by him. That bastard raped her! He raped my lovely Susan! Why? Why? Damn you, Steve! Why'd you have to that?" I spent a long time crying on the floor with Sandi-Sue comforting me. I told Sandi-Sue that I felt I had let her mother down; that my so-called best friend had been raping her and I never knew. "That's nonsense, Daddy! How could you have known?" said Sandi-Sue. Intellectually, I knew that what Sandi-Sue said was true, but emotionally? I felt I was somehow to blame. The situation had just become worse, again. Sandi-Sue and I searched for the DVD and we found it in Susan's DVD player. The DVD was obviously specially made for Susan by Steve- and it contained some horrible exercises for stretching her vagina, but the majority of the disc was taken up with what looked to be positive affirmation sessions, all recorded by Steve for Susan. I was not an expert, so did not know what to make of it. I made ten copies. Two were for Bill, a couple more were for Dr Kaur and the rest were placed in my safe. I made an appointment to see Dr Kaur and she told me she would arrange for an expert to review the DVD. I met both of them in her office. Dr Kaur introduced me to the expert, Dr Paul Baker. "Technically we should address him as Dr. Dr. Baker, as he has an MD, specialising in psychiatry and he has a PhD in psychology. We shook hands. He was a bluff, on nonsense guy. He was an imposing presence, aided by his clothing. He wore Western gear, but even though he was a doctor (or a doctor, doctor!) he looked right at home with the Western gear, as if he might know how to do it for real. I subsequently discovered that he did and relaxed by working on his family ranch in Colorado. He got me to retell the whole story. He looked at me, with sympathy. "This is a hideous thing to happen to you. Based on the information you have just given me, I feel that it is likely that your wife was subjected to mind control or to use another name for it, brain washing. I will not know for sure until I have gone through this DVD and made a careful study of its contents." I sat with Susan most afternoons for about an hour. She lay in her bed, or sat in a chair at the side of the bed. She was unable to look me in the eye. We tried to talk, but it was awkward. We seemed to be drifting apart. At the end of the week Dr Kaur asked to see myself, Bill and Dr Baker in her office. After the introductions Dr Baker spoke. I could tell that he was angry. "Dave, I can confirm that Dr Kaur's original diagnosis was right on the button. Steve Evers did use drugs and hypnosis techniques to induce your wife to have an affair. Although at first glance the content on the DVD looked like fairly standard positive affirmation sessions compiled by a master of the craft, there were also some hidden subliminal hypnosis sessions buried within them. Combine those with the powerful drugs, it's doubtful your wife stood much of a chance, in my professional opinion." Bill said: "But I thought you could not use hypnosis to make people do what they didn't want to do?" "Exactly so, Bill. But with the right combinations of drugs and mind control techniques, it is possible to brainwash someone and encourage them to act in a way that would be completely out of character. Remember those US servicemen who were brainwashed by the North Koreans during the Korean War? And please consider that drugs and techniques have improved dramatically over that time." I felt sick and began to feel like I was panicking. "So that piece of shit raped Susan? And he sort of encouraged or made her say those horrible things about Sandi-Sue and me?" "Yes, Dave," said Dr Baker. "Exactly so. Now we know pretty much what happened we will be able to devise a treatment regimen for your wife. Help flush the last vestiges of those drugs out of her system and also start on a program to put right the damage his perfidious brain washing sessions did to her. It will take time." A couple of days later and I was with Susan. She had started to respond to the physical treatment, but it would be a long, long road for all of us. We were in a lounge, sat drinking coffee and chatting. "Dave, can you ever forgive me?" "Forgive you for what, Susan? For being raped? That wasn't your fault." "But what I did! What I said about you and Sandi-Sue! Until I heard what I said, I couldn't recall having said those terrible things! It was hearing them that did something to me. According to Dr Baker, that sort of short-circuited what Steve had done to me." She explained that it had all started out very innocently. Steve had been working with a publisher to design a new program to help people deal with issues of low self-worth. He had asked Susan to help by serving as a control, someone without psychological problems who would be able to view the videoed sessions without them impacting on her. He had asked her to complete a non disclosure agreement and also asked her not to tell me about the sessions because, he told her, telling someone else –even me- might invalidate her status as an impartial control. At some point he must have replaced the genuine sessions with the program that he had devised to get her to cheat on me, plus he gave her the drugs which he probably slipped into drinks he was giving her, as she could not recall taking them. Then he decided to introduce the stretching exercises and planted in her mind the idea that she wanted to cheat on me for three days. Whilst Sue was in hospital receiving treatment, Steve had hurriedly left town and a warrant was obtained for his arrest on charges of rape and practicing medicine without a licence. Helen came to visit Sandi-Sue and me one afternoon. I'd just got back from my office and was pleased to see Helen. Although she looked dreadful. "Helen!" I said as I opened the door to her knock. "It's great to see you! You are looking well! Come in!" She looked at me, smiled, and said: "You are full of it, but in a nice way, Dave. I look like shit and I know it." We all went through into the lounge and I got drinks for all of us. Helen had an expression on her face that showed the pain she was going through. