Shay was silent for most of the ride home.  About five minutes from the house she said:

“Did you really mean it when you said what happened is going to have a major impact on our marriage?  I didn’t do it.  I stopped.  I didn’t go through with it Frank.”

“You didn’t go through with it, but you intended to.  You willingly went to his room intending to do it.  You got naked for him because you were going to do it.  You took his cock in your hand and stroked it because you fully intended to do it.  You fully intended to take another man into the body that already contained my child.”  I hesitated and then asked:

“It is my child isn’t it?”

Her face went ghostly pale, but before she could say anything I went on.

“The fact that you did not go through with that does not erase any of that.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know Shayleen.  I honestly don’t know.  Glenda cheated, Gloria cheated and you were going to cheat.  I can’t help but believe that I would be better off without a woman in my life.  I do know that if you weren’t pregnant with what I hope is my child I would already be gone.”

“That’s not fair Frank.  I didn’t do it.  I stopped.  I said this is wrong and I can’t do it and I stopped.”

“This time.  But what about the next time you are away from home doing an audit and decide that I’ll never know?”

“Damn it Frank; you know I’ll never do it again.  The same thing that stopped me with Travon will keep me from doing it again.  The important thing is that I stopped Frank.  I realized that it wouldn’t be worth losing you and I stopped.  And what is with the doubt that the baby is yours?  You know damned well that it is.”

“Do I?  I don’t have the same level of trust in you now that I had last week.  I don’t know that you haven’t been doing stuff like this on all your trips and the only reason this one is out in the open is that Travon got stupid.”

“I guess I asked for that attitude by being stupid and doing something that I should have known not to do, but I’ve never done it before and I didn’t do it this time.  I didn’t do it Frank.  I swear to god I didn’t do it.  I stopped.  I said it wasn’t worth it and I didn’t do it.”

“Let me put it in a way that may help you understand.  If I walk into a bank and stick a gun in a tellers face and tell her to give me all the money and while she is taking the money out of the drawer I suddenly say “This isn’t right.  I can’t do it” and I turn around and leave the bank.  Would the police not come after me because I changed my mind and didn’t rob the bank?  You know damned well that they would be after me.  I might not have robbed the bank, but I had intended to so I would still have gone down for attempted robbery.

“In your case you did not engage in adultery, but you damned sure intended to.  You can say you didn’t do it all you want to, but you went into Travon’s room with the full intention of cheating.  Adultery isn’t a crime, at least not in this state, so no cops are going to come after you and punish you by sticking you in jail.  No; your punishment gets left up to me.  It may sound like a stupid analogy to you, but that is the way I see it and unfortunately for you the way I see it is what counts with me.”

“I love you Frank.  That’s why I couldn’t go through with it.  That’s why I could never do it again.  That has to count for something Frank.  The fact that I love you has to count for something/”

“Maybe it will Shayleen.  I just don’t know right now.”

++++++++++++++++++++++

The next day I took a half a day off work and went home at one.  I needed some time to myself to think about my situation with Shayleen.  The first thing I had to know was just how honest had Shayleen been with me.  The material that we had taken from Travon’s place was still locked in the trunk of the car and I took it all into the house.

Travon has labeled everything so I had no trouble in finding the disc that Shayleen was on.  I put the disc in the player and watched it.  Shayleen had been mostly truthful, but only mostly.  Things played out as she had described up to the point where she said that she had broken away.  According to her story she bolted when Travon started to push her down to her knees.

On the screen I watched as Travon gently push her down to her knees in front of him and then I watched as she leaned forward and started to suck his cock.  I watched as her hands gripped his ass and pulled him to her and I watched as she deep throated him.  It was at that point that she had her sudden change of heart.  She pulled off him and he said:

“The bedroom is back there” and he pointed.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.  I love my husband and I can’t do this to him.  I thought I could, but I can’t.”

She reached for her clothes and Travon said, “Oh no you don’t” as he grabbed her arm.  “You got me started and you will damned well get me off.  Pussy, mouth or ass; I don’t care which, but you aren’t leaving until you finish what you started.”

