Good Enough For The Goose

A/N: This story is purely fictional although many of the places named are real. No on-screen sex and no actually lawyers were hurt making this story. (sorry!)

*****

The late spring in Pennsylvania is hard to predict sometimes. This April had been unusually rainy and warm. Typically, I was forced to mow the lawn for the first time in early to mid-May or so, but not this year. At least it isn't snow. This time last year we had a blizzard that dropped six inches on the area. I guess having to mow the lawn early is worth the price of avoiding snow. And with tax season being done it felt great to be outside in the sunlight.

My house has an interesting feature in that the backyard slopes down significantly leading down to a small stream and woods behind us. When they built the house they leveled the front of the house with the road using backfill. This meant a sharp slope about halfway down the side of the house. So the basement completely covered in the front was revealed in the back. This allowed the installation of a double-wide service door so I could pull the mower and other lawn things in there instead of cluttering up my garage. It was one of my favorite features of the house.

I'd finished with the mower and everything was back in place. I have allergies to grass so I was anxious to get upstairs and take a shower. I was almost to the top of the stairs when I heard my wife's voice. I'd seen her friend's car when I'd mowed the front so I wasn't surprised to hear voices. But then I heard what was being said and it made my hand pause as I reached for the doorknob.

I guess I should have started by introducing myself. My name is Robert Krane. I preferred to go by Bob but in school I got tagged as 'Hogan' after the actor Robert Crane that played the lead on "Hogan's Heroes". I didn't mind but the show was off the air before I was born and it doesn't really count as a pop-culture reference anymore. I graduated from University of Pennsylvania with an accounting degree still being called Hogan. I gained my CPA in the minimal required time after leaving school and currently work for a large firm in Philadelphia as a team leader performing audits and such. Not the most exciting position but it paid really well and I got to see the inner workings of a lot of companies. I have a particular gift for forensic analytics, which is building a financial trail to investigate things like fraud and money laundering. I am coming to be seen as an expert and have even been asked to consult with the FBI on two cases.

My wife, Kelly, was a political science and business dual major planning to get her law degree when we met at the start of our junior year. I was sitting waiting for the first day of class when she walked in. Kelly had a tall, slim figure like a ballerina except with a slightly larger chest. Her long strawberry-blonde hair hung loose around her bare shoulders in a vision of loveliness. She was wearing a pretty sundress with sandals that highlighted her delectable legs, sleek and firm. The mixture of innocence and sexuality was too much. I was in instant lust.

Unfortunately, Kelly didn't sit next to me. Or get assigned to me in a group project. It took me four weeks to approach her and break the ice. I made a silly joke and she laughed. It wasn't a dainty giggle it was a full out laugh. We started talking and I asked her if she wanted to go for coffee after class.

"I've been waiting for you to ask for four weeks," she answered with a smile.

The last two years of college we were seldom apart. Our parents weren't too pleased but we moved in together for senior year. But they saw how devoted we were to one another and soon enough adjusted to it. I couldn't see how it could get any better.

But it did.

I graduated and immediately landed a job with one of the larger public accounting firms in Philadelphia. I was making a stupid amount of money for a recently graduated 22 year-old. Kelly was accepted into Penn's law school so we just stayed in our student apartment. My company offered to pay for my MBA so I was taking classes too. I took SEPTA to work every day so a car wasn't needed and cut down on expenses. Three years later, Kelly graduated and I proposed during her celebration dinner in the middle of Morton's Steakhouse in Rittenhouse Square. Six months later we were married.

Kelly took a position as a Deputy District Attorney in the Bucks County prosecutor's office which is north of Philly. We decided to buy a house in Doylestown which was the county seat and hosted the courthouse. It also was the end of the regional rail line so I could simply ride the train in to work every day. It was an 80-minute commute one-way but better than trying to drive in on the Schuylkill Expressway (aka The Sure-Kill Expressway) or I-95.

Kelly and her mother found the house. It was a great starter home with three bedrooms. One bedroom would be set up as an office with two desks. I would be telecommuting occasionally and Kelly needed her own space for her legal work. The other bedroom would be a guest room and of course the final room was our master bedroom. It was also not too far from her parents' house. Kelly sold me on it as built-in babysitters for when we have kids.

