“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 to 30 pounds or so, but I’m still pretty much a Pillsbury doughboy.”
He grinned and tried to kiss me.
“You’re hot. Give me a kiss.”
I bopped him on the forehead with an open palm.
“Go do something impossible with 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. Maybe four. Who keeps track when you’re having so much fun.”
“My God, I know you’re an old man but you haven’t laid any pipe in a third 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 bed 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 – or know – that 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 time in bed, 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 bed buddy, 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 an absolute 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 it 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 I send her one of those alimony checks. That’s the way it will have to be.”
“You are too 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 17-YEAR-OLD 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 ‘balling buddy’?”
The Long Fall Page 15