Chapter 5

Next day, they reviewed the events of the previous evening. I got the chance to chat with my attorney, at length. I revealed my experiences coming home early, and the videography I had undertaken. I promised him a disc with the images from that night, and he told me to stay put, as he went for a conversation with the prosecutor.

He returned, and told me he had good news, as well as bad news. “The good news, is that if there is a clear view of him striking her, and her gesturing for him to stop, and leave, before he struck her again, and binding her, that would sure look nonconsensual. The bad news, is that, unless Annie knew of and agreed to the recording, there is a wiretapping element here that may result in trouble for you.”

“So, you’re telling me, that if Annie knew of the recording, and approved, then I’m in the clear, but if not, I have problems?”

“Yep. The prosecutor will want to talk to her about that detail.”

The prosecutor was reluctant to make a determination of no crime on my part, until she had made sure that she had the entire story. I was looking at a preliminary examination, at the least. Off to court we headed.

Once the magistrate decided that I was not about to skip town, and allowed me to wager my house against the possibility I’d find somewhere else to be come my court date, I cadged a ride to the hospital, to see how Annie was coming along. I shouldn’t have worried. One of the peculiarities of living in a small town, is that you are not nearly as stealthy as you would like to think you are. Another, is that when your children have all grown up there, well, it’s likely that the nurse caring for your wife might have coached the kids’ swim team. (she had). Or, that the medic working the night all the excitement happened, knew that you two would be busy, and, owning a lawn service on his off duty days, had seen to your yard, making it look neat, and lived in. (he did). Or, that the folks living on either side of your daughter, having seen her grow up with their own kids, might decide that it was Potlatch Monday!, and bring dinner over so your daughter, suddenly having, effectively, twice as many children as she had been accustomed to, would not have to cook for her newly enlarged mob. (and, as you might have figured by this point, they did.)

For some reason, the officers that were suddenly prevalent in the hospital landscape felt that I ought to be frisked. To be honest, were I them, and knowing that the guy who had nearly pureed the liver of the patient that I was guarding, would be visiting his wife in that very hospital, well, I’d think that, were the roles reversed, frisking him would only be prudent. Hell, I’d expect to uncover something along the lines of a headsman’s axe, or, more pedestrian in likelihood, something featuring a 7 round magazine. I had considered it, had considered the likelihood that it would not make my wife’s (or childrens’) lives better in sum, and had decided that I could wait for Justice to work it’s magic. An uneventful, and apologetic, frisk.

Annie was sitting up. I asked her what the doctors had said.

“Well, the ER doc was happy to have radiology tell him that my belly CT was negative, and the ER PA sewed up that lac on my lip. I have several bruises, which we knew, but that I seem alright. I’m still here because you were luxuriating in the county jail, and they didn’t want me exerting myself.” She grinned at me. THAT was welcome. “Everybody, doctors and nurses and all, said three things. One, they didn’t get why you didn’t simply shoot that asshole. Secondly, once the word got around about how injured Dickhead was, that they would think very carefully about fucking around with your family, in any serious way. Third, despite your election, by acclamation, as Husband Of The Year, you are to wait on me hand-and-foot, for the next couple of weeks.”

Sounded about right. I looked around. For some reason, the double room Annie was in, lacked a room-mate. (small town stuff, again!) I excused myself, walked to the nursing station, and asked, “Is it OK if Annie and I have a few words behind closed doors? I’d like around ten minutes, if it’s OK.”

The nurse bade me to wait a minute, and she asked Annie her opinion of all that. Annie evidently consented, for I got waved in, door closed behind me.

I hugged my wife, carefully, and then sat back. “So, you mentioned blackmail, last night. What’s the story?”

She looked away, and turned back to me, eyes brimming. “Remember that company picnic, over Memorial day? The one where you were working that travel gig? You missed it, but I managed to get Sandy to watch the boys, so I could go. You told me I could unwind, that I deserved a day in the sun, and didn’t mind if I went without you. You told me to go, remember?”

I did remember. I had been soaking up the overtime, and working the second gig, so we could pay off bills, and save for a trip we had been dreaming of for years. Yep, I remembered. She hadn’t, initially wanted to go without me, but I had encouraged her to hang out with her workplace girlfriends, and relax without the kids to chase around.

She continued. “Well, I went, and just like you had said, I had a good time. Mary had brought some yummy wine coolers, and, well, I suppose I had a couple more than I should have had. So, I felt so giggly that, when Martin, you remember, he works in maintenance, asked me to take a walk with him, well, I figured that a walk would help me sober up some. He figured that I was loose enough for some playtime, in your absence. He started to kiss me, and rub up against me, and I responded for a while, before I figured out that he wasn’t you, and that I was in no condition to play that sort of game, particularly with you nowhere around. I pushed him away, and ran back to my gaggle of girlfriends. I thought I had gotten away almost clean, until a couple of days later.”

“It turns out that Lance had followed us, and recorded the clinch on his cell phone. He showed it to me, and threatened to show it to you, saying it would end my marriage, unless I agreed to ‘be nice’ to him.”

I had to ask. “Any reason you didn’t come to me with this revelation? Then, we could have taken some action together, and avoided all this excitement.”

She averted her gaze. “I ... I was afraid. I was afraid how you’d react to seeing me kissing another man. When I was sober, it seemed so tawdry, as if I was some cheating whore, and I was afraid you’d throw me out, or something.”

I responded, “If you had come to me, I could understand getting a buzz on, and making a poor decision. God knows, I’ve made enough of them myself.”

She hesitated. “I know that, now. Since I didn’t think it through that far, I capitulated to his demands. We had gone along for a couple of weeks, and, to be honest, I kinda found it exciting to have an affair, even if I risked my marriage, or I risked losing you. Once I resigned myself to fucking him, in order to buy his silence, I found it kind of exhilarating. It was a kind of a thrill, that rush of maybe getting caught, of stealing away to submit to a man not my husband. That submission, that excitement, was stimulating. Pretty soon, I stopped thinking about the fact that I was cheating on you, I stopped thinking how I was being forced, extorted, into this affair. Really, I was thinking with my pussy.”