When We Were Married Ch. 02C

My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Actually I am The Assistant State Attorney but I'll explain that below. I've been married and happy for nearly 20 years with a beautiful wife and two typical teenage kids. Until the night my beautiful and loving wife Debbie made a slip of the tongue and before you could say "Divorce", we were on the way to one. I found out that my wife was indeed loving, but she was loving another man. Or at least she was falling in love with a younger professor at UNF where she's an Assistant Professor of business. I did some things that I shouldn't have, and didn't do some things in hindsight that I should have done. I did make a fool of myself fighting with her young boyfriend at a posh UNF faculty event, but it was one of those foolish things that a man has to do if he wants to be able to look at himself in the mirror. Unfortunately, I got the crap beaten out of me keeping my self respect. Now I'm living in a condo I hate after my wife threw me out and started divorcing me, working as much as I can, exercising my flabby middle aged body when I'm not working, and trying to pick up enough boxing expertise to beat the crap out of the young man who embarrassed me and stole my wife if we ever go up against each other again. I'm not talking to my wife even though she's tried to re-establish a dialogue because after, "I don't love you anymore," there's not a hell of a lot more to say from where I stand. After a friend who's an old boxer and boxing coach set me up at a workout gym, I found myself over the next month at the gym after work almost every night. I went by a Westside bar called O'Brien's a couple of times, but I restricted myself to a couple of drinks and made sure I hit the Hurly's Gym in Avondale afterwards. Working on the machines at 9 or 10 p.m., with no one else around, was almost relaxing. They left the lights on for me if I got in just before the last of the staff left. Cops cruising the neighborhood stopped in or three times before everybody got the word on who I was and why I was there. After that once or twice they'd stop, knock at the window and after I waved at them went on. I got to where I'd put in 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes on the treadmill and 20 or 30 minutes on the Nautilus machines. There wasn't that much that worked the gut particularly, but one of the staff showed me the machines that worked the abdomen. I lay on the sit-up bench where you hooked your feet around the upper bar and groaned and sweated to raise my back an inch off the bench. I actually felt a thrill of triumph the first time I lifted my back ? actually my neck and head - two inches off the bench. There were also upright bars that you could position yourself on and then try to raise your knees toward your chest while your feet were off the floor. I was lucky if I could raise my knees halfway toward my chest once, but at least I was doing something. I had made it to Carlos' gym a half dozen times during the month. He put me on the heavy bag and for the first few days it barely budged as I pummeled it, but he kept the younger guys from laughing too hard and just quietly told me to keep at it. As I got strength from the gym workouts, he said I'd get better with the bag. Bill Jr. came one weekend and Kelly the next, even though I wasn't scheduled to get either one of them until the next alternate weekend. I called Cathy or Roy to set up the pickups so I didn't have to talk to Debbie or see our house. I did the best I could to shove the picture and memories of the place that had been the center of my life into a deep, dark hole. I'd like to say that the visits with the kids were good. But...Bill Jr. griped about the apartment until I finally agreed to let a friend's dad pick him up and that's the last I saw of him during my visit. He called me toward the end of my time Sunday afternoon to apologize. He had two friends had run into three "hardbodies" at the mall and gotten tied up all that day and evening. He was going to have a friend's mom run him back to his house. Kelly lasted about four hours before she got an urgent call on her cell, followed by two more urgent calls and a flurry of conversations about some guy who was supposed to be her boyfriend but had been spotted at a theater in the company of "some whore" and naturally she and an entire female posse had to investigate. I didn't have the heart to put my foot down like your standard TV sitcom dad so she vanished, re-appeared late that night, got up early and was out the next morning. In all I spent about six hours of my weekend with her. After that I didn't push too hard for visitation. I figured if they wanted to see me, I'd always be available. But, it appeared that while our relationship might not have died while I wasn't looking, it was fairly tenuous. As in, non-existent. But, as with Debbie and even moreso the kids, I couldn't blame them for a relationship that existed almost only on paper. Debbie and I had started our marital suicide in mid-April. It was now early July and hotter and stickier than hell. Walking from my Escalade to the office less than a block left me sticky with sweat. Summer in Jacksonville, as any native will tell you and I had lived there since I was a kid, can be downright nasty. There are none of the romantic and tropical attractions of summer in South Florida, and none of the relatively cooling breezes you'll find a bit north in Georgia It is just hot as hell, day after day after day. People's tempers get short. I hadn't seen much of the kids. I had stopped drinking every night. I hadn't gotten laid in more than three months. I found myself snapping at assistants and reduced Cheryl to tears one day. I had seen Jessica Stephens three times. Each time she looked sadder. I thought she was just drying up and shriveling away. I almost found myself asking her to go out for drinks one afternoon, but stopped myself. I knew it would be a shitty thing to do, to basically destroy her life for a piece of ass when she didn't mean anything to me, but the real reason I didn't was because I had the nightmarish vision of her lying naked under me and my dick just laying there like a limp noodle. The pity on her face would have had me driving the Escalade into one of the support towers of the Fuller Warren Bridge. On the brighter side, Dick Cheney told Larry King on Larry King live that the Insurrection in Iraq was nearing its