I was an only child and always wanted siblings. Kelly and I had discussed kids as far back as our junior year and agreed to wait until Kelly had time to settle into her career before we started trying. But now we'd reached that point and two nights ago had agreed to stop Kelly's birth control and start trying to have a child. I was happier than ever before

And that was when what I heard caused my hand to pause on the doorknob.

"Hogan and I decided that it's time for me to get pregnant!" Kelly announced in an excited squeal. This set off her friend, Olivia Watkins. The two women made the same high-pitch noise that made me wonder about whales accidently beaching off the Jersey Shore trying to reach them. As I stood on the stairs, I grinned at their excitement that matched my own at becoming a father. I was again reaching for the knob when I heard the question that wiped that grin off my face and the happiness right out of me.

"That's wonderful, Kel!" Olivia said. "But what are you going to do about Paul?"

Paul?

"Shh!" Kelly hushed her friend. "Hogan is outside mowing the lawn." There was a pause and I could almost see her looking around for me to pop up. Then she started talking again.

"I've already told Paul that I am ending the affair. He was fine with it. With Grossman stepping down from his Senate seat, Paul thinks he has a real shot at it. Getting caught having an affair with a married employee would be a big no-no."

Just that simple. Three sentences destroyed my world. Paul Evans was Kelly's boss in the DA's office. He was a widower in his mid-forties. His wife Anne died of breast cancer leaving behind him as a single father to their daughter, Barbara. Paul was a real political animal and Kelly had regaled me with stories of his maneuvers within his party to run for higher office. I guess I just found out how my wife got access to all that 'under-the-covers' information!

"Really?" Olivia was saying. "Just going cold turkey? You've been hot and heavy for six months and you're just going to give up the stud-muffin?" The teasing doubt in her voice made me want to rip Olivia's head off. She'd been a classmate at Penn and I knew her before Kelly. I knew Kelly and Olivia were now best friends but I always thought she was still my friend too. I guess I was wrong about that.

"Stop!" Kelly protested with a giggle. "You are so bad. Paul is a great lover but he was just a bit of rough to play with. I love Hogan but Paul just took me and used me however he wanted. There was no love, just raw sex and power! Now that Bob and I are going for a baby, I don't want to take any chances. I love Hogan and will be a good and faithful mother."

'How many more clichés were we going to have here?' I wondered. 'All I need to do is come home to find a strange car in the driveway and find them fucking in my bed to make it complete.' I wanted to run into the room and scream. I wanted to smash up the room. But my muscles were locked in a paralysis. I was so stunned I couldn't move. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears.

"So, cold turkey?" Olivia prodded. Again Kelly's giggle.

"Well, not cold turkey," she admitted. "I have a conference next week with Paul.in Pittsburgh. We'll have our good-bye fuck out there. I'll miss the sex but Hogan and the baby are more important."

I couldn't take anymore but I didn't know what to do. I love Kelly but this was killing me. My business training started to kick in then. I needed to step back and think. I needed to plan.

I started stomping on the steps like I was coming up the stairs. Then I opened the door and steeped into the kitchen. Kelly and Olivia were sitting there with their tea cups in front of them. Was that a hint of guilt I saw on Kelly's face?

"Honey, are you okay?" she asked in a concerned voice. I realized then that my cheeks were coated in tears.

"Allergies," I grunted. "Gonna be a bad spring."

"Well, you go upstairs and take a shower. Just drop those clothes outside the bathroom and I'll wash them right away so they're not contaminating your closet. I bought you a new box of Claritin-D last week that is in the medicine cabinet."

"Thanks," I manage to get out as I make my way towards the stairs. I needed time to think.

-**-

The next morning was a Monday and I used the excuse of an early meeting to be up and out of the house before Kelly was out of bed. I'd used my allergies as a reason to go to bed early the night before because my emotions were in an uproar. As I sat on the train I thought again about what I'd heard.

