The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

  “I never meant him to see any of those. I never thought—that he would spy on me.”

  “Because you could go anywhere, party with your friends, come back drunk, and he never asked you questions. I’ll bet my life he never checked your panties to see if you had any unusual deposits in them. He trusted you, even knowing what a hot piece of ass you are. I don’t know how many men would be that trusting, or stupid.”

  “Whether you or he believe it, I was never with any other man, since we got married. I went out and I drank and I let men touch me, but I never…touched them back. I …never gave blowjobs or…went out to their cars.”

  “Well, aren’t you the saint yourself, Debbie. Never gave any blowjobs but you did let men rub you and play with your tits. I know I’d be proud of you if you were my wife. Especially since you were doing it behind my back.”

  She made herself stare back at him although she felt like crawling under the table.

  “I’m not a slut, no matter what you say or what these emails might make you think. You’re away from home more than you’re home and Mona basically lives alone most of the time, just like me. I know she travels all over. She dances with men. She has drinks with them. She goes out to dinner with them.

  “And she may not be as hot as me, but she’s pretty damn hot. You really think guys don’t rub their dicks on her when they’re slow dancing. You really think no one ever brushes or touches her breasts? You really believe she doesn’t get wet when some young, good looking guy is hitting her with everything he’s got? If you do, you’re the idiot.”

  His expression didn’t change.

  “I know she goes out for drinks and dancing with men. I know they hit on her. I would if I were single. I wouldn’t be surprised if guys get her hot. She’s human. But I know this. She would never physically or emotionally cheat on me. And if she fell in love with somebody else, she’d have the decency to tell me we were through. She wouldn’t let me find it out the way Bill did.”

  “I’m not in love with Doug and I didn’t cheat. Not till the weekend of the UNF blowup.”

  She stopped. What he had said was true. They were what they were. The rest of it didn’t matter. She forced herself to bring her mind back to the now, instead of going back six months.

  “So. They’re embarrassing. But what I said was true. I didn’t cheat on Bill until our marriage exploded and there’s nothing in there you can use in court. Joyce has already told me that having sex with Doug before we crossed the ‘t’s and dotted the ‘I’s and made it legal is no big deal. Bill had already humiliated me and damaged my career. I didn’t owe him fidelity.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  And he proceeded to explain how.

  “You can call Joyce in here, and she’ll try to blow smoke, but in the end you’ll see I’m right. Doug is history when I file the suit against him and you’ll be right behind him when I file the workplace environment lawsuit against UNF. Doesn’t matter what protections you have in place, if they want you gone, trust me, you’ll be gone.

  “And when that happens, you’re going to need Bill’s maintenance. Being a mentor is not an administrative position, not in the chain of command. But it does place you in a semi-supervisory position over a younger colleague.

  “And you, an older and more experienced staff member, took advantage of your position to trade emails about how big and hard your mentee’s cock was, to exchange intimate secrets about your married sex life and how frustrated you were with your husband, and basically told your mentee that he could fuck you if he just tried a little bit harder.

  “That’s not normally the type of behavior universities, or any organization, expect from their mentors. In fact, if you were male and Doug was female, you would be very much in line for a sexual harassment lawsuit. It doesn’t matter if he was chasing or trying to seduce you. It was your duty to keep things from getting out of hand. Even if all UNF does is cut you loose, good luck finding a position similar to the one you have at any other teaching institution.”

  He smiled at her and she finally knew why Bill had said he was a shark. There was something very cold and cruel in that smile, almost as if he were enjoying the thought of what was awaiting her. Maybe the emotion wasn’t real and he was just twisting the knife for effect, but it felt real.

  “So when you get that maintenance check, you’d better kiss it and hold it tight, because while you’re looking for a new job in a new field, you’re going to find it hard to maintain the standard of life you became accustomed to before you started looking around for greener pastures.”

  She surprised herself.

  “No.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  “No what?”

  “No deal, you bastard. Tell Bill that for me. Let him do what he wants with those emails. Doug was planning on leaving anyway and this just means he’ll bail sooner. He’s young and talented and he’ll find another job.

  “And if I wind up washing dishes in a Sonny’s barbecue joint, or handing out hamburgers at McDonalds, so be it. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he beat me down, forced me to let the alimony go. If he hates me that much, tell him I’m going to rub every single damned check he sends me all over my pussy before I cash it, and that’s the closest he’s ever going to come to getting inside me again.”

  Lew just stared at her for a moment, and then he smiled. And this time she did shiver.

  “You’re a pretty tough broad, Debbie. Tougher than I thought. So the last thing we’re going to do with the emails won’t bother you.”

  “What else could you do?”

  “Copies will be posted on the Internet. There are cheating wives sites, and places like that. Plus copies will be anonymously emailed or hard copies will be sent to your parents, his parents, your friends, your colleagues at work. Pretty much anybody you’ve ever known.”

  “He couldn’t hate me that much.”

  “Doesn’t matter if he does or not. It will happen. You remember how you reacted. How do you think your parents will feel when they read how enamored you were with a colleague’s abs and dick when you were still married to Bill? Your friends? Well, I don’t know if any of them will drop you, but expect to have every married friend you know watch you very carefully anytime you’re around a husband.