end and that the war should be over by 2008. That made me feel much better about life in general. On the home front, my life was getting up and having some protein like a piece of chicken or a portion of cottage cheese, driving to work, working all day until the late evening, taking work home and either collapsing at home or four or five nights a week getting to Hurley's gym or Carlos' place when most people were turning in. It wasn't much of a life, but such as it was, it was mine. The only good thing was that since I had absolutely nothing to do but exercise and work, I was working my ass off and outperforming everybody in the office. I was generally in the office when the first secretaries arrived and I usually walked out while the night cleaning crews were doing their thing. It had only been a few months since I'd had a life, and it was beginning to seem more and more like a vaguely remembered dream. There were whole days when I could go without remembering that I was still a married man, still a father. So naturally, Debbie picked that time to screw with my head. I got a call from Lew one afternoon. "Good news, I hope. Is everything set for the divorce to proceed?" "No, sorry, Bill." "Why? I promised her child support, I'm giving her the whole damned house, half of all our savings and stocks and bonds. What the hell else can she want?" "She's being a real bitch about the alimony. She wants a 'generous' amount for alimony for at least the next 20 years and half of your retirement as well." I sat back in my chair and tried to breathe slowly and rhythmically to keep my heart from bursting out of my chest. "Alright, tell her no deal. We'll fight this out in court. You got the time for this? I'm not going to pay you the megabucks your paying customers would. You owe me too much." "I've got the time, Bill. I wouldn't be where I was if it wasn't for you and even if we weren't friends I'd never forget your help. But, it doesn't make any difference. I've done research. She'll get some alimony. You guys were married for 17-plus years, you have two kids, she's been a loyal wife. And you make considerably more than she does. "There's no way in hell she's NOT going to get alimony, and a share of your retirement. I'm good, but I'm not THAT good. Look, you make good money and you could do private off the table consulting work and make more. Why not let her have what she's asking for. It will get her out of your life that much quicker." "Because, dammit, she's not going to get it. She ? I-" After a minute he said, "You know you're not supposed to keep secrets from your attorney, don't you? Of course you do. I've heard you give witnesses that lecture. I use it myself. There's something else." "She's got him in our house, Lew. She's fucking him in our bedroom while the kids are sleeping a few rooms away. And knowing, Deb, or at least remembering when she still gave a damn about sex, she's probably loud enough that the kids know what's going on. We're not even close to being divorced. That's got to count for something." "It would, if you were fighting for custody of the kids. Having a lover in the house, engaging in activities that might cause psychological harm to the children, especially if they were younger, would give you a leg up in seeking custody, although even that would be an uphill fight. But, alimony? Doesn't make any difference. She could be bringing them in in shifts of three, and she'd still have a claim for alimony based on her previous marriage history. "Do you want to go for custody? If you could grab custody, that would knock out child support and balance off the alimony. Of course, alimony will go on long after child support is over, but it's something." I scratched my head and wished Debbie would roast in some very hot hell. "No. Look Lew, I know it sounds strange, but Debbie has been a good mother. I've been an absentee father. She went to their school events, took them to the emergency room, went to their games. She had obligations to her job too, but she always made time for them. They wouldn't want to live with me, and to be honest, I'm working harder than I ever have. I'm in that tiny damned condo. I can't take them." "Okay, you don't want them. Moving on-" "No, Lew, don't take that damned tone with me. She's their mother, and with the exception of letting her pussy do her thinking for her the last couple of months or so, she's always been a better parent than me. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I'm thinking of them too." I heard him sigh on the other end. "Alright Bill, I'm sorry to take that attitude. Look, the problem is, I'm a great attorney, but I'm not a magician. I can't magically make things work out the way you want them, unless...." "Unless..." "Look Bill, I know what you've told me about how things went down, how you found them at that awards ceremony, your suspicions. I don't like to say this, because you're a friend, but you're lying. You're not telling me everything, you're not telling me the most important thing. You've got dirt on her and you're holding back." We were both quiet for a moment. "Bill, look, level with me. I've been around divorces and I know you've handled cases where they didn't divorce but wound up killing somebody. The cheated on party hates the cheater, but they still love them. You don't stop loving somebody just because you divorce them, or kill them. Give me what you got and I might be able to give you what you want. You've got to trust me." "Meet me at my condo tonight. 