As the waiter led me to the table I wondered again about the phone call I'd received that Morning.

"Mr. Dalton?"

"Yes" I replied.

"My name is Jason Hargrove. I work with your wife and I was wondering if you could spare some time to discuss something that concerns her."

"What is this about Mr. Hargrove?"

"I am at work right now and I can't really talk about it on the phone. Would it be possible for you to meet me for lunch today? Say around noon?"

I checked my planner and saw that I was free and being more than just a little curious I told him that I could,

"Antoine's at twelve then?"

I told him I would be there and he told me to tell the hostess that I was meeting him. I spent the rest of the morning wondering why someone who worked with Abby would want to talk with me about something concerning her.

Abby and I had been introduced by a mutual friend at a surprise birthday party. Abby was a very good looking redhead, had and great sense of humor and seemed to like me and so before that party was over I had asked her for a date and she had said yes. The date went extremely well from my point of view so I asked her out again and again she said yes. After a half dozen dates we fell into a relationship that could almost be called "going steady."

I say "almost" because even though she spent most of her time with me she did go out on an occasional date with another guy. It irritated me when I would ask her what she would like to do on say a Saturday and she would say that she was having dinner with Tom, Dick, Harry or whomever, but I had not taken any steps to make us exclusive so I had no call on her time.

After two months of dating we had fallen into bed together and, happy to say, we were extremely compatible sexually and that fact only fed my irritation when she dated other guys because of my imagining her doing the same things with them that she did with me. I don't know that she ever did them, but I sure as hell didn't like thinking that she did.

The reason that I had not attempted to do something to make us exclusive was that I was afraid of marriage. I'd seen too many of my friends get married only to see them divorced a few years later. I could count on the thumbs of both hands the number of friends of mine who had marriages that had lasted longer than three years and none of the ones that had ended in divorce had ended amicably. Both parties had emerged bitter and resentful and I saw these things and it made me very hesitant.

On the other hand it was bothering the hell out of me that Abby was seeing other guys when I wanted her to be with me. One day I woke up to the fact that I was at my happiest when I was with Abby and I realized that if she kept seeing other guys the day might come when she might decide that she liked one of them more than she did me.

I bought a ring, proposed and was devastated when she said no.

"I like you a lot Rob; I like you an awful lot. Enough so that I spend the majority of my time with you, but I'm not ready to settle down yet."

It was a hell of a blow to me and I went home and sulked. I spent two days feeling sorry for myself and then I snapped out of it. "Fuck this shit! I said to myself, "She isn't ready to settle down. She wants to date others? What's good for the goose is good for the gander." I had not dated (or even been interested in) another girl in the eight months I'd been seeing Abby. It was time to change that.

There were several single girls that worked in the same office I did and a couple of them had flirted with me from time to time. One day about a week after Abby had turned me down I walked into the restaurant where I usually have lunch and saw Jenny, one of the girls who had flirted with me, sitting in a booth by herself. I asked her if I could join her and she said yes. Before lunch was over I had a date with Jenny for that night when we got off work. It was just dinner and a few drinks, but I enjoyed myself so I asked her if she would go out with me again on Friday and she said yes.

Friday was dinner, drinks and dancing and I didn't get home until almost four-thirty in the morning. As I climbed into bed I thought about what had happened when I took Jenny home. Since it was only our second date and we were still in the "getting to know each other" stage I didn't try to kiss her goodnight when I walked her to her door. I told her that I'd had a great time and that I hoped we could do it again. As I turned to walk back to the car she said, "Hey!" I turned back to her and she threw her arms around me and gave me a kiss that made me weak in the knees.

"Does this mean maybe we can go out again?"

"You have my number and you know where to find me during the day."

I had just finished breakfast and was on my third cup of coffee when the phone rang. It was Abby.

"Where were you last night? I expected you to call and when you didn't I called you half a dozen times, but you never answered."

"Did we have something planned for last night?"

"No, but we usually do something."

"Well I guess that's partly right. We usually do do something if you don't go out with someone else. But that is neither here nor there. The fact is you declined my invitation to make us exclusive and since you aren't ready to settle down and want to date other men I decided after eight months of seeing no one but you it was maybe time for me to date some other women. That's where I was last night. I had dinner and went dancing with a delightful young lady. I didn't get home until after four."

"Oh. Are we still on for tonight? You do remember that we are supposed to go to Britney's birthday party, right?"

From the tone of her voice I could tell she was upset with me. It was all right for her to see other men, but I was supposed to stay home? I was supposed to keep myself available for her? I had not realized that I was being taken so much for granted. Well, that was going to change.

