The Videotape

*** *** ***

If there's anything on earth worse than finding out your wife has betrayed you, it has to be spending two weeks by yourself in a room at the Holiday Inn with plenty of time to think about it. Pretty much all I did for those two weeks was go to work, go back to the room, and brood about Amy.

I alternated at frequent intervals between distraught, furious, and confused—sometimes more than one at a time. What did I know? Not much. My wife had fucked someone else, someone she knew from her past. Was it really only once? Had she really not wanted to do it? Then why do it? And why so uninhibitedly, giving her body to him in ways she denied me?

Amy called me repeatedly. I never answered either of my phones, so she left me impassioned, desperate, pleading messages. At first there were several every day, then they gradually slowed to once a day or so. She loved me, she was lost without me,, wouldn't I please come home? Couldn't we work this out, somehow?

A few times I called her back. She was thrilled to hear from me, breathless with relief. But when I made clear that I wouldn't even consider returning until she explained her adultery, the wild sobbing began again. Every conversation was the same, painful and frustrating. After about a week I simply stopped returning her calls.

After a couple of days I decided to track down Mr. Andy Darnton—if that was even his real name. I did a Google search and found some surprising information.

Mr. Darnton, age 32, had been killed in a traffic accident about two weeks before I received the videotape. Seems he ran a red light and got hit by a UPS truck. The newspaper article said he was married to a Patricia Romano, and they lived in the suburbs of Cincinnati.

For lack of anything better to try, I got the Darnton's home number and called it. When a woman answered I said, "I'm calling to speak with Patricia Romano, please—this is Mark Bernier."

There was a long silence, and then she said, "I wondered if you would call."

We met at a coffee shop in her neighborhood that afternoon. She was a tall, slim, good-looking woman, about 30, with short black hair. She looked tired and unhappy.

"Thank you for meeting me, Ms. Romano," I said. "I was sorry to hear about your husband."

"He was a lying, cheating prick," she replied with a sad smile. "But I loved him—and I didn't know about most of the cheating until after he died."

"Was it you who sent me that videotape?" I asked.

"Yes—and I'm truly sorry if I hurt you or ruined your marriage. I was pretty upset, and I wasn't thinking all that clearly."

Over several cups of coffee she told me that she and Andy had met in California two years earlier; she'd fallen in love with him and they'd married after just a few months. About a year ago, they'd moved to Cincinnati so he could take a job managing a couple of strip joints, the same kind of work he'd done in California.

Patricia had had reason to suspect Andy cheated on her, but nothing concrete to go on. Then, after his accident, she was cleaning out the house and found four hidden videotapes, each with a woman's name neatly lettered on it. To her horror, they'd turned out to be tapes of Andy having sex with a different woman on each tape. The tapes had clearly been made in their bedroom, which hurt her all the more.

Without thinking much about the consequences, she had tracked down the husbands of three of the women—the other one was single—and mailed the tapes to us anonymously. She wanted the women who'd been fucking her husband to suffer, and figured that would be the easiest way of making it happen.

"Again, I'm very sorry, Mr. Dernier. Between grieving for Andy and hating the son-of-a-bitch, I wasn't thinking too clearly. It must have been awful for you."

"Do you know if your husband knew Amy, or any of the other women, from before your marriage?" I asked her.

She looked thoughtful. "I don't know. It's possible, but he never spoke much to me about the women in his life before I knew him. And the tapes were too upsetting for me to watch much of—once I saw what each one was I stopped watching them."

Back in my hotel room, I wondered what I'd learned. At least Amy had told me one thing that was true: the name of her lover. But that still left me with far too many questions to answer, and far too much pain that I didn't know how to resolve.

*** *** ***

After about two weeks Amy stopped leaving me phone messages. I didn't know what that meant—but then a day later I got a letter at work. I opened it and read it hopefully, but it was the same thing as before: passionate, loving, apologetic, but utterly without the explanation I had demanded from her. She closed the letter by begging me to come home, or at least to call her. In a rage, I tore the letter to pieces and dropped them in the trash.

Five more letters came, nearly one a day for the next week. Feeling somewhat calmer, I couldn't quite bear to throw them out, so I dropped them into a drawer without reading them.

