The Phoenix Accord Pt. 01

An off-limits beauty.

A shocking proposal.

A million-to-one shot.

What would you do if your wife caught you leering at your impossibly sexy, devastatingly curvy next-door neighbor and, instead of chastising you, encouraged you to go 'have some fun'?

John Logan has spent the last decade working around the clock to climb the corporate ladder and prove his worth, both to his wife and to himself. No small feat considering she is an heiress to an unimaginable fortune thanks to her captain of industry father. But John's relentless schedule has left him a shell of his former self. So much so that he is stunned when his wife proposes some innocent swapping with their undeniably attractive neighbors. What follows is a journey neither John nor his wife could have ever imagined.

As his relationship with his wife deteriorates, things grow more complicated, and more heated, with his curvy neighbor. John tries to focus on his daughter, but things quickly spiral out of control as the beautiful women in his life make it clear he must make a choice. Only after giving in to the inevitable does he realize that the sultry vixen next door had an ulterior motive in mind all along in the guise of her best friend, an exquisite and mature woman who long ago stopped thinking of her own needs in favor of her now teenaged son.

The Phoenix Accord is contemporary erotic romance about a man forced to reevaluate many of the fundamental principles upon which he bases his life and, in so doing, discovering that true happiness can sometimes only be found after one is first reborn.

Author's note:

All sensuality (on page or otherwise) takes place between characters who are eighteen or older.

Copyright © 2023 Jake Lazarus

All rights reserved.

This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the author (except for the use of brief quotations in a review).

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, business, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Prologue

The most important day of John Logan's life went unnoticed by all those whose lives would be immeasurably altered by the series of seemingly random events which began with a single innocent question.

"Who's that walking around on the Pederson's front yard?" Katherine, John's wife of six years, asked as she sat from where she was sunbathing on the patio.

John glanced over to the property in question, a lavish six-bedroom house which was the jewel of their gated community. It was owned by an older couple whose children had all moved out to begin their own lives before the Logan's had moved to the neighborhood four years prior. They were cordial with the retired couple, but John would not say they were particularly friendly, due in large part to the age gap.

"I'm not sure," he answered at length. "Think I should go check it out?"

"Definitely, and I'd hope they'd do the same for us."

John shrugged and dropped the shovel he had been attached to for the preceding two hours in a not-quite-futile attempt to straighten the paving stones of the walkway from the main house to the combination shed and workshop at the back of their yard. He brushed his hands off as he walked up his driveway to the street (it being an article of faith in the neighborhood that only the worst sort of neighbor would trounce across the painstakingly crafted landscaping rather than using the sidewalk, thank you very much).

Upon reaching his neighbor's driveway, he got a closer look at the couple who were boldly wandering around his neighbor's property. He approached them cautiously, very much aware that he was trespassing as surely as they were.

"Help you folks?" he called out once he was in hailing distance.

Smiles quickly spread across their faces as they turned to him. The man was of indeterminate age thanks to the fact that he was inarguably in spectacular shape, but John guessed somewhere between his own thirty-five and mid-forties. He wore a suit, sans coat and tie, and stood perhaps a dozen centimeters shorter than John's one-hundred-eighty-two. He had piercing blue eyes, dark hair, and the most intense smile John had ever seen. His companion was somewhat taller, perhaps aided by the heels she wore, with long blonde hair. She was wearing a sundress which would have been demur on Katherine's slim frame, but which was almost scandalous on the undeniably curvy body of the interloper.

The man stuck out his hand and boomed, "Thomas Meade."

John shook and said, "John. Do you know the Pederson's?"

"Who?"

"The people in whose yard we're standing."

"Oh," he replied gregariously. "Sure don't. But I'm sure they won't mind us taking a look around."

At this point, Thomas' companion began to stroke his arm in a manner which would have produced a physiological reaction in John, but which only seemed to distract Thomas mildly. He eventually got the hint, although not before John began to consider rather extreme methods of creating a diversion, if only to bleed off some of the situation's awkwardness.

"This is my wife, Hazel," Thomas said belatedly.

John took her offered hand, somehow managing to maintain eye contact despite the canyon of cleavage she put on display as she leaned forward to greet him. He was momentarily struck dumb, shaking Hazel's hand repeatedly as the overworked engineering team in his brain tried everything, up to and including ejecting the warp core, to get his higher thought processes back online.

His trance was broken by Katherine's warm contralto voice calling out, "Everything ok, sweetie?"

John looked around guiltily to spy Katherine strutting up the driveway, the filmy wrap she had slipped on over her tantalizingly cut bikini doing little to hide her spectacular body. She reached John's side and slipped an arm through the crook of his elbow, pressing one of her shapely breasts against his tricep.

"This is... uh... Thomas and Hazel."

"Are they friends of the Pedersons?"

"I... um... don't think so."

Just as Katherine whirled on the newcomers, a spark of challenge in her eyes, Thomas took a long step to bridge the gap between them and scooped up her hand. He lifted it reverently to his lips and said, "It is a pleasure to meet you." He glanced at John and added, "Both of you. Isn't it honey?"

Hazel smiled dazzlingly at John and said, "Definitely."

"What... are you doing here?" Katherine stammered, clearly rattled by the fact that Thomas had yet to release her hand.

"House shopping," Thomas replied.

"I wasn't aware the Pederson's had put the house on the market," John interjected with a twinge of confusion.

"They didn't. But Hazel and I were driving around looking for her wedding present and she was just drawn to this place."

"It's so beautiful here," she added in a demure alto. She glanced over at the Logan homestead and said, "Your house is lovely as well, but I've always been attracted to the idea of a stone façade."

"Don't forget the pool," Thomas added.

"We're putting one in next spring," Katherine said quickly (and to John's great surprise, considering that that particular item was something he considered to be very much still on the 'under review' ledger). She then took a deep breath and continued, "But what makes you think the Pedersons will sell? They've been here since the neighborhood was built."

"Oh, don't you worry," Thomas said confidently. "I'm sure I can find a way to convince them to part with it."

One

The inky blackness of the moonless night, combined with the preternatural silence of the cove, seemed alien to John Logan's sleep-deprived senses. He sat quietly on an empty patio, just letting the stillness of his surroundings permeate his soul. A glance toward the heavens revealed the familiar swan shape of Cygnus, high in the sky and standing out easily now that the moon had set.

His reverie was broken by the sound of a notification coming from his laptop. He sighed and returned to the seat he had occupied since just after ten the previous evening when he had spoken the words which had been the bane of IT senior leadership since the invention of the microchip: 'I'm just going to hop online real quick and check in on the release'.

The brief check-in had turned into an all-night marathon of compounding errors, first attempting to save the release, and then trying to undo it. The message he had just received was from one of his architects informing him that everything had finally, hopefully, been put back the way it was before the whole doomed exercise had begun eight hours earlier.

John spent the next hour writing up instructions for his subordinates, who had not responded to repeated texts from their direct reports asking them to contribute. By the time he was finished, the cove outside his ad-hoc office was starting to come alive in time with the sunrise. He looked around, remarking inwardly on how truly awe inspiring Marigot Bay was up close.

He had arrived in St Lucia with his wife and daughter two days previously for what was supposed to be a week of reconnecting with the family. He had even managed to attend the sailing expedition the previous day, but he knew there was no possibility he could join them on the glass bottomed boat tour of a nearby reef later that morning. The amount of coffee he had consumed overnight made his stomach feel like a tire fire which had just been extinguished with week-old light beer, and he could already feel the drain his team's failure would place on his mood for the foreseeable future.

He decided to combat the frustrating mixture of fatigue and jitteriness coursing through his body by ordering breakfast in bed for his family. He did this in stages, first ordering waffles for his daughter and then placing another order for his wife once the first was delivered.

Entering his daughter's room, he spared a moment to cherish the look of innocence on the slumbering six-year-old's face. Seeming to sense his presence, she opened her eyes slowly but came fully awake with a speed only possible in children, or those who had suddenly been tossed into frigid waters, once she spotted what John held in his hands.

"Good morning, lovely Lena," he whispered happily.

"G' mornin' Daddy," she murmured. "Are those waffles?"

"They are!" he confirmed with a huge grin.

He placed the tray over her lap, and she commenced voraciously inhaling the confection which was dessert in all but name, thanks to the mound of whipped cream and peaches with which the dish had been topped.

"Where's yours?" she asked around a mouthful of bacon.

"I'm not hungry," he replied evenly, both because he knew the last thing he needed to push his roiling gut over the edge was sugar and because he tried, as a matter of principle, to skip breakfast whenever possible.

"What about Mommy?"

"Her breakfast will be here in," John paused to check his watch-less wrist dramatically, "Seven minutes."

"You're so silly, Daddy."

"Sometimes," he allowed. "Do you want to take Mommy's food into her?"

"Yes," Lena exclaimed before leaping from the bed. Fortunately, John had anticipated her action and managed to snap the tray away before she catapulted it onto the ceiling.

She trotted out into the condo's living room, the stuffed dolphin she had insisted John purchase in the airport gift shop a few days earlier tucked under her arm. Hearing a knock sound at the door, she dashed toward it enthusiastically and flung it open before he could stop her. Fortunately, the person standing outside the door was a friendly faced local in the resort's livery holding a tray of food.

John managed to interpose himself before Lena could grab the tray, likely saving the dangerously top-heavy mimosa from tumbling onto the floor. She took this as her cue to skip gaily toward the room John was meant to share with his wife, clearly intent on bursting through the door like a wrestling heel.

"Hang on there, squirt," he warned. "Mommies don't like to wake up very quickly."

"Why not?"

"You'll find out when you're older."

"You always say that."

He merely shrugged his agreement, but waited until she stopped visibly vibrating with excitement before nodding at the door to the bedroom to signal that she should precede him. John had to back through the door to keep from spilling the tray, thanks to the fact that his daughter's primary take-away from a conversation about slamming doors open was to henceforth only open them by the minimum amount required for her tiny body to squeeze through.

After passing through the entryway, John turned toward the enormous bed just in time to see his wife hastily cover her obviously unclothed body. Katherine glared in his direction just as Lena bounced onto the bed.

"What happened to your pajamas, Mommy?"

"What an excellent question," Katherine replied at length, her eyes never leaving John's. "Can you go see if you can find me a shirt in the bathroom, honey?" Lena hopped off the bed and scampered off in search of the requested garment. Katherine looked back to John and said, "I take it you never came to bed."

"We finally finished rolling back just before sunrise. Sorry about the awkward wake-up."

"Don't sweat it, babe. Although, I'll admit, I had something else in mind when it came to being awoken." She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout and said, "I even prepared a little surprise for you." John raised an eyebrow questioningly, prompting Katherine to whip the sheet aside and spread her long, toned legs to show off her hairless pussy.

"Jesus," John breathed. "You're killing me."

"We could always tell Lena to settle down for breakfast while we," she lifted her fingers in air quotes, "get ready."

John winced and said, "I ordered her food first so she could bring you breakfast in bed."

"Always the good dad."

"Hardly. I'm going to have to bail on the trip today. With all the coffee I drank, I'd get seasick before we cast off."

"I figured," she admitted. "It's fine. Lena and I will have a girls' day. Maybe you can help me wash off the sunscreen when we get back. I'm sure Lena will crash if we spend all morning in the sun."

"That sounds great, babe. Thanks. I know this isn't what we talked about."

Katherine shrugged and said, "It is what it is."

She appeared about to say more, but Lena yelped, "Found one!" and raced back into the bedroom.

Katherine shrugged into the offered clothing and said to Lena, "I believe you said something about breakfast?"

***

John awoke around midday feeling, if anything, even more weary than when he had finally fallen asleep a few hours after his wife and daughter's departure. He wandered around the suite, looking for something to eat before ultimately settling for a cup of yogurt left over from Katherine's breakfast. He stepped outside to soak up some of the tropical environment and soon found himself staring wistfully at several million dollars' worth of sailing yachts moored around the bay. A twenty-meter two-master particularly stood out to him. The ship was a work of art, as was the trio of what John mused were likely super models sunning themselves on the bow.

He let his eyes linger on their spectacular bodies for several moments, but in his mind all he could see was the tantalizing glimpse of his wife's smooth slit which she had offered him earlier. Katherine was, and always had been, the type of woman who entered a room filled with certainty that she was the most beautiful person present, and not without reason. Following their second date, John had shown a picture of Katherine to his father. The response had been one of outright puzzlement: his father flatly refusing to believe such a stunningly beautiful woman would have anything to do with his son. John would have been deeply offended were it not for the fact that he wholeheartedly agreed with his father's assessment.

He gave the maybe-models a final glance before he turned to head back inside. But, as he did, he locked eyes with the knowing gaze of his wife. He remarked inwardly that she had, at some point, added ninja-like stealth to supernatural beauty in her list of attributes which were unattainable to mere mortals.

"Hi," he said a bit too loudly.

"Enjoying the view?" she asked mirthfully.

"Um... yeah. It's beautiful here."

"Those high school girls down there aren't bad to look at either."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he stammered.

Katherine sauntered over to him, her impossibly long legs carrying her with a grace usually found only in dance masters. She gazed out over the bay, her eyes immediately locking onto the ship which had caught John's attention.

"Those girls are going to get arrested," she murmured. "Topless sunbathing is illegal here."

"Huh?" John gasped as his eyes turned once more to the ship, only to find the girls just finishing up wrapping themselves in their towels.

"Guess you missed it," Katherine observed playfully. He turned to her in shock, only to find that she was smiling at him playfully. She shrugged and said, "I don't mind if you look, babe. As long as I'm the one you touch."

"You'll get no objections from me," he whispered as he rested his hand on her hip possessively.

"Lena's out like a light. Care to help me with my sunscreen?"

"Love to," he whispered before claiming her lips hungrily.

She led him into the suite's master bedroom by the belt buckle. As they crossed the threshold, he stopped to close the door behind them. Upon returning his eyes to his wife, he saw that she had already removed her bikini top and was unbuttoning her tiny white jean shorts.

"Dear Lord, you're beautiful."

She finished shimmying out of her shorts and her bikini bottoms soon followed, leaving her naked for his hungry eyes. She had long brunette hair which reached almost to her penny-sized nipples, expertly applied blonde highlights only adding to her beauty. Her luscious B-cup breasts sat high on her chest, jutting out proudly in his direction above a flawlessly taut stomach and the devastatingly alluring sight of her smooth mound.

"What are you waiting for?" she whispered with a lascivious flick of her eyes toward the swelling taking place in his trousers.

He hastened to free himself from his clothing, by which point Katherine had strutted into the bathroom. She greeted him with a come-hither gesture from beneath the warm spray of the shower. As he approached, she reached down to stroke her smooth pussy as she eyed him lustily.

Just as the first drop of water struck his foot, he heard the chirp of his phone from the other room. He was content to ignore it, but Katherine asked, "What was that?"

"It's nothing. Just my phone."

"Who would call you here?"

"Work," he replied with a shrug.

"It might be important," she murmured as she moved to him and flicked her tongue over his earlobe.

"They've taken enough of my time from this vacation."

"But what if they need you?" she sighed into his ear, the tantalizing tickle of her nails as they slid up the length of his turgid shaft nearly causing his knees to buckle. She gripped him and stroked him a single time before adding, "I'd hate for something bad to happen to Daddy's company just so we can have a bit of fun."

"You're evil, woman."

"It's all good, babe. Go see what they need. I'll be here when you're done."

"God damnit," he muttered as he walked back into the bedroom to retrieve his phone.

Two

"Kudzu has to rival locusts for its raw, unstoppable, destructive power," John grunted as he yanked yet another vine free of the back wall of the pool house while marveling at just how much the malignant weed had encroached on the property during the week they had been on vacation.

For what seemed like the thousandth time since he had begun his labors at the crack of dawn, the thought occurred to him that perhaps the entire concept of 'vacation' was an antiquated vestige of days long past. When he was a child, vacations took weeks and involved his father behaving as though the company for whom he worked had simply ceased to exist. He knew this was due, in large part, to the fact that the internet had made simple what was once impossible, but he felt that modern technology was only part of what had changed.

For the prior generation, work was something done in discrete increments with a collective understanding of what was reasonable for a person to accomplish in a day. John knew that the concept of a one-hundred-hour work week would have been unthinkable, going back to World War II. But, in the age of supposed advancement in which he found himself existing, he found the forty-hour work week to be as uncommon as a Pegasus. It was not that pre-twenty-first century workers were less dedicated to their companies, but rather that companies had gradually come to the realization that they could make far more money duping employees into working more for the same wage with hollow promises of figments like job security or stock options.

John's accelerating depression spiral was interrupted by a voice behind him calling out, "How was your vacation,"

He turned to find his neighbor, Hazel, standing a few meters away holding a basket filled with gardening tools.

"It was fine," John replied reflexively, as much to cover the fact that his sunglasses-covered eyes were devouring the divine sight before him as anything else.