  “Oh, and this shouldn’t bother you at all, but expect every husband and boyfriend of every friend you’ve got to start calling and coming around when their significant other is otherwise occupied. Because they’re all going to think you’re just another very hot and very fuckable MILF. I imagine your son’s friends- what are they, fourteen or fifteen - will start hitting on you too.”

  He stopped and looked down at his hands. He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

  “There won’t be anything sent to your kids. But they’ll find them. Friends will see that they do. And no matter how grown up kids act like they are, how do you think they’re going to react to finding out what you really thought of their father, how you treated him, when you were still married to him?

  “How do you think they’ll feel when they find out that you were lying through your teeth about your feelings for Doug, that you were lying when you said their father was paranoid and crazy to be suspicious of you two. You lied through your teeth to your children and your parents.”

  Now he looked at her, and worse than the threat was the pity in his eyes.

  “But, it really doesn’t matter what they think now. They’re going to grow up. Kelly will be a grown woman with a husband and kids, Bill Jr. will have found some woman he loves and wants to have children with. And someday they’ll run across these e-mails again and they’ll read them with grown-up eyes. They’ll understand what you did, and how terribly you betrayed their father. Even if you didn’t touch Doug, you still engaged in an emotional affair.

  “You’ve lost Bill. And someday, you’re going to lose your children. They may still be polite and still let you be around your grandchildren, but your relation
ship with them will never be the same.”

  They sat together in the small room in a curdled silence. She wasn’t even aware that she was crying until she felt tears run down her cheeks.

  “He wouldn’t do that to me. I can’t believe that. Even hating me, I can’t believe he would do that.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.”

  She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, not believing what she had heard.

  “He-“

  “He wouldn’t use the emails against you that way, Debbie. He wouldn’t even let me threaten you with sending the emails to family and friends. The poor bastard loves you and he’s willing to let you screw him yet again rather than hurt you that way.”

  “Then-“

  “He loves you. I don’t.”

  “I don’t understand, Lew. You’re his attorney.”

  “I was his friend before I was his attorney. I was his friend, I am his friend, and I will be his friend. I’m not going to let you rub salt into the wounds you’ve already inflicted on him.”

  “I still....how can you do what he ordered you not to do?”

  “Easy, I just have to violate virtually every aspect of the duty an attorney owes to his client. I have to go against his wishes and take actions that will kill his soul. But, I’m going to do it anyway.”

  “Those are his emails.”

  “He gave them to me. I made copies.”

  “But he—if he didn’t want—“

  “He’ll be royally pissed at me, furious. He’ll threaten to take legal action against me, bring me before a review board. Maybe try to get me disbarred. And all I’ll do is tell him that if he does I’ll fight it and it’s such a juicy, sexy scandal that it will get tons of publicity—I’ll make sure it does because I know how to work the press - meaning even more people will know what a miserable cheating slut he was married to. In the end he’ll back off. Because he loves you.”

  “But, I thought you were his friend.”

  “Oh, he won’t want anything to do with me for awhile. Maybe a long time. But like I said, whether he’s my friend or not, I’m his friend.”

  He tapped his fingers on the table, saying, “But, all that said, the question is what are you going to do. I’ve told you what I’m going to do.”

  “You’re blackmailing me.”

  “Of course.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to think. So many thoughts swirling through her head. Her whole world had been turned upside down in less than an hour. Everything had changed.

  “I - I need some time, Lew. I can’t make a decision like that so quickly.”

  “You’ve got until I get up and walk out that door. Five minutes after I’m gone they will be winging their way through the ether and the genie will be out of the bottle and none of us will ever be able to get him back in again.”

  She just sat there and stared at him and wondered how she could have ever thought he was a nice guy.

  “How can you do that, Lew? We were friends. You’re willing to destroy me. Take my kids away from me in a very real way. To stop me from getting alimony?”

  He shrugged.

  “When couples split the friends take sides. I happen to be on his side. As to hurting you, well, Bill said that I know no limits and I know no bounds when it comes to winning. I take no prisoners. I like winning. I won’t take any pleasure out of hurting you, despite the fact that you’re a stupid, cruel bitch, but I will if I have to.”

  He looked at her again and grabbed his suitcase and snapped it shut.

  “The clock is running, Debbie. Make up your mind. I’m going to be leaving in a few minutes.”

  Joyce walked back in after Lew had stepped outside for a moment. She looked at Debbie with unease in her eyes.

  “Lew said you wanted to draw up a stipulation that you’ve have given up all rights to maintenance, for all time? That you want it notarized? Is that right, Debbie?”

  Debbie just nodded.

  Joyce glanced from her reddened eyes to Lew, then said, “What the hell did you do, Lew? It can’t be legal. Debbie, can’t we talk about this?”

  Debbie just shook her head.

  “You’re wasting time, Joyce,” Lew said. “Just draw up the papers. I have an appointment across town in a couple of hours.”

