Crisscross

"Let's just say that we now need to pursue other avenues of investigation, and leave it at that ... for now," he said. Ah, still trying to rattle me.

"Well," I had to do the 'indignant' bit now. "If you have anything more to suspect me of, and you wish to ask me anything, you can do so through my lawyer!"

"Calm down, Mr. Simmons," Gibson said, with the upraised hands, trying to pretend that he meant to ease my hurt feelings with his gesture, and still not raising his voice. "I don't think it will come to that. By the way, if Mrs. Simmons DOES contact you, I would ask that you tell her to contact the Cherokee County Sherriff's Office, and I would ask you to let me know too about any contact with her." At this, he handed me his card.

"Anyway, that's all I needed tonight. I truly am sorry about the situation with you and your wife; and the way you had to find out and all. I'll be going now."

With that, he put his Stetson on and walked to the door. As I was about to close the door on him, he turned around toward me and said, "Remember, now; if y'all hear from Mrs. Simmons, we really would like to talk to her."

I just nodded and he turned to go. I closed the door behind him and breathed out slowly.

This time, I went back into the dining room and pulled down the Wild Turkey instead of going into the kitchen after a beer. Taking my first sip, I silently toasted Doug and smiled; the boy had come through for me; just as I had for him.

Thinking of my now-departed slut of a wife, I said aloud, "Sayonara, Bitch."

****

The next Wednesday:

Frank:

The swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated did not seem to be a magazine that fit in with the tone that a divorce lawyer's office might seem to want to set. But, hey; I'm a guy; and I like to look. So I was thumbing through it as I sat and awaited the start of my appointment.

I had checked in with the receptionist at the domestic law office of Chantal Hawk, a divorce attorney well-known for her ruthless pursuit of the well-being of her client. Word was out that she especially hated cheating wives; and the message had spread loud and clear about her among the aggrieved married male population here in Woodstock and all around Cherokee County. Other attorneys, some judges, and even a few law enforcement types quaked in their boots when she was around; or, sometimes, just when her name came up in conversation.

It was now Wednesday of the week following the violent events that had surrounded the affair of my wife and since she had pulled her disappearing act from my life. I had called to make this appointment and gotten it confirmed for today. Following that call, and after getting my confirmation that my initial deposit to her account via my credit card had cleared, Ms. Hawk had emailed me with a list of steps that I needed to take immediately to protect my assets and myself.

If you have read any of the 'cheat' stories on the internet, then you know about closing any joint accounts, cancelling credit cards, dividing savings and checking accounts, changing insurance and retirement account beneficiaries; all the hateful and financially devastating things that must be done during the lead-up to a divorce.

During all of this, I had also called Doug. He needed to know about my appointment, specifically the timing.

I had deliberately arrived about half an hour early for the appointment so that we could do our own little dance of deception.

As I thumbed through the magazine, looking at the babes in their swimsuits, I became aware of another person entering the office and approaching the receptionist.

"Excuse me, but I may be in need of a good divorce lawyer," said a male voice; one that I knew already, but I had to pretend that I did not. I had to force myself not to look around.

"Of course, Sir," answered the receptionist. "And just how did you hear about Ms. Hawk?" and on and on the questions went; she was doing her bit to verify the effectiveness of Chantal Hawk's marketing and advertising scheme while she began to gather the prospective client's initial information.

After about three or four minutes of this, the receptionist told the guy, "If you would just fill out these forms for us, we can see about getting you an appointment with Ms. Hawk. She's booked up today and tomorrow, unfortunately; but we shall see what we can do about getting you in to see her on Friday."

With obvious sadness and hesitation in his voice, the guy said, "Oh ... okay." Pause. "Uh, do you have a restroom I might use?"

"Sure," she said to him. "It's in the main hallway of this office complex; out the door and then to your left." That was my cue.

I gave the guy about a twenty-second head start before putting my magazine down and standing. I smiled to the receptionist and told her, "I need to hit the gents' before I go in. Please tell Ms. Hawk that I am still here."