“Let go of my arm.”

Travon started to pull her to the bedroom and that is when she kneed him in the stones.  He let go of her and she stepped back and kicked him in the crotch and as he doubled up she yelled at him:

“No means no asshole.”

She dressed and by the time she had her shoes on Travon had somewhat recovered and he tried to stop her and she kicked him in the nuts again only this time she had her pointy toed high heels on and he screamed, grabbed his package and fell to the floor.

“Fuckhead” Shay muttered and then she left.

Then curiosity got the best of me and since I had worked at Apex and knew a lot of the people who worked there I looked at the other discs.  It was eye opening to see women who I knew were married bouncing around on Travon’s bed.

It was apparent to me that several of then (not all) were being blackmailed and were on his bed reluctantly and it gave me an idea.  I was pissed over what Shay had done and even more pissed that she had lied to me even when she confessed, but I did love the stupid cunt and it did appear that she loved me. 

I decided that even though she hadn’t gone all the way with Travon that I had to do something to make her hurt.  I had to do something to show her just how much her betrayal had affected me.  And make no mistake here; she did betray me.  True, she didn’t go through with it, but to me the intent was the betrayal.

Looking at the pile of material I had taken from the trunk of the car I had the germ of an idea.  I put everything back in the trunk and then went upstairs to the guest bedroom to take a nap.  I’d moved into the guest bedroom the night Shay had confessed to me.  Shay wasn’t happy about it, but I flat told her I wasn’t in the mood to have her touching me even fully clothed so having her roll over and snuggle up next to me while sleeping just wasn’t going to happen.

I set the alarm to wake me a half hour before Shay was due to get home.  When the alarm went off I got up and drove to the Waffle House and had a cup of coffee and a piece of pecan pie.  I killed time until it was my normal time to go home.  I didn’t want Shay to know that I’d been home early and had a chance to look at the material in the trunk.

She was there when I got home and I told her to have a seat at the kitchen table and then I sat down across from her.

“I spent most of the day thinking about what to do.  On the one hand I want to call the lawyers and get things over with, but on the other hand I want to be a full time father to my child and a divorce would prevent that.  The problem with that is that there isn’t any way I could live with you and sleep in separate rooms until the child has grown up on gone out on its own.  For us to try and put things back together I need what these days they are calling closure.  What I call it is punishment or maybe even revenge.

“To put it bluntly I need to hurt you.  I am in capable of harming you physically, but I still need to cause you some pain and I believe that I have come up with a way to do it.  You are free to refuse to do it, but know that the refusal ends any chance for us to try and repair the mess you caused.”

“I’ll do what ever I have to do Frank.”

“We will see Shay.  What you have to do is go out to the car, get all the material and bring it into the house.  You will destroy the material he had on you.  I do not wish to see it.  Not ever.  Them you will go through the material and make a list of every one he had material on.  Once we have that list you will go to each of those women, give tem the material that Travon had on them and tell them that they are free of him if they chose to be.”

“If they choose to be?”

“There is always the possibility that not all of them are being blackmailed.  Hell!  There is even the possibility that none of them are being blackmailed.  If they ask where you got the material, and they most likely will, you will tell them that he tried to blackmail you and that you told me and that prompted me to go and have a “Come to Jesus) session with him and that meeting led to my recovering the material.  Then you will ask them to call me and verify that you did actually see them and give them their package.”

“I can’t do that Frank.  What will they think of me?”

“The ones being blackmailed will think that you were just as stupid as they were when they got involved with the asshole, but they will be happy to know that he no longer is holding a sword over their heads.  The ones not being blackmailed will be embarrassed that you know what they have been doing.  They will probably be unhappy to know that there were tapes and DVDs of their activities in existence, but glad that you told them and gave them what there was.”

“Damn it Frank; I have to work with those people.  How can I face them every day after doing what you want?”

“Not my problem Shayleen, but if you want any chance at all of making a life with me is what you will have to do.”