On the twenty-fifth day after walking out, I woke up in the morning angry and resolved. That's it, fuck it, I'm not letting this drag on. I called the lawyer who did the legal work for our business and asked him to start on the paperwork for a divorce. When he asked what was going on, I explained that Amy had cheated on me, but that I simply wanted a basic no-fault divorce. We could split all our assets in half, and thank God there were no children.

I asked him how soon he could have Amy served with the papers, and he said it wouldn't take more than a couple of days.

Two days later Amy left a wild, howling, despairing message on my office phone. How could I do this to her? Didn't I know she loved me, and would do anything for me? Wouldn't I please talk to her, come home to her, let her back into my life?

The message just made me tired—and sad, of course. There seemed no point in even calling her back, and I didn't.

*** *** ***

About a week after the divorce papers were served, I walked into my office and was shocked to see Margaret Selvin sitting in a chair waiting for me. Margaret was Amy's older sister, by nearly 13 years. She lived in Seattle with her husband and two children. I'd only met her a handful of times, at our wedding and at some family holidays, but I liked and respected her. In fact, I felt that we were friends, desite our limited time together.

"Hello, Mark, how are you?"

I went over and kissed her cheek. "I'm OK, thanks, under the circumstances. I assume Amy has told you what's going on?

"Yes," she said, "that's why I'm in Cincinnati. When I spoke to her on the phone four days ago she sounded so awful that I got frightened, and hopped on a plane. I really thought she might do something to herself."

I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach. "I'm sorry, Margaret—I had no idea. I haven't seen Amy in weeks, or talked to her recently."

"Mark, I won't waste your time. I have always liked you, and I think you like me too. You know I think you have been a terrific husband to Amy—you've made her happier than she's ever been before.

"I'm here to ask you a favor. Will you come back to the house with me and see her?"

I sighed. "I'm not sure there's much point, Margaret. She won't tell me why she cheated on me, no matter how much I ask. I just can't get past this. It's time for both of us to move on with our lives."

She looked hard at me. "That's it—you're ready to give up on her? You don't love Amy any more?"

"I didn't say I didn't love her. But what she did tore me apart, Margaret. I can't get past it, and I can't understand it. And with each passing day it gets a little easier not to love her, and a little easier to imagine my future without her in it."

"What would it take to get you to see her, Mark?"

"That's easy," I replied. "She has to tell me all about it—who that guy was to her, and why she spent the afternoon bouncing on his bed. She says it was 'a mistake' that will never happen again. If she can't be honest with me, there's no point in our even talking."

Margaret leaned forward, looking intently at me. "What if I can get her to tell you the story, Mark? Would you listen? Would you try to understand, to see her side of it?"

"Of course, Margaret!" I got a little hot. "Just try not to lean so hard on me, OK? I'm not the one caught with my pants down in someone else's bed! Did she tell you all of what she was doing on that tape?"

She sighed. "Yes, Mark. And it's pretty awful. Believe me, it's not hard for me to imagine how you feel."

We sat for a few moments in silence. "Margaret, if you can make Amy understand that she needs to tell me the reason she fucked Andy Darnton, then I'll come back to the house and hear her. And I'll try—I'll try—to be patient and understanding. Though it's hard to imagine what would make it all right."

"Thanks, Mark. I'll call you."

*** *** ***

Two days later I drove up to the house. Margaret had called to say that Amy would tell me the whole story. I didn't really believe it, but I had promised to give her a chance.

Margaret greeted me at the door, leading me into the living room where Amy sat on the sofa. She looked awful. She was wearing her bathrobe, her hair was dirty and uncombed, and there were huge bags under her eyes. She also appeared to have lost ten pounds or more.

I had feared she might throw herself into my arms when she saw me; but all she did was look up at me, saying "hello, Mark," in a quiet, defeated voice. Her eyes were dull and lifeless.

"Hello, Amy," I said quietly. I didn't say anything else, and after a minute or two Amy began to speak. Her voice was low and without inflection. She spoke for a long time, without looking at me, instead gazing abstractedly across the room.

