V is for Victory - Not!

The disclaimers: Every character who engages in intimate conduct is at least 18. A work of fiction (more or less). Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental (for the most part).

This is a BTB story with no RAAC. It evolved in and out of that genre as I wrote, rewrote, and edited. I'm sure that readers will see similarities to other BTB or RAAC stories, but those similarities weren't the result of plagiarism, cross my heart. After all, there are only so many tropes and scenarios out there unless one wants to invoke space aliens, time travel, or plot devices so outlandish as to be silly, and that's quite saying something given some of the plots I've read on LW. I've tried to "realistic," particularly about dialog, but with some license for the aspirational goal of weaving a tale worth reading. And I've taken some leeway on legal matters, which is my way of saying that this story uses legal concepts to move the plot along, even if technically what happens here isn't "the law"-even in the Lone Star State. I hope I at least crafted something worth your time.

One last thing, The B gets Burned, but not utterly destroyed. But like the joke goes, it's not the fall that kills you, it's hitting the ground.

=====

Howdy. My birth certificate says Thomas Edward Mitchell. I'm Mr. Mitchell to strangers and in most professional settings. I'm Tom to most of my friends, and I'm Tommy to my family. I'm Dad or Daddy to my beloved daughter, Hanna. That's the title I cherish most. And what does Jennifer, the girl I married some 17 years ago, call me? That would depend mostly on the time frame. There was a time when it was "Sweety" or "Honey." Sometimes even "Stud." But nothing even mildly affectionate of late. We'll get to that.

There's nothing extraordinary about me. I'm your standard-issue White guy. 40 years old, about 5' 11" and 190 pounds. Yeah, I could stand to lose a few pesky pounds that settled in around the gut. I'm working on that. I'm not a self-made millionaire, an IT-techno-wiz who can break into highly-secured computer systems to wreak havoc on my enemies, a former middleweight boxer, an ex-SEAL, a mega-bucks wheeler-dealer, or a mild-mannered Clark Kent living incognito. I'm just one of several division heads in the local district attorney's office in my large Texas county.

After three years of law school, I knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer. So I turned down more lucrative job offers doing commercial transactions work (yawn), real estate deals (please shoot me), or God forbid, taxation (just bury me-I'm already dead), and took a job as a misdemeanor prosecutor. When I started out, I saw the DA's office as a waypoint on my manifest destiny to the top. I was fully aware of the trade-off and accepted the bargain. You didn't make much money and there weren't many perks. Cramped offices with old furniture, walls chock-full of nail holes, the whole bit. But you did get to try cases, and if you had an aptitude for it, you would definitely get better. If you were really good at it, you got a crack at the 'important" major felony cases. As a bonus, you were the tip of the spear in getting some measure of justice for victims of humanity's multifaceted darker sides. It didn't take long or the job to grow on me. And so I stayed.

I met Jenny in our law school law library when I was a 2L. She was a 1L, looking for a quiet study nook between classes. All of the carrels were taken, and I saw her looking just as I was about to vacate mine to go to my next class. I beckoned her over to take my spot, and before I knew it we had an informal date for a late lunch. Lunches turned to hanging out turned to moving in together. After I graduated I snared a local judicial clerkship for a year so we could be together until she graduated. Marriage followed, and very soon after, Hanna. Hanna became Daddy's Girl. She had my heart long before the doc cut the cord.

Jenny and I had a marriage that worked, or so I thought. My job at the DA's office rarely required overtime, Which that meant Jenny could pursue her commercial law work while I was Hanna's primary caregiver. When Hanna was about seven, Jenny fell into a plum job with Vandervalk, Vandervalk, and Vincennes, one of the big-law, glass tower firms. V-Cubed, as it was called, had partners on all of the important committees, lawyers who were go-to sources whenever the media needed a talking head to pontificate, sprawling business and political connections, and satellite offices in several states. It was the place to be if you were a climber.

V-Cubed worked its associates nearly to death, and although the pay was good, the real prize was being offered an equity partnership. Even the newest partners could expect $500k a year, and the top partners raked in millions. The big wheels were the name-partners, Victor Vandervalk, his twin sister, Victoria Vandervalk, and Raul Vincennes. All three were exceedingly good lawyers. If they had a fault, it was arrogance on steroids. Particularly Victoria, who relished her informal moniker of "Big V." They thought they could get away with anything, and it sometimes seemed that they did. "My shit doesn't stink" was the trademark attitude of V-Cubed lawyers, and even staff. I think it infected Jenny and killed us.

Jenny had been at V-Cubed for about four years when things began to unravel. It started with little things. More and more Jenny would work well into the evening, leaving me and Hanna to fend for ourselves at dinner nightly. More and more Jenny wouldn't come home before Hanna had turned in. Family time during the week dwindled to near nothing, and then weekends, too. I tried to engage Jenny about how we missed her and needed her, but her response to every overture was some variation of "You're exaggerating," or "I have to put in the time if I want to make partner," or my favorite, the condescending "If you had my job you'd understand." In one particularly morose span of months, Jenny blew off my birthday, Hanna's birthday, our anniversary, a long-planned family reunion, and Hanna's Girl Scouts awards dinner, where Hanna was to receive her Silver Award.

Yet, even without Jenny around much, Hanna shined. We all think our children are smarter than average, but in Hanna's case it was true. Her forte was language. She consumed books like popcorn, and I swear, she pretty much self-taught herself French because she saw Les Miserables and wanted to read the novel in the original language. Her ability to discern subtle shades of meaning was a blessing and a curse. She oftentimes fell out with friends because she caught undercurrents in words and tone that betrayed the real message. So it was no surprise to me that Hanna was acutely attuned to what was going on with me and Jenny, which is to say, what was going off the rails with me and Jenny.

Jenny's most recent overt assault on family harmony particularly stood out. We were supposed to drive to Jenny's parents' home near New Braunfels, where the extended family would gather for a full weekend of renewing ties at their house on the lake. The morning we were to leave, Jenny announced that something unexpected had come up, and she had to fly to Chicago with Big V and one of the senior partners, a Jim Emerson. She'd be gone from Thursday evening and get back the next Tuesday. This sudden trip came on the heels of a last-minute trip to Durham, North Carolina for merger meeting that according to Jenny would decide the fate of the universe, and before that a five-day excursion to Hawaii that V-Cubed sprang for, under the guise of having its partners and senior associates attend a seminar. Hey, if you're going to write off vacations as business expenses, you choose Hawaii over Newark, right?

Of course I didn't happily receive the surprise news of Jenny's latest out-of-town excursion. All of Jenny's time away made me feel like a single parent, and I told her so. I reminded her that Hanna longed for some mother-daughter bonding time, and lately Hanna was getting severely shortchanged. I was banging my head against a brick wall. Actually, the brick wall would have had more empathy.

"Look, Tom," she snipped at me as she packed, "I didn't expect this. You know my job requires travel. I'm not a 9-to-5 clock-puncher like you. I can hob-knob with family another time. This is important! I'll make it up to Hanna when I get back."

She headed back into our shared closet to gather more clothes. It packed a lot for just a short business trip, a detail that didn't fully register at the time. I'd seen this happen enough times to know the discussion was over, so I left her to finish packing. I wasn't running away; I needed to put physical space between us, before I said something I'd regret and couldn't be unsaid. We didn't know that Hanna was outside our bedroom door, and heard everything.

I sat at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee and contemplating the shit-show that my marriage had become when Jenny bustled in, rolling her suitcase behind her. She paused long enough to tell me that she was sorry for being contrary, and that she'd call when she got settled into her hotel room. She told me to have a good time with the family, and that she loved me. Then she was out the door and driving down the street in her gunship BMW. Hanna wandered into the kitchen just after. She grabbed a juice box and sat down next to me, slouching.

"So Mom's gone again. Where this time, and for how long?"

"Chicago. Back Tuesday afternoon. Work trip, Pumpkin. She said it's important."

'Yes, that's what she said." My eyes snapped from my coffee to Hanna. "I overheard you arguing. Sorry for eavesdropping, Daddy, but I had to."

I just nodded. It would have taken a saint not listen. "Then you heard your mother say that she'll make it up to us when she gets back."

"That's not what she said. She said she'd make it up to ME. She didn't mention you.' Hanna caught that detail, despite my attempt to gloss over it. What came next caught me off guard.

"Daddy, something's massively messed up with you and Mom. More Mom than you. She missed our birthdays, and I know she flaked out on your anniversary dinner that you both planned on. She treats you like crap, and I gotta say it, it's rubbing off on you. You used to be happy. Lately, not so much."

"Your mother and I have some things to work out. It's adult stuff, so you need to let us handle it. But no matter what, I love you, all the way to the moon and back." Hanna smiled briefly before she resumed her dissection of my marriage.

"You'd have to keep her attention for more than two minutes to work something out. Thirty seconds is about the best I can manage with her. I know I'm just a kid, but what happens with you and Mom affects me too, y'know?'

"I know.' I kissed her forehead. "Let's get our stuff packed and hit the road. You need to water ski, and I need Grandpa's world-famous smoked brisket."

Our drive to New Braunfels was solemn and virtually silent, but for an occasional barking fit by our Great Pyr, Shep. Right up until out of the blue Hanna asked if Jenny and I were going to get a divorce.

'Katy Miller's parents are getting one. Alia Hassan's parents, too. And Rico Gomez's.'' I had no idea what to say. I couldn't give Hanna assurances, because the way things were going that's exactly where Jenny and I were headed.

"So, here's the thing, Dad. You not saying anything tells me that it's possible.'

"I don't know what to tell you, Pumpkin, except that you shouldn't jump to conclusions. Like I said, Mom and me are in a rough patch. I'm working on it."

"At least one of you is."

