The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

  She looked at me as if I'd gone crazy, and she probably thought I had.

  "Babe, I really don't know what's going through your mind right now. I don't even know if I know you anymore. One thing I do know. There was no way in hell you were planning on having hot sex with me tonight. You'd have gotten rid of the kids somehow. It's easy enough to farm them off on somebody. You wouldn't have let me waste the night in front of the tube. You wouldn't have been in bed with your –no touch- robe on. You'd have had me shaved and cleaned up a long time ago.

  "No, this was just an average, every day kind of night. The kind of night a middle aged, long married couple spend most nights; reading, television, maybe a cuddle, then check on the kids and get enough sleep to get going tomorrow. That's been our life."

  I looked at her curiously. She wasn't crying, just looked stunned.

  “Everything changed a few minutes ago. When you said those four words....you started loving on me, stripped, showed me that new shaved pussy of yours I had no idea existed, and then you grabbed and started to jerk. I can't remember the last time you ever did that.

  "I don't know what's going on, Debra, but something is. Are you going to tell me what it is?"

  She put her hands together and cupped her fists as she tried to hold my gaze and then dropped her eyes.

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Bill. I just wanted to ...to make love to my husband. You're acting so crazy over what's nothing."

  "Are you fucking somebody else?"

  At that she did cry. Then she wiped the tears from her eyes, got off the bed and slipped her robe back on. There was real anger on her face.

  "You are an asshole. I try to make love to you, to bring us a little closer because God knows we've drifted so far apart, and you accuse me of cheating on you. Fucking another man, to use your words. That you could say that, that you could even think it, shows me our marriage is in really, really bad shape."

  I didn't say anything, because she had said it all.

  "I'm going downstairs to sleep on the couch in the den, you bastard. I don't think I could stand looking at you or touching you tonight. And tomorrow, try to get out of here without saying a word to me or even looking at me. You think you can do that?"

  "I think so."

  And she was out the door.

  The next morning I got up early with the alarm set for 5. I'd already taken a shower. I grabbed a suit from our bedroom closet, slipped out the door without stopping for coffee and in other words, got out of Dodge while the getting was good. I didn't bother to turn on the light in the den but I could see a dark shade huddled under a blanket on the huge couch that is the main feature of our den. That along with the largest big screen television allowed under the law. As I walked past the door to the darkened room, I tried to remember the last time we'd made out on that couch. I couldn't remember.

  When I got to work I quickly slipped into the usual routine. A wealthy Ponte Vedra trophy wife had apparently, according to her lover, faked her own kidnapping to extort 1.5 million from her elderly husband. I had to decide what charges to file.

  A 74-year-old husband had been tearfully arrested after a coroner found five times the lawful level of painkiller in his dead wife's cancer ridden body. He swore he hadn't fed her the extra drugs to speed her end. We had to make the decision on whether to charge or not to charge him with mercy killing. Which is basically homicide with a good chance of mercy from the judge after a guilty plea.

  The Jacksonville Sheriff was bugging the hell out of our junior assistants and working his way up to me pleading for a little mercy in the case of respected patrol officer who had shot his girlfriend's husband and two brothers-in-law to death when they showed up at his house trying to take the girlfriend home where they said she belonged.

  Of course there were three of them, and the cop was pleading fear for his life, but he had blown them away with his Glock and they, unfortunately for him, were unarmed when they were shot to death. Oh, and one brother-in-law had two bullet holes in his back. Kind of hard to argue fear for your life when you shot a man in the back as he was running away from you.

  But, there's a symbiotic relationship between cops and prosecutors and the Big Man who signed my checks and wanted to be Governor of Florida someday did not want the cops getting pissy with our office and subtly sabotaging our cases because we'd screwed one of Jacksonville's finest.

  As one of the three top assistants under the Big Man – on paper, and in reality the top assistant -the case got dumped in my hands and I had to make a Solomon-like decision.

  And, of course, all the while these fairly routine matters were on my mind, in the back of my head the thoughts and fears aroused last night kept swirling and swirling. As usual I didn't have time to get out of my office so I had a Camel Rider sub with cheese and chopped up hamburger and onions delivered to my office about 1 p.m.

  When Cheryl, my secretary for the last five years, brought the lunch in, I told her to call the front desk and tell them that unless God called in with an emergency over the next hour, all my calls were to be held.

  She stepped back into the office and looked at me expectantly. I never held calls like that. I looked her over. Five foot six, red haired, dressed demurely in a light red dress that was short enough to be provocative but not enough to be slutty and out of place in a work environment. She wore glasses and her hair up in a bun, but I'd been around a few times when she let her hair down, figuratively and literally, and I knew there was a wild mane of red hair almost down to her ass that was almost hypnotically strokable.

  "Do you need anything else Mr. Maitland?" she asked.

  "Take off the secretary hat, Cheryl, and I'll take off my boss hat. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

  She looked at me oddly for a minute, then relaxed. We'd been to a few office parties and I'd seen her on her ass drunk and even taken her home once and she knew I'd never touched her when I probably could have touched her anywhere I wanted. She'd never said anything overt, but I got the impression she admired me for not messing with her when I could have.