On one hand, my wife was unfaithful but was ending it as 'purely sexual' to stay with me and have my child. Some would argue that I should let it go at that and be happy that my wife was coming back to the marriage planning to be a good wife and mother. However, there is a voice in my head that says if she did it once, what will stop her from doing again in the future? Ten years on with the kids in school would she have another "just sex" affair? Then a divorce would have kids involved where Kelly would most likely get the kids and I'd get a large alimony and support bill. As an accountant and business analyst I had to think in terms of risk and reward. I found myself doing the same thing here. It came down to the fact my trust in my wife was completely destroyed.

The "just sex" excuse misses what is the truly important issue in these cases. It is the total lack of respect it shows for the partner. The cheater knows what they are doing is wrong and would hurt the other person. Otherwise, they would be doing it in the open and I would have known all along. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I would have ever accepted her sleeping with Don, but at the very least if she had talked to me about it some respect would have been shown. Kelly's actions proved to me how much she really respected me.

I worked my day but a part of my brain was focused on what I should do. I had no evidence aside from my overheard conversation. I hadn't even noticed anything different in the last six months that this affair was apparently going on. A direct confrontation without evidence would be a high risk with little possibility of reward. Kelly would deny. Paul Evans would deny. Getting any case through the courts would be financial suicide as every judge, politician, and lawyer in the surrounding counties knew Evans. I'd get buried to keep his name clean.

I thought about just leaving and starting over again somewhere else. It was tempting. But the house would be like an anchor around my neck. Kelly couldn't afford it on her salary alone and we barely had any equity. She would have to unload it almost immediately to stay out of foreclosure and today's market made that highly unlikely. It would destroy my credit as well as hers. Being a CPA with a poor credit score is not a good thing when going for a new position. How can you be trusted with other people's money when you obviously can't handle your own?

I needed evidence before I could do anything. I would get it but it came from the most unlikely source.

-**-

Three days later I was keeping it together but still had found no evidence to back up what I'd heard. Her personal laptop was clean. No secret email accounts were to be found. No sexy underwear hidden in a box tucked deep in the closet. No receipts from places she had no business going to. Absolutely nothing.

Then Kelly called me at work to say we were invited to a party \ political announcement at Paul Evans home Friday night. I assumed this was his big announcement of his candidacy for the US Senate seat. I entertained thoughts of the big denouncement but I still had no evidence damn it!

We arrived just on time for the big event. Evans had a nice sized McMansion out near Washington Crossing complete with a small horse farm. A large tent had been erected in the back yard for all of the guests. And as we walked in, there stood the asshole himself, Paul Evans, at the head of a receiving line like he was a king. As a widower, Evans had no wife to play hostess. But he'd obviously recruited his 21 year-old daughter into the role. She stood next to her father greeting guests like she'd been born into it.

When was our turn, Evans gave Kelly a wide smile and cried out, "Kelly, you made it! How wonderful!" He gave my wife a chaste kiss on the cheek. Then he turned to me. "Robert! Excellent to see you again! I'd be lost without your wife but I understand I will have to give her up soon when you start to expand the family!" He laughed at his own joke. "Just let me have her back when you are done with her and there'll be no hard feeling on it!" Again the laugh. Kelly actually blushed a little while I wanted to kill the smarmy SOB. I got his innuendo that he obviously thought had gone right over my head.

"Who knows what the future will bring," I said in a flat neutral tone. Not hostile, but not in any way friendly. The same way I reported an audit result. Evans actually blanched slightly and Kelly elbowed me and muttered about being rude. Evans smoothly turned to the next guest leaving us to his daughter.

Kelly was an incredibly attractive woman, but Barbara Evans was a vision. Even in my inner rage I noticed. Her dark red hair and brilliant smile made me think of a young Maureen O'Hara. Where Kelly looked like a busty ballerina, Barbara looked like she belonged on a pin-up swimsuit calendar standing next to Kate Upton. She had the combination good looks, health figure, hair, and skin that photographers dreamed of and so often had to use Photoshop to achieve.