Hanna replaced her earbuds and closed her eyes for the rest of the drive. I was getting more pissed off at Jenny by the minute. I don't know what I had done to cause Jenny to drift away from me, but I couldn't imagine how Jenny could justify putting Hanna through this. I resolved to put my shoulder into fixing my marriage. That proved more challenging than I anticipated.

~~~@~~~@~~~

We got back from New Braunfels late Sunday evening. I took Tuesday off to get the house ship-shape for Jenny's return. I picked up fresh flower arrangements to put in vases in the family room and our bedroom. Got all of the laundry done, changed the bedding, etc. Small things instead of grand gestures. Jenny rolled in late, around 9:00 p. m. for a flight scheduled to arrive at 2:30. Not a word was said about the house or the flowers, and hardly a word otherwise to either Hanna or me, except to carp about how packed the flight was. Hanna tried without success to engage Jenny about what she did in her free time in Chicago. Hanna eventually tired of trying to jump-start a conversation, and went to bed looking defeated. I followed Jenny into our bedroom, hoping to try my luck at chatting about her trip, but all I got were disinterested, one or two word answers.

After unpacking Jenny announced that she was going to bed, even though it was before our usual bedtime, I joined her. She turned on her side, facing away from me. I reached to her shoulders to massage her neck. Stupid me, I thought Jenny would welcome physical intimacy after four days apart. Brother, did I think wrong.

"What are you doing?' It wasn't a playful question.

"Giving my girl a neck rub. Feel good?"

"I know what you want. Don't treat me like I'm stupid."

WTF! Having my overtures being rejected had become the norm, but never before with such ferocity. I bowed up. "I'm trying to treat you like my wife. I thought you'd welcome some attention from your husband. It's been three weeks, Jenny."

She kept her back to me, and didn't even turn her head to glance my way. "Look, I'm tired, damn you! But if you just have to, then go ahead. Do your business and then let me sleep."

It isn't often that mere words send you reeling. The house has burned down. You're fired. Your mother has passed. It's cancer. Do your business and then let me sleep. The callousness of the rejection literally caused a pulsing ache in my stomach, as if battery acid sprayed inside every few seconds. I was still processing when Jenny took another roundhouse swing at my dignity. Keeping her back to me, she grotesquely stuck her butt out toward my groin, then roughly pulled the gusset of her panties aside, as if ripping a bandage off a wound. There was nothing more she could do to depersonalize what was supposed to be the most intimate human act. I couldn't remember ever feeling more distance between us.

"on't trouble yourself. My business can wait." It can wait until Hell freezes over, I nearly said out loud. I should have done. I fumed silently instead.

I swung out of our bed, grabbing my pillow as I gained my footing in the darkened room. I snatched up a decorative comforter that was folded over the rail of our sleigh bed, and headed for the sofa in my den. "Thanks for getting me wide awake!" she spat out as I approached the bedroom door. Only a just-in-time thought for Hanna kept me from slamming the door hard enough to bust the hinges.

My mind was racing. Part of me hoped that she would seek me out to apologize. She might even offer herself to me, as a loving spouse might to make amends. On the other hand, no offer of intimacy could be sincere after that smack-down. Pity sex at best, and if you got down to it, not really consensual. It would have been a performative act, coerced by surrender to a sense of obligation. Merely a hair's breadth from rape, by my way of thinking. But even the gesture, however insincere, would have meant something, wouldn't it? Alas, Jenny didn't seek me out. In fact, she had already left for work by the time the sounds of Hanna's shower woke me up. Be thankful for small mercies, I told myself.

I straightened out my den so that Hanna wouldn't be able to tell that I slept there instead of in my bed. No need to give Hanna's insecurity more fuel. When I went to shower I noticed a handwritten note left for me on the vanity.

Tommy,

I was wretched to you last night. Please forgive me! I promise

to do better by you and Hanna. See you both tonight.

All my love forever,

Jenny

Jenny's note buoyed my spirits somewhat, at least enough to dissipate my residual anger to a manageable level. I dressed and found Hanna in the kitchen whipping up scrambled eggs and bacon.

"It's good to have Mom back home, isn't it, Pumpkin?" Hanna didn't turn around to answer. She kept on folding the eggs.

"Is it, Dad?" she said to the skillet. She briskly turned to face me, arms folded across her stomach. "Really, is it? At least Shep wags his tail whenever he sees us. Mom bitched about her flight and then we played Twenty Questions trying to get her to say something more than 'Yes' or 'No' about her trip. Oh, and did Mom ask anything at all about our time in New Braunfels, or ask anything about Meemaw and Peepaw? Like, anything about anything at all since she ditched us? Not to me!" Hanna paused to stir cheddar cheese into the eggs. My silence left a gaping chasm. Everything Hanna said was spot-on.

"So anyway, you asked if it's good to have Mom back home. I don't think so. When she's gone I'm not reminded that she doesn't give a fuck about us anymore. I know, watch my language. Sorry. Anyway, I'd love to have my Mom back, but I don't think she's coming back. To either of us." I could tell Hanna was on the edge of angry tears by the tremor in her voice.

Dammit! I knew that Hanna felt abandoned by Jenny. Of all the cousins at the New Braunfels visit, Hanna was the only one whose mother wasn't there. OK, I was there, but that wasn't even close to the same. For years Jenny had been AWOL at mother-daughter events. I was always the only dad in a sea of mothers at Girl Scout stuff. Other girls would chatter about shopping trips and such taken with their mothers, while Hanna would gracefully walk away to get a drink refill and never rejoin the gaggle. Hanna eventually quit the troop, explaining to me that never having her mother there was becoming too awkward. I didn't know what Jenny had in mind for "doing better" by me and Hanna, but by god it was going to include being a good mom for our baby.

~~~@~~~@~~~

Things rocked along like that for a few more weeks, until one fine morning I'm sitting in my office dealing with the usual torrent of administrative clung when my office phone rings, with a blocked caller ID and an Alaska area code. I presumed robo-spam, but answered anyway, just in case. The female caller asked if I was Thomas Mitchell, married to Jennifer Mitchell, an attorney at V-Cubed. Horrors flashed through my mind. Was Jenny hurt, or God forbid, dead? Jenny wasn't dead, but it turned out she was as good as dead.

"Your wife is having an affair with a senior partner, James Emerson, the caller said without further preamble. She told me it had been going on for several months, hot and heavy, right under my nose. The caller had dates, places, and details. She even told me about how V-Cubed partners were fully aware of what was going on with Emerson and Jenny, and how they actively enabled the sordid mess. I had considered the possibility that Jenny was having at it with another man, but I hadn't faced it square-on. I wondered if the International Brotherhood of Clueless Cucks had a secret handshake. Of course they wouldn't; they're clueless. But I bet the International Brotherhood of Formerly Clueless Cucks had one.

As we talked I set up a new personal gmail account so Mystery Caller could forward images of documents that backed up what she told me. Mystery Caller told me why she reached out. She herself was the recent victim of a cheating husband, a lawyer who threw her over for a "big tits slut paralegal" at his firm. Her ten year marriage was down the tubes and now she was a single mom with two little kids. She couldn't stomach watching Emerson, Jenny, and their minions do it to someone else. The one thing she wouldn't tell me was her name. I tried every trick out there to reverse ID through the phone number, but it must have been a burner. To this day I don't know who Mystery Caller is.

I googled Emerson. University of Texas-Austin, BA in Bus-Ad, and an MBA. UT law, Order of the Coif, Law Review. Equity partner at V-Cubed. Board certified in Business Transactions and Commercial Real Estate, and in Consumer and Commercial Law. An impressive list of bar admissions, representative corporate clients, and seminar speaking engagements. 45 years old. Married, wife Patricia, and teenage daughters, 13 and 16. Deacon at the Antioch Baptist Church. Shriner. Emerson's bio omitted what I regarded as his most pertinent accomplishments: he'd fucked my wife, and he'd destroyed my world and Hanna's.

I knew I wasn't going to be worth two drops of cold piss for the rest of the day, so I trudged down the hall to the elected District Attorney's office. Rob McAlister was my boss and my longtime friend, so I wasn't surprised how I was greeted when I walked into Rob's inner sanctum.

"Dammit, Tom, I don't like the look on your face. You better not be here to tell me that you're resigning." Rob gestured for me to sit. "I was kidding, Tom, but you're not saying it's not that, so now I'm nervous. Spill."

"It's not that, Rob. It's me and Jenny. Short version, it's probable I'll be divorcing her. I'm giving you a heads-up that I might need to take more personal time than usual to deal with that. Even if it gets nasty, I don't see any blow-back on the office. On the other hand, the other guy in this circus is a big deal at V-Cubed, so the divorce could end up being a knife fight. If it starts going that way, I'll resign to keep the spotlight off the office. Or I can resign now if you want to wash your hands from the get-go of any bad press. There'll be no hard feelings on my end, Rob."

Rob pondered. "I'm sorry as hell about your situation, Tom. You stay put. So long as you don't get stupid, I don't give a rat's ass about the media. Besides, those prancing twits at V-Cubed could use a black eye. Just keep me in the loop, y'hear? I've been where you are, so my door is open if you need to piss and moan. Now get out of here and do whatever needs doing. My love to Hanna."

My next visit was with Danny Correa, the office's chief investigator. I needed confirmation, one way or the other, and that meant a true professional. If anybody could point me to a rock solid PI, it would be Danny. Danny made a few phone calls and an hour later I was sitting across from Perry Desmond, of Desmond & Associates Investigations. Jenny and I each had a "mad money" account completely separate from our joint account that paid all of our regular expenses. Desmond's retainer lightened mine by $5,000. That was a small price to pay, given the stakes. I needed absolute certainty before I nuked my marriage.

The day's biggest remaining challenge was keeping my composure when Jenny finally came home. As usual, Jenny wasn't there for dinner. She eventually wandered in at around ten o'clock, and went straight to our bedroom. Hanna didn't even look up. I decided to stay with Hanna watching TV until she went to bed, and then relocate to my den for the night. Hanna turned in early, and because I was too hyped up to sleep, I channel surfed. By pure chance, I was watching Unfaithful when Jenny joined me on the couch.

"What you watching?"

"Unfaithful. It's a Richard Gere flick." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her blink unnaturally a few times and bite her lower lip. She asked what the movie was about.

I kept my attention on the TV, not looking at Jenny. "I've seen it before. Gere thinks his wife is cheating. He hires a PI, finds all about his wife's affair. Doesn't end well. Gere was going to kill her, but instead he ends up bashing the other guy's head in with a snow globe. Caca pasa, right?"

Jenny was taken aback. "Shit happens? Really, Tom? Jesus, he killed someone over an affair! Aren't you somebody who sends people to prison for murder?"

I pushed back, to see how she'd react. "Hey, it's just a movie. And no, you don't get to kill somebody over an affair. But there are consequences to cheating, sometimes huge ones. Fah-Foh." Jenny tilted her head, not understanding. "Fuck Around, Find Out" I said in my best James Earl Jones.

Jenny swallowed hard. She sat silently for a few minutes before apologizing again about the night before she left and invited me to join her in what was our bedroom.

"Thanks, but I'll pass." She didn't expect that. Like any good cuck, I was supposed to be grateful for whatever table scraps might be thrown my way. I couldn't tell if she was more surprised or more ticked off at being rejected.

"Tom! I told you I was sorry, and I am. Let me make it up to you, please!"

NOW I looked her in the eyes. "I don't want you to 'make it up to me.' I want to be desired, not treated like a damn predator and told to 'do my business,' as you so lovingly put it. You want to 'make it up' to someone? Make it up to Hanna! She wonders where her mother has disappeared to, and frankly, I have no idea what to tell her."

I stormed off to get ready for bed and settled down once again into my den for the night. After a while Jenny quietly knocked on the door. I told her to go away and let me sleep in peace. I never imagined there'd be a day that I'd turn my beautiful bride away, but there it was. It occurred to me that if Perry Desmond didn't come up with confirming evidence that Jenny was banging Emerson, I'd be spending years crawling out of the hole I was digging. Not that there was any risk of that. Desmond was for absolute factual and moral certainty, not for education. I'd give Desmond a month. Meanwhile, I'd have to keep finding excuses for refusing all intimacy. I made a mental note to have myself tested for STDs, pronto.

I didn't need to wait a month. The next week Mystery Caller rang me again. She relayed an overheard conversation between Emerson and Jenny. Apparently she could hear them through an office wall, and neither of them was discrete. The gist was my turning down sex was making Jenny nervous that I was on to her, so the out of town trips were going to have to stop, at least for a while. But they agreed to keep meeting at the apartments, which Mystery Caller explained was a pair of mini-suites at a downtown hotel near V-Cubed's offices. The firm leased the suites annually. If a lawyer was working late into the night, it was a place to crash instead of making a trip home. How convenient! That explained why Jenny never smelled like sex when she came home, and why there weren't classic tells, like showering as soon as she got home, or cum-stained panties. She'd showered at the apartment first and changed into fresh panties, leaving me none the wiser. Clever girl.

