The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

  I held her face in my hands and asked a question that I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t have the right to ask it. But I had to know.

  “And....your appetites?”

  She looked me straight in the eye.

  “I have been with three men, other than my husband, in the last five years. Geraldo was a 26-year-old Spaniard whose families owns mines in Spain and South America. He cruised with us for three straight months, wooing me with wine and gifts and laughter. He made me laugh. He was like a puppy, eager to please, so pathetically transparent that he wanted my body. Finally, I could not say no any longer.”

  She looked me straight in the eye and said, “He was a wonderful lover. Handsome and – large – and he concentrated on my pleasure before his own. I enjoyed our time together, but I never felt guilty because it was purely sex with him. I gave him nothing that I had promised to Philippe. Finally his family made him come home. He has contacted me a few times since then, but he knew we would not be together again.

  “The second was Niccolo. He was a 63-year-old Italian furrier from Rome. He sailed with us three years ago. Twice. He was an intelligent, charming and handsome older man. His wife had died of cancer a year before and he just...looked so lost. I did not plan to...be with him, but he touched my heart. When he came back the second time, I went to him the first night on board.

  “And you are the third.”

  She looked away and said carefully, “Do you think I am a slut?”

  “No, not under those circumstances. I know...I can see where Philippe would have women and anyone can become lonely separated from their husband for months, or years. But why did you say that being with me was stupid?”

  She reached out to cup my face in one small hand.

  “Because Geraldo was a boy who wanted sex and Niccolo was a sad older man who needed healing for a broken heart. I never felt anything – serious – for either one. Nothing could ever have happened with either one. They would never be a threat to Philippe – or what we had.

  “You...are dangerous. I told you I felt a spark the first moment I looked at you and you looked back. I have been....unsteady...I have lost my footing since that moment. I love my husband...and you obviously still love your wife...but when I am with you....This cannot be happening. We have only known each other a little more than four days. You cannot...feel...these kinds of emotions in such a short time...”

  “And you were going to stop anything from happening last night. Until I made that grand romantic gesture. Do you wish I hadn’t gone into Marsh Harbour?”

  She kissed me hard before releasing me.

  “No. I will never regret last night. Someday this life will be over and Philippe and I will be a normal married couple with a grown son and hopefully grandchildren. Probably in Paris. Philippe will be a powerful man rising in the government and I will attend events and parties with him. And people will look at us and say we are the model of a happy couple.

  “And I will love and honor my husband. But I will never forget you, or the hours we have spent together. And I will wear your Fleur-de-lis pin. If anyone asks, I will tell them it was a gift from a dear friend. And Philippe will never ask me exactly how you came to give it to me.”

  Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 11 A.M.

  The Price of Betrayal.

  The last class of the morning was trooping out grumbling about their reading assignments and project homework as usual when Miriam Bender showed up at the door to her classroom The secretary to President Myers was standing in the doorway. As usual she appeared to be looking down her nose at Debbie without actually doing so. She was just another flat-chested bitch.

  “President Myers would like to see you, now, if you don’t mind.”

  Debbie just stared at her for a moment. He had to know she didn’t have another class until 2 p.m. because of the summer schedule. So this was something planned and not spur of the moment. She had a sinking feeling she knew what it was.

  Bender knocked on the ornate decorated wooden door to his office, opened it and stuck her head inside. A moment later she motioned to Debbie to enter.

  Myers was standing behind his desk, his back to her, finishing a conversation on the telephone. He hung the phone up and motioned to her to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk, which probably cost more than she made in a year. The chairs were low enough that she was looking up at him.

  Negotiating 101. Always put your opponent at a lower level forcing him or her to look up. It was a little thing, but in negotiating, little things made a difference.

  “Thank you for coming by, Professor Maitland.”

  “It’s never a problem coming to see you, President Myers.”

  He was an old man, but she said it with just enough of an intonation and intimation and she took a deep breath that she knew he got the message. Vibes the kids called it. He was an old man and she wasn’t being blatant, but the man/woman sexual chemistry was always working. If he could play the power hand, she could play the sex/big titty hand she had been dealt.

  You used what you had, as she’d always taught her students. She had worked for the powerful local Hunt Bank in Jacksonville before she had decided to go for her professorship. It put her behind most other professors in terms of age and advancement. She would always be older than anyone she was going up against for promotions or advancement. But...

  She knew how the real world worked. Many, if not most, of the professors came straight out of academia. They had never worked a day in their life in the real world. And the stuff they taught the bright eyed, ignorant, completely clueless 18 or 20 or even 25-year-olds also came straight out of books.

  They didn’t teach how to deal with managers who made “friendliness” a factor in evaluations, how to deal with managers that stole your ideas and passed them off as their own. They had no idea of how to play up your appearance if you were male or the size of your tits if you were female to get extra attention without being labeled a slut or boy toy. They had no idea how to flirt without looking like you were flirting.

