Melissa was a beautiful but sad young woman in her late thirties who had everything going for her, but she was extremely disturbed about something she had done in the past that bothered her. Deep inside, she harbored a secret that she had hidden for the last fifteen years. As she lay on the psychiatrist’s couch, she painfully finally let it out. Her confession sounded like this.
“About fifteen years ago, I was working in the campaign office for the late Senator Griffith. Everybody in the office used to have a lot of fun teasing each other. During our Christmas party one night, we had a D.J. that turned up the volume to a fever pitch. Everybody was somewhat intoxicated. While I was dancing with Senator Griffith, I pressed my body up against his. He was a married man. He then stopped and reprimanded me for what I had done. I said I was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. I admired him for his loyalty to his wife. He kept his distance from me after that. It bothered me because I had feelings for him.
When he was elected to congress, everybody was overjoyed. One day my friend Patricia came over to my apartment to visit. I can’t say I admired her because she was so devious. She was always thinking of ways to extort money from people. She told me that I could blackmail the  senator by saying he, a married man, was acting inappropriate toward me at the Christmas party that night. She had a shrewd lawyer friend who she was sleeping with, and gave me his phone number.
I took her up on her proposal, and proceeded to follow through with the ordeal. From the video cameras at the ballroom, the whole incident was on film.  It looked like the senator was the aggressor. I made a lot of money from that one night.
One year later, Senator Griffith was found dead, hanging in his dingy apartment. His wife left him after he had to step down from his position, took the kids with her, and sued him for alimony. He was a good man with righteous morals who loved his wife, but a victim of how today’s society looks at innocent people who are accused of making inappropriate advances toward the other sex, even though it was done in jest. Teasing the opposite sex lightens up the stressful day, and makes it more fun to be at the workplace. In the case of the late senator, it was done by me to extort money from him.
I should have never listened to my friend Patricia. I got on the bandwagon, but am so sorry for what I did. The memory of that incident will never leave me. I got rich, but yet I can’t sleep at night. I will never recover from what I did, and my guilt will stay with me to my grave.
I wish I could retract what I did, but that is impossible. All I can do is live with the fact that I sent an innocent man to his death.”