9 p.m." When I hung up from him I dialed Debbie's office at UNF. She might be in there for her planning period. Unless she was somewhere off with Doug's cock inside her. Or she might even be doing it in her office. She had a lock on the door. She picked up on the fourth ring. "Professor Maitland." "What the hell are you up to?" "Hmmmm...that sounds very much like Assistant State Attorney William Maitland. But it can't be. That son of a bitch very forcefully told me a month ago that he was never going to talk to me again. And he's hung up on me at least four or five times that I can remember since then. So who are you?" "Why are you being such a bitch about alimony? I'm giving you the house and most of our savings and liquid assets. I make more than you but not THAT much more. I'm going to fight you on this. It will just make it that much longer before you can carry on openly with your boy toy. Oh, sorry, I forgot you were doing that already. Including, you bitch, fucking him in our house while the kids are there. That bastard must have a foot-long cock for you to behave like such a tramp." She laughed. "Don't be silly, Bill. All he's got is a good, solid, very hard 8 inches. But that's long and hard enough." "Alright, that's a point for you. You think I'm going to break down sobbing to learn you've been having sex with him. I knew that." "Yes. You know that 14-year-olds can't keep secrets. BJ told me about your call the same day." "You must be very proud of yourself, carrying on that way in front of our children." "Don't lay that guilt trip on me, Bill. He didn't start staying over until our marriage was over. Maybe not on paper, but it was over. "And our children are not five years old. They know about sex already, Bill. You may not know about it, you probably don't, but Kelly is on the pill. Has been since she was 15. That's when that fucker Ricky Thompson down the street got her drunk at a party. And before you say anything, she was 15 and he was 16. I had her tested. I wasn't going to drag her through court and humiliate her to have his wrist slapped. She begged me not to tell you and there was no reason to. "And BJ already knows how to use a condom. That miserable slut college girl Wendy next door to us introduced him to the glories of sex when he was 13. He told me he had a hard time not laughing out loud when you gave him that damned birds and bees lecture. He had already practiced everything you were telling him about. "You see what kind of fun stuff you missed by never coming home? "So, anyway, the kids knew. I told them I'd never touched Doug, that there was no romance. We were just friends until you went crazy jealous and got so paranoid and suspicious. And then we were through. "You forget, they live in the house. They're young, but they knew neither one of us was happy." "I was." "Unfortunately, that wasn't enough, because I wasn't. They were ...upset...Bill, but they understood. I think they didn't feel that bad about you because like BJ said, you already had a girlfriend. He was talking about your job. Your job always came first, ahead of me and them. They're not blind." "Anyway, enough about me and what a rotten bastard and terrible father I am. The point is, I'll tie you up in court as long as I can, just on the off chance that you actually care for the kid and want to adopt him. Unless you give on the alimony." "Not a chance in hell." I forced myself not to scream at her. "Why, Debbie. I don't mind paying for the kids, but I'm not going to pay you one penny in ? what do you business types call it? ? Fungible funds. Every penny I give you could be spent on little presents for boytoy, for condoms for his big dick, or something else that would turn my stomach if I knew about it. "Lew probably didn't tell you, but as much as I love this job, you force the alimony issue and I swear to God I'll walk away and let you try to find me for the next few years. I've got enough savings and funds to vanish for a while." "I don't believe you, Bill. You can walk away from me, and abandon your kids, but you'd never leave that miserable job. The worst thing I ever did was let you take a job at the State Attorney's Office. You weren't this way when you were in private practice." "And I wasn't 41 years old and 50 pounds overweight with a spare tire. But that has nothing to do with my job. I just got older and you stayed too damned hot. Look, just be honest with me ? for the first time in a long time. Why are you fighting for alimony so hard?" "Alright. Because you screwed me over that night at the awards ceremony. I'm almost 40 and still a assistant professor. I've heard enough gossip to know that President Myers s going to make sure I don't get a favorable evaluation next time out. I can probably hold onto my job, by my fingertips, but no guarantees. "If I lose this job, I'll be a 40-year-old assistant professor job hunting against 28-year-old assistants who are either guys and have an edge on me or girls with tits a lot perkier than mine. I'll wind up somewhere, but I don't know I'll ever have any real job security. The kids will out of the house in a few years and then it will be just me. "If something bad happens, I get sick, wind up with a boss that insists on my doing him to keep my job, I won't have any backup. And I'm not going to crawl to you for scraps, even if you were willing to help me. I'd rather starve to death than see that smug smile on your face when I come begging for help." "My heart bleeds, but if you'd been honest with me that night, or hadn't acted like a slut in front of a thousand people, there wouldn't have been a fight and your precious job wouldn't be in jeopardy." "If..if...if.. the fact remains, Bill, that I've got you by the balls. Joyce is a very good attorney and she tells me there's no way I'm not going to get all the alimony I want, part of your retirement, and child support. Not even with your whiz kid Lew Walters doing his damnedest. And that's another thing. Why did you bring Lew in on this? Lew was a friend of ours. Lew and Mona. Why bring a friend in to go after me?" "Lew isn't OUR friend, Debbie. He's my friend. And while he's a nice guy, in the courtroom he's a shark. I ? please...don't fight me on this. You're going to get hurt." "Why would you care, Bill? You told me we were through. I don't know what you think you have as your big gun, but I know there's no dirt you can use against me. But still, if you had something, why would you care if I got hurt? I'd think you would enjoy that." I didn't say anything and finally she said, "You still there?" "I'm sorry, Debbie. When...when this goes down, I want you to remember that you forced me to do it. You know what they say about rats. Even a rat will fight if you force it into a corner." Instead of her making some smartass comment about rats, she said, "Bill, I mean this seriously. Go out and get a woman. That's probably going to be hard for you to do, but if you have to, pay for it. I don't want you to stay hung up on me. I'm moving on with my life. I hope you can too." I could take anger a lot easier than pity and contempt. She probably didn't think I could get a woman without paying for her. As to moving on, I had already moved on to a life quite different from the one I'd known three months earlier. There weren't any women because at this point I still wasn't sure if I could get it up, much less make a woman happy that I was