Still, all I really had were stories told by someone who claimed to work at Jenny's firm. The objective facts that I personally knew to be true were consistent with an affair, but they weren't conclusive. "Where there's smoke there's fire" is a handy maxim, but it wasn't anywhere close to proof. The proof arrived that next week. Perry Desmond texted that he had what I needed, and asked when I wanted to meet. Immediately, of course. I told my staff that I was taking personal time after lunch, and was GFD.

Danny Correa was right; Desmond was top-notch. He had compiled a mother lode of photos, videos, and even e-mails, text messages, and hotel records. I didn't know how he got those last three, and I didn't want to know. It all painted a damning picture. Emerson and Jenny had been seeing each other for almost a year. During out-of-town trips they'd rent two rooms, but Jenny wouldn't use hers. The rest of the time they would use the firm's apartments. Desmond had videos of them going to a suite at odd hours in the middle of the day, or in the early evenings. They would have at it for a few hours then go back to work or head to their homes.

Desmond also had a recording of a recent lunch date Jenny had with her best friend, Kathi. Jenny and Kathi were besties since they wore diapers. Desmond recorded all of it with a cleverly disguised miniature parabolic microphone setup. Humans have a need to confide their secrets to a trusted someone. Heck, the whole idea of the Rite of Confession is that you can admit murder to your priest without fear of being outed. Jenny was no exception; she trusted Kathi would keep her secrets as faithfully as any good father of the church. Jenny laid it all out in technicolor, gleefully describing the details of her couplings with Emerson, and how he rang her bell. To her credit, Kathi tried valiantly to pry Jenny's head out of her ass.

"I can't believe you're doing this, Jenn. Damn, you know better, girl! OK, maybe Tom's not perfect, but believe me, he's better than most all of them. He keeps a steady job, he doesn't drink or gamble, and he doesn't even look at other women. And you're not telling me this is for revenge, so it's all about you. You know Tom will go postal when he finds out."

"He won't find out, Kath. Jim and I are really super careful. Besides, don't I deserve a little excitement after seventeen years with the same guy?"

"Excitement? You're risking your marriage to a fantastic father and loving husband for excitement? Oh, please! Next you're going to tell me this Jim has a big cock or curls your toes or some nonsense like that. Did you fall out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch? Did this guy slip some Slut Pills into your coffee? Ever hear of the Martian Slut Ray? When did you get zapped?"

"But Jim does curl my toes, Kath. Tom's great in the sheets, and he always puts me first. But when I'm with Jim I get fireworks I don't get from Tom any more. Why can't I have both, Kath? Why can't I get my loving from Tom and my fireworks from Jim?"

"Oh, gosh, I don't know, Jenn. Maybe because you took a vow to stay true to Tom? Because when you do get caught there will be hell to pay? I bet if you put the same energy into spicing it up with Tom that you're putting into fucking this Jim guy, Tom would curl more than your toes."

"I know, I know. And you're right that it's unfair to Tom. But, there's this other thing. Kath, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the sneaking around is kind of a rush, too. Besides, even though he'd be totally pissed off, he would forgive me eventually. And he is devoted to Hanna, so I could use that as leverage."

"Jenn, you've lost it. Remember what happened when Steve found out about my one-time fling? It nearly destroyed him. We've managed to duct tape our marriage back together, but even after seven years it's still not the same. Seven years, Jenn! None of that has been thrilling or exciting. I mean, I know Steve still loves me, but not the same as before. Something's missing in his eyes now when he looks at me. Add to that, his sister and brother still hate me, his parents are barely polite, and most of the rest of his family treat me like an outsider. End it now, Jenn."

"I just can't, Kath, not yet. I will one day, but not yet.

"Fine, fine. You're a big girl. Let me ask you though, is this fireworks guy you're screwing married? Kids? Thought so. Consider this, if he's willing to cheat on his wife, imagine what he'd be willing to do to you."

I told Desmond to turn it off; I'd heard more than enough. Nothing Kathi could say would be enough. Jenny had weighed it out. Me, Hanna, and everything else that was Jenny's life fell short of getting thrills and spills with Emerson, with the added perk of making me out a fool. So be it. Jenny was something that I needed to scrape off the bottom of my shoe, not track through the house.

I decided to burn it all down. It might cost me my job, but I wouldn't be the first ADA to join The Dark Side and do criminal defense work. There would be some lean years, but I'd make enough to eat and support Hanna. Jenny made a lot more than I did, so my paying support was unlikely. I'd have to pay child support if Hanna lived with Jenny, but if necessary I'd survive on Ramen for my little girl.

The next day I wangled an appointment with Deborah "End of" Marriage. Yeah, that's right, a divorce attorney whose last name was Marriage. Her rep was that she was skilled and fair, but ruthless as Vlad the Impaler if needs be. I laid it all out for her, including my nascent plan to take down V-Cubed. Let's just say she was skeptical.

Deborah gave me the bad news that I already knew. Divorce in Texas was basically no-fault, though I could ask for a decree that granted my divorce on the grounds of adultery. That might get me a slightly better property division, but in the end the property would most likely be parceled out either by an agreement or a split that favored the party who was worse off economically. That's usually the wife but in this case that would be me, because Jenny's income was almost twice mine. Then there was child support, which would be twenty percent of what was called "net financial resources." I'd be OK. Finally, there was the worst part, visitation. If Hanna lived with Jenny, I'd be a weekend dad, more or less. As much as I hated that outcome, neither Hanna nor I wanted to continue with things as they were. Deborah counseled me to try a trial separation and counseling first, but that was a no-go. I told Deborah to prepare the standard no-fault petition. My petition would allege that my marriage is "insupportable because of a discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation." Bland, verbose, lawyer-speak at its best. If it became necessary to get out the knives I could amend my petition to allege the more accurate reason, which was that I was forever finished with the lying, scheming, treacherous, adulterous skank who broke a solemn oath she swore to me before almighty God to forsake all others.

I had to wait for the next day to meet with Mike Fontaine, who was my classmate at U-Texas law. We regularly saw each other at alumni club football watch parties over the years. He often joked that the real fun in the law was pushing the boundaries, so Mike was my go-to pick for taking a tilt-at-windmills revenge run at V-cubed. Over lunch at one of our favorite BBQ joints I laid it all out, and what I wanted to do. If End of Marriage was skeptical, Mike was incredulous.

"Here's the deal," Mike explained. "What you're really needing here is a suit for alienation of affections. Problem for you is that only a handful of states still allow those, and the Lone Star State ain't one of them."

"I get that," I allowed, "but what if the damages aren't her lost affections for me, but my loss of her services?"

Mike belly laughed. "You can't sue for lost pussy!" he said a touch too loudly.

"Not pussy, but the services that a domestic partner provides. I'm thinking suit for fraud. I can't count the number of times there were firm dinners and cocktail hours, and the partners always talked about how the late nights, weekends, and trips were FOR WORK, and how I'd benefit if Jenny made partner. I told them how it was a real strain on our family, how I had to double-up on keeping the household running, taking time off my own work to keep the ship afloat while Jenny was absent, and so on. And it was true. It cost me vacation time, we had to start paying a maid, stuff like that. And the supposed payoff for Jenny working was that I'd share in the benefits of her future partnership, which now I won't get. Aren't there tons of studies that quantify the economic value of a stay-at-home spouse's contribution to the household?"

Mike mulled it over. "So you're saying you can allege the elements of fraud. You have V-Cubed partners making knowing misrepresentations to you, with the intent to deceive you, that you were justified in relying on the horseshit they were feeding you, and that it caused you damages. Is that it? Because even if you somehow get past a motion to dismiss-and I bet you don't-your actual damages don't amount to much in the grand scheme of things, and the future benefits of Jenny's partnership are speculative."

"That's true as to my actual damages. But I'll be asking for punitive damages, too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the things that a jury can consider when deciding on punishment damages is the defendant's financial situation? In this case, the resources and assets of each of the partners and of V-Cubed itself?"

I could see Mike's gears turning. "Yeah, maybe. And I could argue that I'm entitled to take the depositions of everyone in the firm to find out who knew what and how far up the pyramid the deceptions went. And crawl through their personal finances, too. They might want to pay out just to avoid that spectacle becoming news. It's still a monster Hail Mary, pal."

"It's practically hopeless. But there's value for me just in making those assholes squirm, and if they take a black eye in public if the media runs with it, I can live with that, too."

Mike's wheels were really spinning now. He slammed down the rest of his draft and signaled the waitress for another. "OK, fuck it. I'm in. I'll take the case on contingency, but I can't afford to float the out-of-pocket, not with these odds. Are you fixed enough to fund this? I'm guessing a twenty-plus thousand budget, likely more."

"I can cover. For years I've been squirreling away money to take Jenny on a second honeymoon for our twentieth. Sure as hell won't be happening now."

We spent the rest of lunch talking about how the evidence my PI gathered matched up with the insider information I was getting from my mystery caller. I told Mike that I wanted to launch all missiles at V-Cubed's annual holiday party, about three weeks away. I wanted the lawsuit against the partners and the firm to spell it all out in gory detail, except to refer to Jenny as "Jane Doe," to try to wall off Hanna. According to Mike, I was a deliciously cold hearted son of a bitch. He was wrong. Raw anger kept the fires blazing in what was once my heart.

The day's next task was to give Rob McAlister a heads-up. I hoped I'd still have a job after I revealed my intentions. To my surprise Rob didn't backtrack from what was said before. "What I like about you is that you take a righteous fight to the enemy, straight on and with gloves off. Stay inside the ethical lines and you have nothing to worry about from me. Gig 'em!" With that behind me, I headed home.

The last puzzle piece to place was Patricia Emerson. I had no desire to hurt her or her children. I thought about just plowing ahead and let the chips fall as they may with Emerson and his family. Ultimately I decided that would be cruel. She was going to find out one way or the other. Besides, what's the saying? "Forewarned is forearmed." She deserved a chance to position herself to best protect herself and her daughters. I made the call and arranged to meet with her at a coffee shop near her home.

Patricia Emerson seemed like a nice woman, once she got past her understandable trepidation about meeting a stranger who set off a dirty bomb in her universe. I had told her that I had proof of the affair, and she demanded to see it. I sat quietly as she parsed through the photos, videos, emails, and text messages. She alternated between examining my evidence and pausing to sniffle and cry. After a while the tears tapered off, replaced by hissed deprecations of "asshole," "son of a bitch," and far worse. When she was done looking at the evidence of Emerson's betrayal she collected herself and disappeared to the ladies' room for a good twenty minutes. I thought perhaps she had left. I was about to ask a waitress to check the ladies' room when Patricia reappeared.