She was dressed simply, in a pair of cut-off overalls over a plain white tank-top and a wide-brimmed hat. But rather than seeming like countless other suburbanites who wore a similar outfit as a matter of form over function, John was convinced that Hazel had performed an elaborate incantation which gave her insight into his innermost thoughts. He had always found this particular outfit far more entrancing than the rote fantasy outfits pop culture provided such as the schoolgirl, cheerleader or office assistant. Seeing it on Hazel's impossibly curvy body took the fantasy to a new level.

"Everything ok?" she asked coquettishly.

"Sure, why wouldn't it be."

"You seem kind of out of it. Are you drinking enough water?"

"Yeah. It's just this damned kudzu."

"Tell me about it. If it gets any worse, I swear I'm going to call that number I got off a sign by the side of the road offering to rent goats."

"You're shitting me," John barked with a wide grin.

"I looked it up online and apparently goats only eat specific plants so they can be trusted to clean out the kudzu without eating the grass."

"Incredible."

"Although," she continued, lifting her index finger to her mouth in apparent deep thought, "I'm pretty sure the HOA would flip their shit if I brought in livestock for any reason. I was going through the bylaws, and I counted no fewer than eleven different prohibitions along those lines. I guess it's easy to forget that this whole area was basically the country a generation ago. Maybe the founders were really worried about things backsliding."

John shrugged and said, "Perhaps, although it seems a bit unlikely with what these houses go for. Not too many aspiring farmers out there willing to drop seven figures on less than an acre."

"Too true," she agreed. She studied him for a moment before adding, "You sure you don't need any water? I've got a few bottles in my basket."

He smiled and replied, "If you don't mind."

"Don't be silly," she said agreeably before setting her basket down on the ground to find the bottles. This gave his unintentionally wandering eyes a remarkable view of her cleavage, thanks to the slit she had cut in the front of her shirt. The task of averting his gaze was made even harder by the energetic way she rummaged around her basket, causing her massive breasts to jostle alluringly.

"There they are!" she declared triumphantly before straightening and offering him one.

"Thanks," he stammered before taking a long swig.

"Want a life hack?" she asked pleasantly.

"Sure."

She pulled her hat off and tipped about half her bottle into it, soaking the soft material but still leaving a sizable puddle in the well created by the inverted garment. She glanced up at him with a grin and said, "You'll cool off much faster if you cool your head down first. Then you don't feel like you want to hurl after gulping down a bunch of water."

John nodded and said, "Makes sense. But what about..."

His words died on his lips as Hazel tipped the hat onto her head. The water which he suspected she had intended to soak her long blonde hair instead poured directly down onto her chest.

"Fuck, that's cold," she hissed as her hands flew to her chest.

John watched gob smacked as she tried in vain to wipe away the water. Her efforts ultimately only served to further soak her shirt, making it effectively transparent. The other thing the water made clear was that, while Hazel was wearing a bra, it did little to hide her pebbled nipples.

As if struck by sudden insight, she glanced up at him and smiled shyly before declaring, "Viola! I'm not hot anymore."

John managed, through supreme force of will, to stop himself from commenting on just how wrongheaded he found that particular sentiment. He knew the fact that she had undoubtedly noticed him leering at her chest was bad enough. Instead, he took his own bottle and poured it over his head, grimacing as the ice-cold water slid down his back. He grinned and said, "Works like a champ."

"And, on that note, I think I'll head inside to get cleaned up."

John said, "Are you coming to the party next weekend?"

"You know it," she enthused. "It'll be the highlight of my week."

***

Two-point-eight seconds after exiting the elevator upon his return to the office after his 'vacation', John heard a booming, "Welcome back boss!" from the direction of the breakroom.

"Dewey," John replied tersely as he made a beeline to his office.

"How was the big family vacation?" came the predicted follow-up as his subordinate matched speeds with him like a fighter plane sidling up to its refueling escort.

"It was fine. How are things here?"

"Great! Same as always."

John merely shook his head in response, his memory immediately going to the numerous times engineers had reported being unable to contact Dewey during the failed release. He said, "I've got to get ready for my first meeting. I'll see you at the leadership alignment."

"Wouldn't miss it. Need anything from the café?"

"No," John answered tersely as he entered his office.

He dropped his bag on his desk and collapsed into his desk chair, very much aware that he had a mountain of work awaiting him but having trouble finding the proper motivation. All he could remember was the face of Lena the night prior just before her bedtime. She had asked John mid-afternoon if he would take her to the park, and he had readily agreed with the caveat that he had a few more hours of yardwork to complete before they could leave. She had left shouting for joy and saying something about finding the perfect outfit. He had then made the mistake of glancing at his phone after emerging from the shower two hours later.

The SOS email he had seen there from the CTO had required his immediate attention and he went directly to his home office in hopes of quickly resolving the issue. A room he was still in six hours later when his daughter interposed her tear-streaked face in front of his monitor to say goodnight. He had immediately left his desk and spent the next hour laying in bed with her, watching cat videos. There was little question in his mind, however, that his gesture had been far too little, far too late. He promised he would make it up to her the following weekend, and he had every intention of doing just that. Including, and especially, locking his phone in his wife's car two hours before they were scheduled to depart so the irascible device would have much greater difficulty causing so much trouble.

John was pulled from his thoughts by a knock at the door. He looked up to see the closest thing he had to a work friend regarding him with a suspicious look on his face.

"What's up?" John asked grumpily.

"I heard about the release," Peter Miller, a friendly faced man who stood a comfortable twenty centimeters taller than John, said affably as he walked into John's office, closing the door behind him. "So... I won't ask how your vacation went."

He had the kind of face that made everyone in his orbit like him immediately. Fortunately for John, Peter had the personality to go with his friendly looks. He had joined the company a half decade prior as a developer on one of John's teams. Happily, John had quickly spotted Peter's potential and arranged to have him promoted into a management position. He had since been promoted twice more and now sat in a division adjacent to John's, which was convenient in that it removed any ethical roadblocks, real or perceived, regarding their friendship.

"It was beautiful, at least. And Katherine and Lena seemed to have fun."

"Well... that's not nothing. Did you ever figure out what went wrong?"

"Not yet. But it has been suggested that it would behoove me to not leave the office today until I can answer that question."

"How in the hell do you get saddled with all the shit jobs? You're the CEO's son-in-law, for fuck's sake."

"Who knows?" John sighed. "I was thinking we'd go to Patagonia for our next vacation."

"Don't try it. Knowing your boss, he'd hand you a satellite phone on your way out the door."

"No doubt." John replied grimly.

Peter was quiet for several moments before saying, "You ever consider just telling them no?"

"That's not how this works, my friend. They're the ones in charge."

"Perhaps. But what would they do if you told them that you were actually taking a week off? It's not like they'd fire you thanks to the aforementioned familial connection."

"I am expected to set an example."

"But what example are you actually setting? That people should never take time off? That they should put the needs of the company over their families... themselves?"

"Isn't that the American dream?" John asked ruefully.

"I certainly think you're fulfilling someone's dreams. I just know it isn't yours."

"You're suggesting I should just tell the CTO to piss off about the release?"

"Of course not. Just that maybe you try shutting your phone off at night once in a while."

"That certainly seemed to work out for Deputy Doofus out there."

Peter sighed and said, "You still didn't write him up?"

"I was instructed to ignore the fiasco at the holiday party, at least officially."

"What about all the other shit?"

John groaned and said, "I thought he was improving... slightly."

"This only gets harder the longer you sit on it. Take it from me."

"I hear you, but I can't think about that right now. I've got to prep for the leadership alignment and get ready to go out of town tomorrow."

"You got roped into the thing in Vegas two days after your PTO?"

"Yeah," John remarked morosely. "Apparently they couldn't find anywhere further away to hold it."

"Good luck," Peter said as he got to his feet. "And think about what I said. You've got to take care of yourself, my friend." He glanced up at the ceiling, indicating the offices of the executives on the next floor up and added, "They sure as hell won't."

"Hey, that's my father-in-law you're talking about."

"Indeed it is," Peter agreed. "Take it easy."

Three

"Hey honey," a child-like voice rang out over the din of the crowd. "You lookin' for a good time?"

John glanced over to find a young woman of Asian descent who was dressed like she was on her way to waving the flag to start a street race. She wore a top which seemed to miss being a bra, or a bikini, only on a technicality and a skirt that was so short that it did not touch the cushion on which she sat.

She hopped up and slung a backpack over her shoulder and sauntered toward John despite his decidedly unwelcoming expression. Upon reaching him, she swept her eyes up from his feet to his eyes before saying, "It's two-fifty for an hour. No mouth stuff. Anal's an extra hundred."

"No thanks," John grunted, pushing the button for the elevator again in frustration.

"Why not? Afraid your wife will find out?"

"Better luck next time," he said as the elevator doors finally opened, and he stepped inside.

"Asshole," the woman muttered as she walked back to resume her seat on the bench.

"I hate this fucking place," John muttered to the closing doors of the elevator.

Blissfully, the ride to his floor was brief and he soon found himself back in his room. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the minifridge, a small part of his brain rejoicing in the fact that his company would be charged nearly ten dollars for the privilege, and drank deep before glancing angrily at his reflection in the mirror.

"When are you going to learn that a cross-country six AM flight followed by a full day of meetings is a horrible idea?"

The man in the mirror offered little in the way of explanation. It had made so much sense when viewed dispassionately three weeks prior. After all, he had reasoned, he would save the company money and have an extra night at home. The reality had been that he might has well have been absent from his family the night before, thanks to his lengthy honey-do list which had to be accomplished before he could depart. He knew things would not improve measurably over the coming days since he was scheduled to fly back east at the conclusion of a dinner the following night. His scheduled landing time was four AM, Atlanta time.

He tried to shake off his fatigue, but he felt like he was asleep on his feet. He had already reached the daily limit for coffee that he had imposed after the failed release he had managed from vacation, so he decided on a wake-up shower. He tossed his clothes on the bed and made his way to the bathroom.

The sight that greeted him in the mirror was like a parody of an American male. His face and arms were slightly tanned from the time in St Lucia, which only made his prematurely grey hair stand out more starkly. He had muscular shoulders and arms, thanks to the unending work he did on the house, and stout legs. However, between these was an unfortunately expanding paunch. Katherine had tried countless times to get him to improve his diet, and he had made many changes. He suspected, however, that there was only so much that could be done when he was chained to a desk for at least twelve hours a day.

He grunted in annoyance and stepped into the shower. He started the water off hot and kept bumping the temperature up as quickly as he could stand it. Within five minutes, the temperature was maxed out and his skin had turned bright pink. He took a deep breath and dropped the temperature to cold. He managed to keep himself from screaming at the shock, settling instead for a hissed oath as he felt his skin contract like a TV vampire after they got staked. He hurried from the shower and rushed to dry himself before hypothermia set in.

"At least I'm awake," he muttered as he returned to the bedroom.

Before he could reach for his clothes, a knock sounded at his door. He crossed to the room's entrance and glanced through the peephole to find his boss, Ryan, standing anxiously in the hallway.

The interloper apparently saw the shadow cross in front of the peephole, because he said, "I know you're in there. Let me in. We have to align before dinner."

"Gimme a minute," John called.

He hastily dressed in fresh boxers and an undershirt before admitting the man he privately referred to as the Leprechaun for his uncanny ability to always choose the path which would most benefit his own career. Sometimes this materialized in the form of supporting a high risk, high reward project which made the company nine figures the quarter it was released. Other times, it was distancing himself from his subordinates just before they crashed and burned in front of senior leadership. He was far from a moral man, but John had learned the hard way not to cross him.

He was a half-decade younger than John, although the apparent difference in their ages was closer to two decades. He was a few centimeters taller, and a dozen kilos lighter, with expertly coiffed blonde hair and a friendly smile.

"What couldn't wait until dinner?"

Ryan took a seat and said, "Apparently this trip won't be a total waste of time, and we just might get that twenty percent bonus if we play our cards right."

"Pardon?"

"I told you this morning that Hurley bailed on the conference, right?" Ryan prompted, referring to the owner and CEO of a company they had targeted as a possible acquisition target.

"Sure. So?"

"I just found out he sent his wife to show the flag, so their investors don't get spooked."

"Oh, Jesus," John muttered. "That woman is a succubus."

"Exactly. You can close this deal for us tonight."

"I'm dedicated to the company's success, but I draw the line at deep-sixing my marriage just so we can hit our M&A goal."

"Whatever happened to things staying in Vegas?"

"Whatever happened to concepts like honor and discipline? To say nothing of the fact that I don't have the slightest interest in that woman."

"Then skip the consummation, but you could do a lot of good just..."

"Leading her on?"

Ryan shrugged and said, "Call it what you want. Just get her on board with the sale."

John shook his head and said, "I hate this shit."

"Look on the bright side," Ryan said with a not-entirely-friendly slap on John's back. "At least she's hot."

***

"What a pleasant surprise," a sultry voice murmured just over John's left shoulder.

He sighed and set his face in a neutral expression before turning. The first thought that popped into his head was that Ryan certainly had a point. Vanessa Hurley was, by any objective measure, an attractive woman. Phrases such as 'cougar' and 'MILF' had likely been coined with her in mind. John knew for a fact that she was forty-nine years old, but she had the body of a super model less than half that age with long, toned legs; a flat belly; and full breasts to go with an alluring hourglass figure and long blonde hair with highlights. But, as with all their previous meetings, John only had to look in her eyes for the appeal of her body to melt away. The omnipresent predatory hunger he saw there always caused him to check his wallet and steel his resolve to promise nothing.

"Vanessa," he said carefully.

She sat down beside him, somehow managing to surreptitiously slide the chair over in the process so that her thigh adhered to his. She heightened their connection by placing her hand on his thigh, not nearly close enough to his knee for his comfort. Her eyes flicked around the room before returning to his.

"Where's Mrs. Logan?" she asked in her south London accent.

"Home."

"She trusts you to come to Sin City and not get into any trouble?"

"As I'm sure Mr. Hurley trusts you?"

"Touche," she replied with a sly grin. "Well, you know what they say..."

"'Til death do us part?"

"Come now, John. There's no need to be difficult."

"Why are you doing this, Vanessa? You could have anyone. And I'm certainly not a catch."

"You undersell yourself, sir. You're a highly regarded executive of a fortune one-hundred company. Not to mention that you're certainly not living paycheck to paycheck. In all honesty, what's not to like?"

"The money's Katherine's. And most people think she's responsible for the job as well."

"We've spent the last year doing due diligence. I know quite well you're far from a figurehead." She chuckled at his raised eyebrow and added, "What? You thought that I was a figurehead? Just a pretty face to distract the rival executives whose eyes couldn't make it above my collarbone?"

"I wouldn't say that," he hedged. "Although we've had a dozen in person meetings, and this is the first time we've come even close to discussing business."

"Fair enough. Perhaps I fancy you because you've thus far resisted my charms."

"And I'll continue to do so. I make no judgements, but I'm not interested in any type of merger that happens outside a boardroom."

She smiled hungrily and said, "I'm sure we could find a reasonable facsimile to a boardroom around here somewhere.

"I'm flattered, truly. But I'm also not interested."

"Have it your way," she huffed. "And you can tell Daddy Warbucks that we'll agree to his terms. I believe I've finally convinced my husband of the value of spending more time at home before he loses his wife."

"Speaking of which, I've got an early flight tomorrow."

She stood and stuck out her hand, saying, "Until next time."

"Have a pleasant evening," John replied sincerely.

She glanced around the room, her eyes landing on the young CEO of an up-and-coming tech company from New Hampshire. She smiled distractedly at John and said, "Oh, I intend to."

***

"Do you know what time it is here?" John groaned into the phone he finally answered after twice sending the repeated calls from Katherine to voice mail.

"I know its six-fifteen here and no one can find the money Lena's supposed to take to school for her fund-raiser. We talked about this so many freaking times, John. You were supposed to leave it in an envelope on the breakfast room table."

"I did," he muttered irritably. "I remember because I saw her pick it up last night and I told her to put it in her bag."

"Lena!" Katherine shouted without taking the phone away from her mouth. "Dad said he saw you pick it up!"

John tried to tune out the back and forth between the women of his family, trying to hold on to the faintest shred of restfulness in the hopes of a quick return to blissful unconsciousness. But the conversation continued interminably, with Katherine returning regularly to report all the places where the envelope was not.

At length, John interrupted one of these status reports to say, "Have you considered just giving her a new envelope? She only needs ten bucks."

"You know perfectly well I don't carry cash, John," she snapped.

"How about her piggy bank?"

"This is your responsibility, not hers!"

"I'm just trying to solve the next problem on the critical path, Katherine. If she took it out of her piggy bank, I'd obviously pay her back. I'll even give her fucking interest."

"You're on speaker," she warned snippily.

"Thanks for telling me," he muttered.

"We'll use her money," Katherine declared angrily. "But you're going to have to do some serious groveling when you get home. To both of us."

She hung up without another word, but it was many hours before John managed to get back to sleep.

