"You actually believe that?"

"Yes," she said, looking at him only for a split second before turning away. God, but he was handsome! And, how could anything as attractive and as angelic be evil personified?

There was a pregnant pause, disturbed only by the creak of rotting wood as Craig sat down on the dead log beside his sister.

"Marne told me last night that you and John were having marital problems."

"Yes, problems," Melissa muttered, hardly surprised that the secret wasn't a secret. Melissa doubted if Creagon had really needed Marne to tell him anything.

"John loves you, you know that, of course?"

"Yes, I know that," Melissa said. But, did Creagon have any idea just how disgustingly perverted that love had become? Yes, maybe he did! Maybe Creagon didn't even consider it perverted love, as Melissa somehow suspected Creagon had never really come to admit that other abomination was perverted either.

"But, you no longer love him?" Creagon asked wondering why his sister wouldn't look at him. Was she afraid?

"I'm going to divorce him," Melissa said, "as soon as the estate goes through probate. I'll, of course, see that he's given a substantial monetary settlement. He should have no trouble finding himself someone more suitable. He, after all, is quite attractive; and, money will make him totally irresistible."

"There is no hope for a reconciliation, then?"

"He's not the man I married, Creagon," Melissa said breaking a piece of rotten bark off the log.

"What you mean is, he's more a man than what you married, don't you?"

Melissa looked up quickly, locking her blue eyes momentarily with the gaze directed at her from Creagon's blue eyes. Did Creagon know, then? Did he know? But, then, know what? What could Creagon possibly know? John and she had simply drifted apart, gone separate ways. It happened sometimes in the best of marriages.