Chapter 1 - Mid June Cheaters are exposed in so many ways. Sometimes it's an overheard phone call, an email left visible on a computer monitor, or text messages not deleted from a cell phone memory. There's always the chance a friend, a business associate, or a family member will see the wayward wife or husband with the other person. Occasionally, the cheaters are discovered in flagrante delicto--when a spouse comes home early, for instance. And God help cheaters who talk in their sleep. When you think about it, there are thousands of ways for an affair to be exposed. Steve Curtis, for instance, read of his wife's infidelity in the newspaper. ******** He didn't normally read newspapers. He got all his news online or from the occasional nightly news broadcast. His brother didn't try to hide his disgust at Steve's way of informing himself. Jon was the news director at the local Fox TV station and took it as a personal affront when Steve refused to watch the local news. On the other hand, a man will do just about anything to distract himself in a dentist's waiting room. He'll read every magazine on the rack, count the holes in the ceiling tiles--heck, he'll do anything to keep his mind off the drill's shrill whine coming from the hidden treatment rooms. He will even read a two day old newspaper if he has to. When Steve did read a newspaper, it wasn't the society section. He'd read the national news, of course, and then skip to the sports section, but he had no interest whatsoever in the affairs of the city's high and mighty socialites. Steve read all the want ads he could stomach first. He even found one for a bass boat he found interesting and wrote down the phone number to follow it up when he had the time. The whirring of the dentist's drill back there increased to a scream. He hoped it was the drill. Steve had to find something to do. Against his will, he picked up the section labeled with a big "C" at the top. On the first inside page, below the fold, was a series of pictures taken at a local socialites' estate. The first picture of the overweight host at the event was unspectacular. Steve decided that instead of adding ten pounds, this picture must have added fifty or sixty. He was trying to be charitable. In the second picture of the obese host, off to the side and behind him, Steve's wife was clearly visible walking away from the photographer's vantage point. Her head was turned toward the guy she was with. There was a happy, almost an adoring look on her face. Steve clinched his jaws tight to control a rising anger. He looked closer. There was another problem--a big one. The man's left arm was extended down at an angle in the picture. It looked like the photo had been edited. If it hadn't been cropped, it appeared the man's hand would be just about in the right place to be fondling Barbara's ass. His wife's smile said she was enjoying the illicit contact. Steve's world turned bleak. Without warning, he was plunged into a darkness he'd never experienced before. He was numb; he couldn't feel his hands. They were lifeless. The newspaper dropped from fingers no longer strong enough to hold it. His surroundings blurred as unshed tears watered his eyes. He couldn't think. Nothing would process. Disoriented, he could see only the section of the room directly in front of him. He was on automatic pilot, able to feel only the cramping tightness in his chest. He responded when the dental assistant called his name. He walked, he smiled at a comment she made, he sat in the chair and waited quietly while she fastened a paper bib around his neck. He seemed to be alert and cooperative with the staff in the clinic, but he wasn't really there. It was the least painful tooth filling he'd ever known. He literally didn't feel anything at all. By the time Doctor Willis guided the chair back up to an upright position, it was clear the chunk of ice in his gut had taken up permanent residence. Previous Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next - Click here for a bio and to find more submissions by Longhorn__07. - Tell a friend about this story, click here. - Report problems with this story, click here. - Send instant anonymous feedback to the author. Home | Stories | Webcams | Forum | Adult Store Literotica Toy Store ADULT TOY & DVD STORE FAST & DISCREET Literotica XXX Webcams 24/7 LIVE CAMS - FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! Literotica Adult Movies STREAMING ADULT MOVIES PAY PER MINUTE All contents c Copyright 1998-2005. Literotica is a trademark. No part may be reproduced in any form without explicit written permission. Hot Wives on Webcam 24/7 LIVE GIRL VIDEO CHAT 100+ ACTIVE CAMS FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! literoticacams.com Streaming Hot Wife Movies HORNY HOUSEWIVES DO EVERYTHING 20,000+ PAY PER MINUTE TITLES SEARCHABLE CATEGORIES www.literoticavod.com index : Loving Wives : Requital Requital by Longhorn__07 c of ice in his gut had taken up permanent residence. Moving like an automaton, he rode the elevator down to the parking garage but couldn't remember where he'd parked