WHAT AMY TOLD ME

"Margaret has persuaded me I need to tell you this, Mark. I know that once you hear the story, that will be the end for us—that's why I couldn't tell you. But Margaret has helped me see that if I don't tell you, you will go ahead and divorce me. So it seems like it doesn't matter much either way.

"You remember that my dad died the summer right before I started at UCLA? Well, after that there was never enough money. I had a scholarship but it wasn't enough. I got some different part-time jobs, waitressing, doing temp work, but I wasn't going to be able to pay my spring semester bill.

"Then a girl in my dorm told me she had worked for a year in a club as an exotic dancer. A stripper, actually. You had to strip down to just a G-string and strut around a little stage, shaking your tits. But she told me that it didn't go any further than that, no lap-dancing unless you wanted to—and nobody harassed her, the management was good about protecting the girls. And the money was fantastic—ten times what a waitress could make.

"I didn't think I could ever do anything like that. I was pretty innocent then, Mark, and it scared the hell out of me. But I was also desperate. So I went to the club, and they hired me.

"It wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. I got over the embarrassment pretty quickly—it became just a job, like typing or serving hamburgers. Showing off my body just became routine; and on the rare occasions when a guy tried to grab me off the stage, the bouncers quickly tossed him out on his ass, so I felt safe enough.

"Andy Darnton—the guy in the video—took over as the manager of the club after I'd been there a few months. He was very professional with me and the other girls, never leering at us or sneaking back into the dressing room. He asked me out to dinner a few weeks after he got there, and before long we were dating.

"He was older, and sophisticated, and I felt safe with him. I wasn't a virgin when I met him, but I didn't know much about sex, and he taught me. But it was never awful, Mark. He was gentle and kind to me. I even thought I loved him after awhile.

"He taught me lots of new positions, and how to give a good blow-job and swallow his cum. When he first said he wanted to do anal I was horrified, but he gradually got me used to the idea. When we finally did it he was very patient and slow with me, so it never hurt very much. After awhile I even got to like it a little, and I never minded doing it to please him.

"At the time I never saw it, but looking back I can see now that he was gradually easing me towards more and more slutty things: dressing to tease, flashing my panties when we were at a restaurant, doing wilder and wilder things in bed. But he was always kind about it, never forced me or scared me.

"Until one night in my sophomore year, after I'd been seeing him nearly a year. He took me to a fancy nightclub where some of the movie stars went and it was really exciting. He'd given me Ecstasy, which we did together once in a while, and that plus a few drinks had me really flying.

"We went back to his place, and he had me put on some really slutty-looking stockings and a garter belt, and we started to have sex. I don't remember everything that happened, but we were doing it spoon-fashion on his bed, him pushing into me from behind, and I was very turned on. And suddenly there was another man in the room, a much older guy. He was kind of fat, and had silver hair, and he had to be 50 or so.

"He was just standing there, gazing at us, and then he started taking off all his clothes. And Andy was pumping into me… And then the old guy climbed onto the bed and moved his dick towards my mouth.

"I don't really know why I didn't scream, or try to get away. I was so high, from the Ecstasy and the alcohol, I thought maybe I was dreaming it. And Andy held me tight, and crooned in my ear to go ahead, just please Tommy with my mouth.

"So I did it. I wasn't really all there, but I had Andy fucking me from behind and Tommy fucking my mouth.

"And then it just went on and on, and got worse and worse. They pulled out of me and switched, and this fat old man I'd never seen before was fucking me while Andy was making me blow him. And then Andy was on his back, with me lying on top of him fucking him, and Tommy climbed up behind me and stuck his dick in my ass.

"I screamed, because it hurt like hell. Andy had always been very gentle with my butt, but Tommy just rammed inside me. And then the two of them were humping into me, and I was trapped between them, and it hurt….

"I lost all track of time, and they just kept doing things to me, using me in different ways. Finally it was over. I was half-unconscious, still high, and I felt so ashamed! My boyfriend and his friend had used me like a whore. I was just lying there naked on the bed, and I think they thought I was asleep.

"I saw Tommy getting his clothes on, grinning at Andy. Andy said, 'didn't I tell you she'd be hot?', and Tommy said 'she was fantastic—I can hardly wait to do her again'.