having sex with her. And I wouldn't know that until zero hour. Which I wasn't in any real hurry to arrive at. Because, what if she had managed to effectively neuter me? I couldn't really see 30 or 40 years of eunuch-hood. I was not real happy all day. My personal and professional lives intersected to make it a really shitty day all around. It was Wednesday and I spent all day preparing a case I'd selected ? or at least which had selected me ? that was due to start Monday. Charles Bingham was 74 years old. His wife Mabel had developed lung cancer in 1992. It spread to her breasts or she developed breast cancer concurrently. The doctors didn't seem real sure on the sequence. She had chemo and drugs and had her breasts cut off and she seemed to be one of the lucky ones that beat two types of incurable cancers. Then in 2003 the doctors found spots on her lungs and she went the chemo/drug regimen again. Only this time there was no miracle. She dropped from 187 pounds on her 5-foot-4 frame to 85 pounds by early 2005. She was wracked with intolerable pain that the drugs couldn't knock down. No matter what doctors tell you, there are some types of pain no narcotic will really work effectively again. I had a grandmother who developed ovarian cancer when I was 13 and they had to eventually dope her into unconsciousness because her 24-hour screaming from the pain was driving other patients and even medical staff crazy. A few days later she was dead. I always thought some merciful doctor or nurse gave her a little too much pain medicine. Mabel Bingham was incontinent and although he had assistance, Charles was the one who usually had to clean her shitty diapers and change the bedsheets after she pissed through them again and again. He had to listen to her scream day and night They had two grown daughters, but he was her husband and it was his duty to care for his wife. So he did. Until the day she stopped screaming and when a nurse's aide came in, she found Charles sitting beside a pale and colorless Mabel, holding one of her hands in both of his. It would have seemed a merciful end until a routine medical exam showed five times the level of pain killing narcotic in her body that could be explained by the action of the automated narcotic drip by her bed. A quiet and unemotional Charles Bingham confessed that he manually gave Mabel the overdose when she momentarily came to a state of consciousness and begged him to release her. "I had to," he said, and then began crying. A trial on a charge of manslaughter was to begin Monday. Everyone knew he'd be found guilty and then it was up to Judge Anne Carroll to decide if he'd be given a five year suspended sentence or a one-year suspended sentence. Only in rare occasions did a husband or wife in that type of situation ever receive any kind of real sentence. Usually there was too much public sympathy for the murderer to hit them with any real time. Judges, of course, are apolitical creatures and don't follow the elections. Sure...and if you believe that I have the proverbial bridge for sale. No one was going to hit a grieving senior with real jail time and have that come back to bite them the next time they came up for election. And in Florida, circuit judges have to be re-elected. Of course, no SA wanted the trial. There was no excitement, no points to be made and if by some chance you managed to get a conviction, who the hell could brag about sending a 70-something grieving criminal to prison? So nobody wanted the case and while I could have dumped it on somebody, I decided I'd take it. Maybe get a few points back among the staff for the points I'd lost by the way I'd treated Carlisle on the drug-dealer child murdering case. Unfortunately, I'd had too much time on my hands and I'd actually done some digging. Some I did myself, some I had one of our office investigators handle, and I called in one of the detectives who had been assigned the case and gave him a few extra chores. So I leaned back in my chair and examined a few documents on the desk in front of me. I didn't think anything could make me feel worse about life in general than what I'd gone through over the last three months, but somehow Charles Bingham had managed that stunt. No matter what I did, I was going to feel like absolute crap at the end of the day next Monday. There are days of triumph as a prosecutor. Those are the days when you bring evil-doers to justice or strike a blow for some poor soul and ensure there is at least retroactive justice. And then there are days like next Monday promised to be. I didn't know who I felt more pity for ? poor Mabel Bingham, or poor Charles Bingham. And the worst of it all was, as happened so many times, the decision on which way to go rested in my hands. Talk about where the buck stops. When prosecutors go bad, become drunks or suicides or use their position for sex or profit, I think it's that weight, the responsibility that eventually breaks them. That's what most people don't understand. The people with real power in our system aren't cops. They just investigate and arrest. The people with real power aren't judges. They have a lot of power, but who they see and what charges they deliberate on don't come from them. I decide that. In my hands is the power to decide who is arrested and who is released; who faces death or 25 years or who gets mercy. And there really is no oversight, nobody looking over my shoulder. Cops can bitch, but my decisions are final. Judges can bitch and threaten to take action, but they never do. The only person with any real power over me is the Big Man, and he had given me the Keys to the Kingdom and he had never in five years countermanded any decision I'd made. Most of the time it doesn't bother me. I've made mistakes, but it comes with the territory. Surgeons kill people. It's how they learn. I had sent people to prison who didn't deserve what they got and let people go free or out early and regretted my actions. But it was part of the job. But Monday was going to bother me. For the first time in a long time I wasn't sure which way I should go, what I should do about a case. Having a great deal of power can be a good thing, except when you don't know what to do with it. ################## Lew knocked on the door and I got up from the little kitchen/dinette table in the alcove that served as a kitchen/dining room and opened the door. Lew was Lew. Tall, about six-foot, sandy colored hair, that same crooked grin as if