If I wasn't capable of being angry at Jennie right then, I had no trouble being pissed off at that bastard George Atherton! A smug, smooth, self-righteous asshole. It took me just ten minutes to drive to his house.
When I rang the bell his wife Angela answered. "Hi, Brad! Nice to see you—this is a surprise!"
"Hi Angela. I'm sorry to bother you, but is George here? I need to see him for a moment—it's urgent."
"He just came back a few minutes ago. Let me get him. Come on in!"
As I stood in their front hall, George emerged from the back of the house. He was clearly shaken when he saw me, but he recovered after a moment and came forward with a big self-satisfied smile and his hand outstretched. "Brad! How nice to see you. How is everything? How's your lovely wife?"
Ignoring his hand, I stepped forward and kneed him hard in the balls. He collapsed with a loud groan, bringing Angela back into the room. As she watched in horror, I grabbed him by the hair, pulled up his head, and slapped him across the face, back and forth, a dozen times or more, until I was sure I was raising bruises.
"So you think you have the right to fuck my 'lovely wife', you self-important, hypocritical cunt? I ought to cut your balls off and shove them down your throat!" I punctuated this last remark by kicking him in the nuts again, leaving him groaning in agony on the floor.
Angela ran to me and pulled me away. "Brad, have you lost your mind? What is going on here? Why did you hit George?"
"Because, Angela, I'm sorry to say that I watched your husband fucking my wife this afternoon in my marital bed." I handed her the six photos. She looked quickly at the first few, then gasped, "that bastard!"
I calmly sat down on the sofa, watching George's writhings. "Angela, why don't you bring your loving husband a glass of water? He seems to need it. And then I need to speak to you both for a minute."
Looking shell-shocked, she did as I asked. A few minutes later, George had managed to get himself into a chair, where he was still hunched over in pain. He didn't look at me once. Angela sat across the room, looking at him furiously.
"Okay, George, here's how it is. You certainly demonstrated this afternoon that you're not a fit leader of our congregation, wouldn't you agree? So tonight you're going to call the pastor and the Board of Governors, and you're going to resign your position. You can tell them it's for personal reasons, or health reasons, or whatever you like. I don't give a shit.
"But you're going to do it. Because if you haven't done it by noon tomorrow, copies of those photos are going to be emailed to every member of the Board of Governors. I'm sure they'll be quite concerned about the morality of what you've been up to.
"And one more thing. Don't even think about dragging Jennie's name into this. Because if you do, I promise you I will come back to this house and kill you with my bare hands. Slowly. And it will be a pleasure."
He didn't even try to fight me. He caved instantly, still not looking at me. "All right, Brad, I'll do it. Do you promise you won't send the photos?"
"You resign, and the photos stay with me. Though it's kind of a shame, don't you think, that more people won't know about the other side of George Atherton?"
I turned to his wife. "I am sorry, Angela—truly. Maybe it wasn't my right to make you face this too, but I couldn't help thinking that you'd want to know the truth about him."
She nodded grimly at me. "No need to be sorry, Brad—I've known for a long time he's been chasing skirts all through the congregation. It's actually sort of nice to have proof of it."
Without another word I headed back to my car.
********
AFTERMATH
Terri and I made the best of our weekend in Chicago. I felt sorry for her, actually, because I was so sad and it didn't make for a lot of fun. We ate well, we both enjoyed Christmas shopping with the city all lit up, and we skipped the ballet in favor of a entertaining musical. In other words, I did the best I could.
On the way to Chicago, I filled her in on everything I'd seen, both of us remembering sadly that eighteen years earlier I had done the same thing, the first time Jennie cheated on me.
As before, she listened to me with loving sympathy and concern, holding my hand gently when I cried. The worst of it was over by the time we reached the hotel, and we managed to enjoy the dinner and the terrific view.
Over the years I had thought idly about Terri—who at 53, five years older than I, still was a beautiful woman—and wondered what it might be like to have her as my lover, rather than as my best and most trusted friend. There was no question I found her attractive, and I imagined she felt the same way about me. But it never came up between us, which always seemed like a good thing.
That night in the suite, there was a mildly embarrassing moment. Terri wandered into the bedroom and came out holding the beautiful—and incredibly revealing—nightie I had left there for Jennie.
"God, Brad, this nightie on Jennie could have given a dead man a hard-on!"
I laughed, but then wondered if I should offer it to Terri. She saw my thoughts in my eyes, and smiled ruefully. "No, Brad, I don't think so. I love you better than any man I know—certainly better than that jerk, my ex-husband—but you and I are better off as friends. And tonight of all nights, neither of us would feel very good about me giving you THAT sort of consolation."