"Sure thing," she said, smiling at me as I turned to go out to the main hallway.

In the men's room, I saw him finishing his business at the urinal. I checked the only stall in this small men's room to ensure that we were the only two there, while he washed up at the sink.

I turned back toward him as he dried his hands and asked him, "You okay?"

Doug turned to me and gave me a strained smile. "Yeah," he said, "I just ... it still ... I never knew that I had that much rage in me till now. I have never harmed another human being the way that I did last week." He had been looking away slightly as he had said this. Now he looked at me directly and said, "It kinda scares me. You know?"

I nodded and said, "Yeah, I know. Look," I had to ensure that he was on track here, "we now have a legitimate reason for knowing one another; I mean meeting at a divorce lawyer's office. Can you keep this up as we go back inside there?"

Doug nodded and said, "Yeah. Yeah, I can." Then he blew out a puff of air to signify that he was trying to keep calm.

I grinned at him to reassure him. "Look, Doug; your situation is different from mine, and we both know it. Just remember, when you get to that third page of the questions on those forms ... you know how I told you ... where they ask about counseling and the possibility of reconciliation, then you ..."

****

Six Months Later:

Doug:

I am not usually a bar fly, but this night was the six-month anniversary of the venture that Frank and I had begun our adventure together as a way to satisfy our mutual rage and get our balls back.

When Frank had shown up at my work place that first time and introduced himself to me, I had been fat, dumb, and happy; living the life of a carefree man with a good job and a beautiful and loving wife. Life couldn't have been better; or so I thought.

Frank had asked me to meet him after I got off from work, as he had some information that I needed to know. When I frowned at his evasiveness, he had said he would buy me drinks and dinner if I would simply listen to what he had to say. I hesitated, but, hey--free drinks and dinner don't come my way very often. And this might have been a new customer--although eccentric, maybe--seeking my business. So, I had agreed.

That evening, my bright, happy world was no longer bright; nor was I happy after he finished with his tale.

"He drugged her, Doug. You have to remember that, and keep that foremost in your mind. She did not set out to cheat on you," Frank insisted. He had shown me pictures and transcripts that his PI had given him in a report of the investigation of Frank's cheating wife, Sybil.

I had not been aware, up to that point, that my wife, Joyce, actually worked with Sybil, or that they had become more than simply passing acquaintances. Joyce had actually begun to go to lunch with the slightly older Sybil.

It also appeared that on those days in recent weeks when Joyce had begun to stop for drinks and "time to wind down" on the way home from work, she had been doing so in the company of Sybil as well. Evidently, Frank's PI's surveillance of Sybil--and the subsequent electronic eavesdropping that went along with that--had resulted in information relating to Joyce at that point.

Joyce, it seemed, was shocked when Sybil had begun to let slip hints about the older woman's running around on her husband, Frank. While shocked, Joyce has still been somewhat excited and intrigued by all of this; but only from the point of view of someone who had been reading romance novels since her teens. I knew now that Joyce had seen all of this as excitingly naughty on Sybil's part. But Joyce would not have actually indulged in any extramarital behavior on her own; still, she could enjoy hearing about Sybil's exploits and promising to keep them 'just among us girls.'

The two women had been stopping for drinks for about two weeks together when, one afternoon, two men came over to their table and asked to join them. Joyce had been about to refuse, when Sybil had simply scooted over and told the two men that certainly they could join them.

Joyce had been noticeably upset, according to the PI's report, but Sybil had been visibly enjoying herself. Joyce had left shortly thereafter, but the report went on to say that Sybil had adjourned to a room in the motel building adjacent to the bar with both men. They had remained there for approximately two hours.

The following week, Joyce and Sybil were once again at the same bar after work. The same two men, now identified in the report as Bill Gerardo and Phil Avery, had come into the bar a few minutes later. They had once again asked to join the women and Sybil once again had acquiesced.