he was into some private joke that you weren't aware of. But it was a good smile. He was one of those people you like from the first moment you see them, even though I couldn't have explained exactly why. I read a book one time that said when you meet people like that, people you 'fit' with either in terms of friendship or romance, it's a case of people who known each other in a prior life meeting up again. I'm not sure I believe in reincarnation, but I know we'd been good friends almost from the first day we'd met at UF. He looked at me oddly. I realized we'd done all our communicating by telephone since I'd asked him to handle my divorce. It had been, what, maybe five or six months since we'd laid eyes on each other. "What? You look like I've grown horns or a second head." He looked me up and down and then said, "Have you been in a third world country? Or imprisoned in a Mexican prison where they make you pay for your own food? God, I hope you haven't got cancer." "What the hell are you talking about?" He gestured with his hand, up and down. "You look like you've lost 50 pounds. I can actually see the beginnings of cheekbones and, dammit, I think you're down to two chins. There used to be three of them. And where's the gut?" "Very funny. I've lost a couple of pounds in the last few months." He walked around me, inspecting me as if I were a model. I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear I actually could see the beginnings of a rib cage under that fat." "Alright, enough frat boy humor. I haven't had much of an appetite, I've been eating mostly protein, and I've started working out. I may have lost 20 pounds or so, but I'm still pretty much a Pillsbury doughboy." He grinned and tried to kiss me. I bopped him on the forehead with an open palm. "You're hot. Give me a kiss." "Go fuck yourself. Now get serious." "Don't get your panties into a wad, Bill. Just playing with you. But God, you really have lost weight. I've never seen you looking like this. Have the secretaries started hitting on you yet?" "I have just lost my wife, nobody of the female persuasion is hitting on me or even acknowledging that I'm alive, and you have to start making jokes? What kind of friend are you?" "Seriously? It's been nearly two months plus since she threw you out. How long since you've gotten laid?" "Three, three and a half months." "My God, I know you're an old man but you haven't laid any pipe in a quarter of a year. You know if you don't give it any exercise, it'll fall off." "Funny. With your schedule, when's the last time you got any?" "Last night. You know how Mona gets when I come back from one of those trips. I thought I was going to need transfusions. God, she is a hungry bitch." "Go ahead. Rub it in. Be a friend." He sat down a the table and gave me a serious look. "I'm sorry, Bill. I know it must be a sore point. But Jesus Christ, she's balling this guy and getting her jollies every night. You don't owe her any loyalty or fidelity. You and I both know how easy it would be for you to grab a piece. You never did it before because you were married and in love with Debbie. The same reason I don't cheat on Mona, although God knows I'm tempted sometimes. There was this blonde back in Omaha... but that's another story. "But the point is, she's one over on you. You oughta go fuck someone just so you will feel even." "I appreciate the thought, Lew, but I'm not ready or even interested." He shook his head. "You poor bastard. You got it bad. Well, they tell me there's life after divorce and since 50 percent of marriages end, I tend to believe it, but...anyway, give me the dirt." I looked at him for a few moments. I don't know why it was so hard to show the emails to anyone. Maybe because I felt ashamed of what it showed about me. Or, only God knows why, I hated for anyone else to know just what a miserable bitch she was. How screwed up was that? I went over to the bed and pulled a drawer out and took a manila folder out that was bulging with printouts. "The ones that are pertinent are starred and on top. The rest are trash, although I might have missed something." I handed it to him and poured myself a cup of coffee. He started reading. He was close to a speed reader and smarter than any other two men I'd ever known. I asked him if he wanted anything to drink and he just shook his head and kept flipping through the printouts. A few times he stopped, apparently re-read, and shook his head. Finally he closed the folder, laid it down on the table, stood up and tapped me on the chin with the back of his hand. "You know I ought to kick your ass for sitting on these. We could have wrapped this case a month ago if I'd known about them." "They make for heavy reading, Lew, but what are they? It's just the record of a flirtation. I don't think she was fucking him until after our marriage fell apart. And even if she was, as you well know, it wouldn't have made any difference in how the case went. "Adultery, even sex outside of marriage, isn't a factor in who gets what or who gets the kids. I don't know that even if this had been a fault-state that a judge would have considered a chaste romance grounds for divorce or denying alimony." He shook his head. "You've been a prosecutor too long, my friend. This gives us all kinds of ammunition. You don't have to prove she had sex to prove she was cheating. Marriages have dissolved over on-line romances where the parties never even saw each other in the flesh." "So what. If I wanted a divorce and she was fighting it they might be worth something, but she started things. She wants out." "Well, true, Bill, but it still puts her in a bad light in the eyes of the judge, and judges are human, even though sometimes it's hard to tell for sure. But forget about that for a moment. "You can go after the boyfriend for alienation of affections. We can go at it from a contract law approach. Even if they don't call it that, a marriage is a contract and boytoy interfered in your contract with your wife, deprived you of the normal marital rights you should be getting ? like sex. You can put a dollar figure on the value of the sex you're not getting, and the marital support that has been withdrawn. "I know you read about it a lot more than you actually see it in real life, but it does happen. The bastard seduced her, or maybe they seduced each other, but he destroyed your marriage before he ever got into bed with her. Anybody with an IQ above 5 would read those emails