"He blackmailed me. He knew something about me and he threatened to tell you if I didn't give in to his demands."
"What did he have that was so bad that you would fuck him to keep me from finding out?"
"He caught me giving Dave Holbrook a blow job at Helen Catron's birthday party."
The disgust was obvious on Rick's face as he said, "My God, it just gets worse. How many other guys have you had sex with?"
"Just last night with Ron and the one time with Dave. Dave was more of a rape than anything else, but that wouldn't have mattered if Ron hadn't seen it. If Ron hadn't seen it I would have told you about it, but Ron did see it and he told me if I didn't put out for him he would tell everybody. I couldn't let that happen. If only you and Dave and I knew, I knew you would take care of Dave. But everyone we knew knowing about it? No, I couldn't let that happen. Even though Dave forced me I wouldn't have been able to face people.
"You know how people think Rick. Half would believe that it wasn't rape and that I did it willingly and I would be hit on for the rest of my life. I told Ron I would have to think about it. I stalled him for a couple of months and when Dave was killed in that auto accident I thought I could tell Ron to fuck off and leave me alone. Without Dave around to smirk when Ron told the story I thought no one would believe him. Ron told me that he didn't care if people believed him or not and he gave me a deadline. He told me I had to have sex with him by the night of his open house or he was going to spread the word that I liked giving blow jobs at parties. I knew he was going to do it so I gave in. He promised me if I let him have me all three ways he would never mention what I did with Dave again."
"You say Dave raped you. How did that happen?"
"You know I don't hold my liquor very well. I'd had too much to drink at Helen's party and I was feeling woozy. You were in the basement shooting pool and Dave offered to walk me outside for some fresh air. We were standing at the back of the patio and Dave told me that I was a very sexy woman. I thanked him and then he said it was a shame that I was wasted on just one man. He told me that he liked my mouth. He said it looked like it was made for sucking cock and then he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me to my knees and stepped in front of me. I hadn't noticed, but while we were talking he had taken out his cock and it was hard. He grabbed the back of my head and pulled it toward his cock and I opened my mouth to yell and he shoved his cock in my mouth. Then he held my head and face fucked me while I tried to push him away. He came quick and let go of my head and I jerked back from him just as Ron walked out and saw us. As I was pulling back Dave's cock shot one more spurt and it hit my face and when Ron asked if he could be next I turned to look at him and he saw the cum running down my chin. I saw him smile and start to unzip his pants and I got up and ran to the car, got in it and locked the doors. I used some Kleenex from the glove compartment to clean my face and about twenty minutes later I went back to the party to find you and tell you I wanted to leave."
"Dave and Ron and that's it?"
"Yes."
"I'm having a hard time believing that Kathleen. You seem to forget that I was in the room and I heard you begging for Ron's cock. I heard all of that slut talk about how you were his slut and he could fuck you whenever he wanted. It sure didn't sound to me like you were being blackmailed."
"You know me Rick. You know how much I love making love to you and you know how I get when I'm having sex. Yes, I did say those things to Ron, but that was my body talking. I was having orgasms and you know how I am when that happens. God knows you've heard a lot of that kind of talk from me when you have brought me to orgasm. Rick, I'm sorry. I should have told you about Dave and I should have told you about what Ron was trying to get me to do, but I was afraid. I was afraid that Ron would tell everyone and that my life would become miserable. And I'm sorry to have to admit that I was afraid that you might even believe that it wasn't rape if you heard about it."
"You were afraid that I would believe it?"
"Just think about some of the things you have said to me since my birth control pills screwed up my hormones. Why wouldn't I think that you might suspect that I wasn't getting enough from you at home? I was scared Rick. I was afraid and I stupidly thought that if I did what Ron wanted it would all go away."
"Well it isn't going to go away Kathleen. It not only isn't going to go away, it is going to get worse. You know why Kathleen? Because you are a lying, cheating whore. No one but Dave and Ron? One a rape and the other blackmail? What about the guy you were sucking off on the train?"