It wasn't the same woman who I met barely an hour before. This Patricia Emerson was harder than diamonds, and all business. She asked me what I was going to do. I told her that I was going to divorce Jenny, and that I might go after V-Cubed as well. Viewed in hindsight, that was stupid move because much of my plan called for the lot of them to be caught flat-footed. If Patricia spilled, my plan was toast. Turned out that I gained another collaborator.

"I'm in," she announced with icy coldness. "What about having them served with the papers at the firm's holiday party next month?" she suggested. "That would be the perfect time to nail all those evil fuckers."

I had to admire how quickly she moved from injured spouse to angel of retribution. Over several more coffees we decided that she would have Emerson served at the same time I served Jenny and the partners. Unlike me, however, she did not want to be a the party. She would beg off by telling Emerson that she caught a sudden flu bug, so she could spend the time he was gone throwing all of his stuff in garbage bags and changing the locks. She wanted Emerson to experience a shit tsunami.

"I come from a family of lawyers, Mr. Mitchell," she explained. "The law didn't interest me, but my two brothers and my sister followed in my father's footsteps. They never cottoned to Jim. My father flat out said that he wouldn't give his blessing to my marriage unless there was a killer prenup. They'll happily help me hammer his balls to a stump while I hold the nails. Please excuse my French!"

"One other thing." Suddenly she was cautious with me again. "I have to protect myself and my girls. I know that you want to mount his head on the wall like a trophy, but I need to have first crack at his assets, for my girls. Surely you understand that, don't you?"

This woman was a gem. "Ma'am, I won't lie. I crave getting several pounds of his flesh. That said, I won't get in your way about his money. I want him cleaned out and ruined. I don't care how that happens, but having most of his money go to you would be best. I'll go after whatever you don't get. Fair enough?" We wrapped up the rest of our plan for the big night and went to what were once our homes.

The last bit of preparation was to find a place to live after I lowered the booms. Living with Jenny would be untenable, and I had little doubt that Jenny would be given exclusive rights to occupy our marital home until the divorce got sorted. It took some doing, but I found a decent two-bedroom that was conveniently located to Hanna's school and my office. That way Hanna would have her own room when I had my weekends, or I could turn it into a sitting room if somehow I was screwed out of standard visitation. I signed a six month lease, long enough to let some dust settle before making more permanent housing plans.

~~~@~~~@~~~

The biggest challenges for the next two weeks were maintaining the facade that there still was a marriage and finding ways to beg off any intimacy. I wanted to inflict maximum payback, and the best way to do that was to Pearl Harbor my retribution. More reports from Mystery Caller of my continued cuckholding kept the embers of outrage stoked and stiffened my resolve. So I spent nights in the den pretending to work on staff reassignments or other made up administrative changes that I said Rob asked me to get done. Hanna and I spent more time together, which we both enjoyed and which also buffered us from suffering the ignominy of Jenny's continued disinterest and treachery.

Jenny kept pressuring me to let her make amends for her "do your business" remark, but I held her off with assurances that I just needed a little longer to put that behind me. What she didn't know is that "a little longer" meant when the Sun winked out of existence. Natural desires warred with my resolve. I desperately craved the pleasures of a woman, but there'd have to be a gun to my head before I'd stick myself in any of Jenny's fetid holes. As far as I was concerned, Jenny's cunt was an EPA Superfund site. I was relieved when my STD tests came back negative. That left AIDS, which could take years to show up, but nothing could be done about that.

Even though Jenny was getting regularly serviced by Emerson, she made it obvious that she was pissed off about not getting any kind of affection at home. That was exactly the state of mind I wanted. The night of the big V-Cubed party I walked up behind her as she was getting into her LBD, wrapped my arms around her waist and nuzzled into her neck. She ground her ass into my groin as encouragement. Although the abstract idea of sex with Jenny repulsed me, physical contact with her won the moment. I got hard for her for the first time in many weeks.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" she said with faux sensuality.

"If you think it means that tonight I'm going to fuck you like I've never fucked you before, yes, it does."

"It's about time you got over your little snit! Hanna's having a sleepover tonight to work on a school project, so nothing's off the table!"

I assured her that I'd rock her world. "Funny you should say that, Babe, because at a table is exactly where I intend to fuck you first."

She turned to kiss me, and to stay in character I had to go along. I broke off our kiss before any tongue action started, telling her to save it for later when we could put our tongues to best use. I know it was just my imagination, but I swear I tasted Emerson's cock on her lips. When Jenny resumed primping I went to another bathroom and gargled half a bottle of mouthwash.

~~~@~~~@~~~

As holiday parties go, it was something to behold. V-Cubed had rented out two floors of the city's Museum of Natural History. There were tables of appetizers everywhere, the bar was wide open, and a live band on each floor provided just the right level of background to mask over the widespread chatter of a few hundred guests yet allow easy conversation. Staff in livery circulated to offer specialty hors d'oeuvres and wine. A host of the local judiciary were also in attendance, to be seen and receive fealty from lawyers who hoped to be remembered favorably.

Jenny and I mingled separately until I saw Jenny laughing in a gaggle that included Emerson, Victor Vandervalk, and Big V herself, along with a few others who I assumed were associate attorneys at V-Cubed. The gaiety took a steep dive as I approached. I don't think Emerson realized that he had his arm hanging braced around Jenny's hip until she clumsily moved away from him. Now wasn't that fucking interesting. He didn't care if I saw him, and she let him paw her so long as I wasn't there to see it.

Big V of course took center stage. "Well! You must be Jenny's husband! Tom, isn't it? We're so glad you could make it!"

"I wouldn't miss tonight for the world." That was the absolute truth. A lot of scheming and planning was to come to fruition tonight.

Victor made small talk. "Jenny tells us that you're still in the DA's office, is that right?" The question was a textbook passive-aggressive dig at what the snots at V-Cubed regarded as my menial government job. You had to be paying close attention or you'd miss the insult buried in the slight change of inflection at the word "still."

"Yes. Still at the DA's office. But one man in his time plays many parts. Who knows what tomorrow brings."

"Oh, a philosopher!" roared Victor.

"No, merely a plagiarist of sorts. There really is nothing new under the sun."

"You're fond of quoting Shakespeare," said one of the up-and-coming V-Cubed hotshots. He had already acquired that insufferable air of superiority that V-Cubed nurtured. He'd go far there, if the firm still existed in a year.

"Ecclesiastes, actually. But Shakespeare ripped it off in a sonnet, so your common mistake is forgivable." Fuck you, kid.

Emerson decided it was his turn to poke the bear. "Tom, if you ever tire of jailing bad guys and want to step up to the next level, perhaps we could find you something here. Unless you'd mind working under Jenny."

These dipshits thought they'd cornered the market on clever. I wondered if working at V-Cubed turned my wife into an asshole, or if she was always one and working at V-Cubed merely unmasked her. Whatever. I spoke directly to Emerson, locking eyes.

"Wouldn't bother me. I've done some of my best work under Jenny. As I'm sure she has done under you."

I didn't break eye contact with the unctuous prick. It was laughable, really. A half-dozen people simultaneously stopped breathing and shuffled nervously, each wondering if I knew what was going on with Emerson and Jenny. Soon enough they'd all know what I knew. Big V broke the uncomfortable silence with a suggestion that we take our seats for the evening's presentations. Jenny and I didn't get ten feet before she erupted. She was livid.

"What the fuck do you think you were doing with that Shakespeare shit?" she hissed in my ear. "And that crude remark about me working under Jim! You can just forget about getting any tonight, asshole! You'll be sleeping in your den until I tell you otherwise!" she barked almost loudly enough for others to hear. Let her bark.

"Not likely," I replied with a dull affect. Any last-second hesitations I had about what was to come disappeared. Jenny had earned what was coming. They all had, with interest.

"Oh, yes you are! There are going to be some changes around our house, starting tonight." You bet your ass there are, I thought to myself.

My nasty exchange with Jenny slightly delayed our arrival at our table. At each place setting a small card with exquisite calligraphy denoted the assigned seats. The place cards appropriately placed Jenny and me next to each other, but Emerson had already seated himself in my place. I politely said, "I think you're in my seat," but Emerson didn't bat an eye. "Am I?" he said, "I'm sure you don't mind that I've taken your place, do you?" To her eternal discredit, Jenny said nothing. She clearly expected me to submit meekly to Emerson's challenge and take his seat. Normally, I'd make it clear that I did mind, but taking Emerson's assigned seat at the other side of the table would work out even better. I'd be ringside at what was about to happen. Part of me wished that Emerson's wife, Patricia, would be sitting next to me to see the show, but she was at home supervising the boxing up of Emerson's clothes and personal effects to be delivered to wherever he would be living next. I casually pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message to the person coordinating the service of lawsuit summonses to Jenny, Emerson, and a host of others at V-Cubed: "serve them all". I had crossed the Rubicon. Iacta alea est: the die is cast.

It cost me a fair bit of coin, but the firm I hired to serve the summonses arranged to insinuate a handful of its people into V-Cubed's party, all posing as hired waitstaff. They worked in two-person teams. One physically served the lawsuit papers, and the other made an audio-video recording. The recording wasn't at all necessary to prove that service had been accomplished, and none of the several defendants in my lawsuits would waste the court's time with challenging service. But one never knows what admissions these turds might make in the heat of the moment worthy of recording, and even if they didn't, I'd have a personal highlight reel of the festivities. Per my instructions, Jenny was first. I had provided photos of each person so the process servers could do their jobs quickly.

"Jennifer Brooke Mitchell?" said the first, comparing the photo to my wife, seated across the big round table from me. Jenny nodded and said that's who she was. "You have been served." Jenny immediately recognized what was happening when she saw the caption on the summons: "In the Matter of the Marriage of Thomas Edward Mitchell and Jennifer Brooke Mitchell, and in the interest of H. C. M., a Minor". Jenny's eyes blazed at me, while the others tried to learn what was going on. Emerson's usual shit-eating grin disappeared when the process server asked if he was James Leroy Emerson, and handed him a summons and petition.

"You're suing ME??? Emerson shouted across the table. "For what???"

"Not just you, Shit-stain. Also the firm of Vandervalk, Vandervalk, and Vincennes, plus all of the partners, individually. Fraud, conspiracy, and civil RICO."

Just as Emerson was about to get out of his chair to engage me, another process server approached him, serving him with Patricia's petition for divorce, along with a temporary restraining order prohibiting him from coming within 500 feet of his house, Patricia, or their children. The TRO also froze his expenditures except for daily necessities and regular household bills. The way Emerson's temples were pulsing I expected him to stoke out. Don't die quite yet, motherfucker.

A cavalcade of apoplectic fits erupted around the ballroom as V-Cubed partners, the CFO, and COO were served. That was my cue. In all of the confusion I slipped away and retrieved my car without anyone noticing that Elvis had left the building. My suitcases were already in my car in the garage. I hoped to make it home, grab what I needed for the next few days, and be gone to my apartment before Jenny found a way to get home, but it was not to be. An Uber delivered Jenny just as I was headed to the garage with a hastily jam-packed duffle bag.

Jenny looked like hell. She ping-ponged back and forth between yelling at me for how I blew up the party and cruelly embarrassed her, and then begging for a chance to explain. My plan was for her to do her explaining to my lawyers under oath in a deposition, but since Hanna was doing a sleepover with a friend to work on a science project, I decided that I might get some honest answers from Jenny now, before Jenny, her minions, and their lawyers had a chance to craft a sanitized version of history. I remembered turn on my phone's recorder. Who knew what crap she might accuse me of? Christ on a cracker, I had to treat my wife like a perp.

