Adultery Is My Business

I’m a Private Investigator. I’ve even got a license to prove it. I don’t have a permit to carry a gun, but I don’t need one anyway. Divorce is my business, or, to put it more accurately, adultery. Wives come to me complaining that their husbands are lying, cheating pussy hounds and I do my best to catch them in the act.

When I started out I’d follow these men around, often for weeks. Some had regular girlfriends. These were the easy ones. I could pick up enough evidence within a few days to make sure the wife got a damn good settlement. Usually, proof like this would make the husband’s lawyer get worried and tell his client to make an agreement before going to court. This made everybody happy.

The wife would be independently wealthy. I would pick up a nice bonus. The husband would usually end up marrying the girl he’d been seeing on the side. When this happened I would always give my card to the girlfriend and tell her, ‘Once a cheater, always a cheater.’ More often than not the girl would throw me out angrily, but she always kept the card, and there’s been quite a few occasions when they’ve become clients themselves a few years down the line.

Trouble was, not all my clients had husbands this easy to catch out. A lot of men looking for a bit of strange don’t want to feed from the same trough every week. They’ve already got a wife at home, what do they need a regular girlfriend for? These guys want a different girl every week, or at least as often as they can get it. They go to singles bars or check out Lonely Hearts ads in the Classifieds or pick up whores from the street. There’s always some way to get laid if you’ve got the money.

Now, guys who went down this road had always been a pain in the ass for me. I could follow them for weeks, knowing that they were having one-night stands all over town. Getting proof of it that would be admissible in court was another matter. To tell the truth, I was getting mighty sick of it. I was getting paid by the day, sure, but the big bucks came in when I actually got hold of the evidence. Spending weeks on the same case was doing nothing good for my bank balance. Even my wife Jennifer was starting to complain about the bills and usually she’s sweet as a nut about that kind of thing.

Around this time I was following a guy that I knew was fucking whores at least twice a week, but I could never manage to get him caught on camera. I was getting really fed up with it, so the day I saw him enter a brothel, I actually followed him in, armed with my camera. I kicked down two or three bedroom doors until I found him with his pants down, a teenage whore kneeling before him, sucking his cock. I took the picture and turned to run the hell out of there only to smack bang into a 250-pound gorilla that must have been the girl’s pimp or minder or something.

The next thing I remember was lying in the street, my camera at my side, smashed to bits. Of course the philandering husband got the hell out of the whorehouse as soon as he saw me take the photo, leaving me with no evidence and with more than just my ego bruised. I spent the next week licking my wounds and trying to get the man’s wife to pay me for the time I had spent following him. The husband went straight home, broke down and confessed all, saying he was a sex addict. Now they’re reconciled, he’s in rehab and she won’t pay me a cent.

About a week later I was sitting down at home with my wife, trying to unwind with a large glass of Scotch. Jennifer kept making sad, puppy dog eyes at me as if I was brooding about nothing. She knew what was on my mind, but she’s never been one to let things bother her. That was my domain. I heard the telephone and just let it ring and ring. If it was a client I didn’t want to know. I had had enough. Eventually Jennifer walked over and picked it up.

“Oh hi, Leo,” she said gaily. “How’s tricks?”

Leo Dunski. That was all I needed. He’s a small time thief and general layabout, but he has a lot of connections. If you want something, to get high, to get laid, whatever, he’ll put you in touch with the right person. He was an old friend of mine and it was down to him that I met Jennifer, for which I’ll always be grateful. My wife’s sister had got herself into some trouble with her boyfriend and Leo introduced her to me. Nevertheless, I wasn’t in the mood to talk with him.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” continued Jennifer. “Tony’s just sitting here moping. Where are you?”

I waved my hand at her, signalling that I didn’t want to see him or speak to him.

“Yeah. I’ll drag him over there,” she said, grinning at me. “He’s acting like a grouchy old bear and needs a good kick up the ass.”

When she had put the phone down she laughed at the look of resignation on my face.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“The Kokomo.”

“Ah shit. Not that old dive. Why’d he want to meet us there?”

“Come on, it’s not that bad.”

“Oh well. You would say that.”