"I haven't forgotten Britney's party. I'll pick you up at seven."

As I hung up I wondered just how things were going to go with me and Abby with me dating others.

I picked up Abby to take her to Brit's party and she was pretty quiet for the first part of the ride. About half way to Brit's she asked:

"Where did you go?"

"What do you mean?"

"Last night — where did you go?"

"Mario's for dinner and then drinks and dancing at The Pit."

"The Pit closes at two."

"Yeah, I know."

There were several seconds of silence and then Abby said, "You said that you didn't get home until after four."

Suddenly it dawned on me. The Pit closed at two, I didn't get home until after four so what did I so for those two hours? An evil streak that I never knew I had reared its head.

"Yep. About four-twenty I think it was."

Was I going to tell Abby that Jenny and I stopped at Denny's for a bite to eat after leaving the pit? No way. Let her think that maybe something happened. After all, isn't that what she made me think when she went out with other guys? The rest of the ride was made in silence. When we got to Britney's the party was in full swing and Abby and I mingled. After a bit we separated as she saw a couple of girls she wanted to talk with and I ended up with a couple of guys talking football.

After a bit I moved on and I was talking with Pauline French when I noticed Abby watching us. She was talking with Carol and Bev, but her eyes never left me and Pauline. That evil streak of mine made another appearance and over the next two hours I made it a point to talk with every woman there who was single. Out of the corner of my eye I kept tabs on Abby and she never took her eyes off me.

Normally Abby and I are among the very last to leave a party, but we had only been at Brit's for three, maybe three and a half hours, when Abby came up to me and told me she was ready to leave. We walked around and said our goodbye's and then left. We weren't two blocks away from Brit's when Abby slid over next to me and her hand went to my zipper. That was something new. We had been making love for quite some time, but always at her place or mine. We had never done anything like what she was doing then. She unzipped me, worked my stiffening cock out of my pants and started stroking me.

"I am horny as hell baby" she said, "and I want you ready when we get to my place."

I wasn't sure, but I thought that it was just possible that my going out the night before with some one else might have made Abby feel a little insecure in our relationship and she was trying to pull me back into the fold, so to speak. Not that I minded of course. What man was going to say no to a hand job from a beautiful and sexy woman?

Abby slowly stroked me for a minute or so and then she started to lower her head toward my lap. At that point I stopped her and told her to wait until we got to her place. She pouted, but I pointed out to her that giving me head while I was driving could cause me to lose my concentration and I might end up hitting someone or run off the road.

When we got to her apartment she fairly pulled me along to her place and then to her bedroom. The love making was more intense than it had ever been before. It was almost as if Abby was trying to show me that no one could "do me better" and that I didn't need to see other women. And it just might have worked if my evil streak would have disappeared and stayed gone. But it didn't. In the morning Abby asked me if we could go to an art gallery opening on Wednesday and I thought for a second and then said that I couldn't do it. I was going to a cocktail party with one of the girls I worked with on Wednesday. It was total bullshit of course, but I wanted to hit Abby with some of the shit she had been hitting me with.

"At this moment I don't have any plans for next weekend if you would like to do something."

That she wasn't very happy with the situation I could tell, but she sucked it up and told me that she thought she could fill the weekend for me.

Four the next three months Abby never put me off when I asked her what we were going to be doing on a given day and then one Thursday I asked her where she would like to go dancing on Saturday.

"Oh I'm sorry honey, but I can't make it Saturday night. I've got something else going."

The next day at work I asked Jenny if she would like to have dinner with me that night and she said yes. We went to dinner and a movie and I asked her out again for Saturday and she said yes and I got a fairly hot goodnight kiss. When I got home I found a message on my answering machine from Abby wanting to know where I was and why I hadn't called her. I deleted the call and went to bed.

The phone woke me up at nine the next morning and caller ID showed that it was Abby calling so I didn't take the call and let it go to the machine.

"Rob honey? It's Abby. Are you okay? I couldn't reach you yesterday and you didn't call. When you get this call me, okay?"

I was just a little pissed at Abby right then so I unplugged the phone and turned off the answering machine.

That evening I took Jenny to the San Augustine Grill for dinner and then we went to the Boom Boom Room for drinks and dancing. We had been there for about an hour when Jenny asked me:

"Do you know that woman sitting in the booth right next to the hallway to the rest rooms?"

I looked over that way and saw Abby sitting there with some guy I'd never seen before. I turned back to Jenny and said;

"She's an old girlfriend. Why?"

