Steve Bellows stood quietly at the drafting table in his office, looking over the plans for one of his current projects. Things had been pretty hectic over the last while, especially on this project. For whatever reason, little glitches kept coming up, little emergencies like the one he was looking at today, or like the one that caused him to miss that party the other night. Fortunately, Steve was very skilled and knowledgeable about his work, and always seemed to be able to work out a fix for every crisis that arose.

As he contemplated the current problem, Steve suddenly thought he saw a way to deal with the concerns, make the necessary changes without jepordizing the construction schedule. Just as he started to make notes, he was interrupted by the sound of his office door opening. His initial reaction was to snap at whoever it was, because he didn't like to be interrupted, especially when he was working out a solution. But as he looked up, a smile came to his face, as he saw his wife. Donna, his wife of fifteen years, the mother of their three children was the pride of his life. While happy to see her, he was a little surprised, as she normally didn't just drop in to see him.

As Steve stepped towards Donna, intending to greet her with a hug and kiss, he pulled back, noting the rather serious expression on her face. "Donna, what a surprise, I didn't expect to see you until supper. What's wrong, is something bothering you?"

"Steve, we need to talk. But before I say anything else, believe me when I say that I love you, and that you are the most important person in my life."

The serious tone of voice set him back a bit, while not totally foreign, it wasn't one that he heard very often, and rarely if ever in a conversation between the two of them, and especially not when prefaced with a profession of love. "What is it Donna, what are you trying to tell me?" Steve said, the concern evident in his voice.

"I wish there was some easy way to say this, but there isn't. At the same time, I wish I could explain it, understand how it happened..."

"What is 'it' Donna, what are you trying to tell me" he said, a little harder edge appearing in his voice.

"I, I," Donna quivered, finally going on, "I fucked Gil Gentry""

"You what", I asked, not believing what I heard. Surely Donna wouldn't cheat on me, after all we'd often talked about couples that got burned fooling around, and how we'd never do that to each other.

"The other night, at the party you couldn't make, somehow he seduced me, I don't know how, but suddenly we were doing it..."

"How could you?" the bitterness and anger now evident in my voice, "I suppose you're hear to tell me you that you're leaving me."

"No Steve, I love you, but I had to tell you what happened, and what's happening"

"So tell me Donna, make me feel better!" the bitterness evident in my voice.

"I don't know how it happened, it just did, he seduced me and I let him. Please believe me, I feel awful, and then today Gil tried to blackmail me..." and she poured out the story of what had just happened. I found it somewhat hard to believe, first that Donna had apparently cheated on me so easily, and even moreso, that Gil Gentry, I person I'd considered a close friend would do something like that, to me, and to the others that Donna was suggesting.

As hurt and angry as I was with Donna, I couldn't let that bastard get away with it, especially after I saw the pictures, which clearly suggested a hidden camera. I knew that if I didn't act quickly, he'd get away with it, and I couldn't let that happen.

I stepped out to the front and asked Darlene to see if her brother was available, that it was an emergency. She immediately took steps to find him and get him on the line for me. I headed back to my desk to take the call when she got him for me, walking by Donna without a second glance.

"Mike, we've got a situation here that requires immediate attention. It seems that Gil Gentry has been seducing women at his office, and then blackmailing them with pictures from a hidden camera to provide sex for clients, himself and whomever he damm pleases. I know this because one of those he fucked was my so called loving wife, he just tried to blackmail her and I have the pictures. I'm afraid if we don't move quick, he'll have the camera ripped out and destroyed any other evidence." I could see Donna cringe at my remark about her, but what did I care about her feelings, after what she'd done. After I passed on a little more information, including the suspected identity of Sue Dalgreen as another victim. Sue and her husband had been a friend of Mike's, and he like most people was shocked when they divorced and her husband moved away.

After a moment, Mike asked me to meet him at the court house with the pictures in ten minutes, and he'd get a search warrant and tear the office apart. You could hear the intensity in his voice as he apologized for the potential embarrassment, but indicated that the pictures would help satisfy the judge of the need to issue the warrant.

I stood up to head to the station, and suddenly realized that Donna was still sitting there, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Yeah sure, you didn't mean to, but you did. Go home, maybe we'll talk when I get there." With that I was out the door, not even looking back at Donna, telling Darlene I was gone for the day, and only to call me if it was a dire emergency.

Before I started the car, I couldn't help myself and looked through the pictures. Pictures showing the love of my life sucking the cock of another man, of her lying on his desk with her legs spread, waiting for him, them accepting him eagerly inside her. I'd thought I really knew her, but obviously I didn't. A thousand thoughts were rolling through my head as I drove down to meet Mike, "What should I do, should I kill her, kill Gil or what. Why would he do that, we were best friends, and best friends wouldn't do that to each other, would they? Was my marriage over, why would I want it not to be? What had I done to drive Donna to do this to me, to us."

One thing for sure, I wanted them to pay for what they'd done. Looking back now, I realized that while I knew that Gil had to be the truly guilty one, after all the set up for the pictures made it clear he'd planned something, I still felt Donna was equally at fault. After all, she could have said no, she could have stopped him, but no, she sucked his cock and fucked him.

