I shuffled through the pile of bills on the table and shook my head in dismay. Two months behind on the mortgage, two months behind on the truck payment, shut-off notices from the phone and electric companies and no way for me to come up with the money any time soon. Things were not looking good.

I'm a carpenter by trade and I've never had a problem finding work, but my problem was that I couldn't work. I had been siding houses for a developer and through my own stupidity I had fallen off of a scaffold and had broken my leg in two places. I'd been off work for two months and it would be at least another six weeks before I could go back. By then the truck would have been repossessed and the house foreclosed on. My wife Stasha works, but secretary's don't make all that much. What Stasha brings home keeps us in groceries and that's about it. Neither one of has a living relative that we could ask for help so we are pretty much screwed.

There was one ray of sunshine. Paul stopped by the house one night to see how I was doing. He brought a twelve pack of Bud with him and as we worked our way through it he brought me up to date on what was happening on the job site. He brought me a get well card signed by all the guys on the crew and then, a little on the embarrassed side, he took a wad of cash out of his pocket and handed it to me. "The guys took up a collection for you."

"Thanks. Tell them that it will come in handy. It will keep the lights on and the phone hooked up, at least until they kick us out."

"It's not that bad, is it?"

I told him what we were up against and he'd had enough beer in him to say, "You shouldn't have problems like that. Hell, Stasha is sitting on a gold mine. Christ guy, I'd pony up five hundred for a shot at her and I'm just one guy."

He was joking and I knew it and I didn't take offense because we talked like that all the time on the job. I told him I'd keep him in mind if Stasha ever decided to go into business. We had one more beer each and then he said he had to go. Later that evening I gave Stasha the cash Paul had given me and told her to take care of the phone and electric bills.

Just when things were really dark a little bit of luck came our way. Stasha came home one night and told me that her boss was going to expand the business and he wanted to know if she would be able to put in some overtime during the week and on Saturdays and Stasha naturally said yes. For the next month and a half Stasha put in four hours of overtime every night of the week at time and a half and eight hours on Saturday at double time and the extra money saved our ass. We caught up on all our bills and actually managed to put a little money in the savings account. The doctor cleared me to go back to work and that's when things really went to shit.

I'd been back to work a month and Stasha was still putting in overtime two or three days a week and every other Saturday and we were building up a nice cushion in the savings account against the next disaster. One night Marty, one of the guys I work with, couldn't get his car to start after work and he asked me if I could give him a ride into town. "I've got a date and I don't dare to be late because she won't wait."

"Where do you have to go?"

"The Best Western on Sixth."

"Don't you need to go home and change?"

"No, it's not that kind of a date. I can shower in the room before we take care of business."

"You telling me that a hooker won't wait for her customer?"

"Not this one. She's married and has to be home by a certain time."

I ran Marty into town and dropped him off at the front entrance of the motel. As I was pulling out of the circular drive something caught my eye. I stopped, backed up and looked again. It was Stasha's car. No doubt about it - I knew the plate number. She worked on the other side of town so why was her car here? Curiosity got the best of me and I drove over to where Stasha worked and there were only two cars on the parking lot. The front door was locked so I banged on it to get the attention of the security guard. He came over to see what I wanted and I told him I stopped by to see my wife. "She's working overtime tonight."

"Not here she isn't. Ain't nobody worked overtime here in the four years I been here."

I walked back to my truck and sat in it trying to make sense of what the guard told me. Stasha told me she had been working overtime for the last three months and the guard said no one had worked overtime in the last four years. I might not have an MBA, but I was smart enough to know that something did not compute.

I was sitting on the couch sipping a beer and watching the Red Wings skate against the Avalanche when Stasha got home.

"Rough day?"

"It was a bitch. I spent most of the time moving furniture and file cabinets and my feet are killing me. I'm going to go soak in the tub."

I watched her walk up the stairs and wondered just what the hell she was up to.

It was two days before Stasha told me that she was going to work overtime again. She normally got off work at five and I usually work until we lose the sun so I told the boss I needed to leave work a little early for a doctor's appointment to check out my leg. At four forty-five I was parked across the street from Stasha's work place. There was no rear entrance so she had to come out of the lot where I could see her. At ten after five Stasha came out of the lot and I gave her a couple of blocks head start and followed her. She drove to the Marriott on Coleman, parked and walked inside. I saw her walk into the lounge and I debated following her in, but then decided to park where I could keep an eye on the lobby.

It was almost half an hour before Stasha came out of the lounge and she wasn't alone - Paul was with her. The two of them turned toward the bank of elevators and I saw them get in one. I didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on, Stasha and Paul were having an affair. I headed on home, but while I was driving something occurred to me. It should have hit me the previous night, but I was so upset that I spaced it. Where was the so-called overtime money coming from if Stasha wasn't working overtime?

I sat at the kitchen table sipping a beer and wondering what the fuck had happened to my marriage. I loved Stasha and I had always thought that she loved me, but I guess I was wrong. If she was having an affair she obviously didn't care all that much for me. I wondered when it had started. Stasha loved sex and when I first broke my leg she had to go without any sex for almost a month and a half. Was that what it was all about? She got horny while I was laid up, she picked Paul for a fling, it blossomed and now it was a full-blown affair? That still didn't explain the money.

I was still sitting at the table drinking beer when Stasha got home. She came into the kitchen and kissed me on the cheek and told me that she was going to go up and soak in the tub.

"I don't think you should do that."

"Why not?"

"Because we need to talk."

"About what?"

"About the place where you work. About the fact, at least according to the watchman I talked to last night, that there hasn't been any overtime worked there in the last four years. And we need to talk about your car being parked at the Best Western last night and in passing I suppose we should touch on your meeting Paul at the Marriott tonight and taking an elevator upstairs. And finally we need to talk about all that money that came from all that overtime that you didn't work"

As I ticked off the points one by one Stasha's face went pale. "Get yourself a drink and sit down. This could be a long night."

It took me damn near a half hour to get Stasha talking and it was only when I told her I was walking if she didn't start that she told me the story. It had happened the night Paul had come over to give me the collection that the guys had taken up for me. Stasha had heard Paul when he said he would give $500 for a shot at her and she had gone out the back door and was waiting for him at his car when he left. She had asked him if he was joking or if he really meant it. Paul told her that he had been joking, but if he really had a shot he do it in a heartbeat. Then Stasha had surprised the hell out of him by telling him to pick a time and a place.

"We have too much invested in the house to just let them foreclose and take it away from us. When I found out Paul would pay me for what I love to do anyway I saw a way to save the house. I met him the next night, spent four hours with him, collected $500 and came home."

Paul asked her when he could see her again and she had told him that he could see her whenever he wanted as long as he understood that it was $500 each time. He saw her two more times and then he made her a proposition. He couldn't afford her for two or three nights a week so he said he would find other customers for her and in return for every three he brought her he would get a free night.

"That's what I was doing tonight - giving Paul his freebie."

"Paul is your pimp?"

"Yes, I guess it would be fair to say that."

"But all the bills have paid for months now. Why are you still doing it?"

"Truth?"

"I would hope so."

"We need money in the bank because winter is coming and you don't work steady in the winter and I don't ever again want to be in a position where we might loose the house, but there is a second reason. I love it."

"You love being a hooker?"

"I love the sex. The moneys great, but I love the sex."

"You didn't care what my finding out would do to us?"

"I never thought you would find out. I made Paul promise me that he would never set me up with anyone who would know that I was your wife. That way no one could tell you about me. I never allowed for you accidentally finding out."