"She hasn't taken her eyes off of you since she came in. Just how old of a girlfriend is she?"

"Depending on how you look at it either just before my first date with you or two days ago" and then I explained the situation to her.

"So I'm what, the stalking horse to get back at her."

"Of course not. I didn't know she would be here. I'm with you because you are the first girl I've asked out in over eight months and you said yes."

"So what do we do now?"

"We came here to have a good time and enjoy ourselves. If you don't think we can do that here now that Abby is here we can go some place else."

"No, I don't think so. If you are really through with her letting her see you having a good time with another woman is one way of letting her know that you really mean it. Don't be surprised though if I push the envelope a little and make her think that we are a lot more intimate than we are."

"Why would you do that?"

"I used to date her male counterpart. We were a steady couple until he wanted to take out some bimbo. I finally had enough and I dumped him. All of a sudden I was the love of his life and he was ready to settle down if I would give him one more chance."

"What happened?"

"I took him back and married him. Two years later I caught him cheating on me and I kicked his ass out and divorced him."

"I never knew that you had been married."

"It wasn't the best time of my life and I don't usually talk about it. Anyway, from the way she is looking at you she is not all that happy to see you here with me so if you don't mind I'm going to work on winding her watch."

I smiled at her and told her to "wind away."

Jenny pulled me out onto the dance floor and for the rest of the evening while we were on the dance floor she was plastered against me with her arms around my neck. She pulled my head down and kissed me at least a dozen times. When we were sitting down she sat as close to me as she could and ran her hand up and down my leg. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Abby and it seemed to me that she wasn't having all that much fun with her date. Twice I saw him take her hand to pull her out on the dance floor and both times she jerked her hand away from him. And every time I glanced her way she was looking at Jenny and me. What Jenny was doing had a predictable effect on me and I spent a good part of the evening with an erection — an erection that Jenny was constantly rubbing against.

Finally it was time to leave and Jenny and I walked arm in arm past Abby's booth on the way out and my eyes met Abby's as we went by her. The look on her face sad, "How could you do this to me?" Jenny said something and I turned to her and smiled and then Jenny and I were out the door.

Jenny was silent as I drove her home. I walked her to her door and she stood on her toes put her arms around my neck and kissed me. Then she released me and said:

"I'm sorry Rob; I wasn't thinking ahead. What I did tonight made us both horny, but I'm not a slut. We haven't dated enough or gotten to know each other well enough for me to consider taking that step. I'm sorry that I got you all stirred up for nothing."

"Don't worry about it Jenny. It was worth it to see the discomfort it caused Abby."

Jenny kissed me again and I headed on home. I stopped at Bud's Bar and Grill and munched popcorn and went through a couple of beers while I thought of my situation with Abby. I loved her — there was no doubt in my mind about that — but I couldn't take what was going on between us. She had said she liked me well enough to spend most of her time with me, but didn't want to settle down. I guess the bottom line was that I wasn't willing to settle for "most" of her time.

Well, I'd loved other things in my life that I had either never attained or had to give up and it looked like Abby was going to be added to the list. As much as I wanted her I was not going to play the game any more. She wanted to date others, then let her. It was time for me to bite the bullet and move on. I closed Bud's and then stopped at the Village Inn for a bite and then headed for home.

As I turned into the driveway my headlights swept the front yard and the porch and I saw someone sitting on the porch steps. It was Abby. I got out of the car and walked up to the porch and I could see that Abby had been crying. She looked up at me when I started up the steps and said:

"Did you fuck her?"

The accusatory tone of voice pissed me off so I walked by her as I climbed the steps without saying a word. I was putting the key in the door like when she said:

"Well did you?"

Without turning to look at her I said, "That is none of your business Abby. I've never asked you how many of the guys you have dated have fucked you."

I went into the house and closed the door and then headed up the steps toward my bedroom. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard Abby trying to open the door. I'd turned the deadbolt to lock the door when I closed it and when she found the door locked she started beating on it and yelling:

"Damn it Rob, let me in."

I went back down and opened the door. "What do you want Abby?"

"I want you Rob."

We were married three months later.

Fast forward eleven years and there I was approaching a table at Antoine's to talk about my wife with a man I didn't know. He stood as I approached and offered his hand and I took it.

"Thank you for coming. May I call you Rob?"

"Please do."

"And my name is Jason, but most people call me Jase. Shall we order?"

We both ordered the luncheon special with iced tea and when the waiter had gone I asked him just what the meeting was about. He took a deep breath and then said:

"This is awkward for me, but it is something that I just felt I have to do. I am in love with Abby and she has agreed to marry me as soon as your divorce is final."