“Please Frank; don’t make me do it.”

“I’m not making you do anything Shayleen.  What ever happens it is strictly your choice.”

I stood up and said, “I’m going to the bar, drink some beer and shoot some pool to give you some time to think about it” and I left.  Shay was in bed when I got home so I went into my room and sacked out.

Shayleen was up and had the coffee made when I came down in the morning and as I poured my self a cup to go Shayleen said:

“I thought long and hard on it Frank and I just can’t do it.”

“So much for your statement that you would do whatever you had to do, but no problem.  Your choice.  Just remember that I gave you a chance and you turned it down.”

It was a busy day for me at work and I didn’t think about my marriage problem until about three.  Things slacked off a bit and I was able to give some thought to my situation.  I didn’t really like what I came up with, but a wise man once said “What is is.”

Shay had dinner ready when I got home and we ate in silence.  Once the meal was over and the dishes were in the dishwasher I asked Shayleen to sit down and when she did I slid some papers over to her.

“What is it” she asked.

“A couple of things.  The top sheet is how we will split things up around here.  It outlines what each of us will do.  It lists how our money will be handled and how the household duties will be split.”

“How our money will be handled?”

“That’s the second sheet.  It outlines the cost of running the household.  I will set up three new accounts at the bank.  One will be called the household account and each of us will deposit half of the monthly total amount into the account and all the household expenses will be paid from that account. 

“The second account will be a savings account in the baby’s name and we will each deposit ten percent of our take home pay into it.  The third account will be a savings account in my name only.  I will take half of what is in our joint savings account and put it in my new account and the have the name changed on the joint account to your name only.

“The third sheet is a post nuptial agreement that states that we each can indulge in extra marital sex without the fear of being accused of adultery, but with the stipulation that said extra marital sex can not take place in the family home.”

“I won’t sign that!”

“I’ve allowed for that.  The fourth sheet is also a post nuptial agreement.  It states that if either party cheats on the other the cheater gives up all rights to full custody of the child and agrees to a 70/30 split of assets with the aggrieved party receiving the seventy percent.”

“I won’t sign that one either.”

“In other words you are telling me that you plan to cheat again.  It figures.”

I got up and walked away from the table and I was heading up the steps to the bedrooms when I heard her tearing up the papers.  I expected as much but it was a way for me to show her that our marriage now existed in name only.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The next two weeks went by with Shayleen and I just co-existing in the house.  She made several attempts to entice me into having sexual relations with her, but I wouldn’t give in.  When she tried again on Friday night I told her to give it up.

“I gave you a chance to try and work on saving our marriage and you refused.  As a result we have no marriage any more.  All we have is a roommate situation and that is all it is ever going to be.  I will give you ne more chance to do what I told you that you had to do.  I’ll give you until Sunday evening to change your mind, but after that the choice will no longer be yours.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just what I said.  You have a chance to change your mind, but after Sunday you will no longer have that chance.”

“I’ve already told you Frank.  I am not going to do it.”

I shrugged and walked away from her.

Monday I showed up at Apex at lunch time and Shayleen looked on in horror as I took Melody Schaefer to lunch.  Melody was embarrassed as hell that I knew what she had done, but she was overjoyed to find out that Travon no longer had the means to make him meet her at a motel.  She gave me a great big hug and a kiss when I took her back to work and I wished her and her hubby well before going back to my office.

That evening I was two hours late getting home from work and Shayleen was pissed because she had dinner ready and I was a no call no show.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Having cocktails with Helen Deavers.  I could have been gone longer because she offered to go to a motel with me and fuck my socks off for freeing her from Travon.  I turned her down though.  Tomorrow I’m having lunch with Dolores Hart and I’ll be meeting with Annie Sprague for drinks after work.”

“My God frank.  They know about me?”

“Of course.  I had to tell them how I came to be in possession of the material.”

“In that case I might as well take care of the rest of them.”

“Sorry Shayleen; you had your chance.  I told you that come Monday the choice would no longer be yours.”

