Edited by the Great and very helpful Barney R All mistakes and omissions are mine.

She told me she lost her rings when they fell in the sink as she was washing her hands. That is not what I understood.

Author’s note: This subject and premise have been used by a couple of different authors. This is my take on the idea.

Cheating, BTB

Mary was very upset when she returned from her latest business trip.

I asked what she was upset about.

She started tearing up as she said; “I lost my wedding band and engagement ring at the hotel. We had ribs for dinner, and after eating, I took them off to wash my hands. I reached for them and knocked them into the sink and they went down the drain.” She wailed; “I’m so sorry.”

“Did you call the maintenance people? The rings would be stuck in the ess trap.” She knew I understood plumbing. I worked in a plumbing shop summers while in college.

“No, I didn’t think of it? I will call them right now if they find them we can drive there and pick them up this weekend.” With that she went into the extra bedroom (we used it as a sort of home office) to use the extension there. I picked up the kitchen phone and listened to the daily horoscope recording.

Mary and I grew up in the same neighborhood as her family lived just down the street from us. Neither family was rich, but probably would be considered lower middle class.

She is a little more than two years younger than me. We were in the same school from my second grade and her kindergarten until I went away to college. We walked to school together, and in a lot of respects, we were more like siblings then neighbors. She came to me when she had problems with bullies, stinky friends, stupid boys, etc...

We did not date until I returned to my home for spring break in my sophomore year in college. Mary was upset because she had broken up with her longtime boyfriend because he was also dating another girl. She was doubly upset because she lost her date for the senior prom. She had already paid a bundle for her dress. Jason, the jerk she was going out with told her he dated others because she ‘would not put out’.

I stepped up and asked Mary if she would be my date. She squealed and chanted “Yes ... yes ... yes...” and grabbed me in a bear hug.

I knew it was important to my friend, so I would do what was necessary. I had done very well on my summer job and had almost five weeks to plan, so I decided to go all out. I got a hotel room, (with her mother’s permission), made dinner reservations at the trendiest restaurant in town, and made sure that my tux was ready and fit properly.

The night started out nicely, Mary was wowed by the corsage. She was blown away with the dinner, and we made a very dramatic entrance into the country club ballroom. Mary would have been spectacular in burlap but her in a light green off the shoulder gown was an eye-catcher and neck strainer. Because I was a ‘college guy’ we definitely had our entrance and our presence got a lot of attention. We danced all of the slow dances and some of the fast dances.

I was pleased that my mother had enrolled me in a ballroom dance after school class when I was a junior in high school. It also helped that Mary had used me for practice when we were both going to dances. We moved like we were clones or mind-melded.

For the dances that I set out, quite a few guys came over and asked Mary to dance, but if they did not ask me first, she said no thanks. When Jason came over Mary just turned her back to him. He walked away and said in a stage whisper, “I’ll get that cold bitch, and when I do she’ll know what it means to be fucked.”

I did not say anything to Mary but kept an eye on Jason, and when he went to the men’s room I followed. “Jason, you said something where you knew I would hear it; so, hear this. I don’t care if you do it, a stranger does it, or an ‘act of god’ does it, but if Mary gets assaulted or hurt, I will make you pay. Do you understand me punk?” To make sure he understood I took a couple of steps toward him.

He didn’t say anything but pissed his pants before he could get them unzipped.

I left and got a fresh glass of punch. When I went back to Mary another young lady was sitting with her. Mary introduced her as a classmate Karen Wheeler. Mary told me that Karen was here at the dance with Jason. I said hello and could see the lady was upset about something.

“Karen, I can see you’re upset about something. What’s bothering you?”

“Jason has done nothing all evening except say what he is going to do to you and Mary because he was dumped by her. Then after he just got done coming out of the bathroom, he slapped me and said he was going to ‘fuck you up so bad you won’t be able to walk’. I’m scared, and my folks are out of town because I was supposed to stay out all night.”

“Karen, Mary doesn’t know it but her mother allowed me to reserve a hotel room for tonight. It is a three-room suite with two bedrooms. You are more than welcome to stay with us. I will use the pullout and you can have one room and Mary the other. Would you like that?”

I got mobbed by two very sexy ladies and kisses from Mary. Mary whispered to me; “That is the sweetest thing, but I expected nothing less from you. I want you to know that I could easily fall in love with you. You are not going to sleep on a pull-out. My bed is your bed, and you will be my first lover.”

I was gobsmacked, I had secretly been infatuated with her since I found out girls did not have cooties. I gently grabbed her hand and leaned in and kissed her.

The night was everything I could have wanted. Mary was an enthusiastic lover and said that she did not have any pain when we made love.

When Mary graduated that June, she informed any and all who would listen that she was going to the same college where I will be a junior. Her mother and my mother both asked me to watch out for her at school. I talked them into us renting an off campus apartment and pay her housing cost toward the rent.

We found a great duplex at a very reasonable price. The landlord’s family lived in the other half. We invited both sets of parents to inspect and approve. They saw that the five-room two-bedroom (actually three, but we planned to use the third for a study) place was more than they expected. The bedrooms were on opposite ends of the layout.

We got Mary registered and got her classes lined up. She was majoring in accounting. I was planning on becoming a teacher, so my major was secondary education. My minors (double minor) were computer science and mathematics.

We got her settled into campus life, and as a junior, I had experience with the classes Mary had to take as a freshman. I helped her and many of her friends when asked. We had not progressed to a commitment stage yet but enjoyed occasional nights in each other’s bed.

Mary made the Dean’s list each semester and adjusted to college life as she had always been there. I never tried to suppress her desire to experience campus activities, but I stepped in when she went to an end of year frat party with one of the BMOCs and he had her set up to pull a train. One of her classmate’s friends called me about their plans and I went to the frat house just as a drugged or drunk Mary was being led to the stairs.

The frat was noticeably upset that the entertainment for the night had a protector. When I told them that if she did not leave with me, the campus police would be informed of all of the illegal substances that were on the premises; they stepped away from her and let her drop to the floor.

She was only semi-conscious when I got her into my car, so I took her to an off-campus emergency room and explained what I thought had happened.

The medicos gave Mary a complete drug screen and discovered that besides acute alcohol poisoning, there was cocaine and Rohypnol in her system.

I called the local police, not the campus police as I wanted an uninterested party to investigate. There had been some on-campus incidents that were covered up by the school to avoid adverse publicity. The local police had a good rep.

The fallout was spectacular; the frat was closed, the drugs were found, and several of the members spent some time in jail. The school was sued by several students and former students because of the opening of the campus police files that showed the cover-ups. Mary decided to go to a different all-female college the next year (paid for by the frat and the college with an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement).

I still had a year to go, and my name was not connected to the scandal so I could not transfer with her, but she gave me a spectacular going away night.

I graduated and was hired as a math and computer teacher at a charter school in a large city in the Midwest. It was affiliated with the college that Mary was attending, so we reconnected and this time I ask her to be exclusive. She agreed.

She was now a junior and had not joined the campus activities. I was new to the area, so we both explored the area. We found several non-professional and semi-professional theatre groups in the area so we could, if we wanted, go to a live play every other week. We also found two different symphony orchestras and a couple of string quartets so we could enjoy classical music. The Jazz scene was also jumping so we never lacked for entertainment.

I had been writing software programs as a sideline, and several of my apps was purchased by Microsoft and the Google Play store. I made a medium six-figure income from those apps that year, and so I bought a house in the country on a twenty-five-acre property. I was teaching, and writing, so there were some times where Mary just came to the house and we enjoyed our time together.