  Joyce looked at her without words and then stepped out of the office.

  Debbie took a handkerchief out of his purse and wiped at her eyes. The tears had wiped away her mascara and looking at herself in the mirror she thought she resembled a blonde raccoon. She wiped the smudges off and then looked up at Lew, standing near the doorway.

  “I wish he were more like you. You just royally screwed me over, and I wish we were in a hotel room somewhere and you were doing me. Isn’t that crazy?”

  He looked her over, his eyes lingering on his breasts, and somehow she knew he was visualizing them together in that room, and deep down he would have liked to have been there.

  “The funny thing is, Debbie, that I wish I were more like him.”

  “Why? You’re good looking and young, but it’s more than that. You take what you want. If you weren’t attached, weren’t spoken for, you’d have me in that room and make me scream. You’re not a nice guy, not at all, but then, I never did like nice guys. Before I met Bill.”

  He came back to the table and sat down across from her.

  “You don’t know your husband at all, do you?”

  “I know him a hell of a lot better than you. I’ve known him longer.”

  He shook his head.

  “That’s probably the reason why you guys are splitting. I think it happens that way sometimes. If I’d had any idea, I’d have talked to him, although I doubt he’d have taken any advice from me. You know what he does, but you have no idea what it’s like to live in that world. I think he did it deliberately. Like a cop who never tells his wife what his daily life is like, or a soldier home from the war who can’t talk to his wife about what he went through. And so you have no idea who or what he is.”

  “He’s a damned lawyer, Lew. He wears a suit and stands up in front of juries, but he’s done that for a long time. Don’t fit him for a halo.”

  He stood up suddenly, shoving the chair back and came around the table in one fluid motion. He grabbed her hands in his and yanked her to his feet.

  “Listen to me, you stupid bitch. Bill is the best man I know, the best man I’ve ever known, and he deserves better than a woman who’d throw him over for a flat belly and a big dick.

  “You know what makes him special? You know why Edwards picked him to run the State Attorney’s Office when he had a dozen lawyers older and more experienced than Bill who wanted the job? It’s simple. He does the right thing. Always. No matter what.

  “You can’t scare him off. You can’t buy him off. You can’t seduce him with sex or money or power. If you had a gun to his head and he was going to die in the next minute, he’d do the right thing. He could be a millionaire today if he’d taken any of the offers coming his way from big name firms. He’s had death threats, none of which I imagine you know anything about.

  “The reason Edwards respects him is that he knows if he ordered Bill to do something wrong, Bill would tell him to fuck off and quit a job he loves.”

  He let go of her hands and she fell back into her chair.

  “You are hotter than hell, Debbie, and that’s the truth. But he could cheat on you every day if that’s what he wanted. I don’t have that much power, and I have clients and the wives and daughters of clients offer me pussy—maybe not every day—but it’s a slow week when I don’t have it waived in my face.

  “He holds people’s lives in his hands, their fates. If he was a two-headed dwarf, he’d have women offering to blow him. It’s not legal, but anybody will tell you desperate wives meet prosecutors before deals are made and grateful wives of clients make arrangements to see prosecutors after their husbands get a good deal. Nothing you can prove, but everybody knows it happens.

  “Yo
u see him as a fat, soft guy and it’s obvious you don’t respect him. But the people in his world, the women in his world, see him as the man who runs that office. The Big Man is a politician who likes getting his picture in the papers. Bill is the guy who makes executive decisions, who decides who moves up and who doesn’t. He’s the spine of that place. Any smart woman knows you get him in bed and you’ve got a straight shot to the top.

  “Care to guess how many woman have climbed out of his bed to a higher position in the last five years? There’s a reason why his nickname among women that work there is the Iceman.”

  She just shook her head. The vision of Bill, poor soft pudgy Bill, romping in bed with some younger woman, or even an older woman, wouldn’t come into focus. She watched Doug flirt at the college and felt twinges of jealousy even if theirs was a strictly sexual relationship, but she had never worried about Bill at all. And maybe that was part of the problem.

  Lew must have read her expression.

  “I know he’s hurting, but sometimes divorce can be a good thing. He’s a good man with a great career, good earning potential. He could have kept sleepwalking through a life with you for another few decades but if you hadn’t jumped into bed with Doug, you’d have been cheating on him with somebody.”

  Again he read her face and said, “I’m not accusing you of cheating, Debbie. In your mind you’re probably not right now. I’m just saying he obviously doesn’t meet your needs and you’d never have been able to stay straight. You’re too hot and you obviously need more sex than you’re getting. This is going to be painful for him, but he’s already changing. He needed a good kick in the ass and you gave it to him. He’s going to be better off without you.”

  Joyce came back in with the paperwork and a secretary. Lew read it, nodded at Joyce and passed it on to Debbie.

  “Last chance, Debbie, “Joyce said, casting a hard glance at Lew. “Please don’t sign it like this. Whatever Lew said, or whatever he used to make you do this, we could deal with it. You can always go back to a judge months or years from now and try to modify it. But, it’s not like child support. Child support is like Play- Doh. It’s very flexible. This isn’t.