Chapter 3: The Tale is Told

Murphy had disappeared and Janet was still hissing and spitting like an angry cat. The situation had developed so fast that I couldn’t fully grasp what was going on. But I WAS sure of one thing. My former protégé was involved in it up to his treacherous eyeballs.

I could tell from his reaction that Murphy was the one who had done the photoshopping. I could also deduce that Janet was the target. My voluptuous little wife is a stunningly attractive woman. So, it is understandable when the occasional strange male will hit on her. But Murphy was a trusted friend and colleague. The level of THAT betrayal was excruciating.

Because of her striking physical beauty, Janet has had to learn how to fend off men. She has been doing that since her early teen years. In fact, it is because of those finely-honed skills that I don’t doubt her fidelity. But it was obvious from the torrent of emotion pouring out of her that, something very bad had happened over the past ten days. And it involved Murphy. I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

I was still holding Janet by her waist, just above where her hips flared out into that delectable ass. I turned her around, made her look up at me, and said, “Let’s do what we have always done, talk it through.” I tried to come-off controlled and sympathetic. But I was starting to have a very sad feeling. I walked into the house and back into the kitchen. I made us a couple of cups of herb tea. I brewed Janet’s favorite, she looked like she needed some chamomile to relax.

I carried both steaming cups over to the table. She was sitting in our bright and sunny breakfast nook. Because we are both creatures of long married habit she was sitting in the exact same relative position as she had been sitting when she had angrily confronted me. That was not quite three hours ago.

She was back to sobbing. Her head was hanging down and her thick brunette hair hid her face. I put the tea in front of her and kissed her fondly on the top of her head. As I sat down opposite her, she raised her tear filled eyes and looked directly at me. There was agony written there. She wailed, “Why would somebody do this to us?”

I said, “There are people in this world who just want, what they want. They never think about how their selfish desires can hurt other people. Hell, they are probably not even aware that other people even exist except as agents to satisfy those needs. Murphy is obviously one of those.”

I smiled grimly and added, “I’ve got to admit I totally misjudged him, both in terms of his moral compass and his professional competence. I thought he could do a better job of doctoring the pictures but it must have been spur of the moment. He had to know that I would find out what he had done and that I would fire him with extreme prejudice. I just didn’t understand why he would take that risk.”

I finished with, “He’s dead meat now. I am going to make his ruination a personal project and if I leave him with one cent in his pocket after this is over it will be like I failed. I am only sorry for what he put YOU through. It must have been just plain awful to see pictures like that.”

She looked at me with wounded eyes and said, “It destroyed me. I have never felt pain like that. I passed out when I saw them and then I wanted to kill myself.”

I said mildly, “Why didn’t you just call me up and confront me. You’ve never been shy about confronting me over anything in the past?”

She said, “I teach third grade. I don’t know anything about computer tricks. To me, PICTURES NEVER LIE.” I had never heard such anguish in anybody’s voice as she said those last three words. She lapsed back into crying,

Then she snuffled and said, “You saw what I thought you were doing and I guess I couldn’t face having that confirmed.”

She said ruefully, “I was so devastated by your betrayal that I just couldn’t talk to you. It was like you were a total stranger, somebody I didn’t know. I was terrified of what you might say to me.”

I said as sympathetically as I could. “I understand that. I would have felt the same way if you had cheated on me.”

She visibly winced. I thought “Uh-Oh” but I wanted her to remain calm enough to walk me through the events of the past ten days.

I said, “When did you get the pictures?”

She said, “They came to me on Thursday afternoon after school, from an anonymous e-mail.”

I got up, walked to her laptop, which was sitting on the kitchen island, and clicked on her account. As she said, Janet teaches third grade. She is not a heavy user of email. So the message was sitting fifth from the top after four spam ads.

The header said, “I’m Sorry” and the message said, “I had to tell you.” The timestamp was the prior Thursday at 15:38. I opened the attachment and there were two pictures.

The first was me with Jane Longworth and the second was a reasonably convincing picture of me banging a slutty looking blond. I literally cringed from the pain that second picture must have inflicted on her. I said with sorrow creeping into my voice, “And then what happened?”

She said, “I fainted dead away and threw up. Then I crawled into the bedroom and passed out again. I was in a total state of shock. I can’t describe how frightened I was.”

She said tearfully, “I needed somebody to talk to and I had no idea what you might say to me. The one thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t ready to face you. So I called Murphy instead. He was a friend and he was out there with you. I was hoping he would have a logical explanation for what I saw.”

She added, “I told him about what I had seen and he told me that he was the one who had sent the pictures. He said that he had agonized about it. But he had to tell me because you did that to me at EVERY conference. I won’t get into details about the lengthy bout of crying that ensued but long-story-short he volunteered to come back early from the conference to help me deal with this.”

Her anger was increasing as she said, “I picked him up when he got back and he took me to his place and showed me six more of those hideous photographs. I am ashamed to admit that they made me so furious I visited a divorce lawyer the following morning. Murphy set it up with one of his college friends. I was extremely grateful for how sympathetic and helpful he was.”

I was thinking, “Yeah right, he was eager to help me out of my marriage.” I decided that living in a cardboard box under a bridge was far too pleasant a fate for that fucker. I had more substantial plans for Mr. Murphy.