and see what he was doing." "Proving it-" "Isn't important. He's already on thin ice at UNF from what you said. You bring a court case against him and it gets coverage in the press, and it will because I know too many reporters who owe me favors, and he's toast. He'll be more trouble, much more trouble, than he's worth to them. If you never got a penny, you'll hurt him bad. And if you actually got a judgment against him, that's just gravy. "Now it doesn't matter whether you actually want to go after him. If he means anything to her, other than a good fuck, you can use it as a club to make her back off with the threat of ruining him. Of course, if he is only a good fuck, then it won't matter and she threw her marriage away for some strange cock. "You can also go after the university. I know you don't want to cause her to lose her job, but she doesn't have to know that. These emails prove she was seeing him, having intimate meetings, doing things a wife and a single guy shouldn't be doing, and people around them had to be aware of what was going on. You said it yourself, most people there seemed to already think of them as a couple. "Even if the administration wasn't aware of what was going on, didn't encourage it, they're still ultimately responsible for the work environment they foster. They'll argue that adultery and romance is a personal issue and not their concern, but they're talking out of their asses. "There have been too many cases where a business or company allowed sexual harassment or sexual behavior that led to marriage breakups and the company got dragged in. They can say all day long it's not their problem, but their human resources departments know better. "And UNF knows this. Besides, they know me. I've sued them a couple of times on other issues. They see my name on the paperwork and they will crap, get rid of boyfriend and Debbie, and throw money at you to make ME go away." Despite feeling like shit, I couldn't help smiling. "You know, Lew, if you were only half as good as you think you are, you'd be a hell of a lawyer." He smiled back. "Never believed in false modesty. After all, I was ?" "Yeah I know, first in your class. Where have I heard that before? Oh, from you about five million times. You do realize modesty is an attractive quality, even if you have to fake it." "Not my style, Bill, Anyway, those are all peripheral. What really makes these gold is nothing legal. We don't have to do anything, except make copies available. You really think Debbie wants her parents, your parents, your friends, to learn what she was up to when she was supposed to be a loving wife. And your kids, when they see-" "NO. I'm not going that route. Use the other threats, but you don't threaten to release these. I'm not going to tell you twice, Lew. I know you. You're a fucking shark in the courtroom and you've got no limits. You'll do anything to win, and you're not going to do that to her. I've been your friend a long time, but we're through if you even threaten her with that." "Even after she threw away 20 years of marriage and a relationship, threw you out of your house so you have to have a cop with you to go back in, started sleeping with a young guy while your kids are in the house, lied to your kids to make them think you were crazy when she knew you were right to be suspicious. Oh, and remember that shaved pussy?" "Yeah, so?" "How can you be that stupid? You said yourself, she wasn't shaving it for you. You never knew anything about it. Who was she shaving it for? That's right, the stud. And what does that tell us? I'll bet you any amount of money that he knew she'd shaved it. Probably because he asked her to. Remember, you only know what they put in their emails. They were meeting every day and who knows what was said and done at those little get-togethers. "And even if he didn't touch her, she was sitting there having lunch with him knowing he knew she had shaved it, and he knew she'd shaved it for him. That's as close as you can come to having sex without actually having sex. Call it Flirting on Steroids or Flirting 2.1. "That's the woman whose image and reputation you want to protect? God help me from ever being that stupid about any woman, even Mona." He was right and I couldn't even answer to myself why I wasn't willing to destroy her. I just knew I couldn't. "Just don't use it that way." "If we introduce them into court for the divorce or sue the boyfriend or the school, it will still all come out." "We won't do that. Just make her believe we will." He was silent for a minute. "And what if she won't bluff, Bill?" I hadn't thought that far ahead. "Then she'll win. She'll get her alimony. Even if it makes me want to rip my eyes out every time she gets one of those alimony checks. That's the way it will have to be." "You are too fucking good for her, Bill. Way, way too good. And the sad part is, she will never know." "We had 17 ? maybe 16 ? good years...ten really great years...maybe that's all we're entitled to in this life." "And on that cheery note, I'm going to take you out. Get some 'picking up slut' clothes on and I'm buying the drinks. I might just get you laid tonight." He didn't, but we had a great time getting buzzed at Pelicans and despite what Sergeant Hastings had said, we still had an honor guard of two cops bring us home, unload us on the bed and couch in the condo and we slept it off like two good friends who are totally bombed should do. ###################### She was thawing out a large Tombstone Pizza when she heard him coming into the house. Bill Jr. was out at a friend's house for the night and Kelly had gotten her things together to go over to a friend's house to "study." But she had known their parents since Kelly was in first grade with their daughter and they'd keep her in line. It would give her and Doug some alone time, even though she didn't really feel much like it right now. Kelly came in and gave her a hug. As Doug walked in, throwing his briefcase on a chair at the kitchen table, Kelly turned to him and reached up to kiss his cheek. Doug looked at her with a bemused expression, then started grinning as she dropped her bag and began to tickle him. He grabbed her wrists and held her out away from him. "Whoa, cowgirl. That's no-go territory." "That wasn't what you said when we were in the pool the other day." He shook his head and said, "Truce. Stop the tickling. I've had a long hard day and tickling isn't on the agenda tonight." Kelly made