  "What's wrong, Bill?"

  "Something has to be wrong for me to talk to one of my favorite secretaries," I said, trying to smile.

  "You never hold your calls for an hour, I can't remember the last time you asked me in here for some private time, and anyone in here can take one look at you and tell something is bothering you."

  That hurt my pride.

  "I'm that transparent? And I was priding myself on my poker face."

  "Usually you are pretty inscrutable. But when you walked in the door this morning, I knew something was up. And knowing you, it's personal. You are too cool when it comes to legal stuff. So it's either the kids or Debbie, and if I were a betting woman I'd say Debbie. You guys have a fight?"

  I looked down at the Camel Rider and tried to make myself acquire an appetite. I needed some food inside me.

  "I wish."

  An alarmed expression flashed across her face and she quickly grabbed a chair and pulled it up to within a foot of my desk, close enough she could reach out and touch me.

  "Oh, shit, Bill. Is it that bad?"

  "I think it could be."

  "Tell me."

  I thought about it, but in the light of day I couldn't bring myself to give her the details. The more I thought about it, the whole fuss over four little words seemed even crazier than Debbie has said last night. If you weren't there, if you couldn't see her eyes, couldn't hear her voice, it did seem like I was very much exaggerating what had happened."

  "We just had a – a – like a fight. Over something stupid. But..."

  "What?"

  "It doesn't matter. But, I want you to answer me honestly. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Can you do that? I won't get mad. Or upset. I need a woman to talk to, honestly."

  She licked her red lips for a moment before answering.

  "I hate this kind of thing, Bill. You say you won't get upset, but honesty always hurts."<
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  "I need brutal honesty, Cheryl. I think I've been a good boss, and a good friend. And I think I proved to you that I like and respect you enough not to do anything – that would jeopardize our friendship. I'd like you to do the same."

  She reached out and took one my hands in hers.

  "You have been a good guy, Bill. Ask away."

  "Have you ever thought – when you weren't drunk – about going to bed with me? Would you sleep with me if I really hit on you hard? And do I excite you – as a man – at all?"

  She just stared at me for a moment.

  "I swear to God I'm not hitting on you. But I need to know."

  She looked down at the table, then faced me squarely.

  "A few times. When I was between boyfriends or really, really horny. But honestly, I never thought about you seriously. You're not on my short list. You're male. But, you don't – shit this is hard – you really don't excite me. I admire you. I like you. But, I don't get – I don't want to be indelicate, but I don't get wet thinking about you. I guess the bottom line is I could see us in a situation where we might wind up in bed. Another office party might do it. But it would only be a one-time thing."

  "So I don't really excite you? I'm not a hunk?"

  This time she looked down at the desk a lot longer before raising her eyes to mine.

  "You're not a hunk, Bill. Sorry. You're a little overweight, and flabby, and you're losing your hair and no matter what women say, that's important. Balding is not beautiful to most of us. You're a tiger in the courtroom, and professionally everybody looks up to you, but in the bedroom...I'd say you're just another out of shape middle aged guy."

  She squeezed my hand and looked for a moment like she wanted to cry.

  "That was probably too much honesty, right? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

  I was able to smile at her, even though it had hurt.

  "What about Debbie. And I want you to be just as honest. Is she as hot as I think she is? And have you ever seen guys hitting on her at parties? How did she act when they did?"

  This time she took a lot longer to answer.

  "She's hot, Bill. What can I say. She's tall and blonde and she's got those big boobs and gorgeous legs. Every party I've ever been at where the two of you were there, guys hit on her all the time when you're not around."

  "I'm not surprised she's popular. She is hot. Now for the $64,000 question. And this is where I need you to be honest. What does she do when they hit on her?"

  She looked down again.

  "I really don't want to answer this, Bill. Please don't make me."

  "I need to know."

  "Is this what it's all about. You think she's – with somebody?"

  "I don't know, but I think she could be."

  "I guess I've been at six or seven office parties where you guys have shown up, and there was that one year you invited me and my date to that Christmas party at UNF. Like I said, guys are always hitting on her, putting their arms around her, patting her ass, trying to sneak a kiss. Usually she just shrugs it off, puts their hands where they're supposed to be, gets them laughing and walks away. She's pretty good.

  "A few times, very few, I've seen her in what seemed to a pretty good clinch in a corner or a hallway, but it's not a deep throat and the guys don't have their hands inside her clothes. I've seen a few of them petting her. But, Bill, to be honest, unless you want to walk about with a cattle prod most women have had that happen to them. That's why you wear stiletto heels. They're wonderful for cooling off guys who get too hot.

  "And to answer what I think your real question is, I've never seen her jerkin off a guy or rubbing his dick. I've never seen her out of control to where it looked like some guy could talk her into leaving the party with him. I can't say for sure she hasn't done anything wrong, but I've never seen her do anything you'd divorce her over. And that's what we're talking about here, right?"

  She reached out to grab my hand again and squeezed.

  "She is a very beautiful woman, and very hot. Trust me when I say that she's like most hot women. She could have a different man every night without doing more than giving them the right kind of smile. And if she was doing that, I don't think there's any way you wouldn't have found out by now. Maybe she's cheating on you, but if she is, she’s being very careful and selective, and I really don't think she is. Just an impression."