At the mention of that she turned pale and felt her blood start to run cold. He knew! Dear God, he knew the worst. She felt the pain of her betrayal stab her in the heart. The one she loved most in the world she had hurt and she did not think she would ever be able to heal that hurt.
"Just how stupid do you think I am Kathleen? Did you really think that Ron could come up to me, tell me you were a slut, and that I would just say, "Okay, show me?" When he called you a slut he was only seconds away from being stomped into a puddle and he knew it so he pulled out his cell phone and showed me that picture. Cell phone pictures from a distance aren't all that great and it did look like you, but it possibly could have been someone else and that's when Ron said he would prove it. That is why I was in that room with the lights off Kathleen. I was there so I could watch you slap Ron's face, knee him in the balls or something like that, but none of that happened, did it. You just spread your legs and said, "Fuck me Ron, I'll be your slut." You did it so easy, so natural, that it looked like something you did a lot of. I want to know it all Kathleen, every last little bit of it."
She had never seen him so grim, so determined, and the worst part was that she could sense the steaming rage he was keeping bottled up inside himself. He had sworn at her. In all their years together, no matter how bad the argument, he had never sworn at her. That fact alone told her how bad she had hurt him and that knowledge caused a pain in her soul she didn't think she could bear. "Oh my God" she thought, "What have I done to him." The look on his face and the pain she saw in his eyes made her want to curl up right there and die. The man had put her on a pedestal; he had worshipped the ground she walked on and she had betrayed him. For the sake of some sexual excitement she had driven a stake through his heart.
She had never given any thought to how he would feel if he ever found out, because she knew he never would. Her sluttish ways were just that - hers - and he would never know. Except that now he did and the pain that he was feeling at her betrayal was tearing at her heart. Dear God, she had never meant to hurt him, to cause him the pain he was now enduring, and even at that he didn't know the half of it. And the bad part, the really horrible part, was that there wasn't anything she could do that would make things better, that would drive away the hurt and pain he was suffering.
Well, there was one thing she could do. It wouldn't ease the pain, but it would remove the cause. But at what price? It would maybe help him, but it would absolutely destroy her. But then, wasn't that the definition of love? Being willing to die if it would help the one you loved? The only way to remove Rick's pain was to remove herself from his life, but there was the rub. She loved him too much to leave him. She just could not do it on her own so he had to be made to push her out of his life and there was only one way to do it. She took a deep breath and then said:
"The one thing you have to know and believe above all else is that I love you. I have always loved you and I always will love you. What I did was wrong, but it was not done because I no longer cared for you. I'm still not even sure why I did it other than for the pure sexual excitement. It fed on itself. The more I did it, the more I wanted to do more of it. You saw the outcome. I couldn't leave you alone. I kept wanting more and more."
"I never did anything with Dave. I made that up knowing that he was dead and couldn't deny it. I had hoped that telling you that lie would be enough, but now I see that it isn't going to help me."
And then she told him how it had started and then how each encounter had driven her to the next. The train, the blackmail at school, the car pool and everything that had come about while car pooling. She told him what she did while he played golf on Saturdays and she told him of the constant calls from The Watcher who she came to find out was Ron. She did not tell him about Billy and Todd and she made no mention of Sarah, Chris, Bobby or Frank. She would not be responsible for poisoning the relationship between him and his father - not on top of all the other pain she had caused him. Even with the ones she omitted the picture she had painted of herself was not pretty. In fact, it was downright ugly.
"And then you came home from that trip and told me about Andy Milliken and that was my wake-up call. Until then I had convinced myself that you loved me enough to forgive me if I got caught, but after hearing how you felt about Andy's situation - how you felt about something that didn't even concern you - I could no longer believe that your love for me would be a 'get out of jail free' card. I quit cold turkey and promised myself that never again would I do anything that might cost me you.