Four

"Still using propane?"

John turned to face the man approaching him with his hand outstretched, taking the hand with a smile which matched the newcomer's. He said, "You need a new line. I don't care if chunk charcoal tastes better, or whatever argument you intend to make. Sometimes, I just need the convenience of being able to start actually cooking food in less than an hour."

"Don't know what you're missing," Frank Perez replied with a shrug.

John checked his watch and said, "You're two minutes late."

"Your watch is fast," his neighbor retorted good-naturedly. As the neighborhood's longest tenured resident, Frank held it as a point of pride that he never missed a gathering. John was glad to see him there. After losing his wife to cancer the year prior, the entire community had come together to help support the gregarious auto-dealership owner.

"How are things in the luxury German vehicle business?"

"New line of electric vehicles coming out next year. You should come by the lot and take a look."

"Why? My car works fine."

"That old thing?" Frank asked with a guffaw. "You've been driving that for, what, a decade?"

"Never let me down once. Why would I change?"

"Surely you must get comments at the office."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that everyone that works for you likely drives a nicer car? Your million-miler hatchback must stick out like a sore thumb in your reserved space amongst the cars of your peers. Or, do you take Katherine's car?"

"Maybe you're looking at it the wrong way. I'd like to think I'm setting an example that there are things more important than meaningless status symbols. Why should a twenty-five-year-old engineer drop half a year's salary on a new car when it would make far more sense to pay off their student loans?"

"Fair enough," Frank conceded. "Just remember that I'll give you a great deal if you change your mind."

"How's Jackie?" John asked, referring to Frank's nineteen-year-old daughter who was off at university.

"She's great. She wraps up finals next week and has graciously decided to grace me with her presence for the summer."

"That's wonderful!"

"Are you sure? She mentioned something about her boyfriend also being in the area."

"She's a smart young woman, my friend. I'm sure she's making good choices."

"Easy for you to say. Yours is still in primary school. You'll sing a different tune when knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers start sniffing around her. I swear I nearly called the cops on a boy she dated in high school."

"For what?"

"I would have come up with something," Frank replied darkly. "I've got friends in this town."

"I'm sure you do."

Frank glanced around and said, "How's Katherine, by the way?"

"Fine," John answered, trying to keep the emotion from his voice. "She's around here somewhere."

"Always the perfect hostess," Frank observed. "I'm going to grab another beer. Want anything?"

"I'm good."

Frank wandered away and was soon lost in the crowd of people milling around the Logan's backyard. Most of the neighborhood had shown up for the end of April get together, which was scheduled for the all-too-brief window between when the pollen count was so high that protective equipment was required to go outside and when the heat of the Atlanta summer climbed to the point where the only reason a sane person would be outside was if they were going straight to a pool, or a lake... with no detours. The right to host the party was highly sought after and Katherine had celebrated her winning bid like the young man who had won the famous golf tournament a few hundred miles to the east just two weeks prior.

The mention of Katherine once again soured his mood. His morning following her middle of the night call had not gone well, despite the welcome news about their bid to acquire Vanessa's husband's company. John had greeted his alarm having only gotten a couple of hours of sleep, and his fatigue was easily evident in his performance in the presentation he had given to a packed auditorium. Watching the video of his speech afterwards, he could admit that his manner and look was nearly indistinguishable from someone who had spent the night in the casino and tried to shake off the bender with nothing but a cup of coffee. Ryan had greeted him as soon as he got off the stage, demanding to know what was wrong with him. His protests that he had not slept well had been met with skepticism and demands that he 'figure out a way to fix this'.

His return home had not improved things. Despite his innate knowledge that this was not how sane adults in functioning relationships did things, he had all but ignored Katherine for the two days leading up to the party. The get-together provided sufficient cover, but he was certain she had not failed to notice the fact that he was sleeping in the guest room. He suspected a reckoning was coming, likely as soon as the party wrapped up, and part of him craved the coming conflict.

"Far be it from me to suggest that a man's work at the grill could be improved," came a pleasant alto voice, pulling him from his ruminations, "but might I trouble you for a burger that's only medium well?"

John turned to find Hazel standing just to his right, her mirthful eyes regarding the grill before him. As so often happened with his curvy neighbor, he was momentarily struck dumb when first gazing upon her. The light green sundress she was wearing was demurely cut, but it did nothing to conceal her large breasts or rounded hips. She smiled at him and gestured once more to the grill. He glanced down to see a pair of burgers were actively on fire and several more had achieved briquette status.

"Damnit," he muttered, sweeping the ruined meat to an unheated portion of the grill so it could cool enough to be discarded.

"You seem... distracted. Should I have worn something different?"

"What?" he said too loud.

She frowned briefly before saying, "Have it your way. But I know something's wrong."

"Tough week, is all."

"In the three years we've lived here, I think you've said that, or something like it, nearly every time we've spoken."

"That's ridiculous," he replied quickly. "I just had to go to Vegas this week and I still haven't caught up, at work or in bed."

"Katherine didn't welcome you home with her legs open? What a crime. I thought it was a part of our neighborhood covenants that we stay-at-home wives attend to our husband's sexual needs. Eagerly and happily."

"Don't be absurd."

"What? I always greet Thomas naked at the door after he returns from out of town. How else can I expect to hang onto him?"

"Yeah, right," John drawled.

"Oh, I was being quite sincere."

"What is this, the Stepford Wives?" John asked sarcastically.

"I'm no fembot," she replied seriously, her typically indefatigable smile falling from her lips. "If I were, I certainly wouldn't have this enormous ass."

"Now you're just fishing for compliments."

"What do you mean?" she asked with what appeared to be genuine confusion.

John glanced around momentarily before saying, "You know perfectly well you're an incredibly beautiful woman. You as much as called me out a moment ago for leering at you constantly."

"Perhaps, but you can't deny that I don't hold a candle to your Katherine. Admit it, John. She's gorgeous."

"She is at that. But that fact combined with the fact that your body and hers aren't alike doesn't equal you not being beautiful."

"Spoken like an engineer."

"What can I tell you?" he asked playfully. "Math doesn't lie."

She was silent for several moments before saying, "She really doesn't welcome you home?"

"It's not like she tries to kill me when I come through the door like Inspector Clouseau's Cato."

She snickered at the reference to a movie which was more than twice as old as she was, surprising John considerably, and said, "I know that. I just meant..."

"What?" he inquired after she went silent for several moments.

"I know it's likely weird to talk with your neighbor about sex. I'm kind of broken in that area because of what I used to do."

"You know, in all the times we've spoken, I don't think you ever mentioned what you did before you moved in."

"I was a sex advocate, which is a horrible title. I basically went to conventions and spoke, mostly to women's groups, about things like positive body image and sexual health. Basically, just trying to convince successful professionals that it was ok for them to like sex, no easy feat in this part of the country."

"That's fascinating," John observed honestly. "It never occurred to me that there was a market for that, although it strikes me as far better than most keynotes I sit through. At least you were trying to make people healthier rather than telling people how to guilt their employees into working more for less."

She nodded gratefully and continued, "So anyway... it kind of broke me for small talk because I always end up talking about sex."

"What's wrong with that?"

"You know very well. Your face shrunk in on itself like a marshmallow placed in the microwave as soon as I brought it up."

John chuckled and said, "Perhaps I'm just a product of my environment. I was raised in the South, after all. And, to answer your questions, spoken and unspoken, Katherine and I have a fine sex life despite the fact that she doesn't greet me when I get home from the office on her knees, with an Old Fashioned in one hand and a bottle of lube in the other."

Hazel laughed heartily and said, "Fair enough. Should I take it then that you're a fan of blowjobs, bourbon and anal? Not necessarily in that order."

He felt his cheeks flush and said, "I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find a well-adjusted male, regardless of sexual orientation, who is opposed to those things. Although certainly not to the exclusion of all else."

"Indeed," she agreed. "Well, in that case, I hope for your sake that Katherine is a fan of at least two of those things."

"As I said, we have a fine sex life. How about you and Mr. Perfect?"

She laughed again and said, "Please tell me you've called him that to his face."

"Not intentionally, although he certainly seems to work hard on himself. I suspect you've walked into a wall a time or two because he smiled at the wrong time, and you were dazzled to the point of visual impairment."

"I can't say that that's happened, but he does take very good care of his teeth. And the rest of his body."

"Obviously. He's like a walking, talking homosexuality test. If a man can look at him without feeling a twinge of lust, then he's one hundred percent not gay."

She snickered, losing a bit of the wine she had been drinking in the process. John handed her a handkerchief from his pocket. She cleaned herself up and said, "Warn a girl before you say something like that. It's a wonder I didn't ruin my dress. Unless perhaps that was your intent?" He smiled and shook his head. She added, "What's your play here, John. Hoping to leap to my aid, only belatedly realizing your efforts to clean me up mean groping my girls? Or perhaps that I'd just whip the dress off altogether?"

"Hardly," he replied contritely.

"I'm only fucking with you. I know you're a gentleman. Which kind of makes me wonder why you're unbothered by Katherine being so friendly with Thomas."

"What of it? We're talking."

She paused for a moment, appearing to be in search of a reply, before finally saying, "As you say. They're talking and we're talking."

"What are you trying to tell me?" he said, feeling very much as though he was missing something.

"Nothing. Did you hear we won the bid for the Memorial Day party? I was thinking of putting in a waterslide."

"The HOA will never go for it."

"Oh, not a permanent one. But I saw some bounce-houses online which have a long slide. We could set one of those up so it ended in the deep end."

"That could be fun. But I suggest hiring a lifeguard," he glanced around the party at the, more often than not, quite inebriated party goers. Lena was in her room playing with two of her best friends from the neighborhood, but several children a few years older than her were chasing each other around the pool deck wildly swinging foam swords at each other with nary a word of warning from their parents. "Some of these people don't feel obligated to keep an eye on their kids."

Hazel nodded and said, "I think I'll hire two."

Five

"What were you talking to Hazel about?" Katherine asked pleasantly as she delivered another tray of dirty glasses to the counter next to where John was busily washing.

He sighed before saying, "Let's not do this right now."

"What are you talking about? I was just making conversation. What's with you? You've been acting all weird ever since you got home. What happened, did you slip and sleep with a hooker while you were in Vegas?"

"Of course not," he snapped. "How could you even say such a thing?"

"What am I supposed to think, John? You get home and you're acting like a jerk. You won't talk to me. You're sleeping in the guest room. Something sure as heck happened out there."

"Nothing happened."

"Was it that pit viper, Hurley? I heard she decided to attend once she heard you were coming."

John glared at her and repeated, "Nothing. Happened."

"You're denying she was there?" Katherine retorted accusingly.

"No," he seethed. "I'm denying anything happened. Because nothing happened. She flirted with me. I ignored it until she was willing to talk business. Same as I ignored the prostitute that propositioned me at the elevator."

"You're suggesting I should be grateful you continue to allow me to exist in your presence, considering that you're obviously very in demand."

"Now who's being a jerk? I didn't say word one about you flirting with Mr. Perfect tonight." Katherine's face darkened and she appeared about to speak, but John beat her to it and added, "Not because I'm trying to win some kind of contest between us, but because I trust you. As you should trust me."

"I do trust you, John. I'm not the one acting like an a-hole here."

"Sure," he scoffed. "You're just accusing me left and right of cheating on you."

"Strictly speaking, I didn't accuse you of anything. I just asked what you were talking to Hazel about in an apparently failed attempt to get past whatever you're annoyed about. You can't shut me out forever, John. That's not how this works. If you're angry with me, you have to tell me why. I have no interest in playing games like my sisters."

"What do they have to do with this?"

Katherine sighed and replied, "They're always complaining about how their husbands never listen to them. Then you dig a little deeper and discover that the problem is that those poor fools just haven't guessed what's wrong yet, because of course my stupid sisters refuse to actually tell their partners why they're angry, or even that they are angry. But that's not us, babe. We talk to each other. At least we used to."

John turned to face her and said, "I completely ate shit with my speech in Vegas."

"Oh, no. I'm so sorry babe. What happened? You were working on that the whole way home from St Lucia."

He shrugged and said, "I only got two hours of sleep the night before." He then fell silent and stared at her expectantly.

Her face scrunched up in confusion for a moment before devolving into a frown. "You're saying this was my fault because I called?"

"I'm not saying it wasn't," he replied sullenly. "You called at three AM and, thanks to the bad husband-slash-father sandwich with a massive side of guilt you unloaded onto me, I never really got back to sleep."

"You can't pin the fact that you didn't get your beauty sleep on me," she retorted angrily. "That call lasted, what, ten minutes? Tops?"

"It wasn't just the call, Katherine. It was the fact that I'm not a fucking sociopath. So, when the two most important people in my life go out of their way to let me know that I made them unhappy, it bothers me. I can't just turn the page and forget about it."

Her features immediately softened, and she said, "I'm sorry. I was frustrated and I took it out on you. I certainly had no desire to ruin your day. I wish I'd known you were upset. I was tempted to call you back after dropping Lena off at school but, ironically, I didn't want to wake you."

"Why didn't you say anything when I got home?"

"Because you weren't talking to me, you grumpy doofus. How the heck was I supposed to know that's what you were angry about?"

"What else could it have been?"

"A million things!" she exploded. "It's not like its exactly unusual for you to have a bad day at work."

"Granted," he allowed. "But I'd have hoped you'd have remembered the fact that you unloaded all that shit on me before hanging up like I was a fucking telemarketer."

She crossed the kitchen to stand before him and stroked his chest. "Like I said, I had the urge to call you back, but I didn't want to wake you up. I really am sorry, John."

"I'm sorry I was acting so childishly," he admitted contritely.

"Perhaps we could make it up to each other," she whispered coquettishly.

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"I've kept up with my grooming from our trip."

"Is that right? I seem to remember you making an offer I never had a chance to accept."

She leaned in and licked his earlobe enticingly before whispering huskily, "Well you'd better take me up on it before I alter the deal."

Katherine yelped so loudly when John scooped her off her feet and into a fireman's carry that he was worried Lena would wake up. He even paused at her door after ascending the stairs to ensure he could not hear his daughter moving around. Upon entering the master suite, he turned to gently close the door rather than kicking it closed like his baser instincts demanded.

He placed Katherine on the bed and spied her delighted expression before she pulled her blouse over her head. John began shedding his own clothes in a surprise race to see who could get naked first. He discovered Katherine had won when her hand encircled his hardening cock just as he dropped his shorts. She crawled off the bed and took his manhood in her mouth as he watched in wonder.

Katherine truly was a woman of unrivaled beauty. Her perfectly sized breasts were coyly hidden by her lustrous hair as she pleasured him, but her flawless ass was on full display. John would swear she had not aged a day since their wedding nearly a decade prior. If anything, she looked even younger. And her body had certainly retained its youthfulness. He knew she took great pride in her appearance, working out daily and keeping a close eye on what the family ate even though she had clearly hit the genetic lottery, and he never failed to appreciate the results.

She pulled back to regard him lustily and said, "You think you're ready for me?"

"Not until I've tasted you," he breathed as she crawled onto the bed.

"Not tonight babe," she whispered huskily. "You know I'd prefer to shower first. Besides, I can't wait to feel you inside me."

She laid back on the bed and beckoned him closer. He shrugged and crawled between her legs, capturing her lips and she lined his member up with her entrance. He groaned in satisfaction as he felt her liquid heat surround him.

"Why did we not do this on vacation?" she groaned.

He answered her with a particularly energetic thrust of his hips, eliciting a moan of satisfaction from her. Rising to his knees, he gripped her by the hips and sheathed himself once more. She gazed up at him hungrily and toyed with her clit as he built up his pace.

"So... I take it you approve?" she queried breathily.

"Hmm?"

"My change in grooming habits," she replied with a whisper as the nails from the hand she had been using to tease her clit grazed the top of his shaft.

"Very much so. You haven't shaved completely since..."

"Our wedding night. I'll never forget your face."

He snickered, slowing his pace to allow himself to speak easier, and said, "Only because you decided there'd be no sex in the month leading up to the wedding, and you spent the whole time hinting that you were growing a bush of seventies porn proportions."

"I wanted you to explode in your tux as soon as I took off my dress," Katherine explained sultrily.

"You nearly got your wish."

"As I recall, you held out until I touched you. Very admirable considering you swore you wouldn't pleasure yourself for the whole month."

"I kept my word."

She quirked an eyebrow at him and said, "Of that, I have no doubt. You covered my face before I could even take you in my mouth."

"You don't have to remind me. I'll certainly never forget it."

"Me neither, although it's hardly a story for the grandkids."

"How many wedding night stories are? Were you disappointed? I'd always gotten the impression you got exactly what you were hoping for."

"No. It was great. It was just that my fantasy for that moment, and the reason I put us through all of that, was that you'd lose control the moment I took you in my mouth."

"I almost made it," he reminded her with a grin. "I think the butt plug you were wearing really pushed me over the edge."

"As I said, I went all out."

