Prologue

Jack stared into the barrel of the gun, mesmerized by its power. The dark steel seemed to absorb the light, and even hope itself, as if the weapon knew that its actions were truly irrevocable. Jack looked into its single black eye for an eternity, allowing himself to be seduced by it. Willing himself to overcome his fears. Fighting his fight or flight instincts. And finally measuring his destiny should the hammer hit the primer.

She's not worth it, he decided, putting the weapon on the table. Actually, it amazed him that he'd contemplated it at all. He'd purchased the gun, a German something, to protect them during a spate of robberies in the neighborhood. But, well aware of the tragic results that guns often produced, he'd outfitted it with a trigger guard, and had placed the bullets in a separate drawer. Funny, then, how he'd been drawn to it when he'd first heard the news.

Kelli, his wife of seven years, was having an affair. Kelli, his good little girl, Southern Baptist, straight as an arrow, lily-white, no tolerance for human failure wife was spreading her legs for another man. Kelli, the woman who had consistently said that she would kill him and any woman he might have an adulterous relationship with, had herself carried on an adulterous relationship. Kelli, the woman for whom he had turned away sexual advances from two extremely beautiful women, had betrayed him.

When she'd first revealed the truth, Jack had felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room. Literally. He'd gasped for breath, punched in the solar plexus by the one thing he'd never expected to hear. But amazingly, he hadn't doubted it at all. Despite the blatant impossibility of it, he hadn't doubted the truth of it. Hadn't even considered that it could all be a horrible joke.

Her explanations were as thin as lacquer, and just as revealing. "It just happened," she whined. "I couldn't help myself..." "You've been so distant lately. I needed someone to talk to." He'd been distant? He'd been doing what she wanted, working extra hours to get a raise so she could enjoy a better standard of living.

Over the next two weeks he withdrew from her, turning a deaf ear to her apologies and her pleas for understanding. She'd tried to match his silence with her own, but couldn't. Her guilt was such that it needed tobe acknowldged and forgiven. He withdrew from her physically as well, even forgoing the kiss they'd shared every morning since their marriage began. Sex with her was out of the question. He wasn't sure that he could keep himself from expressing his anger in the guise of sex.

Then one night she'd changed tactics, coming to him as he sat morosely staring at an insipid TV sitcom. Though the sight of her no longer disgusted him, the fact that she was wearing only a revealing robe didn't begin to turn him on like it had before. When he made it clear that he wouldn't let her sit on his lap, she calmly knelt at his feet, leaning her head against his leg.

"Jack, I know I've done a terrible thing to you," she said, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. "I've hurt you, and that's something I never wanted to do. I've said sorry so many times, but it's obvious that isn't enough. But what more can I do? What more can I say? I thought maybe we could get some counseling, but I know how you feel about that. So then, then I thought, maybe if you could get even, maybe then we could get past this. If you could get even, then you might, you and I might...we'd be even then. We could get on with our lives."

"Even?" he asked, intrigued despite himself.

She seemed to take heart from his response, curt though it was. "I thought, well...maybe...I thought maybe you could have an affair...too. You know, you could go off and have...have sex with some other woman. And then...and then we'd be even." By then she was trying to stifle her sobs.

"Sex?" he mumbled, surprised at how little she understood how he was feeling. Still, it was enough to break him out of his passivity. "Sex is the last thing on my mind now," he lectured her. "Sex with another woman wouldn't make it even. Wouldn't make up for your betrayal. Because that's what this is all about," he said, his voice growing angier. "You betrayed me! You were my wife. Mine! You were the prettiest woman I'd ever seen. You were so good, so straight, so clean that you squeaked. And you were so sure, so sure that only you knew the moral boundaries. What we could do in bed and what we couldn't. Even though I taught you everything you know about sex. All that time that I put up with all your crap, all that talk about what's right and what's wrong! Why we could do this but not do that. All that time I put my wants and needs aside because you were too good, too right to do anything new! And now you go out and you fuck some other guy, and you think that if I fuck some other woman that's going to make it even. Even???"

He took a breath to calm down as Kelli wept openly at his feet. "You want to know what I feel right now? I'll tell you. First, I feel like I can't trust you anymore. Like the seven years we had are completely gone. But that's not the worst of it. The worst is that I'm angry. So angry that I want you to feel everything that I'm feeling. I want you to hurt like I hurt. I want you to feel the humiliation. To feel the confusion. To wonder where the next punch is coming from. I want you to feel out of control, on the edge. I want you to wonder about trust. Do you understand what I'm saying? For the first time in my life, I want you to be hurt. Not in a physical way, where the pain goes away. But hurt inside, where the pain stays with you. And Kelli, do you understand how impossible it is for me to be this way? How hard it is for me to want to see you hurt? How powerful these feelings have to be?"

"I don't know what to say Jack. I don't," she sniffled into his pants leg before gazing up at him with pain-filled eyes. "All I can say is that I'll do anything to help you put the pain away. Anything! Make me hurt if you want. I know I deserve it. Put me on the edge. Put me anywhere you want. I'll do anything you want in bed, in the house, in my life. Just tell me what you want. Just tell me what I can do."

From that small seed blossomed his big idea. His plan for his wife's redemption.