Chapter 1: My Story

This is a story about a Loving Wife that decides that maybe things aren't all that bad and if no one knows, it should be fine. Her husband disagrees and takes action.

Thanks as always to Angel Love for her editing and her encouragement. I have assured her that my literary style is not her fault. She does try to keep me honest.

I felt quite good as I watched my son and daughter leave. It was good to see them and to know that they were here for me. I had spent some time alone with Peter, turning over the business to him and making sure he was willing to take it over. He was studying business and I knew he wanted to run it someday but not this soon. Becky had no interest in the business but she was willing to help Peter if he needed it. They were great kids and I was proud of both of them.

I had not seen Polly, my wife and had made sure she was not permitted into my room. I had no wish to talk to her. What she had done led me to do what I had done. I would not and could not ever forgive her. The kids pleaded with me to talk with her but I refused. I wished not to speak to her ever again. But now, it was time to speak to my lawyer. He was court appointed as I had turned over all of my assets and my power of attorney to my son so I had no funds of my own. The nurse told me he was here and I agreed to talk with him.

The nurse told him not to stay too long. She made sure he understood that I was still weak and I was still in pain so the medications may make me groggy. She told me to press the call button if I needed her. With a smile, she left the room.

The man assigned to my case was a very large and very poorly dressed man who had obviously seen better days. He asked if he could take down my story both in longhand and on tape. I guess he was not very quick with the pen so I assented. It was quite a story but most of you have already read about some of it in the papers. I was told that it was also on TV. How about that? Well, I'll try to fill in the gaps but it won't really change much. This is my story.

My name is Mitch Holland, and my wife is Polly Holland. We have been married 23 years and we have two children, Peter and Becky. They are in college, Peter is a senior and Becky a sophomore. They both go to Youngstown State.

I graduated in 1982, went to work as an engineer for a local civil engineering concern and learned enough to leave in 1989 to start my own business. You may have heard of it as well: Holland Contracting. Our business is construction, primarily large projects like malls and office buildings and the like. I have been in business for almost 17 years now, starting with a small crew and growing into a major business with 114 employees.

Polly and I met in college. We were both local and we shared a course our senior year, hers as a major and mine as an elective. She was a business major and that was her field. I was trying to fill academic credit requirements. To make a long story short, we met, she was willing to help me learn enough to pass the course and we began dating. We dated all through that senior year and after graduation. She found a job with a financial concern and we were able to see each other fairly often. We were married a year later.

She continued to work until Peter came along. She finally stopped in her 7^th month and she stayed home after that with Peter and then about a year and a half later, Becky came along. Polly was a great mother and homemaker and she seemed quite happy to be both. As the kids grew, she became a typical soccer mom, running the kids everywhere and to everything. She was content.

Our life as husband and wife was typical. We had our ups and downs, early on with money worries and then later, with pressures from kids and their needs. We always seemed to find the time to be with each other and we had a good life together for the most part. I loved her and I thought she loved me. Our sex life was good, then bad and non existent, and then on again. We had finally settled into a comfortable routine of sex on weekends and sometimes during the week if both of us were feeling frisky. Our sex was conventional, some might say vanilla, but she was always satisfied and I never had a problem. She often said that sex was just good fun and I was all she needed. I felt the same.

I would have to say that things changed about a year after Becky left for college. While the kids were close enough that we could see them fairly often, they choose to stay on campus. This gave Polly free time, time that she had never had since the kids were born. I guess you could say she had time on her hands. It was OK for a while but then boredom got the upper hand. We had the 'conversation' as I now think of it one weekend. We had been sitting out on the patio with our weekly ration of beer when she let me have the introduction.

"Mitch? I've been thinking. I'd like to go back to work. I've kept up in my field and I think I could do some kind of work with temporary accounting or bookkeeping. What would you think about it?"

"Well, first I need to catch up with you. Where did this come from? It's the first I've heard about it."

"I've just been thinking. With the kids gone, I'm left without a lot to do. The house is no trouble and we haven't joined any clubs or such. I'm bored. You're working a lot more lately and I'm alone in the evenings with nothing to do and nobody to talk to."

"Well, I guess that's true. We don't need the money, even with the kids in college, but you should have some that you could call your own. Do you really want to do this?"

"Yes, I do. I was thinking I could sign up with a temporary agency and tell them I would like to work just a couple of days a week. Maybe just two. What do you think?"

"I'd say, go for it. You have my support."

Well, that was the beginning of the end as I remember it now. That's exactly what she did. She went down the next day and signed up with a local temp service and over the next six months, she worked off and on for a number of clients and seemed to be doing very well. She wasn't making a lot of money but she seemed to like being busy again. I saw a change in her about that time: she joined a gym and started working out and losing weight. She bought herself some new clothes with her earnings and she also spent some for the kids, giving them new coats and some other things they both needed. She was also far more amorous, initiating sex more often. I thought that it had to do with her newfound conditioning and her contentment at being busy. Actually, that's exactly what it was. For a while.