his pickup. He walked nearly every level, scanning each row of parked cars before he found it. He sat in the big black Ram Charger without moving, without thinking, until he could summon enough energy to start the engine. When the motor started, it roared for a long minute or two before he realized his foot was pushing hard on the accelerator. The noise was an assault on the ears that echoed and reechoed off the concrete walls and down the corridors. The original owner had blown the engine in the five-year-old pickup truck. He'd bought a replacement that was bigger and more powerful, and then he'd fine-tuned it so it developed even more horsepower. The guy had just finished adding a heavy-duty suspension to go along with the increased power when he had a massive stroke. Steve had gotten the truck cheap. The man's widow had been eager to get rid of it. She wanted nothing around to remind her of her late husband. The rearview mirror showed the angry face of a man getting into an expensive car on the other side of the aisle. He threw Steve a one-fingered salute and drove off. Finally realizing what he was doing, Steve still had to make a conscious decision to pull his foot off the pedal. Everything was so damned hard now. His world had been blown apart. He was lost, adrift in a sea of misery, rage, and pain. ******* He'd felt it coming though. The Christmas party had been a wake up call, but he'd felt Barbara withdrawing from him even before that. After the party, and the subsequent argument, Steve had redoubled his efforts to show his wife how much he loved her. He put little gifts, like a tiny bottle of her favorite perfume, on the dash in her car so she could find it when she went to work. A vase with an arrangement of daisies was delivered to her office in the middle of a long week of hard work for her and her firm. He sent e-cards to her vowing his love and devotion to her. He tried to close the distance between them using everything he could think of. Nothing seemed to work. It had gotten a little better around Valentine's Day. Barb had come to him, finally sorry for the coldness and even sorrier for the way she'd acted at the party, she said. They'd had a month of renewed warmth in the marriage. He'd gotten into the habit of doing his homework for night school while still in the classroom half listening as the professor explained poorly grasped concepts to slower students. Twenty more hours, sixteen of which he had to take in residence at the university, and then he'd be finished. He'd have a BS in Architectural Engineering and would have finished the last prerequisite for the promotion already promised him. Then in at the end of March, he'd had to go to Washington to represent the firm while they bid on a number of Corps of Engineers construction projects. It was supposed to only be parts of two weeks with the weekend between but he'd been diverted to Little Rock on the way back to work some issues on a building site already two weeks behind schedule. He'd wound up gone three weeks. When he returned, Barbara had seemingly lost all interest in working on the marriage. If their interaction had been cold before, it was icy now. She'd been pale and listless. All she seemed to want to do was sleep. She'd carried herself stiffly around him, as if repulsed by him. A sex life that had begun a slow revival before his trip dropped to nothing when he returned. He did all he could to change whatever was wrong but nothing worked. One day, when he sent her a funny email greeting card, she sent it back with a terse reply that she was getting fed up with his controlling, manipulative ways. Stop smothering her, she said. Yeah, because of all that had happened these past few months, he'd been expecting to find out she was cheating…but seeing the first real proof was still enormously disconcerting. He needed more information. A low-resolution photograph in a newspaper was hardly evidence. For one thing, he needed to see all of what he thought was a cropped picture. He had to see if that man's hand was actually on Barb's ass or not. ******** "Jon!" he said into his cell phone. He'd been driving around aimlessly. He didn't want to go home. Barbara would be there in a while…at least he thought she would. He didn't know now. Was she out with that asshole right now? He wondered. "Hey, Stevie boy," Jon said loudly. Jon was one of those people who didn't really believe the volume on a phone was ever set high enough. He sincerely believed if he didn't raise his voice, he couldn't be heard. Steve had to dial the volume down every time he talked to his brother. He let the diminutive pass this time. Jon was older by fourteen months and never let Steve forget it. Today it was comforting. "Jon--" Steve's voice broke. A sob nearly escaped his throat before he could strangle it. Jon noticed immediately. "Steve, what's wrong?" Jon said urgently. The background noise abruptly decreased by several orders of magnitude. A TV station preparing for the 5:30 local news was not a quiet place. Jon must have shut his office door…something he almost never did. "I…I think