"You always do, my love."

She smirked at him before saying, "Let me get on my knees."

John pulled back and helped Katherine up off the bed, smiling to himself at the quirk of her character that allowed her to be a complete minx in the bedroom while still maintaining that the common words and phrases used to describe their activities there were unforgivably vulgar. She loved to be fucked doggie-style, but if he used that phrase it would take her right out of the mood. So, their talk during lovemaking tended to either be unrelated to their activities, or decidedly clinical. He had been shocked to discover during their courtship that she had been suggesting they have premarital sex, in her own way, for over two weeks before he finally understood what she was so obliquely trying to tell him.

He took a moment to appreciate her perfectly formed ass, and the lusty look she gave him, before sinking once more into her silken depths. She fell forward onto her elbows, giving him full control of their pace as her grunts of pleasure were swallowed by the pillows festooned around their bed. He groped her impeccable derriere possessively as he thrust into her, savoring its flawless firmness. He could feel her wetness heightening with each stroke, and he knew her release was near. Reaching forward, he wrapped an arm around her chest and pulled her to him. With his other hand, he teased her clit as his pace increased.

"Yes," she hissed, giving herself over completely to him. It was a responsibility he did not take lightly, and he continued increasing the speed of his hips until he felt her velvety channel constrict around his cock.

"Oh my God," she panted. "I'm so close." He tweaked one of her nipples and continued to stroke her clit until her pleasure crested. She moaned loudly as he thrust into her firmly until her inner walls clenched around his cock, holding him fast. He licked along her ear as he continued to pleasure her with his fingers until he felt her body relax slightly.

"Are you close?" she murmured.

"Yeah," he whispered.

"Do you want to finish on my face again?"

"Um..."

"It's ok, babe. You won't offend me. I'm offering, after all."

"Well... ok."

He released her and she rolled off the bed and knelt on the floor. She gestured him over and reached out to take his member, stroking him energetically as she kept her eyes glued to his.

"Let me know when you're ready."

John could only nod in reply. The sight of his wife, whose looks many supermodels would envy, kneeling on the floor and stroking him to completion was almost too much for him.

"Almost there," he grunted.

She released him and sat back on her haunches; her eyes closed but with a large smile plastered on her face. As he took himself in his hand and began stroking his throbbing member, her hands dropped, one to her breasts to tweak one of her nipples and the other to the junction of her thighs.

"Oh, fuck," he gasped as his orgasm overtook him and he erupted onto her cheek. She yelped softly in surprise as countless spurts of his release coated her face, but her smile never wavered. As his pleasure crested and began to recede, he whispered, "That was fucking incredible."

"That was a lot," she observed.

"What can I say? You turn me on so goddamned much."

"I'm pleased to hear it," she replied genuinely. "Now, if you'd be so kind as to get me a wet towel before my eyes are permanently glued closed, I'll give you a million dollars."

"As you wish," he whispered, dropping a kiss on the top of her head before he headed into the bathroom.

Six

"What the hell was that?" Ryan hissed as he stepped into John's office uninvited.

"I actually thought the demo went rather well," John replied defensively.

"Of course it did, John," Ryan replied tiredly. "But we don't pay a VP of IT to run demos. Not only is it a waste of your time, but it also makes us look a bit like our sales and product people don't know their business. Which, in this case, is the literal truth. So, I repeat, what the hell was that? Dewey was scheduled to run that demo, was he not?"

"He was," John admitted. "I only joined the demo to give him feedback afterwards. I pinged him several times and he never responded. So, I just took over to keep things from getting even more awkward with the client."

"This is the last straw. I'm sick of his shit."

"Well, we can't fire him. At least not yet."

"What are you talking about? This is a gross dereliction of duty."

John sighed and said, "I couldn't agree more. But HR policy is that someone can't be terminated for cause unless they're first given a written warning. And we have yet to give him one."

"Why the hell not?" Ryan exploded. "He's been a drain on your department for six months."

"Because you told me not to."

"I did no such thing!"

"Surely you remember the holiday party when he tried very hard to get Alison in marketing to photocopy her..."

"I remember," Ryan seethed quietly.

John was unsurprised his boss's memory had suddenly returned, considering that Ryan had been trying very hard at the time to woo the undeniably gorgeous, but also very young, marketing coordinator. He had thought to seize the opportunity to swoop in like a vigilante protector and save her from the boorish lout from Product. Ryan had insisted no formal report be made in a misguided effort to protect the object of his affections from the 'embarrassment' of an HR inquiry. His hopes for a relationship had ultimately been permanently thwarted a month later when the young woman had quit due to the fact that Dewey had faced no repercussions. It was the only time John could ever remember his perpetually charmed boss making a mistake, although Ryan had covered his error by heavily implying John was responsible for his subordinate's lack of accountability.

"Just fire him, John. I know you spoke to him privately about the prior... incident. Just say that was his warning."

"This is going to bite us in the ass. He'll claim wrongful termination and take us to the cleaners. Why not just make this a written but make it so severe that we fire him tomorrow if he puts a foot wrong."

"Have it your way," Ryan conceded as he rose. He walked to John's door before adding, "But I want him gone."

***

"Hey boss," Dewey enthused upon entering John's office later that day. "What's up?"

John had been forced to shelve the entirety of his plans for the morning to sit with an HR specialist to assemble all the documentation which would allow him to, figuratively, throw the book at his troublesome employee. The experience had been made even more humiliating by the constant recrimination he had been forced to endure about the fact that he had yet to act officially. John had only managed to tap down the urge to rat out his boss because he knew he would not be believed. That plus the fact that Dewey's performance was undeniably his problem, regardless of the fact that he had previously been overruled.

"Have a seat, Dewey. You remember Shannon?"

"Sure," he replied happily before dropping heavily into a chair across the table from John. "Nice to see you again."

"Typically, I'd start one of these by talking about some of the things you've excelled at recently, but I'm not going to beat around the bush. You failed to show up at this morning's client demo. You also failed to respond to repeated requests to assist with the latest release, even though you were on call."

"Wait a minute," Dewey interjected, the perpetual look of merriment slipping from his features in favor of a look of confusion. "Are we not here to talk about a promotion?"

"Obviously not," John replied dryly. "You are failing in nearly every facet of your job."

"I don't understand. You're always so nice to me around the office. So is everyone else."

John sighed and said, "Be that as it may, your work performance is vastly subpar. It's all outlined here." He slid a stack of papers across the table.

Dewey's eyes scanned across the document for a few moments before he began to speak, "continued failure to meet expectations... refusal to follow established protocols for release management... repeated tardiness to scheduled meetings... detriment to team productivity... don't improve markedly in thirty days he will be... terminated!" He looked up at John with wild eyes and shouted, "You're going to fire me?"

"If you do not improve in the indicated..."

"But you can't fire me. Amanda's pregnant. How am I going to provide for my family if you fire me?"

"You're not being fired today, Dewey," Shannon pointed out gently. "This meeting is about trying to work with you to improve in these key areas so you can once again be a valuable member of the team."

"How will we even get health insurance for the baby if I get fired?" Dewey continued, seemingly unaware of anyone else in the room.

"No one wants to fire you," John stated firmly. "But these issues must stop. I need to be able to depend on every member of my team."

"But I can't do all that stuff," Dewey wailed. "I'm really trying, Mr. Logan. But this stuff is really complicated sometimes."

"What's so complicated about attending a meeting?"

"I don't know. I didn't try to miss it."

"And the release? All you had to do there was answer the phone."

"I left it in the car. You can't fault me for that. Please don't fire me, Mr. Logan. Amanda will kill me. I'll do anything."

"Just do your job," John replied snippily before sighing wearily, not quite able to shake the feeling that he had just kicked a puppy.

***

"You look lost. Everything ok?"

John looked around in confusion for a moment before spotting Hazel walking a few dozen meters behind him. He gazed at her for several moments as she approached, not quite certain what she had said, or even what he had been doing before he heard her call out to him. Were he in better possession of his faculties, he would have recognized the fact that his failure to notice her tight workout shorts and midriff baring t-shirt, to say nothing of the sheen of sweat coating her body, was a very bad sign indeed.

"John?" she asked worriedly.

"Sorry," he replied belatedly. "What did you say?"

"I asked if you are all right. You look like you're on a bad trip."

"I wish," he chuckled.

"Something about your face tells me you've never tried psychedelics, bad or otherwise."

"I went to Vegas last week," he offered lamely.

She chuckled and said, "You know that isn't what I meant. You really didn't even cut loose in your college days?"

"Sure I did. I once drank a whole liter of whiskey in a single night. And there was the time, on Friday the thirteenth, when we drank thirteen shots in an hour."

"Gracious. How did you not wind up in the hospital?"

"Lots of practice," he replied with a playful grin. "But those days are long past. I don't think I've had more than a few drinks in a day since my wedding night."

"What a shame. Everyone should cut loose once in a while. Otherwise, they'll go insane."

"Perhaps I went insane before you even met me," he offered, "and the only version of me you've ever known is completely off his rocker."

"Could be. Although I can't imagine how straightlaced you were before in that case. Or, are you instead suggesting you used to be a complete maniac and losing your mind turned you into a nice, respectable guy?"

"Hard to say. I can barely even remember two weeks ago, much less the distant past. Maybe I went crazy and didn't notice."

She paused for a moment before saying, "You were supposed to object to my characterization of you as straightlaced."

"I'm not stupid," he retorted flatly. "I can recognize the truth when I hear it. After all, it's hard to get more straightlaced than a guy who spends all his time working."

"I thought you worked at the company Katherine's father owns."

"Marrying the boss's daughter doesn't guarantee you'll get a high-paying job that merely requires you show up at the office every few weeks. Sometimes it means you have to work harder than everyone else to prove you deserve the job, rather than it being a gift."

"I wasn't implying you're a charity case," she said gently. "Merely that I'm surprised you're made to work so much. I'd have figured he'd have made a comment somewhere along the way that would have lessened the pressure. Or, at the very least, insisted that more people be hired to work for you so you can spend more time at home."

"The gospel of my father-in-law heavily implies that he got to where he is, and the company is as successful as it is, because of his unflagging commitment to doing whatever it takes to get the job done."

"Your phrasing would seem to suggest you don't hold that particular dogma to be entirely accurate."

John shrugged and said, "I have it on good authority that he stopped working more than ten hours a week when Katherine was younger than Lena is now. Not to mention the fact that he wasn't the one who founded the business. He inherited it. But the expectation remains." He glanced over to see her sympathetic expression and sighed wearily before adding, "I'm sorry. You don't want to hear my griping."

"What makes you say that?"

"No one likes to listen to pointless complaining. The only thing worse is listening to married couples argue in public."

"Would it make you feel better if I were complaining as well? We could have a good old fashioned bitch session."

"I have difficulty believing anyone could ever use that pejorative where you're concerned."

"I wasn't calling myself a bitch," she corrected with a chuckle. "Although I've been called that more times than I can count."

"I trust your husband arranged for a swift reckoning, and the bodies were expertly hidden?"

"Who says he wasn't the one who said it in the first place?"

John came to a sudden halt and stared at her for a moment before finally saying, "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"It's not like he threw a hammer at me, John. We just had an argument. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure you and Katherine fight sometimes, am I right?"

"Of course. But I would never demean her like that. Just because I'm angry about something she did doesn't mean I think she's an evil person."

"Does she afford you the same courtesy?"

"Most of the time. She'll slip up sometimes, but she's quick to apologize." He paused for a minute before adding, "If you ever need a place to stay..."

She stopped and gripped his arm before saying, "They're just words, John. And it's not like that's the only way we interact."

"The offer still stands," he replied seriously. "No one should have to put up with that bullshit."

"Why are you so... passionate about this? Was it your..." she paused, a look of embarrassment coming over her face.

"It wasn't any trauma from my youth, if that's what you're thinking. At least not from my folks. I guess it was just the shittiness of high school instilled in me a fundamental belief in the destructive power of words. At least the wrong words. There's enough awfulness in the world without people who claim to love you setting out to intentionally harm you."

She smiled at him and said, "Honestly, John. It's fine. Although I genuinely appreciate the offer. Is that what had you so twisted up? Someone at the office hurling hurtful epitaphs?"

"That would have been far easier. I have an employee whose performance is terrible; and getting worse. I sat him down today to tell him he needed to change his ways, or I'd have to fire him. Instead of getting angry, which was what I expected, he started blubbering and pleading with me not to fire him. Said he had a pregnant wife at home, and she'd divorce him if he lost his job."

"Oh no," Hazel breathed.

"Oh yes. It went on for what seemed like hours. By the end of it, both the HR generalist and I were trying to console him. I just want my people to do what I tell them, but he made me feel like I kicked his dog and pissed in his cereal on the way to sleeping with his wife."

"What was he doing?"

"He was on his knees, yanking on my wrist in what I think was an attempt to kiss my hand, but he just ended up wiping snot on my sleeve."

"Gross!" she yelped before devolving into a brief fit of laughter. She took a deep breath and added, "No. I meant what was he doing wrong that necessitated a formal meeting."

"Missing meetings; not being prepared; just generally being ill-suited to the job. It seems all he cares about is talking to people around the office."

"So maybe find a position he's suited for," she suggested as though it were patently obvious. "You do some pretty technical work, am I right?"

"Sure. This guy isn't as technical though. He's a product manager. Kind of like that guy in Office Space who takes the requests to the engineers."

"So why not just put him in a role that only requires talking? Maybe his problem is that he's in over his head. I worked with a woman once in retail who was always on the verge of getting fired. Then some bright manager actually talked to her and figured out she had crippling germaphobia. They moved her to the warehouse, and she made supervisor in a month."

"Fascinating," John muttered.

"What?"

"Everyone else I might have mentioned this to would have just implied, usually not-at-all subtly, that the entire episode was just due to my deficiencies as a manager."

"What good would that have done?" Hazle replied softly. "Besides, if you were a crappy manager, you would have just fired him the moment he started annoying you without giving him a chance to improve."

"Who knew? I've been living next to a management expert all this time."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Of course not," he said quickly. "You really seem to know your shi... stuff."

"You saw my boobs fall out at the Labor Day party last year, John. I think you can safely swear around me."

"Fair enough," he conceded, the memory of that day rushing back into the forefront of his mind with perfect clarity. In an attempt to forestall the inevitable sub-equatorial swelling which had already begun, he asked, "If you don't mind me asking, where'd you acquire this MBA level expertise?"

"Well, for one, I have an MBA."

John glanced over quickly in an attempt to see if she was toying with him, but her face was quite placid. At length, he smirked and said, "Looking for a job?"

She chuckled and said, "Not right now. But I'll keep you in mind if I decide to rejoin the workforce."

He nodded and said, "Seriously, Hazel. Thanks for the advice. I genuinely appreciate it."

"Anytime," she replied with a warm smile.

Seven

Moments after arriving home from his unexpectedly enlightening walk with Hazel, John heard the familiar warbling of his phone. Upon pulling it from his pocket, he saw that it was an unfamiliar number calling. He suppressed his urge to ignore the call, since it was impossible to tell the difference between a telemarketer and a data center watch-stander in the middle of nowhere who had just found a server belching smoke like a stereotypical great uncle after Thanksgiving dinner.

"Logan," he barked into the phone upon answering.

"Hi... John. This is Savannah. Ainsley's mom?"

"Hi," he said, somewhat more friendly upon recognizing the voice of the mother of one of Lena's good friends.

"I was wondering when you'd be by to pick Lena up. We don't mind feeding her dinner, obviously, but..."

"Of course," he answered quickly. "Not a problem at all. I'm on my way right now."

"Thanks so much. She's being wonderful, I just know there aren't many six-year-olds that like Indian food."

"Indeed," he replied, knowing now was not the time to point out that Lena loved Indian food. "I'll be there shortly."

"What the fuck," he muttered as he headed out to the garage. As soon as he was in the car, he called Katherine, but the call went straight to voicemail.

The trip to Lena's friend's house was short, but John still had time to go to voicemail on his wife's number five additional times. He also called both her sisters and her current best friend, an ephemeral title at best. No one answered his call. He eventually stooped to calling his own office, just to verify that his phone was still working.

He managed to pick Lena up with a minimum of small talk, a blessing considering he did not have the foggiest idea how significantly the original plan for the impromptu playdate had been altered before Savannah broke down and called him. The ride home was filled with happy stories of a new trick Lena had learned to perform on her friend's trampoline. He also relented and swung by her favorite Indian restaurant for take-out. But, the entire time, his mind was consumed by a single question: what had happened to Katherine?

***

John spotted the luxury Italian SUV his wife drove in the garage as soon as he turned onto their street, and he felt the vice-grip around his heart disappear in an instant. That anxiety was immediately replaced, however, by an anger which was building within him like a runaway nuclear reaction.

He reigned in the urge to tear into the house and demand an explanation, opting instead to focus on Lena. He knew the coming unpleasantness would be particularly explosive when Katherine said nothing about the fact that the take-out, he had brought home included nothing for her.

