As she closed the door behind her, Lana felt more alone than she had ever felt in her entire life. Far different from the way she felt last night. For the first time in years, she felt so wanted, so desired…, so alive. Statistics might show that most people that have just completed a night of “indiscretions” would be thinking about their significant others and the pain that the circumstances might cause them.

The only thing that Lana could think about as she walked through New Orleans’ French Quarter was how much she must have hurt David. He seems like a very “down to earth” type of guy. He is someone that she should have met years ago, before she made the biggest mistake of her life; before she married Jay.

After she went to the parking garage and paid the bill, she steered toward Canal Street. While negotiating the heavy evening traffic, she simply could not get David’s image out of her mind. What had she done?

When she drove into the driveway of the modest home she and her husband shared, Lana sat in her car for several minutes gathering her thoughts. She couldn’t get David out of her mind. It wasn’t long before she saw her husband’s 5’9” 185 pound muscular frame walking towards her car from the back yard.

As Lana exited the car, she went to the trunk and retrieved a small over night bag that she had. Before she could close the trunk’s lid, she could hear Jay yelling at her. “That fucking conference was supposed to be over by noon, where the fuck have you been?” he yelled.

Before she could respond, she saw her vision blacken as he slapped her across the face. She could instantly taste her own blood at the corner of her mouth as she felt herself being thrown into the side of her car by the surprise blow. She knew that if she fought back, the beating would be worse; so she picked herself up and made her way towards the house without saying a word.

But Jay wasn’t that quick to stop. Lana could hear him yelling and screaming at her the whole way into the house. Once inside the house, she felt him slap her in the back of the head. The force of the blow sent her into a nearby wall. Having had enough, Lana stood up and starting swinging back at her abusive husband. In the course of the fight, she could feel every blow that Jay delivered to her ribs and face. After what seemed like forever, Lana gave up the fight and fell to the floor as he delivered another powerful blow to the side of her head.

Jay couldn’t let it go at that though. He stood over his abused wife and continued his verbal assault. When he was finished his yelling, Jay stood and left the room. Lana lay on the floor for what seemed like hours crying her eyes out. After several minutes, she struggled to pick herself up from the floor and went to the bathroom to clean up.

She knew that this would happen. When she arrived home early the day before and packed the small bag, Jay was still at work. She called him at the shop and told him about a “Conference” that she had to attend in Baton Rouge for small business owners.

She knew it was a lie but she just couldn’t pull herself from the thought of spending an evening with David. Although the “date” wasn’t supposed to last all night and into the next day, she wouldn’t have changed one thing about the time she spent with him. For the first time in years, she lived a dream.

Lana spent the rest of the evening tending to her injuries. Neither Jay nor Lana spoke to each other for the remainder of the night.

The next day came sooner than she wanted. When the alarm clock started ringing at 4AM, Lana rolled over and felt the pain in her sides from the beating that she sustained the night before at the hands of the man that was supposed to love her. She pulled herself out of bed and into the bathroom for a morning shower. Looking into the small shaving mirror that Jay has in the shower, she could easily see that her face was already starting to show some signs of bruising.

After her shower, Lana went into the kitchen and made her a small pot of coffee then sat and started fingering through her small personal phone book. Looking at the phone numbers in the book, Lana contemplated whether or not she should call her assistant manager to cover the shop today.

The more she thought about it, the more she knew that she wanted to go in. She wanted to go to the shop in hopes that David would show up. She really wanted to see David again. After finishing her coffee, she went and began applying a liberal amount of make-up to try and camouflage her bruising.