“That’s not fair Frank.”

“Maybe, but the whole idea behind my telling you what you had to do to get us to where we could try and salvage our marriage was to see just how bad you wanted that to happen.  Did you want it bad enough that you would be willing to do something hard and distasteful and the answer was no.  You chose how others would look at you at work over trying to save your marriage.  Now you get to live with that choice. 

“I’m doing what you wouldn’t do because those women need to know that they are free of Travon if that is what they want.  You could have been the one to set them free and if you had done it do you really think that they would have looked down at you?  Hell no!  You would have had a friend for life.  Even the ones who were doing it willingly would thank you for letting them know they were being filmed.  What woman messing around on her husband wants evidence of what she is doing out there that might come to light some day?

“No Shayleen; nothing but good would have come out of your doing it.  You chose what people at work would think of you over a chance to save your marriage and now you get to live with that choice.”

She started crying and ran from the room.

++++++++++++++++++++++

By Friday I’d met with the nine women on the list that I knew who they were.  There were four more who apparently didn’t work for Apex and I had no way of knowing how to get in touch with them.  Of the nine I talked with six were being blackmailed and all six were overjoyed to be free of Travon.

One was seeing Travon with her husband’s knowledge, one was seeing him willingly because her husband had erectile dysfunction and hadn’t been able to get it up for two years.  He didn’t know and she didn’t want him to ever know.  The third told me flat out that black cock was her major turn on and she was not only doing Travon, but a couple of others also.

All of them were horrified to find out they had been filmed and all were very grateful to me for not only brining it to their attention, but for giving them what I’d taken from Travon.  I had more offers of pussy that week than I’d ever had before in my life.  I hoped that the day would never come when I would regret turning it all down.

There was one unforeseen outcome from my seeing all of the ladies.  Marge Bowman, the woman whose husband knew she was sleeping with Travon, was the wife of Travon’s boss.  When she told hubby about Travon filming their meetings hubby fired Travon.  He couldn’t fire him for fucking his wife so what he did was put Travon’s expense reports under a microscope and found enough irregularities to warrant caning Travon.

++++++++++++++++++++

On the home front I co-existed with Shayleen and she became more weepy and despondent as the days went by.  She kept trying to get something going between us, but I wasn’t having it.  Some day maybe, but not any time soon.  In my mind she hadn’t suffered enough for what she had done.  I may be going a little over the top, but it wasn’t only the intent to hang horns on me; it was the lies she told.

In her favor was the fact that she refused to be blackmailed and had come to me and confessed.  But that very confession was what I was holding against her.  That confession was three-quarters truth and one-quarter lies.  The truth till she started to go to her knees and lies after that.  She was confessing for god’s sake so why not tell that last little bit and be done with it?  If she had to lie about that what else was there that she was hiding?

She came to me a week after I’d talked with the last woman on the list and told me that she couldn’t take it any more.

“I love you Frank and I want our marriage back the way it was.  If you don’t ever intend to try then we have to end it.  I can not go on living this way.”

“I won’t be the one to end it Shayleen.  I will not knowingly deprive myself of being a full time father to my child.  Assuming of course that it is my child.”

“Damn it Frank!  It is your child!”

“Maybe, maybe not.  A DNA test when it is born will tell us. If it isn’t mine then I’ll get the divorce, but if it is mine any divorce will have to be on you.”

“God damn it Frank; the baby is yours.  Why can’t you believe that?”

“The problem Shayleen is that I can no longer believe anything that you say.”

“Why not?  When have I ever lied to you?”

“The night you told me that Travon was trying to blackmail you.”

“I did not lie to you that night.  I told you what happened.  I told you what I did and why he was trying to blackmail me.”

“I was looking into your eyes when you told me that and I could see that you were lying to me.  I wish now that I’d never told you to destroy the disc that Travon had of you.  I wish now that I would have looked at it.  If you could confess to what you did and still be lying there must have been something that you really felt the need to hide.  Given that why would I believe anything that you say?”