  I leaned back in my chair and let out a deep breath. I couldn't eat a bite because I had no appetite.

  "But what you're telling me is she is a very hot woman who has guys throw themselves at her every time I'm not around, and I'm a dull, sexually unattractive, old man who doesn't excite women. Something seem out of kilter about that picture?"

  "People don't stay together just for sex. They stay together for love and companionship and their kids. You guys have built a life together. You think she'd throw that away just for sex?"

  "Women do it every day, Cheryl. So do men. It may be only sex, but it's the glue that holds marriages together. And we don't have it anymore."

  She just looked at me sadly. I guess there's a limit to how encouraging you can be when you're facing a really shitty situation.

  For the rest of the afternoon I waded through the common litany of treachery, stupidity, violence, lust, and law-breaking that is the lot of any prosecutor and tried not to think about what I'd face when I got home. That was the part that was really beginning to hit me hard. My job is stressful. There's too much violence and filth and ruined lives to deal with every day. Home had always been my refuge, where I could be assured of the love of my wife and children and convince myself every night that the world I lived and worked in was not the real world. And now that refuge, that dream of love and loyalty had started to develop cracks.

  I got home at 6:30, not real late for me. A lot of nights I'd be tied up until 8 or 9 and Debbie almost always left a dinner in the fridge or microwave for me when I got home. Sometimes she was home. Other times she'd be out at some meeting or other. There were always a lot of meetings, some business, some more social, but it's all part of the office political game you have to play in any institution. I'd accepted it and even when she came home at 12 or 1, sometimes 2 a.m., it hadn't bothered me. Drinking went on, but it had never bothered me.

  I've handled enough cases of infidelity leading to murder or mayhem to know the signs. She had never been exceptionally secretive – taking quick showers or concealing her undergarments or trying to hide her body – or exceptionally sexy, wanting to fuck me when she walked in. I had never checked up on her, it had never occurred to me to, but had inadvertently found out many times from other people that she was where she had said she was supposed to be, and doing what she had said she was doing. And when she was doing things that didn’t make me real happy, it was only nights out with friends without telling me about them. I'd never had any indication those nights had led to her breaking the boundaries of our marriage.

  What hurt worse than anything else was the unbidden suspicion that now colored the way I thought about her. Where was she now, and who was she with, and how would I know she was telling the truth if she told me? I felt the anger in me growing again. The stupid bitch! All she had to do was laugh off the mis-statement of the last night, make a joke of it, and I would have forgotten about it. Even if she was cheating on me, I'd be fat, happy and ignorant.

  Tonight she was out and both the kids were out as well. That was no surprise. I looked around. She usually left a note on the fridge or microwave letting me know where she was if she had to go out. There was nothing. I stood there and just listened. Nothing is as silent as an empty house that usually is filled with the noise of talk, laughter, television shows and radio broadcast songs.

  I went to the liquor cabinet and brought out a bottle of Goldschlager. I had never heard of Goldschlager until a few years ago when a friend of Bill Jr.'s had smuggled one into a party for pre-teens. I found it, confiscated it, tried it and found that I loved it. So I always kept a bottle
in the cabinet. Of course, it usually takes me three to six months to go through a bottle, but it's great for an occasional drink.

  I sipped and walked through the house, making a detour by the two-car garage. Her 2004 Nissan 350Z was parked and cold to the touch. Wherever she was, somebody had come and picked her up.

  Eventually I found myself in the big easy chair across from the couch and cattycornered from the Big Screen Television from Hell. I punched it on and settled back into my cocoon with cable news of all the terrible things happening around the world and tried my best to forget about Debbie and where she was and who she was with.

  At 9:30 p.m. Bill Jr. – whom we had called BJ since he was a toddler - blew in through the front door, alternatively talking and texting on his cell phone. I called his name a couple of times and when he continued upstairs toward his room I bellowed, "BJ, come here. Now."

  He gave me a startled look as if he hadn't even known I was there. After a moment he said into his cellphone, "Gotta go. Old man wants me. Talk to you later." Then he texted a few words and clicked off. Then he looked at me, without moving away from the staircase.

  "What?"

  His tone irritated me, but he was a teenager.

  "Just wanted to talk to you for a sec. You know where your mom is?"

  He glanced at me for a second then shifted his gaze back to the staircase. It was obvious he had more important things to do.

  "Haven't seen her. That's not unusual, though. She's out a lot."

  He gave me a look with the arrogance and worldly wise contempt that only a 14-year-old can muster and said, "She's your wife. Why don't you know where she is?"

  I could have done what my old man would have done at that point and popped him upside the head, but my old man had been a 6-2 inch, 240 pound coal miner from West Virginia and he had lived in a simpler time. Bill Jr., or BJ as we and almost everyone called him, was almost as tall as me and sure as hell, if I left any marks Social Services would be out by the next day, I'd be arrested and my mug shot would be plastered on the front of the TU with a headline saying, "Top SA Assistant Arrested For Child Abuse."