Paul Evans had a perfect triple threat political family. He looked the perfect part of the wise statesman and family man. His loss of his wife to cancer provided the "perfect" wife. She was idolized and any opponent attacking her was asking for career suicide. Barbara was the princess: Homecoming queen, a Penn senior majoring in business and pre-law, former gymnast now a member of the Penn cheerleading squad. Rumor according to Kelly was Barbara planned to try out for the Eagles cheerleading squad at their next open call as she'd just turned 21. With a sainted deceased wife and a smart, beautiful, photogenic daughter, the press would love him in a campaign.

"Robert!" Barbara said in an excited tone as she gave me a big hug. This wasn't the polite party 'hug'. It was a full on body squeeze. Parts of her squashed against me in a most agreeable manner. "You look great! No wonder Kelly has been hiding you away. You never come to any of our parties. You shouldn't work so hard. It's bad for your health!"

Somehow she got that all out in one breath.

My mood had gone from furious to completely shocked in less than a second. I made a few polite noises about how wonderful she looked and was moving off before two things hit me. One, Barbara never greeted Kelly. And second, what parties? Kelly didn't give me a chance to ask as she jumped in with her own greeting to the younger woman. Then we had no choice but to give way to the next guests in the line.

As Kelly and I wandered off to mingle I had to wonder what Barbara knew. After getting my wife a drink, I asked, "What parties was Barbara talking about?"

Kelly merely smiled and snorted dismissively. "She was just teasing, the little brat. Paul has team meetings and strategy sessions here sometimes. He says he thinks better with a drink in his hand and you never know who might be in the next booth in a bar. She's been home a few times when we've met here. Don't tell anyone but Paul let her drink at home even before she turned 21."

Well, that gave me the where. The bastard was fucking my wife right here at his house under the cover of 'team meetings'. They could even be real meetings where Kelly was the last to leave. Or possibly left first and returned after everyone else had left. That would keep a team of lawyers from speculating on why Kelly always stayed behind to help the boss clean up. With a dead wife and a daughter off to college, he had no need to find a discrete hotel room. Hence, no records of their meeting.

"So, Barbara attends your team meetings?" I asked.

Kelly waved the question off. "No, she's been home a few times when classes were cancelled. She is just teasing her father about having parties during working hours." She tugged on my arm. "Come on, love, buy your bride a drink."

For the next hour, Kelly was never more than a foot away from me. We talked to a number of her co-workers and a few brought up our plans to have a child and how sorry they would be to lose Kelly for a time but how excited they were for Kelly and me. Frankly, I found it a bit awkward. Why did all these people know our plans?

After an hour, Paul Evans called for everyone's attention. His daughter stood smiling by his side. He started off thanking everyone for coming and then launched into his big campaign announcement. Everyone expected it but acted excited anyway. I noticed the publisher of the local paper with one of his reporters nearby taking notes. I am sure it will make a big spread in tomorrow's paper.

I won't bore you with the rest of the details from the party. It would have been a pleasant time if my heart wasn't shattered with my brain on overdrive thinking how to prove any of it. It was about 90 minutes after the grand announcement that Margret Williamson, the First Assistant District Attorney, came by and said Paul wanted to meet with his staff. Where Paul was an elected official Margret was the senior person that actually ran the office. DA's could come and go every four years but Margret was a permanent fixture. A very tough lady but also highly respected for honesty and integrity in the legal community. The older female lawyer was most of the reason Kelly took the position. I rather liked her. Margret was married for over thirty years to an electrician who supported her through college and now owned a nice sized electrical contracting company. The two were devoted to each other. I always thought they were the model for Kelly and me.

"Sorry to steal your wife away, Hogan," Margret offered. "Paul wants to discuss to organization of the office once he is off campaigning." A moment later they were both gone.

I wandered away from a small cluster of other spouses that had been left behind for the meeting and made my way over to the other side of their large pool opposite the patio where the party was occurring. There was a wicker chair swing hanging from chains. It was somewhat in the shadows so people would be able to see me if they looked but I wouldn't be obvious. In other words, it was a perfect place for me to try to gather my thoughts.