She was silent for maybe thirty seconds and then she said, “I didn’t lie Frank; I just didn’t tell the full story.  I left out a part that I really didn’t want you to hear.”

“So you did fuck him.”

“I did not!  But I guess that I did lie at that.  I told you that I pushed him away when he started pushing me down to my knees.  That was the lie.  What really happened was that he pushed me to my knees and I took his cock in my mouth.  That was when I came to my senses and broke away from him.  I didn’t think you needed to know that.  I thought that what I’d told you was bad enough and I didn’t need to tell any more.  You didn’t need to think any worse of me than you were all ready going to. 

“But the baby is yours Frank.  Doubt it or wonder about it all you want, but it is yours and I want you to be the baby’s full time father as much as you want to be the full time father, but right now it is not looking too good for you Frank.  I am not going to go on living the way we have been living.  If you are not going to try and work with me to get by my stupid move then we need to end things.  I’m well aware that it is all my fault and I understand your need to punish me for what I did, but I am not going to allow that punishment to last for the rest of my life.

“Since my colossal blunder with Travon you have been big on offering me choices, but now I’m giving you one.  Shit or get off the pot Frank.  Either work with me to try and save what we had or flat out tell me that you are not going to.  I’ll give you until this time tomorrow to decide what you are going to do.  If you are not going to work with me I’ll be packed and out of here within twenty-four hours and I’ll see a lawyer the next day.  I won’t be a bitch about visitation, but your desire to be a full time father will take a hit.  I’d think hard on it if I were you.”

As she walked out of the room I was thinking “You should have known better Frank.  You knew that Shay was no soft cream puff.  You should have known you could only push her so far before she would get her back up.”

I wasn’t really ready to let her off the hook, but it looked as if I wasn’t going to be able to push it for as long as I had intended.  But I still had a problem and a major one to my mind.  If I caved too quickly to her ultimatum it could give her the idea that it was all she needed to do to get her way from now on.  I couldn’t have that.  More to the point, I would not allow that.

++++++++++++++++++++++

I spent a good part of the next day thinking on the situation and what to do.  There was no doubt in my mind that the baby was mine.  I just kept throwing my doubt in her face to upset her and piss her off.  And I did love her.  Christ!  I’d loved her when she didn’t even know who I was when we were in school.  There was never any intent in my mind to leave Shay.  The hard line I was taking with her was strictly to make her suffer; to give me some satisfaction.  Payback for the mental pain she had caused me.

Because she wasn’t seeing things from where I was sitting she didn’t see our problem the way I saw it.  As far as she was concerned what she started out to do was wrong, but then she didn’t do it so no harm, no foul, get over it and let’s move on.  It would have been no harm, no foul if I hadn’t learned of it, but I did learn of it and learning of it hurt.  I hurt worse than Shay would let herself accept.  By the time I locked the doors after that last employee had gone home I had a game plan.  Whether or not it was a good one only time would tell.

Shay was home and had dinner ready when I got home.  We sat down to eat and it was a silent meal except for Shay asking me to pass the green beans.  When we were done eating she got up, went to the sink, rinsed her dish and put it in the dishwasher.  Then she leaned against the counter, looked at me and said:

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“What did you decide?”

“I haven’t.  For me to decide to try and make things work I need to decide whether it is even possible for things to ever work out.  There are a lot of ‘what ifs’ and unanswered questions.  Then there are attitudes that need to be dealt with and trust issues that need to be addressed.’

“Attitudes?  Trust issues?  I don’t understand.”

“Sure you do.  Your attitude has been that you didn’t actually do it so no harm, no foul, get over it and move on.  That attitude is totally unacceptable to me.  Then there is the issue of trust.  Can I trust you not to do it again?  If you think there is no way that I will ever find out will you once again try to see what a black man is like?  You can say that there is no way that you will ever do it, but could I trust that you wouldn’t?  You travel at least once a month for three or four days doing audits.  What will it do to me sitting here at home and wondering if you are behaving or being curious?  And don’t even tell me that I don’t have to worry about it.  Before I even proposed you knew how insecure I was because of what I went through with Glenda and Gloria.  Now it is what I went through with Glenda, Gloria and you.”