John kept himself quite busy with Lena for the remainder of the evening. In hindsight, it was the best time he had spent with his daughter in months. He helped her finish a project before watching in rapt fascination as she performed the songs she would sing with her classmates at the upcoming end-of-the-year celebration. Next came a brief fashion show as he 'helped' her decide what to wear the next day. He topped the evening off by preparing what she called an 'epic' bubble bath, which featured enough bubbles that she disappeared entirely after climbing into the tub.

The moment he closed her door, after bidding her goodnight, he found Katherine standing behind him with a look of grim determination on her face. He walked past her toward the stairs, barely acknowledging her presence.

"John," she warned.

His only reply was, "Basement."

He descended the two flights of stairs before taking a beer from the fridge and standing calmly behind the bar. He took a long pull as she reached the bottom of the stairs. As he had told Hazel, he was not a man who would ever give any woman a reason to fear him, or even stoop to calling her names. To that end, he kept a physical barrier between them and focused on controlling his breathing rather than blurting out the multitude of questions swirling around in his head.

"I'm sorry," she began.

He waited for several moments before saying, "Perhaps it would be better if you told me what you were sorry about."

"Ghosting Lena? Ghosting you? Dumping her at a friend's house without even shooting you a text? I'm sure Savannah was pretty freaking confused as well."

"How hard is it to just shoot me a text, Katherine? Hell, your car will do it for you."

"I didn't intend to be that late. My plan was to pick her up long before you were home."

"What if I'd been stuck at the office late? Hell, I could still be there now. And Lord knows what would have happened if I'd been in a meeting and ignored Savannah's call."

"I get it," she whispered. "I messed up. And I'm genuinely sorry."

"This isn't like you."

She stared at him for several minutes, to the point where he realized she was likely expecting him to forgive her. But he had no intention of doing that until he knew what had caused her to disappear. At length, she rounded the bar and plucked another beer from the fridge before hopping up on the counter beside him.

"I spoke to Olivia today," she said finally.

After another pregnant pause, John finally said, "And?"

She looked at him somberly and said, "Promise you won't say anything to Wyatt?"

Without pause, John said, "Sure." He suspected Katherine feared some obscure bylaw of the 'guy code' would require him to gossip to his brother-in-law, but he had met few people in his life who better embodied the term 'waste of space'.

"He's cheating on her."

"Why would you swear me to secrecy about that? I'm pretty sure he's in the loop on that one. Besides, isn't this the third or fourth time she's suspected him of running around on her?"

"Yes, but this time she has proof. And she's getting even."

"You're sister's a decent enough person, Katherine. But neither of us should get roped into helping her hide a body."

"Nothing like that," she retorted, a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "But she has significantly expanded her pool boy's list of duties."

"I'd hope he's a pool man, at the very least."

"Fine. She's having an affair with her very delectable twenty-six-year-old pool man."

"Why doesn't she just divorce him? She can't have anything in common with this pool guy."

"Obviously not," Katherine replied haughtily. "But she waited until the day the papers were served to start the affair, making him an adulterer and her a liberated modern woman. She'll take him to the cleaners. And once she has half his worldly possessions, she'll slide the pictures of her and her plaything across the table to weaselly Wyatt."

"Why would she get half his stuff? She went into the marriage with orders of magnitude more money than him."

"Their prenup shields him from ever touching Daddy's money, as you well know. And it removes any leg he'd have to stand on now that he's been caught cheating."

John shook his head ruefully before saying, "That still doesn't explain why you went all Keyser Soze this afternoon. If anything, you sound pumped about this."

"Of course. She's beating him at his own game."

"And..."

"And it... pisses me off!" she whisper-shouted.

"In God's name, why?" he replied, somewhat taken aback both by her vehemence and her out of character language.

"Because it's freaking awesome, that's why. She's like the world champion of turning a negative into a positive. I love her to pieces, but just once I'd like to see her endure just a freaking minute of discomfort."

"So, you abandoned your daughter without so much as a word to me, all because you're jealous?"

"As I said, I'm very sorry. I swear it won't happen again."

"It had better fucking not. Lena's a smart cookie, Katherine. She won't have to get too much older to realize this kind of thing is the kind of unusual which requires an adult's knowledge. Imagine her telling her teacher you disappeared on her. We could have DEFACS breathing down our necks in no time."

"It won't happen again," she seethed through clenched teeth.

"Good," he huffed after staring her down for several moments. He took a deep breath before saying, "So... how was the rest of your day?"

"Fine, up until I lost my mind. I did yoga and then room-mom stuff for a few hours before I had lunch with Liv. How about you?"

"It was wretched. Turns out Deadweight Dewey is also Doleful Dewey."

"Come again."

"I finally sat him down to formally tell him to shape up, or ship out. And he completely went to pieces. By the end of the meeting, he was pleading with me in an attempt to save his job."

"I told you, John. You should have done this sooner."

He sighed wearily, his prophetic words to Hazel earlier that day ringing in his head. "Indeed. In any case, it sucked."

"Is that why you were talking to Hazel?"

"Huh?"

"I heard you two did a few laps around the neighborhood this afternoon, and that you appeared to be engaged in a very serious conversation."

"How in the hell did you hear about that? I thought you were suffering from a jealousy-induced breakdown all afternoon."

She held up her phone and said, "Social media notifications. The only thing faster than the speed of light." He opened his mouth to retort, but she continued, "You and her seem to be talking a lot recently."

"What?" he huffed, his head throbbing from the frequent one-eighties the conversation was taking.

"You and Hazel. You seem to be quite friendly."

"What are you implying?"

"Nothing other than the fact that you seem to enjoy her company."

He whirled to face her and said, "Nothing is happening with her, Katherine. I'm not Wyatt, for fuck's sake."

"I didn't say you were," she replied calmly before taking a sip of her beer.

"I work really fucking hard, Katherine. I do literally everything I can think of for you and Lena."

"And we truly appreciate it."

"Do you?" he hissed. "Because it seems like you're trying to say something else entirely. You start talking about how Olivia and her husband are locked in an infidelity death-spiral where she's going to try her damndest to punish the shit out of him for doing the same thing she's doing...""

"He cheated on her first, likely at least three times."

"Fine. He's slightly worse. But she's still popping the champagne like she just won the Monaco Grand Prix, all because he'll be ruined, and she'll still have more money than she knows what to do with."

"But..." Katherine began, but John glared at her and lifted a single finger in the air.

"Then," he continued, "seemingly out of the blue, you bring up the fact that I occasionally talk to our neighbor."

"She's very beautiful," she interjected.

"Fucking stop that!" he bellowed. "I'm not fucking cheating on you. I have no plans to cheat on you. If you don't want me to talk to her anymore, then just fucking say that. But you'd better be prepared to give Mr. Perfect the cold shoulder at all upcoming neighborhood get-togethers."

She sighed and said, "Fine. I won't say anything else."

"That's not the answer here, Katherine. You need to come clean about whatever this hangup is you have with Hazel, because I've got way too many actual problems for you to invent one just to try to distract me from the fact that you fucked up today."

"I'm sorry," she said with apparent contrition. "You're right, it was an infantile attempt to distract you from my poor behavior. I have no problem with you being friends with Hazel, obviously. They are our neighbors after all. And I really am sorry about today. It won't happen again, babe. I promise."

Eight

Sunrise the following Sunday morning found John and Lena sitting quietly on a dock at a lake located an hour north of their house. She had expressed interest in fishing ever since seeing the mate drop a line in the water during the sailing expedition on their recent vacation. A quick online order had a package filled with everything they would need for a memorable father-daughter outing arriving at their doorstep two days later.

The best thing about Katherine going AWOL earlier in the week was the fact that it reminded John just how precious spending time with his daughter was to him. He had redoubled his efforts to be home before dinner and spent the entire evening afterward doing things with her. This meant going into the office earlier, and frequently doing chores around the house until midnight, but it was a small price to pay for the smiles with which his daughter gifted him.

She had expressed misgivings regarding the need to wake just after five in the morning in order to reach the lake by sunup, her inheritance of her mother's well-established disdain of rising early already evident, even at such a young age. However, a quick pass through the drive-thru of a high-priced coffee chain, which also served hot chocolate topped with enough whipped cream to induce a diabetic coma, had measurably brightened her spirits.

John spent the first hour of their expedition trying every method he could think of to convince his daughter to be quiet, her frequent shouted questions repeatedly shattering the early morning calm. He eventually gave in to the inevitable, however, and allowed the trip's focus to shift from 'try our best to catch dinner' to 'hang out with my daughter'. With his renewed perspective, he was able to lean back and enjoy the crisp north-Georgia morning with his daughter.

"What's wrong with the fishees?" Lena demanded, after finally exhausting her normal repertoire of topics to discuss like who currently held the distinction of being her best friend, why she was currently favoring gymnastics over ballet for her preferred summer day camp, and why she was definitely old enough to care for a ferret.

"Fish are like librarians, sweetheart. They prefer quiet. But instead of shushing you when you're noisy, they just swim away."

"This is boring."

"Ok," he drawled, drawing out the second syllable. "What would you prefer to do instead? I saw a playground a little ways back."

"Nah."

"I could just pick you up and toss you in the water," he offered playfully. He then allowed his tone to grow serious and added, "Perhaps the fish aren't biting because we're using the wrong bait. Hold still, I'll just get a hook real quick," he grunted as he reached into the box of supplies he had brought.

"Daddy! You can't put a hook in me!"

"Why not? How else are we going to catch the fish after it bites you?"

"Please don't," she whispered.

He stared at her in horror, only at that moment discerning that she had no idea he was kidding. He sprang from his chair and dropped to his knees before softly saying, "I would never hurt you, baby girl. I was just joking."

She gazed at him woefully for several moments before saying, "Promise?"

"You have my word, Lena," he replied slowly. He opened his arms to her and felt the ten-tonne weight which felt like it was sitting directly on his chest ease slightly when she accepted his embrace. He whispered, "Why don't we head home?"

"Ok, Daddy," she replied softly as he felt one of her tears wet his cheek.

***

"How was fishing?" Katherine inquired brightly as they entered the house an hour later.

John only shook his head slightly in response, his eyes flicking briefly in Lena's direction as their daughter passed wordlessly through the kitchen on her way to the stairs so she could shower.

"What happened?" Katherine whispered after Lena was out of earshot.

"I tried my hand at a bit of dad humor, but it went horribly wrong."

"John," she hissed angrily. "You didn't."

"What? We were having a good time, just talking while we enjoyed nature. Then she complained that the fish weren't biting. So, I offered to use her as bait, obviously as a joke. Next thing I know, she's begging me not to stab her with a hook."

"How could you?"

"This is no different from a million other times I've joked around with her. My dad did the same shit with me, I never thought he was serious."

"Don't you remember the time we were up at Daddy's house, and she was running around in the field between the main house and the guest house without her shoes? She stepped on a nail, and we ended up having to take her to get a tetanus shot. She's been terrified of any kind of puncture wound ever since."

"When did that happen?"

"Last summer? I can't believe you don't remember."

"When... exactly."

"I think it was the weekend of the Fourth."

"I spent that whole week in Boston last year, Katherine. Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Oh yeah," she said distractedly before shrugging and adding, "I guess she'd forgotten all about it by the time you got home. That was also the week that Alexandra introduced her troika to the family, so you can see why this might have slipped my mind."

"I really wish it hadn't," John sighed. "There's no way I would have taken her fishing if I knew about it."

She looked at the stairs for a moment before saying, "Why don't we all go out for fish tonight? That should help smooth things over. There's that new fancy milkshake place just up the street from the seafood restaurant off the square. We could make an evening of it."

He sighed and said, "Fine. But I'll have to work double-time to finish everything up before we have to leave. Can you handle the reservation?"

"Sure," she agreed as she pulled her purse across the counter to retrieve her phone.

"Before I commence my labors, any other recent traumas I should know about?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment before shrugging and saying brightly, "Nothing springs to mind."

"Thanks," he muttered as he headed for the mudroom. "You've been very helpful."

***

Things had seemingly improved over the course of the afternoon. Lena had emerged from her shower, her normal cheerful self and had proceeded to invite several of her friends over for a playdate which seemed to be little more than giving each other pointers on how to yell louder.

John spent the afternoon in the yard tackling the seemingly unending list of tasks which needed to be done around the house. He marveled at the fact that there was always so much to do, despite the frankly shocking amount he paid each month for landscaping, pool, and maid services. Whether it was putting together new furniture for the pool deck, or swapping out pear trees for dogwoods, or cleaning the magnolia leaves off the roof of the pool house; there was always more to do than he had time to do it.

His most reviled task was cleaning the gutters. Their charming Cape Cod style house was beautiful to look at, but the steeply pitched roof meant it was impossible to climb up on the roof and handle the job quickly. He was instead forced to ascend and descend an eight-meter extension ladder hundreds of times over the course of an afternoon. It was another job which seemed preposterous to pay the landscapers an extra four-figures to handle in his stead. Until, that is, he started doing said job. At which point he would likely have exchanged a kidney to be able to throw the ladder into a volcano, never to trouble him again.

As he rounded the north face of the house, entering the proverbial home stretch, he glanced across his own backyard and into that of their neighbors. As he did, he remarked inwardly that it had been more than a week since he had seen Thomas, or even his car in the driveway. His neighbor had made a few spectacularly lucrative investments just before the housing market collapse in the Naughties and had gone from moderately successful to in possession of generational wealth in a fortnight. He sat on several boards of directors, mostly VC companies. However, in John's experience, Thomas worked even less than his father-in-law did. While he travelled frequently for his varied financial interests, he was rarely gone more than a few days unless he was vacationing with Hazel.

The thought of his alluringly curvy neighbor caused his gaze to scan once again across the Meade's backyard. Their pool deck was empty, but from his heightened vantage point, he could also see a portion of the private patio which sat just off their master bedroom. The area was surrounded by a two-meter-high privacy fence which hid it from even the second story windows of the Logan's home, but John's vantage point above their roofline gave him an unobstructed view. What he saw there nearly caused him to tumble from the ladder, like an attacker on Helm's Deep who'd been on the receiving end of an elf's arrow.

Hazel was reclined on a lounge chair, soaking up the late afternoon sun. Her golden tresses were fanned out above her, giving her face a supernatural glow. Her skin glistened in the spring sun, although from that distance it was impossible for John to tell if it was due to a sheen of perspiration or an exotic tanning oil which likely smelled incredible. Her bathing suit, such that it was, was a light blue bikini. But he could hardly see it at all considering she was laying on her stomach. Only a whisp of fabric at the base of her spine and another peeking out from between her spread thighs was visible. She was resting on her elbows and John could see over her shoulder that she held an e-reader, but he wondered if part of the reason she was lying in that fashion was simply that her breasts were too large for her to do anything else.

No sooner had he winced at the crudeness of that thought, not to mention the fact that he was, as near as makes no difference, a peeping-Tom, than she caught his attention as she began to roll over.

"Look away," he muttered to himself angrily. "She's your fucking neighbor, not a goddamned showgirl. She's behind a fucking privacy fence for a..."

His words trailed off as her unclothed breasts were revealed for his eyes alone. They were, in a word: spectacular. Not only were they unquestionably, magnificently, incredibly, large, but they also suited her curvy body perfectly right down to her prominent, yet pale, areola. They flowed across her upper chest in a way which left little doubt as to their softness. Her tiny bikini bottoms emphasized the flare of her hips, and the scrap of material left little doubt that she was a careful groomer.

He had seen her unclothed breasts twice previously, each of which was permanently seared into his memory. The first had been less than a month after they had moved in. She had been sunning herself by the pool, much as she was today, and had gotten up from her chair before wrapping a towel around herself. When she noticed him watching, she had winced in embarrassment, her eyes flitting toward Lena, who was trudging around the yard mimicking her father's work. The second had been the wardrobe malfunction in the pool she had reminded him about at the last party. Both of these instances had lasted only a moment, but they still stood out in his memory thanks to her reacting with laughter rather than shame.

His reverie was broken by a report from the portion of his brain responsible for keeping him from walking into traffic, or falling off a ladder, when his 'higher' thought processes were otherwise occupied. The report indicated movement had been spotted. Glancing down, he saw Hazel looking up at him with a coy smile on her face. She waved briefly before laughing audibly when he shook his head, as though to wake himself up.

She looked around momentarily before her smile widened and she reached down to untie her bottoms. She lifted her hips to pull them free and then brazenly spread her legs. Her fingertips grazed over her hairless mons before sliding along her slit. As he watched in awed silence, she slid a hand beneath her thigh to tease along her entrance.

His breath was coming in shallow gasps. He knew he should look away. In fact, he was reasonably certain that he was audibly telling himself to look away. At least, there was definitely someone talking. He just could not be bothered to focus on anything other than the spectacularly curvy body which was obviously being put on display for his enjoyment.