Polly continued to work off and on until one day in September of that year. I had come home from work, concerned about some of the specs on a job that I was bidding on when Polly asked me if she could talk to me. I answered in the affirmative of course. I asked her to sit with me in my den and I gave her my full attention. She seemed nervous and I wanted to let her tell me whatever was bothering her. She sat down across from me, clasping her hands in her lap. She wet her lips and began.

"I was offered a job by a gentleman that I have done work for several times. He's someone like you. He owns his own business and he needs a part time bookkeeper. He would only need me two days a week and only for four hours each day. It would be from five to nine in the evening and he would even provide transportation so that I wouldn't be alone at night. It's $150 a week."

I considered this but couldn't see why it made her so nervous. It sounded like a really good gig and the money was fine. Almost $19/hour. Better than she was making as a temp. I told her so and asked why she was so nervous.

"Well, it's an evening job and I didn't know how you'd feel about that. It's only two nights a week and I would be home the rest of the time. It's good money for a few hours and I could really make plans knowing exactly when I was going to be working. So, it's OK with you?"

"It's fine with me. Can you tell me who he is and what he does?"

"His name is Conrad Menkous and he's in transportation. I think he owns a fleet of trucks and moves things across the US. He seems to be quite rich. He has an office in his home and that's where I would be working, but there's also a staff on site so I wouldn't be there alone. It's certainly on the up and up."

Well, we agreed and Polly started the next week. I did some checking and found Conrad among the names linked to interstate trucking so that appeared to be consistent. I found no flags and nothing to be concerned about. I Googled him and found that he was about 10 years older than I and unmarried. Seems harmless and Polly liked the job. She was almost always home by 9:30 so we moved into a new routine with her out two nights a week when I fended for myself for dinner. She always came home stuffed from the leftovers served to Mr. Menkous for dinner. Polly said the cook brought her a plate when he ate. Life went on.

Just before Christmas Polly told me that she was invited to a cocktail party at Conrad's home one evening. It was for some of his clients and he wanted her to meet some of them so that she would have a better idea of whom she was dealing with when she saw their names. She apologized for not inviting me but that was Conrad's request. He didn't want her to think it was a social affair. It was business only. I understood, or at least I told her I did and she was pleased.

On the night of the party, she came down dressed in a short black dress that was cut low in the front and deep in the back. She had on high heels and a string of cultured pearls that I had given her for Christmas the year before. It was the first time she had worn them since I had given them to her. I was taken aback by her appearance and I guess she sensed my displeasure. She immediately got defensive and irritated.

"You know why I dressed this way. Conrad is a very important man and he needs me to reflect that to his guests. It's professional and business only. You have no reason to be upset. Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you. But you've never dressed like that for any of my affairs. I'm not sure I appreciate it."

"Well, get over it. This is important for me tonight and I want to look my best. It's only a party, for God's sake. There's the car. I have to go. Don't wait up."

With that she was gone and I was alone for the first time in years. My wife was at a party and I was here at home. I didn't like it and I resented her. I pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam and indulged myself. I indulged too much apparently and fell asleep on the couch and didn't hear a thing until late the next morning. Since it was Saturday Polly let me sleep. She finally woke me with a cup of coffee at sometime after 10:00. She saw the whiskey and my glass and my condition and put two and two together and let me have it. She hated for me to drink and she told me so. She said she came home and went to bed, expecting me to be there and found me down here, soused to the gills. She slept alone and she was not happy about it. I apologized and we spent a cool morning until she finally relented. The rest of the weekend went fine and the next week was Christmas and I had time off.

Our kids came home and we had a wonderful Christmas together. Things were good, the kids were doing well and happy at school and we had some nice gifts, in part because of the money Polly was bringing in. She had money to spend on frivolous things for the kids. The only bummer was that Polly did have to go in to work the Thursday after Christmas as usual. We let it go and the kids and I spent the evening together. It was a good holiday time but it finally ended and the kids went back to school and I went back to work.

For the next month, nothing out of the ordinary happened until one day I was having lunch with one of my clients when he asked me if I knew a man by the name of Conrad Menkous. I told him I knew who he was and asked why he was interested. He told me that he had attended a party at his place just before Christmas and had met a woman there with the same last name as mine. He described her as the hostess for the party. For some reason, I didn't tell him that the 'hostess' was my wife. I just asked him why he brought it up. He went on to tell me that she was a very beautiful woman and that she seemed to be more than just a hostess. He said Conrad had his arm around her all evening and they even kissed a few times. He just wondered if it was anyone I knew. I told him no and he just said that it was too bad since she was really hot and Conrad was a lucky guy. He said that maybe Conrad had finally found a wife for himself. We finished lunch and parted.