  They had no idea of the fine line between being business hot and slutty, of how important a mate’s appearance and behavior was to your advancement. It wasn’t fair, but those above you judged you on your better half as much as on your own capabilities. They had no idea how to work parties or weekend get-togethers with superiors.

  She had always done what she could to work in some of the practical knowledge she had gained working for the Hunts to her students while giving them the academic side, doing her own research and writing, raising two children and trying to keep a marriage going single-handedly. She knew she’d fallen behind on the research and papers, and that just gave the assholes another club to use on her.

  Myers did a quick once-over of her face and body. He was old, but he wasn’t’ dead.

  “I appreciate that, Professor Maitland. I wish...this were to be a more...pleasant conversation.”

  Her heart did a flip-flop.

  “I’ve talked to Department Head Rutledge about the staff meeting yesterday.”

  “I know I was late, but there was a personal crisis at home.”

  “It’s not just that your tardiness caused problems in finishing and scheduling future classes, but Professor Rutledge says this fits a pattern of....sloppiness....on your part. It seems that your teaching activities have suffered because of...personal considerations.”

  “President Myers, I have been...my personal life has been somewhat in turmoil recently. You know why. But I’ve kept up my teaching assignments, my students have received their grades on time, I’m working on a paper right now that should be ready within a month’s time.”

  He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t read.

  “I’m sorry, Professor, but there have been too many complaints and there are people within your department that feel strongly I should ask you to consider seeking employment elsewhere.”

  “I could fight that.”

  “You could. But why? If the d
ecision is made that you should go, you have enough practical experience in the business world to know that it will happen. And while you might fight it, the damage done to your reputation would be so severe that it would ultimately be better for you to make a clean break.”

  She would not cry. But this on top of Kelly leaving, Doug gone, the divorce looming...why the hell did things always get worse. They had gotten worse since her decision to leave Bill. But it was the right decision.

  “Why?”

  He looked down at his desk for a moment and when he looked back at her she saw a combination of anger and pity.

  “I should not tell you this, and if you say anything, I will say you are lying and if it’s your word against mine, you know who people will believe. That will destroy your credibility in future job search efforts. So what I say stays in this office. But, I do want you to know why you are losing your position.”

  He stared at her breasts for a moment, then said, “I knew a woman like you once. Oh, not as beautiful as you, but she was beautiful. I married her and we had what I thought were five years of a good marriage. Until the day I walked in on her in bed with her tennis instructor. It is so much of a cliché that I still cringe when I talk about it. And she cried that she still loved me and it had been a mistake on her part because I was working much too hard to make a life for us that she had said she wanted.

  “I was young and foolish and I loved her. I took her back. And I believe she was faithful to me. But it didn’t matter. We were divorced in a year.”

  He stared into her eyes and she wondered if he even saw her when he looked at her. Or did he see somebody else?

  “You see, when something is broken, something as fragile and intangible as trust and faith, it can’t be made whole. We should have divorced when I first discovered her infidelity, I suppose. If we had made a clean break, taken time apart and met again, we could have forged a new marriage. A new relationship, I guess. But I didn’t. And I could never regain the trust and faith I had in her once.

  “After we divorced, I waited three years and remarried. Too soon probably. My second wife was also a beautiful woman. And I could never bring myself to trust her. My suspicion poisoned our marriage and that failure is my part.

  “Five years later I met my current wife. We have been married for 29 years and we have a son who is now completing his post-doctoral work at Harvard. My wife has been a good wife to me. And I love her. And to this day, I do not trust her as I should.”

  He glared at her and she knew now he was seeing her and not ghosts of his past.

  “My life has been poisoned by my first wife’s betrayal. I have never been the man I was before I walked in on her that day. Such a simple thing, and yet it haunts me to this day. I still think of her sometimes. And I know that deep down, very deep down, I still love her. She is the woman I should have grown old with. But she threw it all away.”

  The glare turned to a cold smile.

  “I have tried not to keep tabs on her, to want to know how her life has gone. But people talk, and I see things. She has been married four times. And three of those times her husbands have cheated on her. She has no children. She has had a drinking problem, although I believe she has it under control. She lives alone now.

  “I wish I could say that I pity her, but in all honesty, her pain has brought me comfort. There is a price to betrayal. Judas Iscariot, the first great betrayer, hung himself. He had the decency to do the right thing in the end.

  “You, Professor Maitland, betrayed a man who obviously loved you. I saw it in him that night. He will never be the same man he was. He may come back and build a new life, but something will have been lost.

  “That is why, Professor Maitland, I will be terminating your relationship with this university.”

  There were many things she could have said, but nothing that would have mattered. She got up to leave.

  “Professor Maitland. I know this has been a shock and life will be...difficult… for you with everything else that is going on. Let me suggest that you contact Johnny August, the Jacksonville Public Defender. I can only tell you that there is a great deal of turmoil in that office and I know that from contacts I have, someone with your experience and reputation in corporate organization and operations, might find some interest there. It’s strictly up to you.”