A sharply barked, "John!" from his wife was the last thing he remembered before all of his attention, all of his brainpower, all of his thirty-eight years of experience on the planet; were suddenly dedicated completely to the task of not falling off the ladder.

Nine

"What's the hold-up with the documentation on the failed release?" Ryan asked as he entered John's office without an invitation. He crossed the cramped space to stand before the desk and stared at John pointedly.

John sighed wearily before saving his work. He returned his boss's stare and said, "I told you yesterday it would be done by close-of-business today."

"So, where is it?"

John gestured at his screen and said, "It's ten AM. You'll have it by five."

"Care to give me the condensed version?"

"Not really. The myriad reasons this went off the rails won't fit in a nice little one-line summary. And neither will the changes we'll need to make to keep it from happening again."

"You're not going to ask for more headcount again, are you?"

John quirked an eyebrow and said, "Would it do any good?"

"Not if you hope to have a pleasant annual review next month. You've increased your department's size by eighty percent over the last year. I can't imagine how you could justify needing more people."

John bit back a retort about the fact that the additional headcount Ryan mentioned came through recent acquisitions, meaning they represented a net drain on the department since their inexperience necessitated his legacy staff spend a significant percentage of their time training the new people. Instead, he merely shook his head and said, "I know you won't approve it. I've seen the proposed budget for next year. 'Headcount rightsizing through organic attrition' is an inspired bit of corporate double-speak, even for you."

"Thank you," Ryan enthused, clearly having failed to spot John's sarcasm.

"Well," John drawled lengthily, "I'd better get back to it."

"See that you do. I need that by eleven, rather than five."

"Impossible."

"I thought you said only the worst sort of engineers said anything was impossible."

"That's with respect to solutions in general," John snapped irritably. "But any engineer worth their salt will tell you you're out of your mind if you ask them to do eight hours' worth of work in an hour. That's just a recipe for bad code."

"Regardless, I need it before lunchtime. And then you're on PTO for the rest of the day."

"What?" John asked suspiciously.

"You heard what I said. Apparently, you've been logging too many hours recently."

"Oh. So, the issue isn't how much I work, just if I trip some report HR has set up for people who work more than eighty hours in a week. Sound about right?"

"There's no need to be a dick, John." Ryan snapped. "Just take the rest of the day and recharge a bit. But get the report done first."

Ryan left the office before John could form a reply that did not involve a professionally troublesome amount of profanity.

***

"Did he offer any explanation?" Peter queried two hours later at lunch after hearing of the bizarre change in John's day.

"Nope," John replied, popping the 'p' theatrically before taking another bite of his Pad Thai.

"Did you actually get the report done?"

"Yeah, although I already regret it."

"Why? If anyone deserves a day off, it's you."

"Half day," John corrected. "And every time I finish something in half the time I say it'll take, it creates the impression in people's mind that I'm deliberately padding my estimates."

"Did you?"

"Hell no. I had to pull all my managers off what they were doing to get this done. And there's still plenty missing. I basically had to make do with what amounts to an executive summary."

"Think it'll do the trick?"

"They don't actually care about what went wrong. This is just about checking a box. If we have another release go tits up, it'll come back on me."

"Just like always." John could only nod in reply. Peter knew well the way of things in corporate upper management: successes were the result of all levels of the org structure contributing; blame for failures only went as high as those directly involved. At length, Peter added, "Are you planning on telling me what happened to your eye?"

"Huh?"

"You look like you got sucker punched. What happened, did you forget to duck when you asked Katherine why she couldn't dip into her trust fund if she wanted to redo all the bathrooms again?"

"Do I look insane?" John asked with a chuckle, but he declined to say more. Instead, he focused on savoring the mélange of flavors in his food before belatedly noticing the way Peter was glaring at him. He sighed and said, "I nearly fell off the ladder when I was cleaning the gutters this weekend."

"How do you hurt yourself nearly doing something?"

"Well, I started to fall and then managed to catch myself. But only by grabbing onto the ladder like it was the pole in a fire station. When I did, my face kind of wacked a rung of the ladder. Fortunately, that was the thing that finally arrested by downward velocity."

"Jesus. You're lucky you didn't end up in the hospital. A friend of my father's did that when I was a kid. He was laid up for months." Peter paused for a moment before adding, "So were you trying to reach too far rather than moving the ladder?"

"I wish," John muttered.

"Care to elaborate," Peter finally asked after several minutes of silence.

"Let's just say I deserved what I got and leave it at that."

Peter shook his head in amusement and said, "Not fucking likely. What happened? Did you spot your neighbor with the big tits washing the car, or something?"

"Something like that."

"Come on, man. What are you worried about? I don't even know your neighbor, and you sure as hell know I won't say anything to Katherine."

"You don't even know Katherine," John retorted.

"You're making my point. So... out with it."

"She was sunbathing topless on her patio," John admitted woefully. "Her patio with two-meter-high privacy fencing that you can only see into if you're basically at or above our roofline." He shook his head and added, "I'm such a goddamned creep."

"Is that why you fell, because she caught you?"

"Hardly. She spotted my peeping ass and proceeded to remove her bottoms and start... touching herself."

"Holy shit," Peter breathed. "Are you having an affair?"

"No!" John retorted a bit too loudly. He glanced around guiltily before repeating a whispered, "Fuck no!"

"Does she know that? Maybe you've been leading her on with all your apparently not-so-circumspect leering."

"Fuck you," John hissed. "What would you do if you lived next door to a woman who looked like Kate Upton, and dressed like she was allergic to clothing?"

"Hard to say, although I certainly can't blame you for looking. But you'd better lock that shit down before Katherine notices something."

"Who do you think yelled at me this weekend when I was watching my stacked neighbor finger herself? Why do you think I nearly fell?"

Peter shook his head sympathetically and said, "You're so fucked."

***

John found himself somewhat out of sorts as he pulled his ancient hatchback into the garage following lunch with Peter. Lena had an introductory meeting for swim team after school, so she and Katherine would not be home until after dinner. He thought briefly of heading to his home office and getting some work done despite the mandated PTO, but even a moment's consideration of that course of action turned his stomach. He then had the same sequence of thoughts with respect to his always-full honey-do list.

Ultimately, he pulled a beer from the fridge behind the bar in their basement and made his way to the living room. He pulled out his phone and flipped through the app for the omnipresent video sharing site for a few moments before casting the stream to the screen which could have comfortably pinch-hit as a dining room table for a reasonably large, multi-generation family.

He settled in to enjoy the hoppy beverage in his hand and the concert playing on the screen. One of his guilty pleasures, other than his apparent inability to keep his eyes off his curvy neighbor, was the music genre referred to by its detractors as 'jam band'. He believed there was something inherently magical about its snowflake-like nature. No two shows were ever the same. The songs changed like living beings, adjusting to the energy of the crowd or the presence of a guest performer. And this was above and beyond the fact that the musicianship was world class. Any yokel could pick up a guitar and, with a modicum of practice, teach themselves how to passably play a given tune. But to be so in tune with your craft that you could comfortably play a song in front of thousands of people, despite the fact that neither you nor your bandmates knew how the song was going to go, was something John considered akin to a superpower.

Just as he was nearing the end of his first beer, he heard something which seemed incongruous with the twenty-minute long jam booming from his surround sound system. He paused the stream in time to hear a clear knock at the front door. Sparing a glance at his phone, which had apparently failed in its duty to notify him of any and all intruders, he walked toward the front door.

He pulled the door open just as Hazel started to knock again, causing her to stumble slightly as she struggled to regain her balance on the not insubstantial heels she wore. She smiled at him shyly and smoothed out the alluring dress she wore, but otherwise said nothing. He realized at once she must have stopped by to confront him about his undeniably problematic leering, but her silence told him she was having trouble broaching the subject.

"I know why you're here," he said finally.

A look of surprise flitted across her features before she sighed mightily and said, "Oh, thank God."

They stared at each other apprehensively a moment longer, before he finally blurted out, "Would you like to come in?"

She smiled and nodded, so he waved her inside and led her into the kitchen so she could have a seat on a bar stool. He stood on the opposite side of the counter to give her plenty of space.

She groaned loudly and said, "It's all just so crazy, right?"

"Tell me about it. I never thought this would be me. I mean... fuck. What am I doing? I've got a beautiful wife who I'm crazy about..."

Hazel nodded and said, "She really is incredible, isn't she? She's not really my type, but I could totally see a person being willing to sacrifice vital parts of their anatomy to be with her. But," she added, drawing out the word, "we both know that's not why we're here."

"You're right. This is all on me."

She quirked a puzzled eyebrow and said, "You're hardly the only party involved."

"I know. But I'm the one who fucked up."

"I'm confused," she finally said after another pregnant pause. She glanced down at his beer and said, "Mind if I have one of those to take the edge off?"

"Sure," he agreed. "We've also got wine... or I could make you a cocktail."

"If you're offering..."

"The sky's the limit. Considering everything going on, it's the least I could do."

"Can I have a margarita?"

"Shaken or frozen?"

"Shaken, definitely."

John led her downstairs and began assembling the ingredients from their well-stocked bar. In moments, he was shaking the rapidly chilling concoction. He glanced at her briefly and said, "Salt?"

"Sure."

He prepared a pair of glasses, rimming each before he strained the cocktail into them. He handed her one and took the other for himself. Despite the overt awkwardness of the situation, he could not help but clinking her glass with his own and saying, "Cheers."

"To us," she replied with a shy smile before taking a large sip.

"Careful there," he warned gently. "The tequila flavor is covered up by the lime, but there's plenty in there."

"Good," she declared brightly before finishing the drink. "You ready to get down to business?"

"Right," he sighed. "I guess there's no use delaying the inevitable."

She looked at him queerly and said, "That's a strange way to put it. Just relax, John. I'll take care of everything."

She stood and rounded the bar to confront him. He opened his mouth to apologize for his abhorrent peeping. But, before he could speak, she pulled her dress over her head and dropped it on the bar, leaving her nude except for her heels. She struck a brief pose, placing her hand on her hip and thrusting her chest toward him, before reaching for him. She unfastened his belt and tugged him closer.

She glanced down at her breasts and said, "You can touch them, you know. I know you want to."

She abandoned her attempts to open his trousers and gripped his left hand to move it to her breast. The moment his skin touched her, the moment he felt the heavenly softness of her dizzyingly sized breast, it was as if his entire world stopped. The moment he had shamefully fantasized about (even, appallingly, pleasured himself to) had come to fruition. However, rather than feeling triumphant, he felt sickened.

He jerked his hand back and hissed, "What are you doing?"

The look of happiness on her face vanished, to be replaced with shame. She whispered, "But... I thought..."

"I'm so sorry," he replied mournfully. "I know this is all my fault, but I just can't."

Before he could say more, she snatched her dress off the counter and ran up the stairs.

Ten

"What's wrong now?" Katherine huffed irritably as she cornered John in the kitchen while Lena was bathing.

"What?" he replied defensively.

"You're being weird again."

"That was not my intention," he deflected. "Listen, I've got a lot to do outside."

"But it's already dark out."

"I know, but this project is pretty time sensitive. I've only got a few more hours before the concrete sets."

"Concrete?" she asked in complete confusion. "What, exactly, are you doing?"

"You've been on me to fix the floor of the shed outside. I was forced to take the afternoon off, so I figured I'd get it knocked out."

"You're pouring concrete in the dark?" she asked pointedly.

"Not exactly. There are lights in the shed. In any case, I'm going to get back to it."

He walked away quickly, before she had a chance to ask any additional follow-up questions. He had been engaged in the reckless, and frankly not at all necessary, project since Hazel's departure earlier that afternoon. He could not recall how long he had stood in his bar, frozen in stunned amazement as he tried to process what had happened. But try as he might, he could not come up with a reasonable explanation for how he had led her so profoundly astray.

Unable to make sense of the reality he now inhabited, and also frankly terrified of facing any other humans until he could figure out his error, he had decided to bury himself in his work. He had succeeded, at least until a few moments prior, in avoiding everyone. But the backbreaking work did little to occupy his mind. He thus found himself in a purgatory of confusion and regret as he slowly paved over the hardpacked dirt floor of the shed.

It certainly did not help matters that every time he closed his eyes, or even stared at the increasingly featureless expanse of concrete as he troweled it smooth, he saw Hazel's staggeringly curvy nude body as she stood before him with a hungry expression in her eyes. Despite his near-constant and wholly unforgiveable leering, John had never had an appetite for infidelity. He considered himself a man of his word, and his vow to remain true to Katherine was sacred. Furthermore, he considered himself to be a happily married man. Katherine was a good partner, a good mother and a good lover. He knew he had all he had ever hoped for in life. So why, he wondered, was he so desperate to get a peek at his voluptuous neighbor that he had given her the impression that he was willing to destroy his marriage for a quick roll in the hay. He was unable to even contemplate the question of why she would be willing to entertain such a notion. He would have an easier time explaining relativity to his daughter.

It took John several minutes to come to the realization that the floor of the shed was complete and he was just making things worse by continuing to trowel the frozen-pond-like texture. He took a few moments to put his tools away and shut off all the lights before looking toward his house with a modicum of trepidation. He knew he had to return, and that doing something childish like sleeping in the guest room would only increase Katherine's suspicion.

He entered the house quietly and listened for a moment. It quickly became clear that Katherine was upstairs, likely watching TV in bed. He headed in that direction, hoping to take advantage of their master suite's layout to make it from the door, to his closet, to the bathroom without her noticing. He managed the feat, likely aided by the fact that she was apparently watching a show which involved extended noisy scenes of brutality.

He closed the door softly and started the shower. The heated water should have relieved his aching muscles, but he barely felt it. The overwhelming... domestic-ness... of his home filled him with guilt. His daughter was sleeping peacefully down the hall while his wife watched a show in the bed as she waited for his return. She might have even harbored thoughts of shared intimacy. How, he raged silently, could he face her after all he had done. Would he even be able to perform if she wanted to make love?

These thoughts stood in stark juxtaposition with his raging erection, which had been nearly omnipresent since Hazel's proposition. He could not purge the sight of her magnificence from his mind: her wide hips; her smooth mound which served to highlight, rather than conceal, her pouty lower lips; her beautiful tummy; her strong thighs; her magnificent, astounding, overwhelming breasts; her model-perfect face.

Unable to deny himself any longer, John took himself in his hand and started angrily stroking himself. His shame consumed him, but he continued, nonetheless. His mind quickly filled with fantasies of his curvy neighbor: her hungry eyes as she took his manhood in her mouth; the surge of her titanic tits as he sheathed himself in her velvety heat; the jiggle of her rounded ass as he sank his cock into the forbidden paradise of her puckered star; the playful smile she offered him after he had coated her face in his cum as she licked her lips coquettishly while thick globules dripped from her chin onto her breasts.

He came with a quickness that surprised him; no more able to suppress the groan which escaped his lips than he had been able to tear his gaze from Hazel's teasing fingers as she pleasured herself for his eyes. Countless jets of his pleasure splashed against the shower wall as he erupted to the forbidden thoughts of his alluring neighbor. When he was spent, he stood panting in the shower for several minutes before quickly washing himself and shutting off the water.

He exited to find Katherine leaning against the counter watching him with a suspicious expression. She regarded him for several moments before saying, "You're sure everything is all right?"

"Yes," he stammered as he yanked a towel from the bar to cover his still turgid erection.

"Were you... masturbating?"

"I... um..."

"It's ok, John. It's not like you were cheating on me if you did. I'm certain you know what the, um... items, in the locked drawer of my bedside table are for."

"I don't actually. It never occurred to me to ask."

"That's beside the point," she said quickly. She stared at him for several moments before saying, "Well?"

"Well, what?" he asked, his dread at this point nearly overwhelming him.

"Were you masturbating?"

"Yes," he admitted morosely.

"As I said, its fine." She paused again before saying, "To what?"

"Huh?"

"What were you thinking about when you masturbated?"

"I was... um..."

"Were you thinking about Hazel?"

"What!" he exclaimed far too loudly.

"I see you looking at her, John. I'm not blind." He deflated in defeat and slumped against the door to the shower. "Last weekend, when you were watching her sunbathe, was she topless?"

"How did you..."

"Why else would you have been staring into their private patio for ten minutes without moving?"

"She was nude," he admitted.

"Do you want to sleep with her?"

"No," he answered quickly and, he hoped, honestly.

"Are you sure?" she asked pointedly. She glanced down at his midsection to make her point.

"Yes," he replied firmly. "You're the only woman for me."

She continued to regard him intently for another minute before saying, "Get dressed," and walking from the room.

He dressed quickly, having no desire to prolong the inevitable. Upon entering their bedroom, he found her sitting lotus style in the middle of their bed. He stopped at the foot of the bed and tried to discern her expression. After a moment's consideration, he was surprised to realize that he could find no hint of anger, or even disappointment. In their place was careful consideration, not unlike a politician who had just been asked a difficult question by a member of the press.

