A scene so familiar, a drama ubiquitous - who has not seen, from Shakespeare to soap opera, the tragedy of someone discovering his or her mate *in flagrante delicto*? But when there is no falling curtain nor rolling of closing credits to remind one that it's all just fiction and fantasy, the cold wave of shock and the wrenching in the gut seem entirely unique and unprecedented. The evidence of betrayal, in whatever form, reaches within to the very foundations of one's self- respect, sundering them, and leaves a blinding, obsessive pain in its wake. One becomes utterly convinced that nobody, anywhere, at any time, has ever suffered such exquisite agony.

This was to be my experience on this particular October afternoon. I'd put in a truly heroic effort to complete the project entrusted to me before the deadline and my boss had appreciated it, giving me a wide smile and two days off - "mental-health days" as they're sometimes euphemistically called. How could he know - how could either of us know - that this day would be anything but a time to refresh my own mental health?

I hadn't taken any particular notice when Maddie hadn't responded to my announcement that I was home. Her car was in the driveway but she could have been anywhere in the house or outside in the yard. Loosening my tie, I had barely begun the casual walk to the bedroom when my movements and my thoughts were sharply arrested by a sound, a sound that had so often been the cause of great pleasure to me, but at that moment was like the cold pressure of a revolver barrel against my temple. It was that familiar, breathless sigh I knew so well when my wife's sweet, tender and extraordinarily beautiful body was meshed with mine. That light soprano had so often spurred me to heights of passion, but now it formed a demonic duet with the deeper rasp of a male voice not my own.

My feet seemed nailed to the carpet where I stood. I felt my face turn ashen as the blood seemed to be draining from it and my hands took on a growing agitation that quickly expanded through my entire body. The nausea was beginning and tears welled up in my eyes - the caustic kind, the kind that burn and scar.

At a time like this one is torn between a driving need to see and know everything and a wish to turn away and deny the reality. Yet, with rare exceptions, the former wins.

So it was that my feet, released from their momentary paralysis, began the silent walk to the bedroom. Led by an unholy compulsion, I peeked cautiously through the half-opened door and witnessed just what I knew I would: Maddie, eyes closed and face contorted with the fires of sex, meeting the thrusts of a man deep inside her, a man I had never seen before. As thousands have before me, I prepared to barge in, to assert my rightful place and express my consuming rage in whatever way my instincts led me. Yet something held me in check. A fleeting recollection of the many tragic outcomes of just such yielding to impulse and subsequent regret stopped me, just in time. Something I'd seen somewhere and probably can't quote correctly read, "He who acts in anger rides a mad horse." Something like that. Regardless of how accurate my memory of the exact wording, the message was clear: whatever you do, Richard, do it when you'd had a chance to cool off a bit and think it over. Seek first calm, then satisfaction. You'll be glad of it later on.

With some deliberate concentration I was able to hold my place, standing back in the semi-darkness of the hall so that they would not notice me. That wasn't too likely anyway, considering their preoccupation with the business at hand. Minutes passed as my bemused mind absorbed the crime being enacted before me. As I did, I was dimly aware that, mixed in somewhere with the bitterness of betrayal there was a certain, wispy tendril of excitement. The deeply-engraved patterns of pleasure at the simple sight of my wife in the depths of passion somehow aligned with the memory of our oft-repeated couplings to draw forth an unexplainable twinge of arousal. What I was seeing was the right thing, but with the wrong man. The two thoughts became inseparable, though the bitterness vastly overshadowed that wraith of diversion.

As time passed, however, the peak of rage began to simmer into an intense, yet more calm and reasoned anger. Some ability to call upon my higher cranial powers reasserted itself, and something from my knowledge of such situations was recalled. Very often a spouse strays as a subconscious protest against what is perceived as neglectful or abusive treatment. Sometimes it's more a sense of growing separation, as if two who were once lovers had become more like roommates, sharing a domicile and a bed but little beyond that. Psychologists are pretty much in agreement on this; affairs, at least sustained ones, most often are caused by just these things.

Yet I couldn't possibly believe they applied to Maddie and me. Though we had an argument now and then like any couple, they seemed to be the kind that clear the air instead of injure. In all seven years together I couldn't recall a single time that our differences had descended to attacking each other instead of the issue at hand, and I truly believed we both felt safe expressing our concerns to each other without fear of rebuke or retribution. And as recently as the night before we had joined in sex and it was beyond argument that our intensity and pleasure then had been far and away greater than what I saw before me.