Barbara is running around on me," Steve admitted. He took a deep breath while he listened to Jon curse. Steve felt a little better. The cursing did nothing, not really, but it helped to know that his brother was squarely in his corner in whatever was coming. "What can I do?" Jon asked when he ran out of four-letter words. "There's a photograph in Sunday's Observer," Steve told him. "I need to see the whole thing, not just what they fit into a few column inches. Can you think of any way I can get a copy of it…a good quality copy?" Jon was quiet for a couple of heartbeats. "Yeah, Steve," he said at length, "I know a guy over there who owes me a ton of favors. He wouldn't have his job right now if it weren't for me. Let me pull his chain and see what I can shake loose, okay?" Steve felt his twisted gut begin to relax minutely. Someone was working with him instead of against him. He told Jon where the picture was located in the two-day-old newspaper. Jon said the age didn't make any difference at all because they kept digital copies forever in the newspaper industry these days. His buddy would have no chance finding the edition he needed. Chances were the photograph was in digital format too. Many of their photographers went out with high-end digital cameras that were the equal of any of the old 35mm cameras. Jon would see what he could find out and he'd get back with him. Steve thanked him and thumbed the button to end the phone call. ******** It had been hard seeing and talking with Barbara that first night and the next one too. A naturally affectionate man within his family, Steve had no desire to be around his wife for the first time in their marriage. On Friday, Jon brought a thin, oversized envelope to the construction site and delivered it to Steve in the office trailer. Jon was visibly relieved to be indoors--even the insubstantial walls of the converted mobile home were a comfort. There were entirely too many enormous vehicles on the site whose engines roared at unexpected moments for Jon's peace of mind. Just watching the steel girders being slung up to the highest floors by massive cranes was a dizzying, nauseating sight for Jon. He was glad to be inside where Steve could ensure his safety. Steve showed his brother a small grin. Jon's sweating forehead and nervous talk was a tiny moment of humor in an otherwise somber day. Steve walked Jon all the way off the site and back to his Volvo, thanking him again with every step the pair took. Jon shook his hand at the edge of the sidewalk and exacted a promise for Steve to come over for dinner soon…as in, very soon. ******* Night had fallen and everything was quiet. Only Steve and three well-armed security guards were still there. Steve had a big .45 caliber semi-automatic in a holster lying on the desk in front of him. He'd fasten the clip over his belt on the right side when he got ready to leave. Construction sites were dangerous places at night. Crackheads and winos were always hunting a new place to hide and indulge themselves in their vice. Then there were petty, and not so petty, thieves who were always in the market for a roll of copper tubing or something else in the stacks of supplies and building materials they could sell somewhere. After a couple of workers had been beaten up by scavengers on his first job, Steve had obtained a concealed carry permit and gotten into the habit of going armed nearly all the time. After Jon's departure, the afternoon had been hectic and Steve hadn't had time to sit down and review the packet his brother had brought him. Steve's trembling fingers opened the clasp at the end of the big envelope. He didn't want to look; he knew he had to. There were three pictures of the party at the mansion with Barbara somewhere in the photograph. None of the three were exclusively of her and this other man. They were always off to the side instead of centered. They had not been the people the photographer had focused on. The first one was the raw photograph that had been cropped for publication in the newspaper. The 8 X 10 print was clear and sharp. With a magnifying glass pulled from his middle desk drawer, he could see the man's left hand was, in fact, cupping Barbara's right butt cheek. Her short white skirt was hiked up higher on that side. The pleats were badly out of alignment. The man was pulling Barbara closer at the same he was fondling her. Steve had to force his jaw muscles to relax. He was grinding his teeth and the dentist had warned him against that. Working very precisely, suppressing the urge to rip the photo to shreds, he set that picture aside to look at the second. This one showed Barbara and the man standing on a grassy area with champagne glasses in their hands. Barbara had her right arm around the man's waist and was pulling him tight against her body. The man's left hand had been caught in a sweeping caress of Barbara's back. Their lips were pressed tightly against each other. Steve felt his jaw tighten again. He set the photo on top of the first. The third showed Barbara and the man sitting on chairs at a patio table. They were