a face at him. "Spoil sport." Looking at the two of them, Debbie suddenly wondered when Kelly's breasts had gotten so damned big, or was it just that her blouse was extra tight tonight. Her heart sank a little when she realized her daughter's nipples were stiff and pushing out against the fabric. And Doug noticed. That bulge between his legs made it clear he noticed. Doug looked at her and he knew she'd noticed. He rolled his eyes and shook his head but she couldn't hide her expression. Kelly looked back at her for a moment and damned if it didn't look like she had a little smirk on her face, but she just leaned back, gave her mother a peck on the cheek and grabbed the overnight bag. "See you after school tomorrow, Mom. Byeee, Dougie." As soon as she was out the kitchen door and they heard the front door slam, he came over and put his hands on her shoulders. He tried to kiss her on the lips but she turned her face away so he got her cheek. "She's just a kid and she's just playing, babe. She's at that teasing age and I'm an older man. She'd run screaming for hills if I ever even looked like I was coming after her." "Tell that to your dick." He grabbed her chin and made her face him. "So I got a hardon. Jesus Christ, Deb, your daughter is a fox. A stone statue would get a hardon around her. But she's your daughter and she's only 17. I would never touch her. And you ought to know that. I don't hit on the 19 and 20 year olds at school." He tried to kiss her again and he did, but her lips were stiff and she didn't allow him to slip his tongue inside. Pushing him away, she said, "There's a Tombstone in the oven. It'll be ready in 15 or 20 minutes. Get something to drink." He got a two liter coke out of the fridge and poured a glass, then set it down on the kitchen table and came up behind here as she was getting down glasses and plates from the cupboard. He wrapped his strong arms around her and squeezed both breasts, fingering her nipples which popped up taut and hard. "Don't do that. Let me finish setting the table." He held her unmoving and nuzzled her neck. "You can't be jealous of a 17-year-old. Your own daughter." 'It's inappropriate. You're running around with your dick hard and tickling her in the pool and her fucking nipples are popping up through her blouse. And you two are doing it in front of me. You're not her father, Doug. You can't be tickling and playing with her like that. It's how trouble starts." "Ok, then I won't. I was trying to be friendly with her and Bill Jr. because I thought you wanted me to be friendly, to make them more comfortable with me being around here. But I'll leave her alone, stay away from her completely if it's freaking you out. She's not the reason I come around here, if you happened to forget. You are." She leaned her head forward over the stove and took several deep breaths as she felt his hard cock rubbing her ass. Any other time... "I'm sorry, Doug. I ? I'm just not in a real good mood." He let go of her and she turned around to see him leaning back against the fridge, arms folded across his chest. For some reason he looked angry. "What-" "Let me guess. You must have talked to Bill today. Actually, I'm not guessing. Your secretary told me you were having a loud conversation with him in your office. I know you've tried to call him before, because every time you do you turn into a complete asshole and I get frostbite when I try to get near you." "Doug-" "It's the damned divorce, isn't it? Why do you get so damned wound up about it. Let your attorney handle that crap." "That's none of your business, Doug. I like you and I care for you. I wouldn't be spending as much time in bed with you if I didn't. But how I handle the dissolution of my marriage is my business." As she said it and wished she could take the words back and dull the anger her conversation with Bill still roused in her, she saw Doug's face change. In two steps he had her arms held fast to her side. His grip was so strong it hurt her and she realized anew that he was a very young and very strong man. And now he was a young, and strong, and angry man. "None of my damned business? What you do with your marriage is none of my business, Deb?" He pulled her out of the kitchen and almost dragged her up the steps to her bedroom. She couldn't believe what was happening. He had never acted this way before. It was like he was someone she didn't know anymore. Then he threw her forward on her bed. She rolled over and stared at him in disbelief. "So what you do in your marriage is YOUR business, right?" She rubbed her arms where she knew she was going to bruise later. "Doug, I ? I didn't mean to hurt you. But what happens is between me and Bill. You aren't involved. I have to talk to him." He just stared at her. "Okay, I see that. He's your husband. You're his wife. I understand. What am I?" "What?" "It's a simple question, Deb. He's Bill, your loving husband for almost the past 18 years. You're his wife, mother of his kids. What am I?" "You're...you're my friend, Doug. A good and kind and loving man that I need more than ever right now. This would have been a terrible time, a very lonely time, without you." "Is that another way of saying 'fuck buddy'?" "No! I love sex with you, but you were my friend before you ever touched me." "You have lots of friends, Debbie. What makes me special?" "I ? how do I answer that. I love you as a friend. You've made me laugh when I wanted to cry, you made me feel like a desirable woman for the first time in years. You made me want to be me, and not just a wife and mother, for the first time in forever. And, God yes, you made me rediscover my body." He put his hands to his chin and then rubbed the side of his face. "So I'm a good friend you love to have sex with, right?" "Doug, no ?" "Stop, Debbie. Listen to me for a minute. You know I was fucking Ellen Westen, the Dean's secretary, when I met you, right?" "I ? I had heard stories...: "They're true. She could, as the old expression goes, suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. She had the hottest mouth I ever felt and she loved sucking me off. And I was only a few weeks away from banging Merri Smith, the woman that teaches history over in the Humanities Department. I'd gone to lunch with her the day before I was introduced to you as my mentor and she jerked me off in my car. And licked it off her hands. She was really pissed with me when I never called her back. "And there have been a good 10 