At length, she said, "Have you ever heard of a hall pass?" He kept any quip about what Lena might say in response to that question to himself and merely nodded. "So, if you had five free passes, who would they be?"

"I don't want any free passes, Katherine. I just want you."

"Come on, John. Just play along. I'll go first to prove I'm not trying to trap you. Val Linten."

"Who?" he asked, caught off guard by the fact that she had not named a heartthrob celebrity.

"It's stupid to list famous people," she replied to his unspoken question. "Even if I did ever meet them, they almost certainly wouldn't turn out to be the person I would have envisioned. You have to use people you actually know. In Val's case, he's someone I met at Georgia. We were in student government together and... goodness was he easy on the eyes."

John shuddered involuntarily at the mention of his alma mater's hated rival before saying, "How come I've never met him?"

"He moved to New Hampshire with his now husband shortly after graduation. I invited him to our wedding, but he had a prior engagement."

"I see," he said carefully.

"So now it's your turn. You can name anyone you like. I won't be angry."

"Megan Karson. She was the head cheerleader in high school. If the latest newsletter is to be believed, she went on to become a congresswoman's wife in California."

Katherine nodded agreeably and said, "Now that we've gotten the wholly unattainable, for reasons of sexual orientation, acquaintances out of the way... I'll say... Henry Page."

"Your ex?" John asked in amazement.

"Why not? You know you were my first. Henry certainly wasn't husband material, but I always wondered what it would have been like if I'd given in and just slept with him once. I would certainly never jeopardize our marriage to find out, but we are talking about hall passes here. Who's next for you? Perhaps a certain very buxom neighbor?"

He nearly took the bait, thanks in part to the playful expression on her face and the admissions she had made thus far. But his fear got the better of him and he said, "Octavia Monroe. She was the recording secretary in student government the year I was president. We never dated, but it wasn't for lack of me asking her out."

"Was she pretty?"

"She looked a lot like you, in fact."

"You're not playing by the rules, John. This isn't a trap... and we're not in feudal England. It's ok if you look at a pretty woman." She glanced at his midsection and added, "It's even ok if you pleasure yourself thinking about them. Would it shock you to find out that I pleasured myself recently to thoughts of the man from the show I was just watching?"

"Not particularly. He's quite a specimen."

"So is Hazel."

"Why does this keep coming back to her?"

"Because I see you looking at her, John," she replied wearily. "And because this little exercise is only fun if you're honest. Ok, last one." She paused for so long he thought she might have changed her mind, but she finally blurted out, "Thomas."

His mouth dropped open in stunned amazement, but he quickly rallied and said, "I can see that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's almost certainly the most handsome man I've ever seen. Including celebrities. I told Hazel at our last party that he was basically a sentient sexual orientation test."

"What an interesting way to put it."

She stared at him expectantly, and he ultimately caved to the inevitable and said, "Fine. It's Hazel."

"I knew it!" she exclaimed.

"I haven't slept with her, Katherine," he told her through gritted teeth. "And I never will."

"Why not. By the hall pass rules, you could do so without repercussion."

"That was a game."

She stared at him for a moment before softly saying, "But... what if it wasn't."

"Are you saying you want to have sex with Thomas?"

"As you said, he's very handsome."

"This isn't fair, Katherine. And you fucking know it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she retorted uncertainly.

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever known. Super models stumble when you walk past because they're so devastated to realize that you do effortlessly what they focus the entirety of their being trying to attain."

"I appreciate the compliment, but I fail to see..."

"I'm a middle-aged, prematurely grey, lump of nothing. You outclass every woman I listed, but I can't hold a candle to anyone you listed."

"That's not true," she said warmly. "You're amazing, and I'm lucky to have you."

He stared at her for several moments before sighing and saying, "I appreciate you saying that. But it doesn't change the fact that, with the possible exception of the guy with a husband, you could likely attract anyone on your list into bed. Whereas none of the women I listed would give me the time of day."

"Hazel would," she retorted quickly. "In fact, I suspect she would respond rather favorably to any advances you made."

The memory of Hazel's magnificently nude form, eagerly trying to free his swelling hardness, sprang instantly to the forefront of his mind. He angrily shook the vision away and said, "This is a silly game. I'm your husband, Katherine. You're the only woman for me."

"So, if you weren't confined by the bonds of holy matrimony, you'd sleep with Hazel?"

"This isn't about superstition, Katherine. It's about honor and duty. I gave you my word that I would remain faithful. I don't take such a commitment lightly, and I have no intention of casting it aside just because we happen to have attractive neighbors. You're my wife, and not a day goes by when I don't give thanks for the life we have. I have no intention of jeopardizing that for anything. Including Hazel."

Eleven

"You're still here?" Peter queried from John's office door. "I thought you would have learned your lesson about working so many hours."

John glanced at the ceiling of his office and said, "They can bitch all they want about the hours, but as long as they continue to expect innovation to continue at this pace, I can't really see an alternative."

"But you've been here late every day this week. I know you guys finally got that release done on Tuesday, so what else are y'all working on that's so goddamned urgent?"

"KTLO," John replied, using the acronym for 'keeping the lights on'. "Just because we finally got the new version released doesn't mean my actual job as head of this division goes away. Annual reviews are due by the end of June and my directors are swamped. So, I'm helping them out."

Peter shook his head and said, "This company doesn't deserve you. I'm going to head out, but you should pay attention to the clock. I'm telling Quentin at the security desk that I left some cabbage and bratwurst for him in the fridge up here. He goes on break in an hour. I suggest you be elsewhere when he does."

"Where in the hell did you get that?" John asked with a grin. "You hate cabbage."

"Picked it up while I was out getting dinner," Peter replied jovially. "Go home!"

"Good night!" John said forcefully without his smile fading. As Peter headed down the hall, John called out a parting, "Asshole!"

"Oh, hello Eunice," Peter said from the hall.

John sprang from his chair and rushed out into the hall to apologize to the sixty-two-year-old, devoutly Christian mother of two who worked in accounts receivable. When he got to her desk, however, he found an empty chair and a comatose computer. He stared down the hall in time to see the elevator doors closing on Peter.

Just before they closed, John's friend shouted, "Go home!"

"Dick," John muttered as he returned to his office.

He considered his friend's advice as he stared at the decidedly not-urgent work on his monitor. Since the ill-fated conversation about hall passes five days prior, John had found every possible excuse to get out of the house. Whether it was 'urgent' work at the office, doing every chore he could think of which required his going somewhere or an impromptu camping trip with Lena the previous weekend; he had not spent more than a few hours with Katherine since their 'talk'. And what time he did spend with her was always in Lena's presence. He knew his behavior was, at best, childish and, at worst, profoundly damaging to his marriage, but he could not shake the feeling of dread which permeated his soul whenever he thought about his wife of nine years.

Ultimately, he came to the realization that every day since the conversation had been worse than the day before, and that he would descend into madness if things continued along their present trajectory. He gathered his belongings and was in his trusty hatchback three minutes later.

He heard a chirp from his phone as he came to a halt at a traffic light and peeked over to discover that Katherine had replied in the affirmative to the text he had sent when leaving the office asking if he should pick up dinner. He pulled into one of the restaurants she preferred and exchanged a frankly shocking amount of currency for a large sack of Mediterranean-themed food. Upon pulling into their garage, he took a last calming breath before hefting their dinner and heading inside.

Dinner was a sedate affair with Lena taking point on their conversation. He learned that she had befriended the new child in school. Lena explained that her new friend, Casey, had not chosen their gender identity and was referred to as 'they'. His daughter was filled with questions, which John and Katherine combined to attempt to answer. He was relieved, however, to find that her questions came from a perspective of genuine curiosity rather than being tinged with biases which might have rubbed off from her classmates or teachers.

Their conversation continued long after the dishes had been cleared, but at a certain point Katherine noticed the clock and said, "Oh, honey. You've got to get in the shower or you'll miss your bedtime."

Within seconds, John and Katherine had gone from fully focused on Lena to staring awkwardly at each other. At length, he stood and said, "I'll clean up."

She nodded and said, "I'll make sure she's got everything ready for the morning. Why don't we say meet up in the bar in twenty."

She said the last as she departed the room, offering no room for rebuttal. He resigned himself to yet another awkward exchange and set about the task of returning the kitchen and breakfast room to their formerly pristine state.

Katherine came down the stairs right on time and moved to pour herself a glass of wine. She waggled the bottle at him questioningly, but he held up his cocktail by way of refusal. She moved to join him on the couch, sitting on the opposite side but turning her body so she was facing him.

She shook her head somberly and said, "I had hoped our little chat the other night would be something fun for both of us."

"I know. But my word isn't something I take lightly."

"There are different ways to be a good husband, John. Don't you think I'd prefer to be married to a man who provides for his family, and dotes on his daughter, and treats his wife like a queen; all while occasionally enjoying some discrete adult-oriented fun with the busty blonde next door? I can tell you that the answer is most certainly yes when compared to a man who never strays but resents his wife and ignores his daughter."

"But that isn't the choice you're making, Katherine. I'm not going to cheat on you or be anything less than the best father I can be for Lena."

"I know," she replied dejectedly. "But you could have more. I see how hard you work, honey. I just want you to be happy."

"Then let's never talk about this again."

She sank back into the couch with a weary sigh. She sat quietly for several minutes before whispering, "I can't do that."

"Why?" he replied angrily. "Look. I'm sorry about all the leering. I know it was shitty of me and I genuinely regret it. I promise it won't happen again."

"Oh, John," she huffed. "That's not the problem."

"Then what is it? It feels like we've been going around and around about this for weeks. I swear on my eyes that I'm not having an affair."

"I know Hazel was here the other day, John. The day you were given part of the day off. I know she was here for a while, and that she was still putting her dress back on when she left." He opened his mouth to speak, but she stilled him with a look and said, "I saw it on the doorbell camera."

"Nothing happened, Katherine."

"Then why was she putting her dress back on?"

He dropped his eyes to his feet and muttered, "Because she tried to seduce me. But I refused her."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he huffed. "I guess it was on account of all my goddamned leering. Which, again, I regret in the strongest possible terms and definitely won't allow to happen again. But I did refuse her, Katherine."

"Did you touch her?"

He nodded tiredly and said, "After a fashion. She placed my hand on one of her breasts when I was still in shock from her having removed her dress. But I immediately withdrew it and told her that it could not happen. Then... she left."

"Did she touch your penis?"

"No," he stated firmly.

She groaned loudly and muttered, "Why do you have to be so damned noble?"

"Thank you?"

"I hardly meant it as a compliment. You've complicated things significantly."

"I'm so fucking lost."

"You were supposed to have sex with her."

"No, I wasn't. Because she's not my wife."

Katherine shook her head, her increasing frustration evident in every move she made. "You were supposed to have sex with her so you couldn't get upset that I slept with Thomas."

"Yeah, right," he muttered.

"I'm serious, John. Thomas and I had sex."

He stared at her in abject confusion, unable to force her words to have meaning. He felt a sense of detachment, as though he was no longer at one with his body but had instead been relegated to a mere passenger. As if to emphasize the surrealness of the moment, he heard his voice speaking despite the fact that his mind had yet to succeed in forming coherent words, much less thoughts.

"Did you use protection?"

"What did you say?"

"A condom. It prevents pregnancy and disease."

"I know what a condom is," she snapped angrily.

"Did you use one?"

"I don't remember."

"That's a hell of a thing to not remember."

"Is that really the most important question right now?"

He glared at her and said, "What would you have me ask? Why were you willing to sacrifice everything we have for a roll in the hay? Do you intend to replace me with him? If so, what do both he and his wife think of that strategy? Do you still love me? Check that... did you ever love me?"

"Don't be so dramatic," she drawled.

"Dramatic!" he exploded. "You don't think the news that my wife fucked another man calls for me to be a bit disappointed?"

"I don't think it calls for yelling. I already told you I wouldn't have been upset if you had slept with Hazel."

"That was only because you wanted an emotional force field to insulate you from what you'd already done. You cannot expect me to believe that if I'd come to you a year ago and told you I'd slipped and stuck my dick in Hazel, you'd have been so blasé about it."

"I really think you need to calm down," she retorted angrily. "I recognize this is likely a shock, but I won't stand for you disrespecting me."

He took several deep breaths before whispering, "Are you... completely insane?" She opened her mouth to reply, but he held an angry finger up to cut her off. "Disrespect?" he seethed. "You think I..." he jabbed a finger into his chest for emphasis, "am disrespecting you? I'm not the one who fucked the fucking neighbor."

She stood quickly and said, "You need to control your tone, sir. I am still your wife, and I will not permit you to treat me like this."

"You're assuming that I'm just going to accept this?"

She frowned momentarily before saying, "Huh?"

"You've destroyed our marriage, Katherine."

"How do you figure?"

"You had sex with another man..." he paused and said, "When?"

"Oh..." she pondered for a moment and said, "The last time was... um... yesterday."

"This happened more than once?"

"Of course," she replied reasonably.

"For how long?"

"Oh, since before our vacation. I think a month or so."

"How are you being so nonchalant about this? We're talking about the end of our marriage and you're acting..."

"What?" she hissed, a look of righteous indignation invading her features. "Who said anything about divorce?"

"I did. You've been fucking our neighbor for months. That's the kind of things people do when they consider a marriage to have run its course and they're looking for the new hotness."

"Get this straight, John," she growled through clenched teeth. "No one is getting divorced."

"You act like this is entirely your decision."

"That's because it is. And if you say the word divorce again, I'll make you regret ever having been born. I mean... how dare you. You should be falling over yourself to beg me to stay with you, no matter who I choose to have sex with. You're nothing without me. I made you."

John would later give thanks that she chose to stalk from the room at this point, as it left him only able to wonder what likely regrettable thing he would have done next had she remained.

Twelve

"I don't want to go camping again, Daddy," Lena complained. "There's too many bugs."

John groaned inwardly but refused to let his frustration show on his face. "Ok. What should we do then?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe we could ask Mommy."

"I think Mommy's busy this weekend. How about we go to the aquarium. I think they have a new dolphin exhibit."

"I. Love. Dolphins," Lena whispered reverently.

"I know. Why don't we make a weekend of it? We can even stay in a fancy hotel downtown."

"Will Mommy come?"

"Not this time, sweetheart."

"I wouldn't want Mommy to feel lonely if we were gone again."

"I'm sure she won't feel lonely. Why don't you go pack a suitcase? Make sure to pack your special pajamas and to bring your dolphin from our trip."

"Ok, Daddy," she agreed finally before galloping upstairs to pack a bag.

John contented himself with making the necessary reservations on his phone while hurrying to pack his own bag. He had no idea where his wife was, although he had several grim suspicions along that front. He had returned to the guest room, which he was seriously considering re-naming 'his' room, after Katherine had detonated his world by admitting her affair. In the three days since that conversation, he had only seen Katherine in the morning before Lena left. He had not spoken to her at all.

He suspected that his wife held it as a given that he would never dare to divorce her. Whether this was due to her not-insubstantial wealth or her undeniable beauty, he could not say. He was certain, however, that she would be thunderstruck if he served her with divorce papers. The fact that she would respond to such an act on his part the way the US responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor was not what had kept him, thus far, from contacting a lawyer. His reason for choosing patience was busily packing a suitcase and looking forward to a weekend with her Daddy, and John knew it would take a lot more than an angry, unfaithful spouse to make him give up time with his daughter.

There had still been no sign of Katherine when they left twenty minutes later. John managed to avoid looking for her car in Thomas and Hazel's driveway only through a monumental act of willpower. He did, however, send a terse text to his wife informing her of his plans. He expected no response, but he had recently been contemplating many concepts, such as co-parenting and custody, which would have been unthinkable as little as a week prior. He thus felt it necessary he never allow his wife to get the impression he was in any way trying to hoard time with Lena.

***

Sunday afternoon found a pleasantly sunburned John tapping away on his laptop while he watched Lena play in the shallow end of the pool. Despite the fact that she swam like she was part-dolphin, she was still never permitted in the pool enclosure without supervision. This arrangement suited him perfectly, however, as it allowed her to enjoy the pool while he still managed to get some work done.

Their weekend had, thus far, surpassed his wildest expectations. They had spent the better part of two days at the aquarium doing everything one could do with the dolphins short of spending a decade in school to gain a doctorate in marine biology. The previous night had provided an unexpected treat when John noticed a band setting up on the stage in the large park-like area which both the aquarium and their hotel abutted. They had wandered over and discovered that there was a free concert happening in a few short hours. John had hustled Lena back to their room so she could grab a quick nap before their evening adventure. They stopped at a sandwich place to grab food and ate on the lawn as the band warmed up. Once the show started, John lifted Lena onto his shoulders and waded into the crowd.

He was unsure how much she enjoyed the actual music, but it was obvious that she had greatly enjoyed the concert experience. By the end of the show, she was gaily dancing with the mid-forties faux-hippies and college-aged hipsters scattered across the lawn, a huge smile never leaving her face.