facing each other with the guy slightly offset to Barbara's right. The man was leaning toward Barbara as if about to kiss her. Barbara's face showed her excitement. The magnifying glass showed the man's right hand on the inside of Barbara's right thigh. His fingers had disappeared under her skirt. Detachedly, Steve wondered how far up his wife's thigh this man had thrust his hand after the picture had been snapped. "AAARRRGGH!" He had to let it out or he would go mad. The first roar was followed by a second and a third. It didn't matter. The security guards were on their rounds. No one could hear him in the office trailer. He wished he had something he could punch. There were only the too flimsy walls. He forced himself to be calm. His efforts forced the anger inward. Gradually, he made the fiery rage cool. The surges of fury became fewer and less intense. He closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. His hands rested on the ends of the armrests. He deliberately relaxed his fingers and then worked on all the other muscles in his body. After a long while, his churning stomach calmed. He could think again. From the way Barbara accepted the man's caresses in the photos, the affair had been going on for a time…or the guy worked fast and Barbara was especially receptive to his advances. Either way, Barbara was actively participating in things a married woman could not do. The pain he felt became almost overpowering. It changed to anger almost immediately and it took a while to suppress again. He didn't know why Barbara was doing this but it was not something he could overlook. All that remained was letting go…and a formal recognition of the demise of the marriage by the courts. He would call a lawyer tomorrow. The vibration in his pants pocket was a shock. He hadn't been expecting a phone call. "Hey!" Jon said when Steve answered. "Hi, Jon," Steve replied. "What's up?" "Can you talk?" "Sure, why? Oh…I'm still at work," Steve told him. "Yeah," Jon said. His voice was full of sympathy. He knew why Steve wasn't at home. "Well, anyway, I got a call from my guy at the newspaper," Jon said. "He showed the pics to a friend and found out who this guy is. You got something to write with?" Steve fumbled a ballpoint from his shirt pocket. Suddenly, his heart was racing. Knowing who Barbara's other man was had no real significance. It wasn't going to change a thing, but it felt like he was making some kind of progress. He wasn't just sitting around and taking everything anymore. "Yeah, go ahead," Steve replied. He heard his brother take a deep breath on the other end of the line. "Okay. The guy's name is Rafael Leland Porter. He's Hispanic on his mother's side; his father is Anglo. That accounts for his name. He goes by the nickname "Rafe." Got all that?" "Just a sec," Steve answered. He couldn't write as fast as Jon spoke. "Okay, go ahead. What else you got?" "Okay…he's a well thought-of executive type with Harper Insurance. He's kinda on the lower rung of upper level management and the word is, his star is on the rise." When he heard those words, Steve made an instantaneous decision to see what he could do about that. He knew Barbara was doing what she was doing of her own free will--he blamed her for wrecking their marriage--but there was no reason the guy should get away Scot free. Jon had stopped talking. He knew his brother. He knew Steve was almost certainly running through options in his mind for derailing Mr. Rafael Porter's rise to the top of his little insurance business world. "Okay…I got all that," Steve said finally. "Anything else?" There was much more. Jon's friend-of-a-friend at the newspaper had the man's entire public record available. Rafael Porter was married to Elaine Jeanette Porter, ne Anderson. The Porters had been married eight years. There was one child, a daughter, Rachel Marie, who was six. Elaine worked as a sales manager for a fashionable downtown department store, apparently because she wanted to stay busy. The couple certainly didn't need her income. Rafe liked to mingle with the powers-that-be in the insurance game as well as the movers and shakers in the local government. There were rumors he might be contemplating a career in politics but he'd taken no steps in that direction yet. When he had notes on all the information Jon had found, Steve thanked him profusely and terminated the call. It wasn't everything he wanted to know about the asshole running around with Barbara, but it was a hell of good start. He had a good idea of how to develop more, and better detailed, information. ******* Private investigators come in all flavors. There are the "Rockford Files" and "Magnum P.I." wannabes who are in it for the excitement. They have someone gin up a flashy identification card for them, invest in a set of handcuffs, a camera or two, and sometimes a pistol. With almost no regulation of the industry, that's all they have to do. The star struck amateurs buy an ad in the yellow pages and set up shop in out of the way offices where they wait for glamorous jobs to come their way. Then there are the