students with tits almost as nice as yours that have let me know I'd be welcome to suck them, and they'd suck whatever I suggested, if I was so inclined. Since I met you. Take a guess as to how many of them I've fucked or had suck me off?" When she didn't answer, he said, "None. Not one. Any of my friends from college or the two schools I taught at before I came here would never believe it. They'd say I'd lost my mind. All that juicy pussy just laid out for me, and I let it go by. "Now, why do you suppose that is? Cat got your tongue, Debbie? "Well, let me ask you something else. You know I'm on Myers' shit list. It's just a matter of time before they cut me loose. With a dismissal on my record, which I'll have to explain when I go looking for another position, I don't think I am going to be on anybody's top ten list of must-hires. "What I should do, if I had any sense, was find another position right now, preferably a long way from here, where the stories of what happened might not get around for awhile. If I quit here ? before they fire me - for personal reasons or just because I got wanderlust, I'd have a hell of a lot more employment options. "You remember three months ago I was getting awards for being a wonderful young professor. Today my name is usually invoked in dirty jokes about MILFS and big-tittied cougars." He walked over and sat down beside her. She looked at him in wonder and dismay because she knew what he was going to say. "Why haven't I been banging all these goddamned pussies that are mine to bang? Why haven't I gotten out of here while I still have a chance at a career? Any guesses?" He bent forward and kissed her gently. "You are a stupid, stupid woman." He cupped her face in his hands. "You know, I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I just wanted to fuck you. That face, that ass, those tits. I made up my mind I was going to have you. Ten minutes after you left that first time I had to go into a faculty bathroom and jerk off. I must have shot off five feet. What a mess. "I knew you were married, and to an important man. A powerful man. I've got an uncle in Buffalo who's a District Attorney. I know what those guys can do and I knew I was putting my head in the lion's mouth if I made a play for you. But you were so fucking juicy. And you were looking. Even if you didn't know it, I knew you were ripe. If it wasn't me, somebody else would have moved in. "I decided I was going to wage a campaign. I've done it plenty of times. Girls have always liked me. I've got a big dick and I know how to talk them into spreading their legs. So I went to work on you. Easy and slow. When I got to know you and realized you weren't some man hungry bimbo, that you were actually a pretty nice lady, I figured it would be worth it. And you met me halfway. "And it worked. I seduced you and I fucked you and you were as incredible as I thought you'd be." He shook his head. "What I didn't know was that I was just being too damned smart. I outsmarted myself. If I was smart....I ought to get the hell away from you, but I can't. So I hang around a married woman who's still in love with her husband. You know, there's a reason why love is a four letter word." "Doug ? you ? I didn't ? I'm not in love with Bill." "You wouldn't go into the depths of depression every time you talk to him, or don't talk to him, if you didn't have feelings for him, Deb. And you know the sad thing? You'll never get him back." She felt as though she couldn't breathe. "I saw him that night at UNF. When I was down and you came to me. I saw the look on his face as you turned your back on him. He won't ever forget or forgive you for that. I wouldn't if you were my wife." He stood up. "I asked you what I was to you, Deb. I know I'm a good shoulder to cry on and I make you feel good about yourself, and you love the way I fuck you. But, there are girlfriends that you could go to for support and a shoulder to cry on. You got a big black vibrator for your other needs. Why am I here? "You ever think that I'm 28 and I graduated with honors from a prestigious school and I've already had more papers published than guys with ten years on me? You know that I boxed in Golden Gloves and I had a shot at making the U.S. Olympic boxing team? That I still get letters from the son of the first woman I ever had a serious relationship with back when I was 22? She was older. You think there's a pattern there? Her son was 8 when we met. But I liked the kid and I've there for him through about one ex husband and four boyfriends." He looked at her and shook his head. "I'm a good person, Deb. I'm a substantial person. But you don't see that. I'm a professional with what used to be a career to be proud of, one that was going somewhere. I'm 28, not eight years old, and there are a lot of women who have let me know that if I wanted to get serious, they'd be interested. But to you, am I anything more than a walking dick, a human vibrator? She looked at him standing there, so damned gorgeous and she knew that hard dick was inside his pants just waiting to be unleashed and they could fuck the night away and she could forget about Bill and his damned demands and the memories he kept stirring up in her. But she couldn't open her mouth to say a word. "I'm going back to my place. I think we ought to cool it for awhile. Give each other some space. You need to decide what, and who, you want in your life. When you do, if it's me, give me a call." She sat on the bed unmoving after he left. It was only the smell of the pizza burning down below that roused her. # Author's note: I was going to put some stuff in here, but I get the feeling I'm breaking down the fourth wall by doing so. I know when I'm reading stories, you want to believe while you're reading that they're more than stories. By bringing readers in too close, I get the feeling I'm destroying that illusion. So I've decided that early on after each installment posts, I'll try to post a comment that will include some thoughts on previous comments, what's going on with the story, and stuff like that. Once again, and I hope you guys (and gals) don't get tired of hearing this, but posting on this site has been an amazing experience. Thank you. Oh, and since I'm writing and posting hot and heavy, I can't work out the logistics of running stuff by Lady Pine Rose, so I'm sure this chapter will have some glitches. More than when she was editing. Blame me for any mistakes. DQS1 6883 2.23/512345