Before we were married Jenny had worked there as a waitress. It was a pretty sleazy joint, habituated by drug dealers, whores and pimps, but Jenny knew how to handle herself. She could fit in pretty much anywhere. One time she even entered the wet T-shirt contest that they held there once a week, and she won it by a country mile. A few of the regulars there still remembered her turn and often used to ask her for a repeat performance. She always said no, but I got the feeling that the attention kind of pleased her.

“I could always go on my own,” she said. “Maybe make a couple of bucks. Shake my thing.”

“The contest ain’t until tomorrow night.”

“Who said anything about the contest?”

“Very funny,” I said as I got up from the sofa and grabbed my coat.

“Hey, hey. Hold your horses. Give me a minute, okay?”

I stood around for five minutes waiting for Jenny to get changed. I expected her to take even longer, but she surprised me, not only because she was quick, but also the way she looked. She was wearing a short, low cut summer dress, with high-heeled sandals. The colour of the dress almost matched her long sandy hair. Her firm, high breasts threatened to spill out over the top and the hem only just covered her sexy ass. She looked incredible. My spirits soared instantly. My career might not be going so well, but at least I had a knockout wife.

“You like?” she asked, seeing my lustful gaze.

“Me like. Me want to stay home and fuck like bunnies.”

“Uh-uh, Mr Detective. Time for that when we get home.”

It was a ten-minute walk from our apartment to Kokomo’s. As soon as we walked in the door, Leo saw us from his seat at the bar and headed for an empty booth to wait for us.

“The hell happened to you?” he asked when he saw me limping over towards him. “You get hit by a truck or what?”

“Something like that,” I said, feeling my bruised temple.

“Hi Leo,” Jenny said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Hey, you’re looking foxy tonight,” he replied as he stood up to kiss her on the cheek. “You know, Old Jimmy’s here, over at the bar. I just told him you were coming.”

“Is he? Damn. I haven’t seen him in years. I’m just going to go over and say hello.”

Old Jimmy used to own the place. He was her first employer and she saw him as a kind of surrogate father.

“So,” Leo said when we were alone, as he reached out to feel the bumps on my head. “Somebody’s husband not appreciate your camerawork or what?”

I told him what happened and he laughed. He had some sense of humour.

“Sorry Tony, but, Jesus, it’s your own fault. Why’d you waste your time like that? What you need is a new employee.”

“Oh, like you, I suppose. Someone who can take care of guys built like a brick shithouse.”

“No man. That ain’t what I mean. What you need is a woman.”

“What? You think guys like that won’t harm a lady, is that it? Because if…”

“Hey. Just listen to me. All right? Look, you go round following these guys, waiting ‘til they pick up some whore or some easy lady in a bar or whatever, right? Then you follow them and sneak up to a window or break in and try to get a photo, right?”

“Yeah, where are you going with this?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you knew just where they’d be going to do the business beforehand, so you had it all set up. Have a hidden camera, that kind of thing.”

“Damn. You’re right. Why didn’t I think of that before?” my voice dripped with sarcasm. “So I should get some lady who’s a fucking clairvoyant to tell me the guy’s future, yeah? Where he’s going, who he’s gonna meet, where they’re gonna fuck each other’s brains out.”

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s just what I was gonna say, you know-it-all prick.”

“Leo…”

“Shit. You like this with Jenny? Always interrupting all the time? Listen to me. What you do is get a girl who’s willing to fuck the guy, any guy. Hell, she don’t even have to fuck him, she just has to get in bed with him so’s you can get the photo. You set the guy up, is all. Hire some tasty dish who’ll act as bait.”

I was stunned into silence for a few moments. This was actually a good idea. About the first good idea Leo had ever had in his life. Okay, maybe it was a little bit sleazy, but what the hell, I was in a sleazy profession. Anyway, the cops did this sort of thing all the time to queers, so there was no reason for me to get on my high horse about it.

“I don’t know,” I said eventually. “If I kept using the same girl, people might catch on down at the court house, the lawyers, the judges…”

“I thought you told me these sort of cases are usually settled out of court.”

“Yeah, they are, but the lawyers…”

“Well, you just need the girl to change her appearance each time. Different hair colour, hair style, tattoos, whatever.”

“Okay, so I’d need someone who was always available at any time. They’d have to be willing to go to bed with a strange man they’d just met…”

“But they wouldn’t have to fuck him.”

“But they’d have to act like a whore or a slut anyway. All that, and a master of disguise as well. Where’m I gonna find a girl like that?”