ex-military and ex-cops who want to use their experience in those other professions to jumpstart a career in investigations. They never really examine how a career as an army supply clerk or a traffic cop qualifies them for their new avocation, but they are always quite certain about what they want to do. At the top are a few professionals who scorn the theatrics of the "TV private eye" and view the retirees from other fields with undisguised contempt. These investigators often get their early training as police detectives or from having served in the various military's criminal investigation divisions. Some, a very few, grow up in investigation agencies, learning from masters already practicing the trade. The chief of security for the construction firm Steve worked for had been with the Department of State's VIP protection service. He'd had to retire when he took a bullet in the kneecap one afternoon in Baghdad but he had few regrets. His wife was a lot happier with his new job and he was making roughly six times what he had as a government employee. More importantly, he had cultivated acquaintances with large numbers of policemen and women who knew all the players …and who did what…on the street. With the security chief's recommendations in hand, Steve jotted down a short list of private investigation agencies with thoroughly professional staffs. Most of them provided a broad array of services, but two were specialists in electronic surveillance as a part of their investigations. He selected one over the other simply because that one could give him an immediate appointment to sit with a lead detective. ******** Steve had been pleasantly surprised to find the office was much like any other business office. There was some "elevator" music playing softly in the background. The half-dozen office personnel were working purposefully in cubicles. In overheard conversations, everyone used jargon and terminology with which he had no experience. He half-regretted not bringing the security chief with him to interpret. The initial interview had gone very well so far. The woman was an experienced detective according to the plaques on the walls in her office. Steve assumed she was. Her questions had been probing and complete, as far as he could tell. She had worked on a list of things he wanted the agency to find out for him while they talked. "Mr. Curtis," she said after reviewing the legal pad she was writing on, "most of this information you could get yourself from public records at the courthouse or a reverse street address directory and a telephone book at a public library. Did you know that?" Steve knew some of what he wanted to know could have been obtained from courthouse records. The directory she named wasn't familiar to him. It came up because he wanted to know everyone who lived at the Porter residence, what that address was, their phone numbers, and email addresses. He shrugged. "I suppose I could," he said. "But there's more I want to know that I cannot imagine would be public information…and I can afford to pay you folks to put it into a nice, professional report for me." That was true. After Barbara had set up a separate checking account for herself in early May, he'd closed the joint account and opened one of his own. That had caused an argument--chiefly because Steve demanded Barbara continue paying her share of the household expenses. For some reason Steve couldn't fathom, she'd thought Steve would keep the old account and take care of everything himself. It wasn't the only example of bad reasoning she'd exhibited over the past six months, but it was the one that stood out in his mind at the moment. For the past few months, Steve had deposited all of his salary and two bonus checks his wife knew nothing about into an account Barbara had no access to. He could easily afford having the agency do work that he technically could have done for himself. The investigator nodded. She'd felt compelled to advise her client on his options, but she and her partner were in business to make money. They'd be glad to take care of this for him. ******* Forty-eight hours later, Steve had phone numbers for Mr. Raphael Porter and Mrs. Porter as well as their bosses' numbers. A few workers in each of those businesses, plus the corporation where Barbara worked, had been happy, for a consideration, to provide a dump of all the email addresses they had. After surveying three or four such individuals' email address books, the agency was reasonably confident they had virtually all of the home and business email addresses for every employee in the firms where the Porters and Barbara worked. Previous Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next - Click here for a bio and to find more submissions by Longhorn__07. - Tell a friend about this story, click here. - Report problems with this story, click here. - Send instant anonymous feedback to the author. Home | Stories | Webcams | Forum | Adult Store Literotica Toy Store ADULT TOY & DVD STORE FAST & DISCREET Literotica XXX Webcams 24/7 LIVE CAMS - FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! Literotica