Jenny cracked open a bottle of white from the wine fridge and sat at our kitchen table. I liberated a bottle of Blanton's Single Barrel whiskey that I had kept in reserve for a future celebration of some unknown happy event that now likely would never take place, and took a seat at the far end of the table from Jenny. She took a page straight from the Cheater's Handbook.

"It's not what you think," she announced with false earnestness.

"Since you don't know what I know or what I think, how can you possibly say that it isn't what I think?" I was proud of how calm I was, all things considered. Jenny recalibrated.

"Tom, no matter what you think I've done, you don't know how I feel. How I feel about you and about us." Well played. She could make up anything about her feelings, and who could say otherwise? Clever girl. But she didn't know about my hole card, a witness in the person of Perry Desmond, who heard Jenny telling Kathi exactly how she felt, and a recording to back Perry up.

"Let me take a wild guess. You deserve more than to be held back by a 9-to-5 government drone. You want someone who makes you feel like a real woman. You want fireworks and thrills, not warm fuzzies. I've stagnated and you have flourished. You need excitement." I used enough of her own words to her friend Kathi that she realized she was busted. I let that thought marinate in her head. Now she had to wonder what else I knew, and factor that unknown into whatever tale she would tell.

"So, Jennifer, are you getting that EXCITEMENT you crave? Are you THRILLED now? Do you see FIREWORKS in your future? Give me credit, I'm doing all a stuck in the mud husband of 17 years can do to meet his life partner's needs."

It went on that way for a while. A river of tears and snot, though to my surprise, none of it mine. I was too pissed off to get weepy, and I'd had my fill of verbal jousting with Jenny. She kept reciting chapter and verse from the Cheater's Handbook. I don't love him, I love you. It was just sex. I was going to end it. Don't break up our family. Think of Hanna. Please forgive me. I'll do anything. I'll be the best wife ever. We can fix this. Let's not throw it all away over a mistake. Blah blah blah. I was more than ready to hop in my car and head to my apartment, where I could nurse my bottle of Blanton's until I fell asleep in peace. I'd get with Hanna tomorrow and fill her in. My sadness was tempered only by the fact that Hanna knew this was going to happen long before I admitted it to myself, so she had been mentally preparing herself for her parents' divorce for months.

That was The Plan. Not in The Plan was Hanna coming back home unexpectedly to grab a forgotten textbook. Hanna bounded into the kitchen as Jenny and I were right in the thick of one of the nastier exchanges. Hanna's eyes flitted between the bottle of bourbon in front of me, Jenny's mostly-drained glass of wine, and a mountain of soggy tissues piled in front of Jenny. Hanna froze in place, eyes wide.

"What the fuck is going on???" The question unleashed a new round of sobs from Jenny.

"Language, young lady," I reminded her gently. Looking back, that was a singularly stupid concern, given the unalterable trajectory of the conversation.

"Fuck that!" Hanna spat out. "Why is Mom crying? What's going on?" Her questions were directed at me, not Jenny.

"Over to you, Jenny. Why don't you tell our daughter what I did to make Mom cry."

Hanna immediately assimilated the changed landscape. As I said, she's always been perceptive.

"Oh, God! Mother? WHAT did you do???"

Jenny was nearly incoherent at this point. "I -- I -- Sweetheart, I'm so sorry! I, ummm...."

Hanna boiled over. "It was that guy, wasn't it? WASN'T IT??" Hanna's eyes bored into Jenny's. "You total bitch! You cheated on Dad!"

Jenny wailed before spitting up a mouthful of wine. She fled the kitchen to the hall powder room and slammed the door. We could hear muffled retching through the thin wooden door. Booze, rich food, stomach acid, and guilt don't mix well. Now Hanna was wailing, too. Everything had spun way out of control in the span of 20 seconds.

"Hanna, I know you're upset. I am, too. But you're not helping." My attempt to turn down the temps utterly failed.

"I don't care! I hate her!" Hannah ran down the hall, yelling "slut!" at Jenny through the powder room door as she passed. Hanna stormed up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door. Dammit! I couldn't leave with things this way, so I went upstairs to console to Hanna.

I knocked lightly on her door. "It's me, Pumpkin. Can we talk?"

"Only if it's just you." Hanna unlocked the door and opened it just enough to confirm that I was alone. She re-locked the door once I was inside and sat against the headboard of her bed, crushing a huge stuffed penguin to her chest. Of course she had dozens of questions, which I answered as honestly as discretion allowed.

I had a few questions of my own, one of which was about "that guy" that Hanna must have seen with Jenny. Was it Emerson, or was Emerson just the latest interloper? Hanna reminded about when Jenny to took her car to the stealership about a check engine light about nine months ago. I remembered. Jenny's car had to be left overnight, and dealer was out of loaners. I offered to pick Jenny up at her office, but she absolutely insisted that she would get a ride home from someone there. I asked Hanna about Jenny's conscripted taxi driver.

"It's hard to remember the details, Dad. Hes about your height and all, but kind of blond. I asked Mom about him but she got all weird. I think Mom said his name was Jim. Jim Something-son."

"Emerson?"

A pall fell over Hanna's face. "Yeah, Dad, that's it. Jim Emerson. He's the one, isn't he? He's the gaping asshole Mom's been fucking, right?"

"Hanna! Really, the language." She just shrugged, as if to say, if the shoe fits.

We talked over what was going to happen next. It killed me to see Hanna's tender heart breaking as it the reality of a broken home seeped past the defenses she had built. She wanted to leave with me, but somehow I convinced her to return to her friend's house to finish their school project, upon my solemn promise that I would pick her up when they finished so she could spend the night with me. Jenny was still in the powder room crying and barfing, so I told her where Hanna would be. Hearing no protests, that was that. Hanna called around midnight, and to my surprise we both conked out on my new sofa somewhere in the middle of the night. The Blanton's would wait until I got my decree of divorcement.

As expected, the next weeks were challenging. Jenny miraculously rediscovered the joys of motherhood, even though Hanna wanted nothing of it. Too little, and far too late. Hanna went into rebellion mode with Jenny. Hanna's message was as subtle as a 2,000 pound bomb: Let me live with my father or I will make your life hell. After dealing with Hanna being sent to detention five days in a row, then skipping out completely on two of those days, sneaking out of the house on several nights by climbing out her second story window, and openly referring to Jenny as "the Slut" instead of Mom, Jenny ran up the white flag. Hanna moved in with me until the temporary orders hearing. Life with a mercurial, pissed off teenage girl wasn't all flying unicorns farting dazzling clouds of glitter, but we settled into a good routine. Mercifully, Hanna's teachers gave her considerable grace on her behavior when they learned of the separation, so Hanna's GPA wasn't trashed.

Meanwhile, Jenny plied me with every temptation imaginable. It was all variations on the same theme, all drawn from the Cheater's Handbook. It boiled down to promising that I'd get the best wife in the history of wives, if I'd just give her another chance. She dressed on the barely tasteful side of tarty when we exchanged Hanna at visitations. She sent me pics of the new bedroom furniture that replaced every stick that was there before I left. Daily she called or sent a text inviting Hanna and me to BBQ and swim at our former family abode.

Meanwhile, her back bench of friends telephoned regularly to tell me how remorseful Jenny was, and how I needed to be forgiving. Jenny just made a mistake, don't you see? My spy in V-Cubed's office reported that Jenny and Emerson had become pariahs after the holiday party implosion. Jenny and Emerson didn't say a word that wasn't about business. Not that it was by their choice; Mystery Caller said that the partners warned that even the slightest hint of hanky-panky would result in immediate termination. Apparently my lawsuit poked at a tender spot in the firm's financial forecasts.

All of it was wasted effort. What I couldn't get through Jenny's head was that there was no way back for us. Jenny was dead to me, replaced by Jennifer, the conniving bitch who would be a part of my life for the sole reason that she bore my daughter. I instructed my lawyer to get us a hearing to set temporary orders to govern things until the divorce could be finalized, and put the pedal to the metal.

~~~@~~~@~~~

The temporary orders hearing was surprisingly businesslike. End of Marriage knew Jenny's lawyer well, a guy named Kenneth Loveless. When Deborah told me his name she made a point of telling me that I'd be at least the 400th person to make the joke that she and Loveless should start the law firm of Loveless Marriage. That's where the levity ended. We drew Judge Tandar Kareem. He had a good rep overall. Like most of the family court bench, all things being equal he favored the wife, but he was open-minded if the facts were there. I could have drawn far worse.

Jenny and I were an unusual case, in that Jenny earned a lot more than I did, so I didn't get hit with paying Jenny temporary support. Kareem naturally started from the premise that a young teen girl should live with her mother, and that's how it looked like it would go until Hanna's voice rang out from behind us. Hanna had promised me to be on her best behavior if I let her attend, so I was not pleased.

"Your Honor," she burst out in a barrage of tumbling words, "no one's asking me what I want, and I'm telling you all I want to stay with my dad. If you make me live with her you can send me to juvie or whatever right now because I swear I will live there before I live with HER." With everyone's consent Judge Kareem adjourned for a private chat with Hanna in chambers. Deborah interrogated me about whether I put Hanna up to this, making it clear that if I had arranged Hanna's proclamation I'd need a new lawyer, starting immediately. The hearing resumed about thirty minutes, starting with a speech by Judge Kareem.

With the parties' consent, I have had an on the record private interview in chambers with the parties' minor child. For now I am ordering the record of that interview sealed, so counsel, don't either of you bother asking for a transcript." Kareem looked directly at me for the next part. "Mr. Mitchell, your daughter has convinced me that you knew nothing about her outburst. If I find out different, you will be very unhappy." He resumed addressing all of us. "I've made no secret of my view that that teenage girls do best if their mothers are the primary custodians. But not in this case. I find that it is in the best interest of the child to order, for now, that Mr. Mitchell will be the primary custodian, with the usual arrangements for visitation by Ms. Mitchell." Kareem looked at me again. "I fully expect the parents to work together on visitation, and that Hanna will be able to see her mother whenever she wants. Emphasis on whenever." I nodded at End of Marriage, who told the judge there would be no problems. Jenny stared blankly at the floor, forcing Loveless to agree for her.

Next is temporary possession of the former marital home. Normally that would go to the custodial parent, but apparently Mr. Mitchell doesn't want it, and the minor child has no interest in living in it. Ms. Mitchell has asked for it, so for now its hers to live in. Ms. Mitchell, for so long as you're in it you will pay the mortgage, and you two can settle up the money part in the final decree. Now, as for child support. The law is clear and all of you know what it is. Ms. Mitchell is more than self-sufficient, and she earns substantially more than the custodial parent. I expect you two to come to an agreement on what support Ms. Mitchell will pay, and I don't want either of you to waste the court's time." My elation was tempered by the fact that this was going far too well. A shoe had to drop.

"Now, finally, I'm a big fan of counseling," announced the judge. I nudged my lawyer, who was permitted to inveigh against it. Even though Deborah herself liked the idea, she did my will and argued passionately against it. Jenny's attorney was all-in for it, clearly at Jenny's insistence. It was against protocol, but Deborah asked if I could address the judge directly. I told him no amount of counseling could right what was wrong. I wanted out at fast as possible, and counseling would just add to the damage Jenny already caused, maybe even cause new rifts. Jenny was just as forceful in asking for a chance to "fix" us. In the end, the judge ordered a minimum of ten sessions, which he would call off only if the counselor informed him that it was doing more harm than good. Addressing me again, we pointed out that I was expected to attend and to participate "in good faith, or else."

There was zero chance that counseling would be of any use. I told everyone every single person that I would never get past Jenny's betrayal. While part of me still loved what remained of the woman I thought I married, the bonds of trust had been obliterated. I just wanted my divorce. None of that mattered. There I was, with Judge Kareem's bayonet prodding me forward to mandatory counseling sessions.