  She walked out without looking back and started to think when her brain started functioning again what she would do. As she left Myers’ office she realized she had never felt so alone in her life.

  Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 11:30 A.M.

  I sat on a deck chair on Deck Quatre and watched the excursion ships chugging back and forth through the somewhat choppy waves toward the small spit of land that had been developed into a cruise ship play ground with a snack hut, changing hut, surfboard rental and a few other tourist amenities in the middle of nowhere.

  In only two days and nights we’d be back in Jacksonville. And already the thoughts of what were waiting for me were beginning to occupy my mind.

  The “killer granny” trial transferred up from Orlando would probably come up in a month or two, which was tomorrow in Attorney Time. The last of the three child-killing drug-dealing thug brothers would be up in another few weeks.

  A brutal and evil man who had beaten his wife to death with a tire iron would go to trial and probably walk away a free man unless I managed to pull legal rabbit out of a hat.

  And the black cop who had shot to death the white husband of the cop’s white girlfriend, as well as the husband’s two white brothers, was the big thundercloud hanging over everything else. The white girlfriend hadn’t bothered to divorce her husband before moving in with the cop.

  In a perfect world, his race and the girlfriend’s race and the race of the three dead men wouldn’t matter. But the last time I’d looked, we didn’t live in a perfect world.

  I had slowly come to the conclusion of what I do would do about the cop, but the dead men were going to be just as dead if I put off the decision for a few more months. There is no statue of limitations on murder, fortunately. Because this one might really spell the end of my time at the State Attorney’s Office. I just hadn’t figured out a way to do what was right, without committing professional suicide.

  I was thinking about these and other matters and sipping slowly on a snifter of Tequila Crude, pouring salt on the back of my hand, sliding a little of the Tequila down my throat and then biting into a wedge of lemon and enjoying the exquisitely sour rush.

  “I see you are a man who knows how to drink Tequila.”

  I looked up. A tall brunette with large breasts, lips redder than rubies and eyes with ornately designed eyebrows stood at the rail looking down at me. I wondered if I might be putting out male pheromones.

  “The product of a misspent youth, I’m afraid.”

  She sat in a chair beside me and offered me her hand. I took it and shook it. Sitting down she looked as good as she had standing.

  “I am Danielle Vallée. I am one of the ship’s Assistant Cruise Directors.”

  “Glad to meet you. I’ve already met one of your counterparts.”

  “I know, Aline. She had mentioned you and I’ve seen her with you.”

  “She is a very sweet lady and she has done an outstanding job of making the cruise an excellent one.”

  She smiled and said, “I’m sure. Screaming was reported from your room. Screaming which sounded suspiciously like Aline. And when she made her appearance today, she tried but could not keep the smile off her face.”

  “I’m sure she smiles frequently.”

  “No, she does not. And everyone knows why. That’s why I wanted to thank you.”

  “For...?”

  “For bringing a little happiness to a woman who deserves more. She is a good woman, a good crew mate, and a good friend.”

  She stood up and walked away without another word.

  I sat there and thought about ordering another one. I was still thinking about it when a sligh
t redheaded man sat beside me as I finished the Tequila Crude. He was out of uniform so it took me a second to recognize him.

  “Father Dunleavy. And a fine mornin’ to ya,” I said in my best fake Irish brogue.

  He just smiled and said, “Keep your day job, Mr. Maitland. What is that splendid concoction you’re finishing there?”

  I told him and he flagged down a waiter and ordered one for himself and another for me.

  “It’s early to be drinking, Mr. Maitland, but in the words of that great American song, ‘It’s 5 o’clock somewhere’!”

  We talked about generalities, world politics, the possibility of more tribal conflicts in Rwanda and whether Tequila Crudes or Bloody Mary’s were the true uncrowned great drink of the western world.

  “You can’t talk about Russia, because they don’t know anything but Vodka there, or Italy because it’s wine this and wine that,” he said smiling.

  We drank for awhile and then he said, “You know that she is greatly conflicted about the attraction she feels for you?”

  “Is that what she talked about with you?”

  “Among other things. I gave her what advice I could, but I couldn’t give her any answers.”

  “I would think as a Catholic Priest the answer would be pretty obvious. She’s married. She shouldn’t be going to bed with anybody but her husband.”

  “Most people would say that, and probably 99 percent of the time that rule would be sufficient. But...do you know her situation, that of her and her husband?”

  “Not only that, but I know her husband. I would have called him a friend until I went to bed with his wife. I assume you know that because everybody seems to know everything on this ship. Since I am cuckolding him, I’m not sure how I’d characterize our relationship.”

  “That is only a word.”

  “But words, as a famous American conservative political commentator says, mean something. I tend to agree. Call it anything you want, I pursued and bedded a married woman who I think loves her husband. I did the same thing to him that a son-of-a-bitch did to me when he destroyed my marriage. I can’t say I regret what I did, but I’m not proud of it.”