Adult Movies STREAMING ADULT MOVIES PAY PER MINUTE All contents c Copyright 1998-2005. Literotica is a trademark. No part may be reproduced in any form without explicit written permission. Hot Wives on Webcam 24/7 LIVE GIRL VIDEO CHAT 100+ ACTIVE CAMS FREE PREVIEW W/AUDIO! literoticacams.com Streaming Hot Wife Movies HORNY HOUSEWIVES DO EVERYTHING 20,000+ PAY PER MINUTE TITLES SEARCHABLE CATEGORIES www.literoticavod.com index : Loving Wives : Requital Requital by Longhorn__07 c orters and Barbara worked. He had the license plate information and descriptions of all three of the vehicles the Porters owned, the Porter's residence address as well as their business addresses. Good resumes of both Mr. and Mrs. Porter's professional and private lives were included along with a ton of other information he probably could never use. Much of the information was gleaned from records existing in the public domain. Some of it probably wasn't technically supposed to be released to individuals not working in the corporations where the Porters and Barbara worked--or the clubs and organizations to which they belonged--but it wasn't illegal to send emails or possess the addresses. The "report" was a three-inch binder and it took another two days to absorb it all. He took those days off and went to the library to read. The construction of the new building was sufficiently advanced and the staff well enough organized that he could afford the time away. He poured over the photographs, descriptions, and all the other data until he felt he had a good handle on it all. As he worked, the dull anger always with him these days occasionally flared into full-scale rage. He always throttled back his temper before it escaped completely. He wanted to confront Barbara with all the information he had. More importantly, he wanted to catch her by surprise. He relished the image he held in his mind. He couldn't wait to see the shock he on her face when he showed her the fool she was cuckolding wasn't quite as dumb as she thought. ******* Steve was on his way to Barbara's office. It was almost lunchtime and he thought he would invite her to a quick lunch somewhere. It was time to let her know her deceit had been discovered. Pulling into the parking lot where Barbara worked, he caught a glimpse of a late model Ford Thunderbird leaving through the exit on the opposite side. Steve knew Porter drove a brand new Thunderbird. It was the same silver color as the one Steve had seen leaving the lot. It was too much of a coincidence. He raced through the aisles between the parked cars to the other exit and turned down the wide boulevard down which he'd seen the Thunderbird drive. He caught up moments later. It wasn't hard, though his heart had been in his mouth while running two red lights and dodging from lane to lane around slower cars as he sped through the traffic. When he saw the T-bird in the fast lane half a block ahead, he slowed to pace them for a while. He had to be sure. At the next light, Steve took the digital camcorder from his gym bag and used the optical magnification to check the car's occupants through the viewfinder. It was Barbara. There was no mistake. He let the camera run until the light turned green. Just before the Thunderbird took off, she kissed the man's cheek and patted it affectionately. He crept closer through the moving traffic, finally settling his pickup in a line of traffic three or four cars behind the adulterous couple and in the next lane over. Most people don't bother to check their rear view mirrors for someone tailing them. Mr. Raphael Porter was among that group. He and Mrs. Barbara Curtis didn't even know they should be checking. The Thunderbird pulled into the city park down by the river and parked near the water where a stand of trees blocked the view from the road. Steve eased his pickup behind a storage building of some kind. The building was in a low spot. Still, he could barely see over the top of it without straining his body upward in his seat. He held the camcorder up and began recording, checking from time to time to make sure the focus was still good and that he had the two people centered in the view screen. He watched his wife and Mr. Asshole Porter talk for a time. There were three or four kisses, brief pecks early on. Then they got more heated and lasted longer. He saw Barbara slump down. A moment later, she tossed something flimsy and white up on the dash. Abruptly, the fury Steve had been holding in check exploded. He started the engine and put the transmission in its lowest gear. He rolled around the building, down a gentle slope, and was on top of the Thunderbird in seconds. He hadn't known what he was going to do when the anger flickered back to life but he had to do something. He didn't devise a plan, much less consider any probable consequences, but when he pulled up behind the car, he knew what he was going to do. He braked hard but didn't kill the big Ram Charger's momentum completely. His reinforced front bumper was a mismatch for the lower one on the rear of the T-bird. The pickup's