I sat there looking at him too stunned to say a word and he took my silence to mean he should continue.

"I had expected that we would be married by now. Most divorces don't take a year, but Abby tells me you are fighting the divorce and throwing up roadblock after roadblock. Frankly I don't understand it. Why would you fight to keep someone who doesn't want you? Abby tells me that it is all about the money. She has agreed not to go after your pension or your 401k, but she remains firm on getting alimony and half of the other marital assets while you are just as firm on not paying her a cent of alimony and keeping the house instead of selling it and giving her half the proceeds. You also refuse to pay her attorney's fee. Do I have it right so far?"

Did he have it right? Hell no! What divorce? I had no clue as to what he was talking about. I didn't know what to say so I just stared at him and again he took my silence to mean that he should go on.

"We both know that what she wants is exactly what the courts will order since this is a no fault state and under no fault she is entitled to half of the assets. All you are doing is stalling to keep things from reaching a conclusion so you don't have to come up with the money to settle the case. I want this divorce settled so Abby and I can move on with our lives together so I've decided to see if I can't force the issue.

"I propose the following. I will pay Abby's attorney's fees. Alimony is a non issue in as much as it would stop when Abby remarries which will be the day after the divorce is final if I have my way. At most you would have to send her one check and if you have to do that I will reimburse you. That leaves the house. I had an independent appraisal done and while the appraiser couldn't gain access to your house he was able to compare it to similar house and come up with a market value. If it sold at the asking price after paying off the mortgage and all the fees and commissions you would have forty-two thousand left which would then have to be split fifty/fifty with Abby.

"If you will cease fighting the divorce and allow it to go forward I will write you a check for Abby's half of the proceeds which means that you will have the entire forty-two thousand for yourself."

I obviously had no clue as to what was going on. If Abby was suing me for a divorce I didn't know it. I hadn't been served with any papers and when I left the house that morning there hadn't seemed to be any lack of warmth in the kiss and "Have a great day" that I got from Abby. But Hargrove obviously thought he knew what he was talking about. It was time for me to go fishing.

"Everything you are proposing is okay with Abby?"

"Abby knows nothing about this meeting and what I am proposing. It is strictly between the two of us."

"How long have you and Abby been an item?"

"It would be about nine months now. Just after she caught you having your affair."

My affair? That was news to me. I hadn't had anything to do with another woman since I married Abby. I looked at him and said:

"I can't believe that she would have immediately taken up with another man."

"Oh no, I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression. It wasn't immediate. At first I was just a shoulder to cry on and things kind of developed from there."

I decided that I needed some time to find out just what the hell was going on so I said:

"I see. Well, as good as your proposal sounds I'm afraid I can't accept it. I believe my house is worth a lot more than what your appraiser thinks."

"It doesn't matter to me. What ever it turns out to be I will match Abby's half to insure that you get it all."

"You are serious about this?"

"Absolutely."

"Well Jason, I'm not a trusting guy. If you can put everything you just proposed into a legally enforceable document and sign it you have a deal. It will say that you will pay Abby's attorney's fees, make me whole on the proceeds from the sale of the house and reimburse me for any alimony I have to pay until Abby remarries. As soon as I have that document in my hand and my attorney tells me that it is legally enforceable I will withdraw all my objections to the divorce."

"I'll get on it as soon as I get back to work. Hopefully I will have it ready for your review by Friday. But one thing I insist on is that Abby never knows about this deal."

The first thing I did when I got back to my office was get out the Yellow Pages and turn to Investigators and Investigative Services. There were three within two blocks of my office and the first two I called couldn't see me for three or four days but the third one said, "Come on down." As I walked the two blocks to Acme Investigative Services I tried to think of what Hargrove must have been smoking. There was no way that Abby could be having an affair with him let alone be planning on marrying him. We were too happy together. We had a great relationship, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel that something made Hargrove approach me and the best way to find out what it was was to put some one on the case to check things out. Maybe Abby was just a good friend and he misunderstood her feelings. For my own peace of mind I needed to find out what was going on.

I met with Mr. Owen Paulson and filled him in on my meeting with Hargrove. I told him that I seriously doubted that my wife was being unfaithful, but I did need to know what Hargrove was up to. The only times Abby was out of the house were for her Tuesday night book club and discussion group, her Thursday night bridge club meeting and her Saturday morning beauty shop appointment to have her hair done while I played golf with three of my friends. I gave Paulson all the information he asked for regarding Abby and then I gave him a check to get him started. Since it was a Wednesday he told me they would put an operative on Abby Thursday morning when she left the house to go to work and then watch her until the following Tuesday. He told me I could stop by or call him Wednesday for a report.