"Then Tommy pulled out his wallet and put some money on the dresser, and he said, 'I'll give you the rest when you send me the video,' and Andy told him he'd copy it the next day and send it to him.

"And then Tommy was gone and Andy was back on top of me, grinning, saying, 'hey, Amy, wasn't that terrific?' He was all excited again, and he fucked me once more while I lay there, eyes closed, wishing with all my might that it was just a bad dream.

"The next day I sneaked out of bed while Andy was still asleep. I went back to the dorm, scrubbed myself over and over in the shower, then packed up all my stuff and went straight to the bus station.

"One of my friends was from San Antonio and had told me she loved it there, so I got a bus ticket and rode for 26 hours to San Antonio. I got a waitressing job, found a shitty little apartment, and just hid out for six months. I had the irrational fear that Andy would come after me and take me back, and I was terrified. Of course, I see now that he wouldn't have bothered to chase me—there were plenty more like me right back at the strip club.

"When I finally felt a little less scared, I filed a bunch of transfer applications, all to colleges far from LA. I had good grades from UCLA, except for the semester I dropped out in the middle of, and the University of Cincinnati made me a good scholarship offer, so I came here.

"You know most of the rest. For a long time I was too messed-up to date anybody at all. When we got together I hadn't been with a man since Andy. I was scared to death, but you were so gentle and loving, Mark. You've always made love to me like a lover and husband, never treated me like a whore. Of course, you didn't know about that. And so with you I could pretend I was just a regular, normal woman.

"A couple of times you wanted to be more … adventurous, like having anal sex, and I just freaked out and stopped you. It made me think of LA again, and what Andy made me do, and I just couldn't handle it. Thank God you were so understanding, and never pushed me.

After ten years I thought about Andy and LA less and less, and I thought it was behind me—the shame of it, my being a whore like that. I didn't realize I'd just pushed it all down deep inside so I didn't have to look at it.

"Six months ago Andy called me out of the blue. He'd moved to Cincinnati, and by complete chance he saw my picture in the paper for that article they did on TV stations and community service. He knew right away it was me, even though the article used my married name, and he called me.

"It scared me to death to hear his voice. I hung up on him twice, then stopped answering my phone. But he left me a voice-mail message: he had a wonderful videotape I might like to see, and I'd better call him back, because otherwise he might have to show it to some other people, like my husband and my boss.

"So I called him. He wanted money, and he wanted to see me again. I knew he had a tape of me with him and Tommy, and I knew he'd send it to you if I didn't meet with him. I didn't know what else to do, Mark. It would have meant the end of my job at the station, but I didn't even care about that.

"What I cared about was you. If you knew what a whore I'd been, I'd lose you.

"So I played him. I went to his house, knowing he'd want to fuck me first and then demand money from me. Andy always used to fall asleep after we'd had a lot of sex, so I figured I'd make him cum a few times. Once he was asleep nothing would wake him—he could sleep through an earthquake. So I could search his house, and maybe I'd get lucky and find the tape he had of me.

"That's just how it happened. I made him cum four times. When he was asleep I looked around and found a whole pile of tapes; there must have been a couple dozen of them, all neatly labeled. I found three copies of the one with me, and a bunch of others with different names on them.

"I put them all in a trash bag and left. I drove to a restaurant and dropped the bag into a big dumpster in back that was already half-full of trash. Then I came home and tried to wash the smell of him and the feel of him off me. I must have stood in that shower, crying, for more than an hour.

"I really thought I was free of him, Mark. I didn't hear from him again, and then a couple of weeks ago he was killed in an accident. I can't say I was too sorry.

"I didn't realize I had anything to worry about until you came home with that tape. Stupid me—I should have figured he'd be taping me again, just like the other time. I don't know how you got it, but it doesn't much matter.

"So now you know. He made me a whore. And I played the whore with him one more time, so I would never have to tell you the truth and see the disgust in your eyes. But it didn't work. And now you can go back out the door, and no one will blame you a bit.

"Who would want to be married to a woman who did what I did? Got herself pimped out to a stranger by her own boyfriend? Fucked two guys at once? Let them take her in her cunt and her ass at the same time? And get it all recorded in living color?"