As you can imagine, I was disturbed for the rest of that day and I finally told my secretary that I was going home early. This was one of the days that Polly worked for Conrad so I knew that she would be getting ready to go to his place when I got home. Usually, she was gone when I got there since she worked from 5:00 on and I was typically not home until after six. This time would be different. I drove home, curious as to what I would see.

I pulled into my drive and went in to find Polly just coming out of the shower. She told me that she had spent the day working in her flower garden and was dirty and sweaty so she took a quick shower before work. She dressed then in a conservative pair of slacks and a long sleeved blouse, ready to go to work. She grabbed her briefcase and set it in the hall and came in to talk to me and find out why I was home so early.

I told her then that I wasn't feeling well and I needed to come home. I told her my stomach was upset and I had a headache. She seemed concerned and tried to take my temperature but I just brushed her aside and told her to go to her damned job and I would take care of myself. I was not sick, I was angry and uncertain of my wife and I felt like hell. I didn't have a damned temperature, I was just hot under the collar. I didn't tell her any of that but that's what I was feeling at the time.

She seemed to accept my story so she must have decided that she should act like a concerned wife. She went to the phone in the kitchen. She called someone and I heard her say that she wouldn't be coming in tonight and not to send the car. She said she would call later to let them know if she was coming in another time. She hung up and came over to me.

"There. Now there's no need to worry. I'm not going in so you can just relax. I'll take care of you so you just go up to bed and I'll fix some hot tea and bring it up to you. Go on now, go!"

I remember going to bed and wondering how my life had gone to hell so quickly without my knowing about it. I guess I had gone from skepticism to belief in just a short time. I tried to determine why I was so willing to accept the fact that my wife was cheating on me without any proof and just the word of someone at a party. I began to put things together. First, she was working at a man's house. Second, he was sending a car for her. Third, she seemed to be very tired and never in the mood for sex with me on Tuesday and Thursday nights the same nights she worked. Forth, she was buying the kids things we couldn't really afford. She always told me that since she was working, she was willing to charge some things knowing she would have the money coming in to pay for them, but the amounts she was spending didn't add up. Finally, the visual proof that George, my client saw the night of the Christmas party. Polly told me she was a guest. George told me she was the hostess and acted as if she was Conrad's mistress.

Well, I decided to see what I could confirm over the next few days. I let her take care of me that night and went back in to work the next day. I came up with a plan to do some snooping. First, I wanted a look in her briefcase. She kept it locked when she was home but I knew where she kept the key. I knew that Becky would call her that evening and they usually talked for about 30 or 40 minutes when she did. I was going to search her briefcase during the phone call. Now, all I had to do was wait.

Just past 9:00 Becky called. I waited for about five minutes and then walked into our bedroom and into her closet. The briefcase was there and I had taken the key from her key ring earlier. I grabbed the case, took it into the spare bedroom and opened it. The first thing I noticed was that there was nothing in there. No papers, no calculator, no notebooks, nothing that had to do with accounting or bookkeeping. It appeared to be more of a prop than a working briefcase. I almost stopped there but decided to go the whole way since I was in. I searched all the pockets and slots and finally found a single picture inside one of the pockets. I pulled it out and my heart dropped through the floor.

In the picture, Polly had on thong panties and a pushup bra but the bra was shoved up almost to her neck and her tits were hanging down as a man was fucking her from behind. I could see clearly his cock buried inside her as her panties were pushed off to the side. The look on her face seemed to be one of pleasure, her eyes closed and her mouth open. I remember just making it to the spare bathroom where I spewed my guts up. My stomach was clenched so tightly it was painful and I was having trouble catching my breath. I finally cleaned myself up and went back to put things back the way they were. As I took one last look at that picture, I turned it over to see an inscription. It said, 'I have lots more of these so just remember that.' It was signed with a big 'C'. I assumed for Conrad. Rather than put the picture back, I kept it, putting it in my wallet behind my driver's license. Let her wonder what had happened to it.

I put the briefcase back and sat on the bed for the next 10 minutes, pulling myself together. I needed to decide what to do now. I knew she was cheating on me. I believed she was a willing participant because the look on her face was not one of pain and to make it worse, she was getting paid for it. She continued to go to work and she never asked me for help. She never let me know that she was unhappy in our marriage and she never said that I didn't satisfy her sexually. If she had, we could have worked it out or divorced or something. Not this. This was not acceptable to me. I finally decided that I was going to insist that she quit first and then we would work out what to do next. I was not sure I could forgive her, but maybe I could try. I did still love her and I loved our family. I wouldn't give it up easily.