As I walked back to my office I spent more time trying to figure out what Hargrove was really after. I had absolutely no doubt about Abby's love for me, but I could not figure out for the life of me what Hargrove's angle was.

Abby usually beat me home and when I got home that night she was in the kitchen fixing dinner. She stopped what she was doing, came to me and put her arms around me and kissed me. Dinner and dishes out of the way we curled up on the couch to watch some TV and Abby moved in next to me, put her head on my shoulder and cuddled up next to me. This woman cheating on me? No way!

Human nature being what it was my talk with Hargrove had me taking a closer look at Abby, but I saw absolutely nothing that could make me even remotely think that she was having anything to do with Hargrove. She was as warm and loving as she had been on the day we took our vows. We touched, we kissed, we cuddled and snuggled and still, after eleven years, made love three or four times a week.

The following Wednesday at two in the afternoon Owen Paulson turned my life upside down. His operative had followed Abby when she left work Thursday night and went to an address on Perry Street. She didn't knock on the door or ring the bell, she just walked right in. It was ascertained that the house belonged to one Jason Hargrove. Abby entered the house, was inside for three and a half hours and then left and the operative followed her home.

Saturday I left the house at 6:45 to go play golf and ten minutes later Abby left and drove to the Perry Street address. She was inside for three hours and then she came out and drove to Wanda's House of Nails. An hour later she came out and drove home.

Tuesday she was followed from work to the Perry Street address where she remained for three hours until leaving for home.

"I need to point out that at no time was your wife actually seen with Mr. Hargrove. We do not even know that he was inside the house while she was there. For all we know she could be looking after her pets while he is away."

"How likely is that? The bottom line is that with the exception of Saturday when she does have a standing appointment at the beauty parlor she was not where she was supposed to be. What can we do to find out for sure what she is doing?"

"There isn't much we can do. Entering the house to place audio and video devices would be illegal. About the best we can do is place some listening devices on your wife's person or in her car. We can also, with your permission, plant some surveillance equipment in your home."

"Do it. I have to know what is going on."

He gave me a bug to place in her purse — it was no bigger than a finger nail — and that night I told her to take my car to work because I was going to drop hers of at the shop on my way to work so they could do an oil change and a radiator flush. Paulson put a recorder in my car before I left his office and he put another in Abby's car after the oil change.

I took a half a day off work on Thursday and met Paulson and two of his people at the house and forty-five minutes later the house was wired. Then it was a case of sit back and wait.

It was not uncommon for Abby and I to make love when she got home after her "bridge club" meetings so it was not unexpected when I pulled Abby down on the bed that night. That night was different in that for the first time I was looking for something that would indicate that she had been with another man. Without calling attention to what I was doing I checked out her body for signs that she had been with some one else, but found none.

Oral sex was something that was a staple of our sex life, but when Abby went for my cock with her mouth I pushed her away and told her that I didn't feel like oral. That wasn't true of course, I always wanted head, but if I would have let her do me then I would be expected to do her and there was no way I was going to do that if she might have just come to me from another man's bed. It obviously wouldn't kill me because if she were cheating on me then I had already been doing it for a while, but I didn't know it then and knowing made all the difference in the world.

In my younger days before I met Abby I was a little wild and I had participated in a threesome or two and I'd been to a few gangbangs so I knew what sloppy seconds felt like and Abby didn't feel that way nor did she feel any looser or different, but then she never had. I started having bad thoughts about myself for doubting her. I began thinking that maybe there was a good explanation for her visits to Perry Street.

The next day at nine I received a call from Hargrove asking me if I was free for lunch. We met again at Antoine's and when we were seated he handed me a sheaf of papers. I looked through them and saw that it said exactly what I told him I needed it to say and that he had signed it and had his signature notarized.

"Looks fine to me. I'll have my lawyer look at it and if he finds no fault with it I will stop fighting Abby."

"May I ask you a personal question?"

"You can ask, but I won't promise you an answer."

"Abby is a marvelous woman. Why on Earth did you cheat on her?"

Since I had never cheated on Abby I had no real answer to the question so I just said:

"It was a drunken indiscretion. I didn't even know I'd done it until I woke up in the wrong bed the next morning."

"It may sound cruel of me to say it, but I'm glad it happened otherwise Abby and I wouldn't have ended up together."

When I got back to the office I tossed Hargrove's paperwork into my center desk drawer and forgot about it. It had only been something to buy me time and I was never going to use it.