bumper quickly rode over the other one. The thin metal of the Thunderbird's luggage compartment crumpled as Steve eased forward. He slapped the transmission into four-wheel drive, gunned the engine, and began pushing the other car down the gentle slope into the slow moving stream. The several hundred horses under the hood were plenty to push the smaller silver coupe into the water with its two terrified and desperate occupants. Steve could hear their high-pitched screams over the roar of the engine. For the first time in a week, there was a grin on his lips, albeit a malicious one. He didn't stop until the water was washing well up the side of the Thunderbird. Giving the car one last thump, Steve eased off the gas, put the truck in reverse, and casually backed out of the river. When all four wheels were on dry land again, he stopped and shifted out of four-wheel drive. He put the transmission in park and turned off the engine. He wedged the camcorder into place on the dash with a rag from the floorboard so it was centered on the sunken Thunderbird. It was only then that he stepped out of the pickup to survey what he had done. Walking back to the water's edge, he watched the two still moving frantically around inside the small passenger compartment. After a few seconds, Barbara and Porter scrambled in unison out the lowered windows. They both dropped into the water and came up blowing water from their noses and wiping mud out of their eyes. Steve could hear Mr. Raphael Porter yelling something but Steve had no interest in listening. He didn't bother trying. He saw Porter was having difficulty getting his pants up. Every time he tried, water filled their interior and the man couldn't pull them into place. Steve didn't care what difficulties the other man was having. Steve's attention was focused on his wife. He watched as she peered up at him. When she finally recognized him, she stumbled backward and fell into a hole in the riverbed. When she came up from her second dunking, she was almost hysterical. "RAFE!" she screamed. "OH, GOD, IT'S MY HUSBAND." Steve took that to be a warning intended for her fuck-buddy since he figured the deity she named already knew who Steve was. Raphael Porter had finally gotten his pants up and zipped. He was coming toward Steve, cursing with each step. "RAFE! DON'T! He's got a gun," Barbara screamed. When he heard Barbara's cry, "Rafe" stopped and even backed away a few steps. Steve's hand unconsciously stroked the butt of his pistol. It was holstered at his waist on his right side, as it always was. It was a part of his wardrobe, a tool. He hadn't consciously thought about being armed in years. He snorted in disgust. If he'd been intending to use it on the two adulterers, he already would have. Steve watched the pair of them. Disheveled and covered with slime from the river, beginning to feel the shock sudden discovery generates in two cheaters, they were a sorry sight. Suddenly, Steve's anger morphed into disgust. These two were involved in something that was slimy and disgusting. That they were covered with river muck was only appropriate. It was quiet now. The faint gurgling of the river's slow flowing water was interrupted only by popping noises from the pickup's cooling engine. "Barbara?" Steve said. His first words made her flinch though his voice wasn't especially loud. His face was blank rather than threatening. "Barbara!" he called again. "What?" she asked, not knowing what else to do or say. "Don't come home," Steve said succinctly. "Go to your Mom and Dad's or something, but don't come anywhere near me, understand?" Barbara nodded. Frightened and soaked with cold river water, she was only beginning to understand the carefully crafted fantasy of her affair had been ripped apart so easily, and in just a few seconds. The harsh light of reality was shining hard on her. Steve looked at her a moment longer, a look of revulsion spreading over his features. He turned to look at her companion. "Mr. Asshole Porter," he said just loud enough for the other man to hear. Steve wanted the man to know Steve knew who he was. "You can call the cops if you want," Steve told him. "They'll haul me off to jail. But you won't like what happens when I get out, shit head…I promise you that." Raphael Porter listened to the husband of the woman he'd brought to the park and knew physical fear for the first time since that fistfight in high school. He didn't say a word. Though Steve's hand was no longer near his holstered weapon, Rafe couldn't tear his eyes from it. Steve spat into the river, turned away, and walked back to his pickup. Stepping up into the cab, he looked at the water-soaked cheaters a final time and his lips curled in contempt. Closing the door, he started the truck and backed away from the scene. Barbara came to her senses and started yelling after him, screaming at him to come back. Steve saw her. He heard the cries but he just shook his head and kept moving. He didn't know how his wife would get to her parents and he didn't care. His life with her was over. She was someone else's responsibility now.