They had slept in the next morning before he introduced her to the concept of brunch, something which he later recognized would be completely baffling when one had the metabolism of a hummingbird. In her mind, only a complete fool would skip breakfast, and lunch was when it was acceptable to eat chips (one of her most favorite snacks) no matter what the entre happened to be.

John's attention was pulled away from his inbox, which continued to replenish itself like a bewitched wine goblet, by a chirp from his phone. He glanced at it to see a notification that someone was at his front door. But since the app almost never worked properly, he only saw a 'video processing' message when he tried to see who, or what, was there.

"Need you to hop out for a second, Lena. Someone's at the door."

"Ok, Daddy. I'm kind of tired. I think I'm going to go take a shower."

"Sounds good. When you're done, we can talk about what you're going to cook us for dinner."

"Daddy!" she exclaimed. "I'm too small to make dinner."

"You've got to learn sometime, squirt. Go get cleaned up, and we'll see what we can throw together."

Lena headed upstairs as John walked to the front door. The smile left his face immediately, however, when he saw who was standing on their front porch.

Hazel sighed upon spotting his expression and said, "We need to talk."

"Ok," he replied carefully. He waited for several moments before adding, "So... talk."

"Can I come in?"

"My daughter's home."

She frowned and said, "I'm not here to make you, or her, uncomfortable, John. I promise I'll be quick."

He shrugged and walked toward the kitchen. He heard the door close behind him and, for a brief moment, hoped she had given up and returned home. His hopes were dashed, however, when he reached the kitchen and heard her pull out a stool.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out as though the words had been on the tip of her tongue for as long as she had been capable of speech.

"I'm sorry too," John agreed.

She grimaced at him and said, "You're not the only victim here, John. My husband is also putting me through hell."

"Keep it down," he hissed, his eyes flitting toward the stairs where he could hear water running for Lena's shower.

"Sorry," she whispered contritely. "My point is, I never meant for any of this to happen."

"Then why did you..." John began, but his words were cut off by the sound of the garage door opening.

Hazel looked around worriedly, but John could only sigh in resignation. Katherine entered the house moments later and a smile bloomed on her face when she noticed Hazel's presence.

"You finally came around," she said brightly to John.

"First off," he began quietly, the rage he felt roiling within him plainly evident with each syllable he spoke. "Lena is upstairs showering; I suspect with the door open. So, everyone's going to keep their goddamned voices down. Clear?" Hazel nodded solemnly, whereas Katherine merely shrugged. He continued, "Secondly, you assume too much Katherine. Hazel just stopped by to apologize for her role in destroying my marriage. I assume she'll now be on her way."

"But..." Hazel began, but Katherine cut her off saying, "No. Stay. There's something I think we should all discuss. Perhaps downstairs?"

Katherine walked from the room, her somewhat regal nature leaving little doubt that she expected her companions to follow unquestioningly. Hazel sighed wearily and stood to follow. John trotted upstairs to check on Lena and, upon finding her loudly singing to herself as she dried off, explained that he would be downstairs if she needed anything.

He found Katherine and Hazel on opposite sides of the bar, facing off like jousters on anxiously prancing chargers. He entered and grabbed a beer for himself before hopping up on the counter. His eyes hopped between the two women several times. The tension was thick enough that John wondered how none of them was having trouble breathing.

At length, Katherine burst out, "This is so stupid!"

"You're not wrong," John drawled before taking another pull off his beer.

"You two are so horny for each other it's a wonder you can even be in the same room without someone fainting. Why don't you just make each other happy?"

"You're just trying to give yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card for your own infidelity," John observed wryly.

"What's wrong with that?" Katherine grumbled. "I didn't want anyone to get hurt. It all seemed so simple. You two couldn't keep your eyes off each other and Thomas and I recognized a similar mutual attraction. What's wrong with all of us having a little fun? It's a total win-win. Or it would be if you two would just admit what is plain for anyone to see."

"Things are no longer that simple, Katherine. As I'm sure you know."

"But only because my husband apparently harbors a latent obsession with ancient religions. No one is going to hell if we engage in a little innocent swapping. We'll just have some fun for a while."

John drained his beer before leveling Katherine with a steely glare. "Let's say, for a minute, that I would be onboard with such a scheme. This is something you talk about with your spouse before you fuck the neighbor."

"What would it have mattered?" she retorted dismissively.

"We could have all agreed on the ground rules at the outset," Hazel offered.

John glared at her and said, "Like you weren't in on this from the beginning..."

"I was not consulted before they began the affair," Hazel stated defensively. "Although I suspect I knew about it before you did."

"Lucky me. I'm the last one to get told."

"Thomas did not tell me, unless you count me finding him balls deep in your wife four weeks ago in the pool house."

"Watch your language," Katherine hissed. "My daughter is upstairs."

"Four weeks?" John asked lamely.

"That was only when I first caught them," Hazel replied. "But I did not get the impression that was their first time."

"How so?" John could no more have stopped himself from asking for clarification than he could have hung from the ceiling by his toenails.

"You don't say things like, 'suck my cock the way you know I like it' on your first time out."

"That'll be quite enough," Katherine interjected snippily. "It's irrelevant how long Thomas and I have been sleeping together since you two will enjoy the same opportunity."

"I don't know how to say this so that it'll get through to you Katherine, but I'm not cheating on you."

"Surely you realize how ridiculous you sound. How is it cheating if I'm approving, insisting even, that you do it?"

"It's not up to you."

"We'll see," she enthused dismissively. "In any case, I'm off."

"Dare I ask where to?"

"Thomas is taking me to New York for the week."

"What about Lena?"

"If you're too busy to deal with her, my mother said she could watch her."

"She knows about all this?" John asked in amazement. His mother-in-law had always struck him as the epitome of prim and proper. So much so that he was genuinely amazed the woman had demonstrably, thanks to the existence of her daughters, had sex three times in her life.

"Of course not. Don't be a fool."

"Then what'd you tell her?"

"I hardly need an excuse to take some 'me time' to enjoy a bit of shopping and fine dining," she reminded him.

"What am I supposed to do?" Hazel asked mousily.

"Thomas didn't mention the trip to you?"

"No," she replied primly. "He did not."

"He's at the house now if you want to try to catch him before the limo arrives."

Hazel stood and nodded frostily at Katherine. She then turned to John and, after a few moments' consideration, said, "I really am sorry about... everything. I wish..." she paused, sniffling softly before somberly adding, "Goodbye," and walking from the room.

"You could make her very happy, John," Katherine observed softly.

He glared at her for several moments before saying, "This isn't a game, Katherine. Real people are getting hurt just so you can scratch this itch, or whatever it is you're doing."

"Don't try to deny how much you wanted her before I beat you to the punch. You're just upset I got there first. Besides, you two are only miserable because you won't make her, and yourself happy. You've only got yourself to blame for how you're feeling right now," she retorted before following Hazel up the stairs.

"Don't forget to say goodbye to Lena before you leave," he called after her.

He then pulled another beer from the fridge and walked over to the couch where he sat for several hours without getting any closer to a solution to the profound mess his life had become.

Thirteen

"Single parents should have a shrine built in their honor," John grumbled quietly before draining what remained of his coffee.

"What'd you say Daddy?" Lena inquired sweetly from the backseat as John inched forward in the car-rider line.

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart. Do you have all your stuff together?"

She held up her lunchbox, backpack, and ukulele case (because, of course, her school had made available a program to learn to play the most random possible instrument... he was honestly grateful that they had not picked the accordion). Once John pulled up to the front of her school, she leapt from the car like a paratrooper when the green light illuminated.

"Have-a-good-day-I-love-you," John yelped as a helpful teacher slammed the car door.

He made his way through what remained of the early morning school-zone traffic before heading to his office for another sure-to-be-miserable day. Katherine's disappearance had necessitated that he reorganize his schedule so all his in-person meetings took place during the handful of hours Lena was in school, leaving all other work to be done after she went to bed, or to be delegated to a worthy subordinate.

He had tried to dismiss the tiny voice in his head which attempted to point out that he was far happier with this schedule than he had been working ten-to-twelve hours a day in the office, even though he was arguably working more net hours. He had spent more time with his daughter since returning from their vacation than he had in the six months before that. He was also able to admit that his team was proving far more adept at absorbing the work he was offloading to them than he had feared. The only downside to his modified schedule, and the thing he could not help but dread, was the fact that he invariably spent at least five straight hours in back-to-back meetings. He had remarked to one of his directors the previous day that, were this sort of schedule imposed on someone, rather than him taking it on willingly, it would be in violation of a whole host of international laws and customs.

Since Lena was attending her after-school music program, he could stay at the office until four. He thus managed to indulge in such untold luxuries as 'lunch' and 'using the bathroom when necessary'. He was on the way back to his office after taking advantage of the latter when he was waylaid by someone proposing the former.

"Hey boss!" Dewey called out exuberantly. "Or I guess I should call you 'former boss'."

John slowed and turned to face his erstwhile employee. "Morning. How are things in sales?"

"Great! I stopped by hoping I could take you to lunch."

"Why not," he agreed after a brief hesitation.

They chose a small deli across the street from the skyscraper which housed their corporate headquarters. As they took their seats, John said, "How's Amanda?"

"She's awesome," he replied reverently. "She's at thirty weeks and she's never been more beautiful."

"That's great to hear. Pregnancy treating her all right? This is y'all's first, right?"

"Yup, first of many. She's doing pretty good. Doc put her on bed rest a couple months ago because she was getting these special pregnancy cramps real bad."

"Braxton-Hicks?"

"Yeah, that sounds right. Doc said she should be fine, but he wanted to do everything he could to keep the baby from being born prematurely."

"Sounds prudent. So, she's been on bed rest since the beginning of the second trimester? I'm sure that's been rough."

"Sure, but she's a trooper."

"Likely pretty hard on you as well."

"I ain't complaining. She's got the hard job. All I have to do is take care of her and our baby."

"Good man."

"But you're not lying about it being a challenge sometimes. I really do appreciate you hooking me up with this job in sales. I was just so lost in product."

"I'm hearing good things from the director over there. Keep it up."

"I definitely will. I have to be honest though, I was surprised you recommended me to them. I know I didn't do great in Product."

"It was actually the suggestion of a friend. She reminded me that sometimes people struggle because they don't care, but far more often it's because of something beyond their control."

"It's just that I never considered sales as an option for me," Dewey continued, as though he had not heard his former boss's comment. "My ex always told me I would be terrible at anything like that."

"Why would she say that?"

"I didn't always have the best luck keeping jobs when we were together. I guess you could say it was one of the things that drove us apart."

"I'm sorry to hear that," John said supportively. "But I guess it's for the best since you're with Amanda now."

"I know it," Dewey enthused. "She was the one who saved me after things fell apart with my ex."

"That's wonderful."

"Yeah. I had gotten this fancy sales job, which my ex said I'd never keep. But I worked my tail off and came home at the end of the first quarter with a five-figure commission check. Turns out that wasn't the best strategic move as she filed for divorce the next week and used that check to convince the judge I made ten times as much as I actually did. So now I pay her thirty-five hundred dollars a month in alimony."

"Jesus," John breathed. "That must be half your paycheck."

"More. That's one of the reasons I was so desperate to keep this job."

John regarded him for a moment before saying, "Forgive me for asking, but how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You always seem so, forgive the phrasing, happy-go-lucky. Don't take this this wrong way, but I had you figured for a newlywed who spent more time with his frat brothers than his wife... and who could still drink an aging rock star under the table."

"I gave all that up when I met Amanda," he replied with a contented grin. "I've caught some bad breaks, made some bad choices, but at the end of the day all that matters is whether or not you're happy. Things like anger... fear... resentment? That shit just eats you up inside until you're all used up."

"That sounds familiar," John said with a smirk.

"That doesn't mean it's wrong," Dewey observed sagely.

***

As John and Lena pulled into the neighborhood following a post-music practice dinner of sushi and green tea ice cream, he spotted Hazel carrying a box to a beat-up pickup truck in her driveway. He shepherded Lena inside and got her started on her shower, but he could not get the questions he had regarding Hazel's activities out of his head.

Alongside those questions was the memory of just how stark the difference had been between her and Katherine when they had 'talked' earlier that week. His wife had been perplexed, but ultimately indifferent. Her behavior had been indistinguishable from what one would expect about a conversation about what side dish went best with grilled salmon.

Hazel, on the other hand, had seemed genuinely contrite about her part in the upheaval which John's life had undergone. But, more than that, he realized in hindsight that she had acted utterly defeated. He had been operating under the belief that he had stood in opposition to the trifecta of his wife and his neighbors. Yet Hazel's behavior could not have been more different than Katherine's. Curiosity bloomed within him. He maintained the belief that rendering judgement on someone while in possession of only one side of the story was the conduct of zealots and weaklings.

In that moment, John realized he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whether it came in the form of the arrival of some crucial piece of information he would need to achieve full understanding of everyone's motivations, or just an unprompted epiphany on his own part, he could not say. What he did know was that Hazel had been a good friend to him since they had first met three years prior. And she had, at worst, imperiled his marriage by paying him one of the most sincere compliments a woman can offer a man. At best she was just as much a victim as he was, having been manipulated into being made to seem the villain.

He chuckled to himself with the realization that the epiphany he had not realized he was awaiting had indeed arrived. He hurried upstairs to tuck Lena in and activated the monitoring app on his phone so he could listen in on her room before exiting through his front door. He quickly spotted the old pickup, its bed now filled nearly to the brim with a motley assortment of trash bags. He made his way to the truck indirectly, even the knowledge that his neighbor was likely balls deep in his wife at that very moment not being grounds to violate the sanctity of a man's landscaping.

Hazel exited the house as he approached, but she did not spot him right away. He was thus faced with the age-old quandary of a man approaching a woman in near total darkness: how to make his presence known without startling her. John opted for the pianissimo approach, waiting until she was a few meters away before softly saying, "Evening."

His failure was easy to spot. She yelped in fright and dropped the box she had been carrying as she looked around frantically. She glared at him and barked, "Jesus, John."

"Sorry," he said with a helpless shrug. He glanced at the truck and said, "What are you doing?"

"What do you care?" she retorted angrily, her bitterness dripping from every syllable.

"What do you want me to say? I'm sorry? I'm not the one who tried to blow up someone's marriage."

She glanced at her house sullenly and said, "Talk about the wrong thing to say."

"What are you doing, Hazel?" he repeated.

She fixed him with a steady glare and said, "Thomas is divorcing me."

With the benefit of hindsight, it was obvious John could have chosen his words better. In fact, he would later come to the realization that he could have set his entire team working for an entire fiscal quarter, and none of them would have come up with a response worse than what he unthinkingly uttered.

"Why?"

Hazel groaned in frustration and barked, "That's a dumb fucking question, John."

"I meant... when did he... no... where... how... fuck. I'm sorry, Hazel."

"It's not your problem."

He sighed and said, "I know things have gotten really complicated recently. But I always considered you a friend. Can't we just put all this weirdness aside for a bit?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

"Tell me what's going on."

"He served me today, at his fucking tennis club of all places. Can't ever go there again. Thanks, Mr. Perfect."

"In hindsight, that moniker seems particularly regrettable."

"You think?"

"You still haven't told me what you're doing."

"He's divorcing me, John. That traditionally means someone has to move the fuck out."

"He's kicking you out?"

"He would never put it so coarsely. But it doesn't matter. I'll not spend another night under the same roof as that man."

"But you guys always referred to this as your wedding present."

"Sure, but it's still in his name," she retorted bitterly. "And, even if he deigned to let me keep it, I could never afford to own a house like this. I'm not like Katherine, with a trust fund big enough to buy a banana republic, or you with a high paying executive job."

"Where will you go?"

"I got a hotel room over by the mall."

"That'll get expensive real quick. Any family nearby?"

"My folks always hated Thomas. They accused me of only marrying him for his money. I'm not sure I can take their I-told-you-so's right now. Besides, they live in Toledo, and I really hate it there."

"Friends?"

"Just you and one other, I guess. But she's got way bigger problems than me. Everyone else are either barely an acquaintance or they're Thomas's friends."

"Then stay with me."

John almost reflexively looked around to see who had spoken before belatedly realizing it had been his own voice. But as his thoughts caught up with his words, he found himself unable to take back his offer. He had known the woman before him for several years and had yet to find in her anything other than a comforting genuineness. He could no more imagine her current distraught state to be the result of a ruse than he could write a symphony.

Hazel must have noticed his rapid change in expression because she glared at him suspiciously and said, "You're just trying to get back at Katherine."

"No, I'm not. I'm not proposing we fall in line with my wife's carefully constructed guilt-free master plan. I'm just offering my friend a place to stay until she figures out what's next."

"What happens when Lady Katherine returns?"

"I don't much care," John replied sincerely. "If she's got a problem with it, she can stay with Mr. Perfect. Admit it, you're not going to find a better offer." He glanced up at the starlit sky and added, "Certainly not at this hour."

She smiled wearily and said, "Thank you."