The next few hours were a blur, I met with Mike who after talking with me a few minutes, went into the judge's office, and came out with a search warrant. After assuring me that they'd get that bastard, he told me to go home. He promised to get back to me as soon as he could to tell me what they'd found.

I wasn't ready to face Donna yet, so I told him to call me on my cel, and headed out in my truck. There really wasn't anywhere I wanted to go, or needed to be. So I just drove around aimlessly, waiting for my phone to ring. It seemed like forever, but finally Mike called.

"Steve, I can't give you all the details, but we got there just in time. It looked like your friend Gil was about to remove the evidence, but he wasn't quick enough. I wish you could have seen his face when I handed him the warrant and told him to stick around in his waiting room. Well, to make a long story short, we found the camera, and a link to his computer. One of my men is a bit of an expert, and sure enough, he found lots of pictures. It may not be any consolation to you, but Donna was only one of many. Sad to say, we both know a lot of them, and yes, Sue was one to. From what I can figure out, Gil slipped a little something into their drink, and that made it pretty easy for him."

Mike kept going, "I know you're pissed at Donna, and to some degree I can't blame you. But think things over carefully, I don't think she really had a chance."

Mike went on to say a bit more, but most of it just passed over my head, until he told me that Gil had been placed under arrest for sexual assault and extortion. "With any luck, he'll be gone for a few years."

In some ways that was music to my ears, but in others, it just intensified the pain I felt over Donna's betrayal. Maybe it hadn't been deliberate, but still she could have stopped him, she could have fought it, but she didn't. I still wasn't sure what I was going to do, but knew that I needed to confront her.

To put it mildly, things didn't go well. On the bright side, Donna had arranged for the kids to spend the night with friends, so we didn't have to worry about them walking in on us, or hearing us fight. But that was about the only good thing.

I'm not sure what I expected to hear, or for that matter, wanted to hear, but whatever it was it wasn't heard. Donna kept telling me how sorry she was, and how she loved me, but she couldn't tell me why. I tried to ask her what I'd done to make her do that, and even though she told me nothing, it didn't make me feel any better. Donna assured me that she'd never do anything like it again, but how could I trust her? I'd never thought she would be unfaithful, after all, she'd already stood up in front of our family and friends and made a vow so many years ago, a vow that had clearly been broken.

After going back and forth a while, it was clear that nothing was going to be settled. I told Donna that I needed time to think, to decide if we were through, or if we could work things out, and she needed to give me time. She agreed to go and visit her sister for a few days, leaving me at home to contemplate my future.

It's a good thing the kids weren't home, I don't think they like to see their old man get drunk, but that's just what I did, for the first time in a long time. I sat there refilling my glass and thinking back over the years. Remembering how we'd met, and fallen in love, thinking about the first time we'd made love.

I woke up the next morning feeling a little the worse for wear. After I staggered to the bathroom and swallowed a few painkillers, I stood under the shower, trying to look ahead, but only seeing what had been, and what had been ripped apart by Donna's action. No matter how I tried to find any silver lining, all I could see was Donna sucking on Gil's cock.

By the end of the morning, I knew I had to get out and get some fresh air. I changed into my running gear and headed out to the park, figuring a good run might do me some good. It was about half an hour after I started when I got up to another jogger. I really wasn't paying much attention, automatically moving over to the side of the path to go by her. Just as I passed her, lost in my thoughts, I heard her call me by name, "Steve, please stop, I have to talk to you"

Surprised I pulled up and looked back, it was Nancy, Gil Gentry's wife. My first reaction was to ignore her and race away, but one look at her face had me feeling that I was looking in a mirror, for she bore the same haunted look about her that I'd viewed when brushing my teeth that morning. Instinctively I knew that as much as I wanted to swear at her for what her husband had done to me, that I had to listen to her, because she was obviously a victim as well.

I pulled off the path, and waited for Nancy to catch up, hesitating, not sure what I should say. Fortunately she spoke to me first, "Steve, please believe me when I say I didn't know what he was doing. I can't believe he did that, to Donna, and the others" As she spoke, a tear trickled out of the corner of her eye, and slid down her cheek. Nancy went on to tell me of the shock she'd experienced when she got a phone call that Gil had been arrested, and that the police were coming over to their house with a search warrant. She told me that they took the computer and a bunch of disks with them when they left, as well as leaving quite a mess in the computer room.

As other joggers moved on by us, casting strange looks at the two of us, I realized we should move elsewhere to continue this conversation, and was surprised when she suggested we go to her house, albeit a little morosely, "After all, nobody else will be coming home."

I followed her there, thinking how past visits had been different, with Donna by my side, other friends present, friendly, joyful encounters. Today it felt vastly different as I walked inside with just the two of us, two bruised souls trying to understand what had happened to us.

We sat and talked, and she explained that yes, she knew that Gil always looked at, and even flirted with most of their female friends, but thought that all of us guys did that. I had to acknowledge yes, we all probably did, after all, I'd flirted with Nancy herself a few times, and had known that Donna had flirted with Gil, and several of our other friends. But in my case, and Nancy's, and so I had thought Donna's, looking and flirting was all we had done, well, maybe a bit of fantasizing from time to time.