I went to her, smiling, and gave her a big kiss on the forehead. "Bless you, Terri. You are my very best friend. And a big part of why I love you is that you're smarter than I am!"
We hugged, fondly, and then went back to our coffee and dessert.
When I got back to St Louis I found a couple of short phone messages from Jennie. In a listless, hopeless voice she said that she was ready to talk with me whenever I wanted.
I called her Sunday night and suggested we meet at the house the next day after work. She agreed, and after a moment asked, "did you go ahead and go to Chicago anyway?"
"Yes, I went with Terri. We had an OK time ... but needless to say, it wasn't the same, Jennie."
There was a long silence. I could hear her quietly crying. I waited, then said, "I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart," and hung up the phone.
I didn't feel angry. Intellectually, I knew that I was angry, and that I was supposed to be enraged, furious, ready to kill my unfaithful bitch of a wife. For the second time she'd taken my happy marriage and stomped on it! I should want to kill her, right?
But those thoughts didn't connect to my feelings. What I felt was just sadness, as much for Jennie as for me. I didn't know why Jennie had fucked George Atherton—or rather from the looks of it why she'd let him fuck her. I imagined it was all about attention again—about her need to feel loved and attractive.
But I knew that she was now regretting it deeply, bitterly—blaming herself (and rightly so, of course) for killing her happy marriage once and for all. Given the pain she was in, I just didn't feel like piling on with my own anger.
********
On Monday I called Barbara McDonald and asked to see her. A little surprised to hear from me after so long, she said that she'd prefer to see Jennie and me together.
"I'd really like to come in by myself," I said. "Jennie's cheated on me again."
She took a deep breath. "Brad, I am so sorry to hear that." We made an appointment for later in the week.
Jennie met me at the door Monday evening. She looked like a zombie—if a zombie could be breathtakingly beautiful. She was pale, with deep circles under her eyes. She hadn't spent much time or attention on her make-up, and from the looks of things she hadn't gone to work that day.
It was so hard for me to know what to feel. Should I be pleased? Good, you bitch, suffer and die, you deserve it? Or, this is my wife who is suffering here; and yes, she brought it on herself, but it still saddens me to see her so miserable? Or even, the hell with her, I'm facing the death of a marriage that meant the world to me?
We sat together in the living room. She seemed to want to begin. Looking straight ahead of her, she said, " you won't have to worry about the water-works tonight, Brad—I'm all cried out." Then she sat silent for a minute.
Suddenly she said, "I've been an idiot, Brad ... I've been a fucking idiot!" Her use of the swear word startled me—it was completely uncharacteristic of her.
"I've been over this and over this, as I'm sure you can guess. Why did I do this, how could I have done it? With George Atherton, that pompous political skirt-chaser? Did you know, by the way, Brad, that a bunch of ladies in the congregation think he's hot stuff? Everyone knows he screws around, and I heard a few rumors about how great he is in the sack. What bullshit!" Her voice had risen from apathy to spirited mockery—but then it subsided again.
"And the note you left me, describing the weekend you'd planned for us—it just about killed me, Brad. I just about cried myself to death. I guess that was your intention. What a lovely, amazing, generous surprise it would have been! If I could only go back and undo Friday ... I've had that thought ten million times this past weekend."
She lapsed into silence. I waited, then said, gently, "can you tell me about you and George?"
She sighed. "He's been sniffing around me for months, Brad. I see him all the time at church business meetings, as you know, and he's been giving me lots of attention. It wasn't as though I couldn't see where he was headed—I just don't understand why I didn't give him a big No weeks ago, even before the question became imminent.
"We had a lunch date Friday—but I swear, Brad, there were supposed to be three other committee heads there, just a working lunch. Instead when I showed up at the restaurant it was just George, a little table for two in the corner. He said that two of the others had to cancel so we'd re-schedule the meeting. He hoped I wouldn't mind the consolation prize of having lunch with him." She grimaced.
"I go over it and over it, Brad .... We had lunch, we had some wine, he was charming. I have to confess that turning 47 last summer kind of depressed me, made me feel old. I know I'm still good-looking, but I sure don't look the way I did at 27, don't get that total attention when I walk down the street.
"Anyway.... he brought me here after lunch, made a pretty strong pass, said he'd take me out that evening for dinner to a really nice, quiet place out of town he knew about. And I gave in. I just don't get it, Brad!" She looked at me, genuinely bewildered.
"I called Terri to beg off the theater for Friday night, and I let him take me to bed. In our bed!
"And it was awful. He practically tore my clothes off, pawed at me, gasped out compliments and endearments, and then pretty much jumped on top of me. For the first time in my life I felt like a whore—felt what it would be like to be a whore, letting a man take his pleasure with your body, you trying the whole time to pretend you weren't there.