“Ah,” Leo intoned with a wise air. “Today’s your lucky day.”

“So you just happen to know someone like that?”

“Rachel!” Leo shouted towards the bar. “Over here, honey.”

I looked over to see a gorgeous redhead ease herself off her bar stool and head towards us. I wolf-whistled silently as her hips swayed and her breasts jiggled as she walked over. She was about twenty-five years old, 5’5” in high heels, 120 pounds. A slim girl with big tits, just like my wife. It was a definite winning combination.

“Is this the guy?” Rachel faced me as she sat down beside Leo.

“Yep. Tony Vasco, this is Rachel Diaz. Rachel, Tony.”

We shook hands.

“What’s going on Leo?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing. I just thought you should meet, that’s all.”

“Cut the crap, Leo,” Rachel said in a sharp but friendly sort of way. “Didn’t you tell him about the scam?”

“What scam? Leo?”

“Mr Vasco…” Rachel looked at me.

“Call me Tony.”

“Tony. Leo told me about the kind of work you do. Well, I used to do something similar down the coast. I just moved up here last month.”

“You’re a P.I.?”

“Not quite. I worked for one. One who specialised in divorce cases, just like you.”

“And you used to be the bait for the straying husbands, right?”

“So Leo did tell you about it.”

“In a roundabout way, yes. So, it wasn’t your idea after all, was it, Leo?”

“Did I say it was? Who cares? It’s perfect. She’s perfect.”

“What’s this about a scam?” I asked Rachel.

“Well, it’s like this,” she began. “The wives pay you such and such to get evidence that hubby’s a lying, cheating toad, right? How much you think the husband’ll pay to make sure she never gets the evidence?”

“So…”

“So I go to bed with the guy. You take some snaps. We tell the guy what the deal is and let him decide what we do with the photos. Either he ups the ante and pays more than his wife or he gets to call his lawyer and go through expensive divorce proceedings.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Sounds too much like blackmail to me.”

“I never had you down as a man with too much moral fibre.”

She had me there.

“It’s not just that,” I said. “Most of my business comes from referrals. If word got round that I was up to that sort of thing I’d lose half my trade.”

“Maybe. But you’d probably double your earnings for half the work anyway.”

“I’m sorry but I’m just not interested.”

I was getting kind of irritated with the woman. Not only was she telling me my business but she also kept looking over my shoulder at something, as if expecting a better offer to walk through the door at any minute. Suddenly she stood up and walked past me and I figured that that was the end of that.

“Hey Tony, look,” Leo said pointing behind me at the bar.

A big lug of a man was standing at the bar next to my wife. He reminded me of the guy who had thrown me out of the whorehouse. Big and mean and stupid. I heard him calling Jenny a whore and then his hands started to get busy. With one hand he groped her tits while he used the other to reach up under her skirt. I jumped out of the booth and ran towards them. Before I was ten feet away Rachel had grabbed hold of the guy by the neck and pulled him around. Two quick karate kicks later and he was on the floor, crying his eyes out. Rachel picked him up by the hair, pushed him over to the doorway then kicked him in the ass, making him sprawl out into the street. I rushed over to Jenny and asked if she was okay.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Who is that woman? She a wrestler or something?”

“Friend of Leo’s,” I said. “What happened?”

“I was just coming over to join you when he started hassling me. Asking me for a date. Offering to buy me drinks. You know I’m used to that in here. I was giving him the brush off, but in a friendly way. Then he starts getting angry, telling me if I don’t go out back in the alley with him he’s gonna fuck me right here in the bar. Next thing I know he’s got his hands all over me and then Superwoman over there comes along.”

Rachel closed the door at the entrance and walked over towards us. I introduced her to my wife.

“Thanks for your help back there,” she said. “That was really something.”

“My pleasure. Uhm, Tony, shall we get back to business?”

“I thought…”

“Oh, sorry about that. I wasn’t walking out on you. I saw that asshole hassling your wife here and I knew he was gonna start causing a ruckus any minute. You wanna start again?”

“Sure,” I said and the three of us sat back down with Leo.

“What business is this then?” Jenny asked. “Is it private?”

“No, it’s okay,” I said and filled her in on Rachel’s idea.

“Well,” she said. “Sounds like a good idea. Make more money, save more time. I don’t like the blackmail idea though. Tony’s right. In the long run it might be a bad move. We might end up having to leave town to get new clients.”