That night, after the phone call, I told her that I had been thinking and I wanted her to quit her job. She was caught by surprise and she had nothing to say at first, but she then began to tell me all the reasons why she shouldn't quit. I listened but none of them were important to me. We talked back and forth for the next two hours but I remained adamant. She finally went to bed in tears and I slept in the spare room that night. Things were not good.

I went to work the next day without having spoken to her and tried to put things into some perspective. I couldn't even begin to make progress and knew that her decision was going to be the deciding factor. I went home to find her sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. When I came in, she came to me and put her arms around me.

"I'll call today and resign. I can't go on with you sleeping away from me and not talking to me. No job is worth that. I'm sorry for last night. I love you Mitch and I'm not going to lose you."

With that, she called someone and told them that she was not coming in and that she would make an appointment with Conrad and tell him she was resigning. She listened and finally agreed to a meeting the next day at 3:00 in his office. She hung up and turned to me with a smile and assured me that things would be better now. She would resign tomorrow and we could then work together to make things like they used to be.

Now, it is important to understand that at that point, I had decided that I was going to try to save my marriage. I know all of the reasons why I should just dump her cheating ass but I just couldn't bring myself to end it that way. I can't tell you why, but I just felt that I couldn't live without her in my life. I was not going to tell her what I knew and I was going to forgive her and go forward. That's how I felt and I went to work the next day with high hopes. Things were going to be OK.

At work, things went to hell in a hurry. We were working on a strip mall in the southern part of the city and we were on a deadline to open before the seasonal rush. Things were tight but we were on schedule. Until that day. Suddenly, our deliveries of cement, building blocks, lumber and other supplies were being delayed, misrouted or cancelled. Suddenly all our truck deliveries were delayed. It continued all day and into the next day without any resolution. I spent most of my time on the phone to suppliers and contractors but they all said that they weren't responsible. They had loaded the trucks but they had no idea of why they never made it to the site. I was confused and angry until I suddenly remembered what Conrad Menkous did for a living. He was in Transportation and owned a fleet of trucks and delivery vehicles. He controlled shipping and transportation around this area. Now, it made sense!

Now I knew what had happened. Conrad was not happy that I had messed up his arrangement with his mistress. He was content with the setup and he was not going to let me change it. The son of a bitch was using his trucks to blackmail me. Well, I was not going to let him do this, but I was not sure what I could do without proof. As I was sitting there stewing and trying to decide what steps to take, my secretary buzzed me to tell me there was a Mr. Menkous to see me. I was really taken aback by that but decided then and there to deal with him. I told her to show him in.

Conrad Menkous was a big man. Taller than me and heavier by a good 50 pounds. He had a deep tan and his hair was long and wavy with a good deal of gray mixed with black. He was dressed casually but I could tell that his jacket and slacks cost more than I brought home in a month. He moved to the desk and reached to shake my hand as I stood up. I left my hands at my side as I told him to sit. The angry flash in his eyes told me he got the message. He sat and began immediately without any small talk.

"You know who I am and you know why I am here. I'll be blunt. I want your wife to return to work for me under the present agreement. I will increase her 'salary' to $1000 a week from the $500 I'm now giving her. She continues to do as I wish and your business will go back to its previous schedule but with the added advantage of having preferential treatment during scheduling. I'll see to that. This way, you have your wife all but eight hours a week and we both get what we want."

He stopped to see if I had anything to say but I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to see what this son of a bitch would say next.

"Now that we understand each other, I may wish for her to attend certain gatherings at my home, with a bonus for each one of course. If you prefer, I can have the bonus paid directly to you. I won't expect your answer today. I want Polly to be at my home Thursday just as before. If she doesn't come as scheduled, I will have to take further action. Do I make myself clear? Good."

With that, he rose and left my office. I just sat there for the next 15 minutes, thinking of what he said. There were a lot of things to take into consideration. First, Polly told me she was getting $150 a week. Conrad said $500. So money was part of the motivation for Polly, and she lied to me from the very beginning. That certainly changed things and put things into perspective for me. Second, it was clear that he could ruin my business and put my people out of a job. Finally, he was content to have her part time leaving her to me for the rest of the time. That was pretty much it.

At home that night, Polly was unusually quiet but I didn't mention my visit from Conrad. She didn't mention going back to work so I was curious as to what it was that I was supposed to do. I avoided any conversation with her that night and pretended to have a contract to work on that would take me most of the night. She didn't push it so we ended up going to bed at different times. She pretended sleep when I came to bed and I simply rolled over and pretended to sleep. It was clear that something had to be done but I had no idea of what.