Hannah had found her phone sex encounter with Burton both thrilling and forbidden. She had crossed the line and she knew it. Confessing everything to her husband only partially eased the guilt. The remaining, however, had little to do with what had happened and more so over the fact that she wanted it to happen again. She was seriously addicted to Burton… but on the same note, totally dedicated to her husband.
“I can’t throw my marriage away over this,” Hannah reasoned with herself as she sat down at her computer the next morning.
When the chat program began to connect, Hannah quickly set her options to log her in as invisible so that it would look to everyone on her list… especially Burton… that she was offline.
Just as always Burton was already online, his name highlighted in the bright green that indicated he was active.
“Damn,” she whispered to herself then bit her lip in nervous contemplation. With a trembling hand she decided it was time to change her status to available and end it once and for all. She waited a couple of moments for the inevitable but it never came… Burton said nothing.
“Maybe he’s just out of the room,” she said to herself as she waited a few more minutes but still no message came.
“Hi.” She sent the simple message across the connection. A few seconds later Burton went offline. Hannah sat, staring at the screen, in complete confusion. Why was he ignoring her? She was about to log off when a message popped up just before Burton appeared back online.
“I was just going to log off and not reply but I wanted to see what you had to say.”
“Not reply?” she asked. “Why?”
“Why should I, you don’t need me anymore.”
The statement hit Hannah like a blow to the stomach.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I got up this morning to find an email from Sammy. It was quite direct and very accusatory regarding our online relationship. He then went so far as to threaten me if I talked to you again.”
“Oh, Burton, I had no idea…”
“Of course you didn’t!” she could hear the sarcasm. “I don’t respond well to threats, Hannah. Your husband is walking on dangerous ground and he has no idea who he’s dealing with.”
“What did he say? Can I read the email?” Hannah asked timidly. He was beginning to frighten her.
“No. This is between Sammy and me.”
“Burton, please, listen to me. This is my husband, the father of my children; he had no idea about anything that was going on between you and I until last night.”
“That doesn’t give him the right to threaten me.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to threaten you, Burton. He was upset.” Hannah defended her husband.
“So you’re taking his side??” Burton asked, his fury obvious. This caught Hannah totally by surprise.
“Well whose side would you expect me to take, Burton? This is the man I have shared my life with every day for the last six years. You didn’t honestly expect me to leave him, did you?” Hannah herself was getting angry. Sammy was doing the only thing he could by emailing Burton. Although she had no idea what the email had said she knew her husband well enough to know that it couldn’t have been as severe as Burton made it out to be.
“You had me, Burton… from the get go. I fell for you and I fell hard. All I needed was for to say the word and I would have packed up everything I had and come to you but you never opened the door for me.” She was determined to let him have it with both barrels. “All you would have had to have said was c’mon and I would have been there without hesitation but you didn’t… you blew it, Burton.”
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