“That’s a distinct possibility,” Rachel grinned.

“Oh,” I said, cottoning on. “So that’s why you moved here.”

“I kind of like moving around anyway. Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ve been in this city for two solid weeks and nobody’s interested in doing the scam. We can do it the standard way if you prefer.”

“You mean, just take the wife’s money and get the evidence for her. No blackmail?”

“Sure. We’ll try it that way and see how it goes. Deal?”

“Deal,” I smiled at her and we shook hands again. If nothing else, at least she could help me out if I was getting a beating from some ape.

Leo grinned and called for a round of drinks as we discussed how to split the money.

Over the next few weeks I almost tripled my business. I was even taking work from one of the larger detective agencies where I had a contact that needed to farm out some of the divorce work. Before now it had taken too long to finish individual jobs and I could never take on that many jobs. Now I was getting the evidence under wraps within three to five days.

I was kind of apprehensive on the first assignment we took together, but for Rachel it was like taking candy from a baby. We were after a man named Nathan Lloyd, who, his wife suspected, was fond of spending his Friday evenings at a joint called Smokey Joe’s, flashing his cash around the bar and picking up the first floozy he could. Rachel and I had already checked into a room at a cheap, nearby hotel and then we sat in the car in the bar’s parking lot, waiting for him to arrive.

I couldn’t help admiring Rachel’s legs as we sat there. She was wearing the shortest, tightest dress I’d ever seen. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that Lloyd could resist her. His wife had given me a recent photo and his licence number and I spotted him the moment he drove on to the lot.

“Okay, Rachel,” I said. “You get in there now and I’ll follow on.”

“Maybe you should just wait at the hotel.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“It won’t.”

“Well, I’m coming in anyway.”

“Suit yourself.”

As she exited the car her dress rode up, exposing the cheeks of her ass. I suppose that she was wearing a thong but for all I knew she was completely naked. She quickly pulled the hem of the dress down a little and strode over to the bar. As soon as Lloyd had made his way inside I followed on. By the time I reached the entrance, a minute or so later, the pair of them were walking out, hand in hand. She sure as hell didn’t waste much time. Lloyd didn’t even glance at me as they passed, too busy thinking about the sweet pussy he was just about to enjoy. Rachel winked at me, grinning at the bewildered look on my face.

The hotel was just across the street. I tagged along behind them, checking in my pocket for the room key. I followed them up the stairs and watched them walk together inside the bedroom we had already booked. I checked my watch. Rachel had told me to give her precisely two minutes and then to knock on the door. If she wasn’t ready she would say, “Who is it?” and I was to answer that I had the wrong door. Then I’d listen outside for her to call me.

When the two minutes were up I knocked on the door. I could hear some whispering going on inside but no response. I opened the door with my key and aimed the camera at the bed. Lloyd sat up in bed looking like a frightened rabbit as I took the photo. Rachel was beside him, the bed covers drawn up to her neck. I took three snaps in rapid succession then Rachel jumped out of the bed and reached to the chair to pick up her dress. I noted that she had been wearing underwear after all. It was a skimpy blue thong with matching bra.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Lloyd asked when he had got over the shock.

“Ta ta, sweetie,” Rachel said as she pulled on her dress quickly and walked over to meet me at the door. “Send my regards to your wife.”

We hastily made our way downstairs, walked across the street to my car and drove away.

“How’d you get him out of the bar so fast?” I asked her.

“You call that fast? It took him about ten seconds to make his mind up to come with me. That’s a damn sight longer than most men.”

Every job we did went like clockwork. Rachel knew the ropes far better than I. She arranged everything. All I had to do was show up with my camera. I began to wonder how I’d ever managed at all without Rachel.

At first I worried about how Jenny might take it, my partner being such a sexy lady and me taking photos of her undressed so often. Fact is, she didn’t mind at all. She had a lot of admiration for Rachel, ever since that night in the bar when she had beaten up the guy molesting her. They even came to be great friends, going shopping together, working out together, doing everything together.

Of course good things never last. As soon as I was getting used to the easy life Rachel pulled the rug out from under me. We were sitting in my office, about to go over our schedule for the next two weeks.

“Hold up a second Tony,” she said when I began going through it. “I’ve got something to tell you.”