I became increasingly convinced that this wasn't the product of any deep-seated resentment; it must be a fluke, a momentary loss of control, and perhaps something that could be dealt with more easily than I'd thought - not without pain, but less painfully than it could have been. And that calmed me further. The biting pang of betrayal was by no means lifting but it was stepping back, as if to bide its time until sometime later when this all could be resolved in an atmosphere of reason.

And that inchoate excitement was mounting. Bizarre threads of stimulation formed and thickened, as if I were watching an especially well-made erotic movie, only much better since the players were real; the action was real, and one of them was the woman who, despite it all, I still loved.

A decision was made, one that left me at once certain and incredulous. I took a deep breath, paused, then strode purposefully into the room

Maddie's moans of pleasure turned instantly into a cry of terror. Her eyes widened with shock and she cringed back, clutching the bedclothes as if to find some protection from them, and the quivering so recently driven by passion was now driven by fear instead.

The man seemed uncertain whether to cut and run, to stand and fight or to try to placate me with submissive obedience. He seemed to settle on the third option as I, with a stern but not enraged countenance, scanned the scene before me.

None of us spoke; none of us had any idea what could be said. But then I saw alarm on their faces become mixed with confusion and incredulity as I began removing my clothes! In deliberate, measured movements I shucked my suit jacket, my tie and shirt, and then the rest, finally reclining nude beside my terrified wife.

She knew me well enough to know that I have no inclination whatsoever toward violence, though she may well have believed at some point that the extreme provocation I had just had foisted upon me might have brought about an exception. But my actions clearly had obviated that possibility and she visibly relaxed, though only slightly.

I looked her straight in the eyes and I then discovered within me a certain sense of power. I shall set the agenda here and they will follow; that I knew beyond doubt. Yet even I was not entirely the writer of the script; instincts that baffled me as much as them were actually in control.

My eyes shifted from her eyes to her breast and I approached it with my hands and lips. In a way so familiar, yet under circumstances so utterly unimaginable, I began kissing and sucking on her nipple, my fingertips tracing the underside of her wonderfully-formed breast. Her eyes seemed to grow even wider as fear and possibility chased each other across her features. Her erstwhile partner seemed no less amazed and he remained in his place, frozen in apprehension and uncertainty.

I motioned to him to do what I was doing and, with reluctance, he approached to do so, his eyes darting from me to Maddie's other nipple, as if he were half expecting me to take advantage of his diverted attention to bash his head in. But gradually even that apprehension passed and Maddie began actually responding, as if her own anxiety were stepping aside in deference to arousal, just as my own rage had done moments earlier.

She had never felt both her breasts being stimulated that way and in time I began to see that she was actually becoming the wife I knew, a woman of deep passion and sensitivity, and her fire was igniting again.

Still no more able to understand my actions than they were, I heard myself address the young man, "I believe you and Maddie were engaged in a particular activity when I interrupted you. Please, if you will, feel free to resume."

Not very surprisingly, the guy was in no condition to resume anything. I asked Maddie, still affecting that stiff formality, to assist him. Still wary but nevertheless excited, she moved to place herself before him and took his flaccid cock in her mouth. Eyes glancing frequently at me, she began sucking him, hesitatingly at first, but then gradually growing in her enthusiasm. Like Maddie and me before him, the fellow began to unconsciously set aside his anxiety and respond to her skillful ministrations and in time he had regained a splendid erection. As Maddie settled down on the bed he took his place between her legs and, with a final, questioning glance at me, placed his cockhead against my wife's moist lips and again buried himself within her.

There was certainly a restraint in their coupling that had not been there before my arrival, but it was vigorous anyway. And, even at the sight of this stranger fucking the woman I loved, my sense of being in control had, at least for the moment, set aside the insecurity that had been part of my initial reaction, opening the path to full realization of that theretofore tenuous arousal. The result was a rampant erection of my own, one that did not go unnoticed by the others who now saw that, beyond question, I was no longer a threat, at least for the moment.

Perhaps it was nervousness; perhaps it was that he was just plain ready, but he didn't last long. With a few powerful strokes into her he spilled his seed. I was by then totally absorbed by excitement and when he had withdrawn I took his place, my eager member becoming thrilled with this unique experience. For the time being this man was not an intruder, but a guest: a guest in my home, and a guest in my wife. How I'd feel about it all later I couldn't predict, but at that moment, that's how it was.