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that Steve did this to you all. I can't begin to imagine what he thought he was doing! And what's worse, he was raping my best friend and I didn't even have a clue!" "Don't blame yourself, Helen. You weren't to know. None of us knew." Helen nodded and continued to speak. "I never noticed him changing. He seemed normal, he treated me just the same, we made love as we always did. So when did he become the monster? Or was that something that was always there, always waiting to escape? "I can't stay in that house, knowing that was where he raped Susan. I can't! I'll look for a cheap apartment, but I can't stay there!" She began to sob and both Sandi-Sue and I comforted her as best we could. Eventually one of us, (can't recall who!) invited her to stay in the duplex apartment that was attached to our house but which was then currently unused. She took a little persuading, but later that week she moved in, having locked her own house up. Life went on. I continued running my business and after some deliberation I decided to retain Peter Briscoe as Susan's attorney. We would be suing Steve's practice for a variety of offences. I'd talked it over with Helen and when I convinced her that it wouldn't cost her any money as we'd be suing his insurance carrier, and not her, she seemed at ease with the idea. Eventually the police ran Steve to earth. They'd feared he might have gone to Canada or even overseas. It turned out he was still in California, in a place called El Centro, way down in the south of the state. Much to everyone's shock he decided to plead guilty to all charges and got 8 years jail time for the rape. Seems crazy, but if it had been a state like Alabama he could have got 99 years. Which I'd have preferred. What happened was this: He'd been going to plead 'not guilty' which pissed me off, as it would mean Susan would have to appear as a witness in his trial. At his arraignment hearing I was in the court. As he walked in, Steve's eyes had flickered around the court. When he saw me, his face lit up in a smile. I looked at him, shook my head and mouthed to him: "Why? Why? Why did you rape Susan?" The smile vanished from his face and he shuddered. He staggered to his right, recovered himself and when he was asked what his plea was he said: "Your honor, I have decided to change my plea to guilty. It has just been brought to my attention what I did. I can no longer deny it. What I did was evil and I must be punished." 18 months down the line and a lot has happened. Helen divorced Steve and the house was sold. She moved in to a small house on our block, so she's not far away. We still see her, but not as often as we used to. Currently she isn't dating. Sandi-Sue is studying. Originally she'd thought about going to college back East, but decided not to and to stay close to her folks. She's coping, I think, but she says very little about what happened. Susan stayed as an in-patient for a couple of months, until they decided that she was OK to be released and to come back home. This was a little awkward for a while and we had separate bedrooms for a couple of months. Apparently my nightmares of the day that she left me were pretty graphic re-runs of what had happened from my point of view and as I'd started talking in my sleep, they distressed Susan to the extent that she needed a separate bedroom. Eventually they faded away and we were able to sleep in the same room, but in separate beds. We are currently still in counselling sessions as individuals and as a couple. Sometimes as a trio, with Sandi-Sue. We have issues a-plenty to cope with and get over as best we can. Sandi-Sue has her own counselling sessions. My counselling included some advanced NLP techniques to help me lessen the memories of what I had seen in the video. It was not easy and took a great deal of time and effort. Sandi-Sue went through a similar program in her counselling, too. It wasn't so much what we had seen, but what we had both heard Susan say about us, her husband and her daughter, that caused us the most distress. These elements, our counsellors told us, were the most intractable problems that took longer to help us get through. After a long time Susan and I started to make love again. The first several times were complete disasters as I suffered from a severe erectile dysfunction. Not even the hint of an erection. This made me feel like I was not a real man. I apologised to Susan for what I perceived as my failure as her husband, and she sobbed bitter tears, as she blamed herself for my problem. More and deeper counselling and some Viagra helped me overcome this. And we were eventually able to start making love again. Things still aren't completely fixed and I doubt that they ever will be. For example, Susan flinches every time I put my hand on or near her vagina, as a result of Steve's rape of her. And Susan had required two sessions of surgery to put right some physical damage he had caused her. But things are getting better. I realise our marriage can never be as good as it used to be, but we are both working to ensure it will become as good as it can be.