~~~@~~~@~~~

During our first mandatory session, Dr. Rachelle Busby, Ph. D, LPC, LMCH, LMHP, M-O-U-S-E, said she wanted a list from each of us of what we thought we needed to try to repair the marriage, so a list I would bring. As with everyone else, my efforts to make Dr. Busby understand that there was no way I would ever reconcile proved futile. Because no one listened when I talked using reason, I decided that if they wouldn't heed reason, they might heed a maniac. I arrived for our second weekly session only seconds before the scheduled appointment time, so there would be scant chance of having to engage with Jenny socially while we waited. After the usual plastic pleasantries, Busby got us rolling.

"Tom, why don't you begin."

I felt manipulated. I was being manipulated. There was no point to the exercise in kabuki theater of reanimating the corpse of my marriage. But the forms of the law must be observed, and as an officer of the court, I couldn't really tell the judge to pound sand. Judge Kareem had ordered Jenny and me to marriage counseling, and that meant attending these counseling sessions "in good faith," even though I knew there would be no reconciliation. I would comply by maliciously but meticulously doing exactly what Busby asked of me. There was more than one way to de-fur a kitty.

I pulled my list out of the interior coat pocket. "First, please address me as either Mr. Mitchell or Mitchell, as I asked you to do last week. OK, here goes. One. Jennifer gets tested for every known STD, every month, for a year, and then every three months after that until I say she can stop. And I receive a complete and unredacted copy of the results."

Busby nodded. "I think that's reasonable and prudent. How do you feel about that, Jenny?"

I jumped in before Jenny could answer. "It doesn't matter how she feels about it. Everything on my list is non-negotiable."

Busby didn't expect that. Jenny was already getting pissed off, but said nothing. "Tom, remember what I told you in our first session. When there has been infidelity, three out of five marriages don't survive, even with counseling and both parties making a genuine effort. Non-negotiable demands drop the success rate to one out of five. Worse than that, actually."

"It's alright, I'm fine with getting tested," Jenny allowed.

"Good, that's good," Busby opined gratuitously. "Now you, Jenny. What's your first item."

Jenny unfolded her now crumpled list. "I want Tom and Hanna to move back into the house. We need to reestablish a family life. I know Hanna misses our family terribly, even if she denies it. So do I. Please come home, baby." She looked at me expectantly.

I anticipated that one. "First, Jennifer, Hanna misses the family that existed before you killed it. For Hanna and me that house brings bad memories. And as for me ever living under the same roof with you, no, as in absolutely not. I'd sooner live in a box under a bridge than shack up with you again."

"Then I'm making it non-negotiable," she announced. "Just like you did."

"Answer's still no. I refuse. You're the one who wants to reconcile, not me. If you want to try to patch us up, then you're going to meet my conditions. But nothing requires me to meet yours. If I don't meet yours, then we divorce more quickly, which is what I want. I'm staying put."

Busby stepped in. "Tom, let's talk about--"

I cut her off. "Doctor Busby, I asked you in our first session, last week, to address me formally. I asked you again today. You're not family, and you're not my friend. It's Mr. Mitchell, or just Mitchell if the courtesy of using mister is too onerous. Now, what were you saying?"

That visibly rattled Busby. Good, very good. It wasn't going to be enough just to rattle Jenny's cage. Busby had to embrace the futility, too.

"Very well, Mr. Mitchell. I don't understand your approach here. If you don't want to at least try to reconcile with Jenny, then why are we here?"

"I told you last week. My devoted wife and her lawyer pushed the judge to order us to counseling. My lawyer tried to head that off, but Jennifer and her lawyer convinced the judge to order us here, despite my clear statements that counseling was a hopeless diversion. So, here I am, at gunpoint, so to speak. When this fool's errand fails, I get to claim a huge told-you-so. I am not moving back in with Jennifer, and no judge can order me to. Let's move on."

Busby pressed me anyway. She wanted me to explain why I wouldn't move back in.

"Because I don't want to. Because I don't want to be around the scheming twat. Because being in that house would be a constant reminder that the one human being on this planet who I thought I could trust intentionally pissed on me and on Hanna and on everything I held dear. Because every time I see the slut's lips move, I see Emerson's cock going in them or more lies coming out of them. Because I don't want to make small talk with the bitch. Because there's no way in hell that I'm going to sleep next to the cheating skank, much less fuck her, and I'm not going to sleep in my den when I have a perfectly comfortable bed in my apartment. Because I don't want Hanna to live in the constant tension and hard feelings between her parents. Because Hanna should not have her father's disgust for her mother jammed in her face, day after day after day. I will not subject Hanna to that, period. Because if I live under the same roof with Jennifer, Hanna will see and hear things that a child should never hear or see. You want me to keep going, or does that list tick enough psychobabble boxes?"

Jenny jumped in. "Tom, I know you have bad memories of our home. That's the reason I bought an all new bedroom suite. I wanted our married life to start completely fresh."

That was damn interesting. "Then why not replace all of the furniture? Replacing just the bedroom set tells me that you've fucked Emerson in OUR BED, you loathsome trollop! That's a heartwarming tidbit I didn't know until just now."

"No!" Jenny exclaimed, backpedaling hard. "I only wanted to make a fresh start!"

"You want to give our intimacy a fresh start with new stuff? Get yourself a brand new cunt, one that Emerson hasn't defiled. While you're at it, get a new asshole and mouth, too. Fortunately, a snake like you will eventually shed your skin, so no need to worry about all the places his cum has been on you. Do all that, then we'll talk about being intimate again."

Jenny was still reeling from my reaction to her mental slip-up when Busby intervened. "How about giving it a trial run?" Busby asked hopefully. "You could move back in but hold off on being intimate." I couldn't believe that woman.

"Obviously spoken English challenges you. Would a translator help? Tell me your primary language and I'll get someone here to say 'No, hell no, absolutely not doing it' in your native tongue."

"You're such an asshole!" Jenny chirped in.

"That's quite an indictment, coming from a lying, scheming, cheating, cum-bucket." That blow landed. With a bit of luck, she'd give up on this useless exercise and get her lawyer to ask the judge to vacate the counseling order.

Unfortunately, Busby got things momentarily back on track.

"You've made your point. No trial run. Let's move on, and please, with less cursing and name-calling. Tom-excuse me-Mr. Mitchell, what's next on your list?"

I unfolded my paper with a small flourish. "Number two. DNA tests to make sure that Hanna is my biological daughter."

"WHAT?" barked Jenny. "Surely you don't think that--that she's not yours!"

"What I think is that I don't know. There's just you saying she's mine. And what you say is true on anything that matters ain't worth shit."

"But you can't think that I'd lie about something like that! Not about that!"

"Are you sure you want to get into what I think you'd lie about?"

Jenny bowed up. "Well, I won't agree to that." She folded her arms across her chest and looked away from me. I anticipated that reaction, too.

"Fine," I said to Busby with exaggerated calm. I refolded my list and replaced it into my coat pocket as I rose from my chair. "Looks like we're done here. Busby, you can tell the judge that counseling crashed and burned on lift-off. They know where to find me if they want to arrest me for contempt." I almost made it to the door when Jenny relented.

"You win! I'll do it." She glared at me with venom. "It's insulting and cruel and a waste of time and money, but you can have the damn DNA test."

"Get over it, Jennifer. We both know the judge will order a paternity test if I ask for it in the divorce, so it happens either way this goes." By the way, I will choose the lab, and the lab will collect the samples. And before you ask why, Busby, I'll tell you why. Because I don't trust her and she's proven that she will go to extreme lengths to deceive me." Jenny glared at me and fumed.

Busby stepped in again to try to calm the waters. "Let's keep emotions in check. We're making progress. Jenny, what's next on your list?"

"I'd like to go out with Tom on dates. We could make Friday or Saturday our night to have some fun. Just the two of us. Hanna's old enough to fend for herself for a few hours. Dinner, or a movie maybe. A night out dancing. I think we got too caught up in work and were too busy with everything else to make time for us."

Busby was all for it. Of course she was. "That's a great idea, Jenny! A lot of married couples have weekly date nights. It really pays off in staying connected." Jenny beamed. She thought she'd scored a victory. She thought wrong.

"That's another hard pass. I've already done the dating thing with Jennifer. Didn't work out in the end."

Jenny was dumbfounded, or at least she acted like it. "But why, Tom? You won't even carve out a few measly hours a week for me? For us?"

"There is no 'us,' Sweetums. I tried for months to get you to find some 'us' time. I almost begged you. Correction, I did beg you. But you always had a big case, or a firm retreat, or a Women Lawyers meeting, or a Business Bar Association meeting. There was always some damn thing, and if there wasn't a thing, then you would beg off because you were worn out and wanted some quiet time. Imagine my surprise to find out you managed to carve out regular time for gargling Emerson's cock. Hell, on the spur of the moment you abandoned me and our daughter to fly halfway across the country for an extended weekend fuck fest! You want dinner and a movie? Call Shit-stain. I hear he has lots of free time on his hands these days."

Jenny looked at me with an odd mixture of rage and guilt. Unfortunately, Jenny's near epiphany was broken by Busby. "I suppose," she remarked, "that if I try to reason with you about Jenny's idea you'll make a crack about my failure to understand plain English."

"Nope, I'm done with wondering about your English comprehension issues, Doc. At that point, I'd conclude you're either painfully stupid or professionally incompetent. Those aren't mutually exclusive, as you've amply demonstrated."

"Let's keep going," Busby suggested with barely suppressed outrage. She was near her own breaking point. "What's next on your list, Tom?"

"I keep telling you, Doc, it's 'Tom' to my family and friends. Here it's either Mr. Mitchell or Mitchell. Did my words register this time? Please nod if you comprehend the English words I am speaking." I took a deep breath and continued.

"Number three. Jennifer has no contact with Emerson. None. Zero."

Jenny erupted. "That's impossible and you know it! I work with him! He's a senior partner and I'm on cases with him!"

"Right you are. That moves us to number four, which is linked to number three. You're resigning from the firm. I really want that to happen immediately, but to give you time for a graceful exit, I'll settle for the end of next month. That's almost six weeks."

Jenny was frantic. "No! NO, damn it!! I've put in years of hard work there. I've already accepted a partnership offer! You can't expect me to just leave the firm with nothing! Not now!"

I knew Jenny would push back hard on that one. And that was part a big part of the fundamental problem.