“You aren’t being fair frank.  I didn’t do it.  I came to my senses and I didn’t do it.”

“You see Shayleen?  That is the problem.  To you it is only important that you didn’t do it.  I don’t see it that way.  The way I see it is that you willingly went with Travon to his room with the intention of cheating on me.  So what you say; I didn’t go through with it.  When you walked into his apartment and the door closed behind you did you say, “Sorry Travon; I can’t go through with this.  I love my husband and I can’t do this to him” and then turn and leave?  No you didn’t.  When he undressed did you say, “No Travon; I can’t do this.”  No you didn’t.  When you were half undressed did you suddenly stop and say you couldn’t do it, get dressed and leave.  No you didn’t.  You didn’t even stop when you had his cock in your hand and were stroking it.  You didn’t even stop when you opened your mouth and wrapped the lips that I used to love to his around his dick.  You didn’t stop until after you had sucked his cock for a minute or two.

“To me you cheated on me when you went into his room with the intent to fuck him.  That is the sticking point Shayleen.  You weren’t drunk and out of it or anything like that; you willingly and with intent went to his room with him and took him into your body.  I know that I’m belaboring the point, but that is the point.  You willingly did what you did and can I bring myself to believe that you won’t do it again?

“That is the roadblock Shayleen.  That is what is keeping me from attempting to try and salvage our relationship.  The fear that if the opportunity offers itself again you will do it.  So you tell me Shayleen; how do I get my trust in you back?  Just saying that you won’t do it again because you love me and don’t want to lose me ain’t going to get it.  You loved me and didn’t want to lose me when you willingly went with Travon, but it didn’t stop you until you had all ready gone way too far, at least in my estimation, so how are you going to save this marriage Shayleen?

“Giving me twenty-four hours to shit or get off the pot isn’t going to get us anywhere.  It isn’t me Shayleen; it is you.  You made this mess so the question has to be what are you going to do to make me want to try and move forward with you?  How are you going to make me believe that it will even be possible for things between us to work out?

“Make no mistake here Shayleen; I do love you and I have wanted you since high school.  I never even remotely considered that we could ever be together so having you marry me was the equivalent of dying and going to Heaven, but I can only be hurt so many times before I just flat give up.  Glenda, Gloria, and you and Travon have done it Shayleen.  I’ve been pushed to the edge and the next step will send me into the abyss.  How are you going to make me believe that you won’t cause me to take that last step?

“Telling me to shit or get off the pot won’t do it Shayleen.  You are going to have to find someway to extend your hand to me in such a way that I will trust you enough to take it and let you pull me back from where I’m standing on the edge.  I know that isn’t the answer that you were looking for, but it is the best that I can offer.  You, you Shayleen, have to make me believe that the marriage can be made to work again.  You have to give me a reason to get up off the pot.”

I stood up and started for the garage to see if I could find something to keep my hands busy, but before I got to the door Shayleen said:

“Where are you going?  We are not done here.”

I turned and leaned on the door and looked at her.

“You want a reason?  How’s this for one.  When I told you about Todd you promised me that you would never leave me and that I was stuck with you for life.  You promised!  Is your word no good?  How about your promise to keep me for better or worse when we said our vows?  What I did was about as worse as it can get, but you promised.  I know what you are going to say to that.  You are going to throw my promise to hold only unto you in my face, but so what.  So I’m not a good person.  But you are and I have two promises from you and I’m holding you to them Frank.  You told me that I was stuck with you for life and I’m god-damned well going to hold you to that promise.

“I’ll make you a promise now” and she placed her hand on her swollen belly and said:

“I swear on my baby’s life that I will never cheat on you and that I will be the best wife and mother you could ever hope for for the rest of our lives.  So help me God!”

I believed her.

And now, eight years and three kids later I’m glad that I did.