Janet continued, “I went back to Sarah’s totally desolate and fell asleep. It was the first sleep I had had in almost 48 hours. I woke up in the late afternoon when Murphy called me. He was sympathetic and completely focused on helping me through my grief. He asked if he could buy me dinner to get my mind off of my troubles and we could talk some more.”

I would do ANYTHING to stop thinking about the situation. So I went to a local restaurant with him. It was not a “date” as much as it was two friends commiserating and he took me right home after we ate.

The next day he took me out on his boat for all day. That was more like a date. I was just trying to cope and I was up for any distraction that he could provide. That was the day you came home. He continued to be gentlemanly and sympathetic, even though I wore one of my bikinis all day on the boat.” My heart sank from pure jealousy and I actually audibly gulped. I know what Janet looks like in a bikini.

She said ruefully, “Then he took me out to dinner on Wednesday. That was EXACTLY like a date. We ate danced and he kissed me and I kissed him back. It was my grief and insecurity driving that. I just wanted a man to reassure me that I was still attractive. The woman in your picture was a lot younger and hotter than I am and I had begun to transfer my need to be desired over to him. It was kind of like my personal version of the Stockholm syndrome.”

I thought, “He might not be good at photoshopping but he is a genius at seduction. He couldn’t have played on Janet’s insecurities any better if he had actually been married to her for 17 years.”

Then she hesitated. I didn’t want to hear what was coming next but I had to get the entire story out. So I said, my voice dripping with suspicion and threat, “Was that all there was then?”

She gave a deep sigh and then continued after a significant pause. She said that Murphy had invited her over to his place for dinner last night, just to help her get up her courage for the confrontation that the lawyer had told her to have with me today.

In the middle of that sentence Janet started to cry. I finally knew for sure; he fucked her. I said, “How many times?” She said in the tiniest voice, “Once.”

The day the meteor streaked across their sky, the dinosaurs must have felt exactly like I did at that moment. There was no mistaking it. Life as I knew it was at an end. My beautiful soul mate, lover and friend had spread her legs for Jim Murphy.

The little voice in my head was prompting me to be fair, since Jim Murphy had masterfully played her. But the fact remained that she had given it up to another man, without allowing me the slightest opportunity to make it right for her.

She gave me all of the gory details. She wasn’t taunting me. It was like she felt compelled to tell me EVERYTHING. It was obvious that her destruction of our marital bond was total. In about a nanosecond I went from compassionate husband to absolutely furious cuckold. I said with cold rage in my voice, “You mean to tell me that you fucked that asshole, without even giving me a chance to explain myself.”

She seemed to shrink into herself like a pillbug rolling up. I continued with, “We have been lovers, partners and life-companions for seventeen years and you let that incredible mother-fucker stick his cock in you before you even talked to me?”

She wailed, “But I believed the pictures! Murphy kept telling me that you had regularly fucked around on me and I had the hard evidence in front of me. What else could I think? I thought our marriage was over. Murphy was just THERE and safe and sympathetic and my need to be reassured simply got the better of me. Raw emotion drove my actions with him, not my head.”

I said, “You HAD a husband who loved you to distraction. You could have and should have talked to him as soon as he got home. I can understand your hesitancy when I was in San Diego. But you were only twelve miles away for six whole days. All you had to do was stop by.”

I looked at her with sadness and said, “I wouldn’t have cared if you came through the door with a shotgun in your hand, at least I could have tried to explain myself. In fact, you could have shot me and I would have felt less pain than I do right now. Your lack of trust and your weakness has ruined both of our lives.”

She collapsed in a gale of tears.

I knew that last statement was unfair but I was beyond angry. I said, trying to keep myself under control, “I need to get some distance on this so I can think it through. I am way too emotional right now. You can stay here. But I am going to move some things over to the Hilton. When I get better control of myself we can talk. I just don’t know when that is going to be.”

I went into the bedroom and packed the same bag that I had rolled off the plane from San Diego a week ago. A week that now seemed like ten centuries. I took it out to the car.

Once again, Janet did something unexpected. Rather than wailing, and clinging to me and protesting how sorry she was, like every other cheating wife, she dried her tears and walked calmly and determinedly out with me.

Her gorgeous face looked like it had been carpet bombed. But she stood forthrightly in front of me, looked me squarely in the eye and said, “I know that we are where we are because of my lack of faith in you and our marriage. I know that this is my failure and my failure alone.”

She added with conviction, “While you are away I am going to think very deeply and honestly about the insecurities and weaknesses that drove me to this and I am going to have answers for you when we talk again. I WILL tell you that I am very sorry but I WILL NOT beg you to forgive me and I will not yield to self-pity. That would be pointless. Instead, I am going to fix whatever is wrong so that you will never doubt my faith in you again.”

Then she looked intently at me, like a person who is about to put everything on one throw of the dice and said, “Do you still love me?”

Three hours ago I might have said something flippant but I knew that this was perhaps the most important answer I would ever give her and so I wanted to get it right.

Without hesitation I said, “I absolutely and unequivocally love you. This is not about whether I love you or not. It is about whether we can be together after this. And I know that I am the only person who can fix THAT.”