"Remember when you said you'd do 'anything' to save our marriage? Remember when Busby here told you that I needed to see you doing everything possible to show me that Emerson was out of your life?" Jenny nodded soberly. "It's a no-brainer that you must put as much distance as possible between you, and Emerson, and that snake pit Vandervalk firm. I hoped you would have already taken steps to cut those ties. I didn't expect you to take the initiative, but I had faint hopes. You didn't, so now it's a condition. C'mon, Jennifer, this should be an easy decision if you're serious about saving our so-called marriage."

Turmoil roiled Jenny's face. Her indecision made the problem even bigger. She was weighing the benefits of stitching our family back together against the benefits of a lucrative partnership and still having Emerson around. One out of five was looking to collect another scalp. Even Busby's face said so. She still gave it the good old college try.

"Listen, Tom---"

"Mitchell!" I reminded her, shouting. "We're not social acquaintances. That's the last time I will remind you. The very last damn time. Now, repeat back to me how I am to be addressed by you. Speak the words." Surely that would break Busby's professional mask. She took the bait.

"I will not cater to your childish demands and disrespect, sir, and I will not be ordered about!" There it finally was, the crack was splitting open.

"You talk about respect. I have repeatedly asked you address me formally, and you have repeatedly ignored me. If I had told you that I identified as a female and wished to be addressed as 'she' or 'her' or 'Ms.,' you not only would have happily complied, but taken pains to comply with my request. I demand from you the courtesy of being addressed formally, and my request is neither offensive nor whimsical. And if you give me any crap about it, I promise you that I will make a formal complaint against you to every licensing authority, board, and professional organization associated with this counseling racket. So then, will you now, at long last, address me properly?"

Busby regarded me cautiously now. From her vantage point, I wasn't just in a state of outrage, I was a wild card. I was someone who could, and would, make her life hell just for sport. "Yes, I understand," she agreed with forced gentleness. "I will respect your request that I address you as Mr. Mitchell or Mitchell."

"There we go! Now, considering how upset I am about your disrespecting me by addressing me informally, imagine how upset I am about my beloved wife here disrespecting me by repeatedly serving up all three holes to another man. Imagine my upset at knowing her pussy was a timeshare, as was her little pink asshole. I bet you were wearing the wedding ring I put on your finger even when he had his cock in you, didn't you! But no disrespect intended, right? RIGHT??? And it was out of respect for my feelings that you lied your slut ass off about working late, and about the trips, too, RIGHT? I'd hate to see how you would've treated me if you didn't respect me." Jenny was shaking. I knew her facial expressions all too well. It wasn't just that counseling wasn't going as well as she hoped, it had turned into an epic disaster.

I downshifted from nearly yelling at Jenny to dead calm. "So, Doc, you were about to say something about my demand that Jennifer quit her job." Busby was trying to decide if I had suffered a mental breakdown.

"Yes. So, Mitchell, hear me out. How would you feel if Jenny gave you an ultimatum that you had to quit your job after, what is it now, ten years?"

"More like fifteen years. I would refuse. I would refuse because I would not have been FUCKING A COWORKER behind her back with the approval and active assistance of my office. But in a parallel dimension in an alternate universe where I had done that, you're right, I wouldn't resign."

"So, I'm confused here, Tom--sorry, Mitchell. You're insisting that Jenny sabotage her career, while you wouldn't do the same if you were in her shoes. Please explain that to me."

"Yes!" Jenny chirped in. "Explain that one, you self-righteous hypocrite."

"It's not that hard to understand." I settled back into my chair. They didn't get it, not at all. "Do you know why most people commit crimes, Doc?" I looked back and forth at both of them. "Any guesses? Nothing?"

Busby gave me a searching look. "I don't know. Because they want to?" I shook my head derisively, and mad-dogged Jenny. She knew the answer, because we had discussed it many times as I described the confessions of various criminals I had prosecuted.

Jenny didn't look me; she was hard-focused on the floor. It came out as a whisper. "Because they don't think they'll get caught."

I expected Busby would understand because of her experience, but she fell flat. "Well, of course. No one thinks they'll get caught!"

I was going to have to explain it to her. Jenny started to tear up. She knew exactly where this was heading. We had talked about it often enough.

"Not true. Remember that guy a few years ago who snuck a gun into the courtroom and shot the piece of shit on trial for raping his daughter?" Busby nodded. "He damn well knew he was going to get caught. He knew with absolute certainty. But for him, killing that guy was worth it. He even said that he knew he might get shot and killed himself, but that was OK by him. His calculation was that even his own death was worth putting that animal down."

"I don't see what that has to do with Jenny," Busby exclaimed. "You're not saying she wanted all of this, are you?"

"No, of course not. Her calculation was the usual one. She didn't think she'd get caught, but she also knew that there was a chance that she would be. So, she weighed what she got out of her cheating against the possible consequences if she got caught. It's always a risk-benefit analysis, for both criminals and adulterers. Jennifer's calculation was that fucking Emerson was worth losing her marriage, her reputation, her child, her home, getting knocked up, catching a deadly STD, all of it."

Busby was still confused. "None of that explains why you think Jenny should agree to quit her job when you say you wouldn't yourself."

I made an exaggerated sigh. "I'll tap it out on your forehead for you. I wouldn't resign because I would've already decided that the affair was worth the possible consequences. The marriage was effectively toast when I decided to have the affair, because the risk calculation includes the possibility, however slight, of getting caught. The job was already less important that the affair. If I got caught, there'd be no sense resigning to try to save a marriage that I'd already decided from the beginning wasn't worth as much to me as the affair. The marriage and all that went with it was disposable. Get it?"

Busby nodded slowly. "So quitting would only make sense if it's necessary to save the marriage, and losing the marriage would already be baked in to your risk calculation, is that it?"

"Not quite, but close enough for this discussion. Now, here's my loving, faithful wife, who calculated that parking Mr. Wonderful's schlong in every hole was worth her marriage. She says she made a mistake, blah blah blah, and will do anything to save our marriage and our family, blah blah blah, but she's balking at doing what's necessary to have any chance at saving her marriage. By not immediately agreeing to my reasonable condition that she dissociate completely from that asshole and the environment that facilitated her cheating, it tells me that even now she is prioritizing other things over her marriage. In this instance, the job is more important than the marriage. That's the opposite of 'doing anything' to save her marriage. Not exactly filling me with confidence here, Jennifer."

I wondered how she'd respond to that. To be frank, it was merely an academic question, because I really didn't care one way or the other.

Jenny capitulated. "Fine, then. Give me a few weeks to leave properly. Frankly, I'm surprised that they haven't already fired me. I think the partners are afraid to do anything that would make your lawsuit worse for them than it already is."

"Gee, that's a shame. May they all die in a fire." I made sure they saw my smile.

"We're getting short on time for today," Busby remarked. "Anything else, Mr. Mitchell?"

"Yeah. Number five. Remember in our first session, Busby, when you told us how important it would be to see things from our spouse's viewpoint? I'm going to help with that. Jennifer doesn't truly understand what ultimate betrayal feels like. Or what it feels like to go from feeling totally secure to feeling totally insecure. Or struggling to wrap your brain around a spouse's wanton disrespect. Or imagining your spouse pleasuring and be pleasured by someone else, and reveling in the thrill of the deception. So, from time to time I may partake of female companionship. I'm not going to rub Jennifer's nose in it though. If I'm unreachable for an evening, maybe it's because I'm working late. Or I'm out with Hanna. Or maybe I'll be playing billiards at a pub. Or perhaps I simply won't pick up the phone, for no reason other than because I don't want to. Or maybe I'll be balls-deep in a willing fraulein, getting some female companionship that Jennifer had denied me for months whilst servicing Shit-stain. And I'll make a point of lying about what I was doing or who I was with." I turned to face Jenny directly. "Premeditated, calculated deception IS part of the rush, isn't it, my eternal flame?"

Jenny snapped. I wondered what took her so long.

"You're out of your damn mind if you think I'm going to live like a nun while you get an endless hall pass!" she yelled. I'm willing to give you all the female companionship you can handle! But I am NOT going to let you man-slut around and then welcome you back, mister!"

"Hear that, Doc? My wife is WILLING to fuck me. Truly, I am blessed! News flash, you insufferable bitch. Never again will I touch you. And I'm not asking to be welcomed back. I don't want to be back at all, a critical point that everyone decided to ignore when I was ordered to attend these asinine counseling sessions."

Busby again showed that credentials didn't mean competence. "Mr. Mitchell, if you don't want to reconcile, why did you bother coming up with the list I asked for? Seems to me that we're spinning our wheels here, and things are getting worse, not better." I gave her a slow, exaggerated golf clap.

"Brava! I do wish that someone would listen to me when I talk. It'd save a lot of time. I told you during our first session. I was ORDERED to be here. I was ORDERED to participate in good faith. When you asked what my goals were, I TOLD YOU that my one and only goal was to finalize my divorce as quickly as possible. You apparently brushed that aside, and told me to make a list of what I wanted in order to reconcile. I TOLD YOU AGAIN that I did not wish to reconcile, and would press forward with my divorce. You ignored me again and told me to make a list. So, I have now, in good faith, come as close as I could to your request by making a list of what will be required for me to even crack the door open to considering reconciliation. Not to reconciling, but to consider reconciliation in some other alternate universe where living with Jennifer wouldn't mean the death of my very soul. Any questions?"

Jenny was staring straight ahead. I think the enormity of the mountain she had to climb only then became clear to her. Incredibly, Busby pressed on with her inane discussion of lists.

"No, you've been quite clear, Tom--I mean, Mitchell." She was visibly pissed. Well, too bad. Fuck her. "In the few minutes left today, I'd like Jenny to give us the rest of her list. Jenny?"

Jenny was still rattled, but collected herself. "I know that you refer to me as The Slut to your family and friends. Don't deny it, Tom! I've heard all about it! That really hurts, and it's not true! I didn't sleep around. Jim was the only one."

"I, as in me and me alone, was supposed to be the only one, you tramp." Jenny was shaking again.

"What about it, Mr. Mitchell?" asked Busby. "You can give Jenny a little grace on that, can't you?"

"Fair enough. I've put together that she wasn't merely sport fucking Shit-stain, so slut is probably inaccurate. I bet she considered that keeping a senior partner balls-deep in her pussy wouldn't hurt her partnership chances. Which would mean she exchanged sex for an increased shot at a lucrative partnership offer. So I'm willing to swap out 'slut' for 'whore'. That is the technically correct term for when it's bartered rather than given. On the other hand, it was really some of both, wasn't it? How does 'slore' hit you? But I have always extended this one grace to you Jennifer, I have never bad-mouthed you to Hanna. Never. It's bad enough that she's figured out on her own that you're a crap mother and that your selfish cheating blew up our family. I don't need to pile on."

Jenny looked physically ill now. I nonchalantly glanced at my watch. "Sadly, our time is up. And, as much as I've enjoyed our scintillating conversation, after being in close proximity to the Slore for nearly an hour I need to delouse. Unless you have another homework assignment, Busby, I'll see you both next week, same Bat-place, same Bat-channel."

As I stood Jenny leaped out of her chair, pushing past me and out of the Busby's office. I heard her bawling as she left the building. Busby asked me to stay for a few minutes longer.

"I'm going to make a some guesses about what's really going on here," she mused. "I know you're too smart to admit to doing anything illegal or unethical, but just hear me out."

No harm in that. I leaned casually against a book case. "You have the floor."

"I can't reconcile your over-the-top behavior today with the rest of what I know about you. You're a senior member of our prosecutor's office. No one could be as outrageous as you have been today without that same kind of behavior leaking into his professional life, too, and we both know you would have been fired a long time ago if that were happening." I told Busby to go on.

"And you've not been just outrageous, you've been unnecessarily cruel, to the point of viciousness. And you've gone out of your way to provoke me, and that doesn't fit, either. Then there's your demand that Jenny quit her job. You're a smart guy, and that isn't smart. If your divorce goes through and she's out of work, then you risk taking a big hit on temporary support and the property division, even with the adultery working in your favor."

I regarded Busby with a bit more respect. "And you conclude from all of that?"

"You're making the point that anything other than quickly finalizing your divorce leads to total destruction. You're signaling to Jenny that it's gloves off. That you're willing to burn it all down to ashes. And I think that you're intentionally antagonizing Jenny so that she will hate you enough to want to get rid of you fast, too."

"OK, let's just assume for the sake of discussion that you're correct," I offered. "How does that affect what we're doing here, in your view?"

"Well, next week you could just say outright that you will not reconcile."

"Now you've disappointed me again, ma'am. I've been doing exactly that for weeks. I meant what I said about no one listening to me. My lawyer nudges me toward reconciling. So does my pastor. I had to tell him to butt out or his flock would get one person smaller. I told the Family Court Services investigator that there was no possibility of reconciliation, and she still suggested counseling. My own mother wants me to give it another chance. Mom kept at me until I told her that if she said another word about reconciling, she wouldn't see me again except at a funeral. My lawyer did her level best to make the judge understand, but here I am anyway! No one listens to me, and that includes you, both last week and today. Saying things outright was wasted breath. So, what now?"

"Now I call Jenny and tell her that it will be just her for next week, and then I tell the court that I see no pathway to reconciliation and further sessions would do more harm than good."

"Thank you. Now I will apologize for my approach to you. I deemed it a necessary part of what had to be done. And if I may ask a favor, please tell Jennifer that I'm dropping my demand that she quit her job. I don't know if that will matter, because there's a fair chance her firm won't be around much longer. Also, I don't care whether she sees Emerson. Or whoever she wants. What she does with her life isn't going to be my concern, so long as it doesn't harm Hanna."

"I will. And the rest?"

"The rest I leave to the lawyers."

Busby and I parted on good terms, considering. About two weeks later I got an email from my lawyer telling me that the counseling order had been vacated, and that Jenny wants to settle the financial and custody issues, and move on. The sticking point was custody of Hanna. Jenny finally relented, and agreed to joint custody, with me being the primary custodian. My lawyer intimated that it was Hanna who made it happen. Something about Hanna vowing to the Family Court Services investigator that if Jenny got custody of her then she was going to be unmanageable and become a persistent runaway. That, and a letter Hanna wrote directly to the judge explaining that because she's 15 now the court is supposed to let her decide who she wants to live with, and the judge needed to listen to her better than he listened to me, or else everyone was going to be "very unhappy." I laughed at that, because the threat of making me "very unhappy" was precisely what Judge Kareem said when he admonished me at the temporary orders hearing. I told you Hanna had a gift for nuanced language! Apparently Judge Kareem listened.

The property division gave Jenny our house; neither I nor Hanna wanted any part of the bad memories there. Jenny eventually sold it and moved into a nearby townhouse that was conveniently nearby, and gave Hanna her own room for when she was staying with Jenny. Hanna and I found a rental house with a big yard for Shep, and it even had a swimming pool. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

Meanwhile, my lawsuits against V-Cubed and the partners wore on. The suits worked as I had hoped. Associate attorneys, particularly ones who hoped to be invited as partners, saw their prospects dim to invisibility, so they bailed out as soon as something even marginally suitable became available. Several of V-Cubed's bigger clients didn't enjoy being linked to the bad publicity that firm leadership facilitated a tawdry affair that busted up several marriages and left many a broken home. One of the gossipy legal rags even did a multi-part expose that detailed the fallout from the dozen-odd divorces. Firm revenues went into a free-fall, partners couldn't take distributions and still make payrolls, causing more staff cuts and lots of unhappy partners. The good lawyers and staff knew to get out, leaving less capable employees to do the work, causing still more clients to take their business elsewhere. It was a classic death-spiral.

For me, the biggest break came when discovery revealed that V-Cubed's principals, including the three name partners, helped arrange for Emerson and Jenny to have their trysts on official company business trips and seminars. Some of those took place in states where V-Cubed either had offices or an established business presence. Emerson and Jenny had play time in Hawaii, North Carolina, and twice in Illinois. Each of those states have a version of "alienation of affection" laws, which allowed my to bring suit for money damages against V-Cubed and the partners for their roles in allowing Emerson to "steal" Jenny's love and companionship from me. What the Lone Star State didn't have, those states did. Could they feel me now? Oh, hell yeah.

The collective weight of all the lawsuits, the costs of defending them, and the bad publicity eventually took its toll. V-Cubed folded up with a whimper. I let the injured spouses get first crack at the firm's assets, for the sake of their kids. As a result, my settlements and judgments didn't amount to very much after my lawyers took their shares. Still, after taxes I netted around $600k, which was enough to fully seed Hanna's college fund through grad school, and maybe leave a bit to pad my retirement.

I thought my revenge against Emerson would be limited to trashing his career and taking his money, but fate handed me a gift. Buried within the documentation of the trysts in the other states was evidence that Emerson claimed the time was spent doing work for one of the federal alphabet agencies. The arrogant prick billed the Feds for time he spent banging Jenny! It didn't amount to much money, but it did trigger the federal False Claims Act, for which I got a pittance of the recovery for reporting the fraud. But the money was just a bonus. The real payoff was that the local United States Attorney was a hard-ass about fraud against the Government, and she got Emerson and a few co-conspirators indicted for making "false, fictitious, and fraudulent claims." The evidence was rock-solid. Emerson took a plea and got six months or so in Club Fed, plus a big fine. I couldn't resist; I sent Emerson a letter telling him that I still wasn't tired of jailing bad guys. The cherry on top of the sundae was Emerson surrendering his law license in lieu of disbarment.

Through it all Hanna was stoic, if not sometimes jubilant. When I told her about the false claims and the Emerson's indictment her first concern was whether her mother was going to jail. I explained to Hanna that there was no evidence that Jenny knew anything about the fraud, so not to worry.

"In that case, fuck that ass-wipe."

"Language, young lady," I deadpanned with tongue firmly in cheek.

"Sorry, Dad. Fornicate that buttocks-cleaning towelette!" She laughed and danced upstairs to her room. At the top of the stair she yelled, "And I hope a tatted-up biker dude makes him do lots of butt-sex!"

"Deep up his ass!" I shouted back. "Every day and twice on Sundays!"

"Language, Dad!"

~~~@~~~@~~~

EPILOGUE

Jenny left V-Cubed shortly before death spiral went out of control. But the stink of the whole thing left its mark on her professionally. There wasn't a Big Law firm that would touch her. Jenny did very well professionally on merit, but the brass ring of an equity partnership among the legal all-stars would never come.

Jenny's personal life didn't fare nearly as well. Nothing materialized between Jenny and Emerson. As so often happens, there wasn't much shared between them other than the dopamine rush of affair sex. When the federal indictments hit Emerson the coffin was nailed shut on their relationship. Jenny agreeing to testify against Emerson accounted for at least a handful of those nails.

Jenny dated off and on, and eventually married a nice enough guy who had made his peace with Jenny's past and notoriety. It lasted a few years before they both decided to part ways. According to Hanna, they were never much more than Friends With Benefits, and they mutually agreed that they deserved a chance for better with someone else.

Hanna's high school years weren't kind to Jenny either. I met Marianne, a teacher at Hanna's school, at one of Hanna's field hockey matches. The sparks caught but we took it slow because we had both been burned before. Like me, Mari divorced a shit heel cheater. Mari found out in a worse way than I did; she caught him banging his side piece in Mari's bed, and he even knocked her up. Mari had a teenage son about Hanna's age, and he and I got along great after the initial adjustment period. Mari and I shared a bedrock understanding: "One and Done." Roberta McAlister (yes, "Rob" was Roberta's nickname) gave a toast at my wedding to Mari, warning her that she was marrying a 40-something boy scout. Mari yelled out "And he damn well better stay that way if he expects to remain in one piece!" before smashing our lips together. Hanna told me that she could see the fire when Mari and I looked at each other. Perceptive kid. I still feel that fire every time.

What sent Jenny off into a major depression wasn't so much my marriage to Mari slamming the door shut on any illusory hope of reconciliation. It was that Hanna and Mari took to each other and bonded instantly. For all intents and purposes, Hanna became the daughter that Mari never had, and vice-versa. Mari guided Hanna through the traumas of high school, became her advisor and shoulder to cry on about boys and dating, and was there for all the myriad things that mothers and teen daughters share. Jenny became the outsider. The singular event that put Jenny into serious therapy was Hanna rejecting Jenny's offer to take Hanna shopping for a gown for senior prom. "Mari already has that sewn up," Hanna blithely told Jenny. As Hanna recounted it, Jenny tried to play the wounded feels card, which massively pissed Hanna off. "Stop acting so hurt. You had seventeen years to be my mother and Daddy's wife. You chose Ass-wipe over us. Deal with it."

The ice didn't thaw until Hanna invited Jenny to attend her wedding rehearsal dinner five years later. About four years after that Hanna and husband Danny welcomed into the world my first grandchild, Allison Marianne. I heard from Hanna that Jenny voluntarily spent two months in an in-patient mental health facility after finding out about Allison's middle name. Fah-Foh, right?

At Jenny's request and at Hanna's urging, I agreed to a meet with Jenny while she was still an in-patient. I couldn't imagine how such a meeting would be good for either of us, but her doctors gave the OK, so I relented. The gist of it was Jenny's resentment that I'd landed on my feet, while she was is still paying for her "fling." Apparently, my vow to stand by her "in good times and in bad" trumped her breaking her vow to forsake all others. And I had broken my implicit promise to God to give her another chance. I told her that, far from landing on my feet, I only managed to get off the ground and regain a new footing, as I hoped she would. As for my vow, I'd know the repercussions of that when I stood before my maker. But I assured her that I had truly forgiven her, for whatever that was worth. She nodded and whispered "thank you" before I left. I didn't see Jenny again until Allison's christening. She looked OK, but there was sadness lurking behind her smiles. All the king's horses, and all the king's men, weren't going to put Jenny together again.

As I look back on the course of my life, I have few regrets. I've forgiven Jenny, but from time to time the old anger flares up when I reflect upon what she stole from Hanna and me. In a perfect world Jenny and I would have loved each other even after death parted us. Instead, fate put Mari and me together, and we love each other and our blended family with full hearts. The fall was a terror, but at least hitting the ground didn't kill me.