The report documented that Joyce and Sybil had left the table for a few minutes to go to the ladies' room. During that interval, one of the men, Bill Gerardo, had removed what looked like a small vial from somewhere in his clothing and had poured its liquid contents into Joyce's drink, stirring it with his finger. He had then said something to Avery and they had high-fived and smiled as the ladies had returned.

About twenty minutes later, after having finished her drink and reaching for her purse, Joyce had appeared to be slightly uncoordinated in her movements. Sybil had sought to ascertain her welfare, getting a confused look and response from Joyce. The two men had offered to help get Joyce to a place where she could lie down and recover before attempting to drive anywhere.

The PI's report indicated that, unsurprisingly, the men had just 'happened' to have a motel room available next door.

****

"Yeah, I know he drugged her--the first time; Gerardo, I mean," I said. "It was her letting him blackmail her into coming back a second time without being drugged that pissed me off. But what REALLY gave me a case of the ass was the fact that she did not trust me enough to tell me about what was going on and let me help her out of the mess she had gotten into with that shit bird..." I had to take a sip of my drink to calm down. "I'm her husband, for God's sake. She is supposed to trust me enough to let me defend her; to take care of her. What kind of a man does that make me if I can't protect my own wife; if she doesn't even trust me enough to let me?"

We remained quiet for a moment as we each looked at our drinks on the bar before us.

"So, you and Joyce still working things out; I mean despite all of that?" Frank asked me. He was nursing Wild Turkey neat, while I was enjoying an Arrogant Bastard Ale.

"Yeah; I'm still pissed at her a little bit, though," I said as I took another pull on the larger-than-usual bottle. "But I'll get over it soon. I got her into rape trauma counseling right after things came out in the open. And the outfit that handles her counseling also does couples marriage counseling, so we have been doing that as well for the past ten weeks."

"Doug, you know that Sybil was deep into it with those two jokers. She probably was the one who had suggested using date rape drugs on your wife," Frank said to me, still trying to offer support.

"Yeah, I know. We went over that together months ago. By the way, did you ever hear from Sybil?" I asked.

"Nah," Frank responded and then took another sip. "It's as if she has vanished from the face of the earth. But, when her money runs out, I expect I will hear from her; or maybe from a lawyer acting on her behalf. Meanwhile, I still have that divorce paperwork that I started with Chantal Hawk.

"Chantal says that I can modify the grounds for a divorce from 'adultery' to 'irreconcilable differences;' or even to 'abandonment' if the bitch stays out of touch for long enough. No skin off my nose either way." Frank was obviously still carrying a lot of anger around with him.

Frank would never admit, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell him, that he could only be that angry if he still carried around some quantity of love for his ex, despite her cheating ways. Yeah, I had picked up a couple of tidbits of knowledge about that kind of thing during the counseling sessions.

"Well," I said with a grin, "at least you got the formal separation paperwork in, so that you are legally free to lower your white count if you need to without getting a counter suit for adultery."

Frank grinned back at me and lifted his glass in my direction. "You got that right!" Then he took another sip and looked off into space for a couple of seconds.

"Let me ask you," Frank went on, "are you and Joyce finally back to doing ... you know ... the deed?"

I smiled and simply nodded. I was not going to go into details about our sex life after all this had come out in the open. It had taken a couple of months before we had finally gotten together for sex after all of that; and only after she had been in counseling for a while.

But, Man! The changes! It was as if Joyce could not do enough for me in her guilt-ridden efforts to make things up to me. I mean; she was now giving me blow jobs regularly; and swallowing, even; something she had always refused to do up to this.

And I had finally gotten her ass! It turns out that the son of a bitch, Gerardo, had been the first one to the summit--so to speak--on that one. But I was taking advantage of it now. I just had to make sure that I did not overdo it.

Movement behind us, along with a clearing of a throat, made us turn away from the bar together.

A woman stood there in a VERY sexy dark green cocktail dress. It showed off quite a bit of her ample cleavage and revealed quite a bit of thigh due to the slit up one side.

Frank and I both were speechless as we gazed at this vision of ... what is that British term? Oh, yeah ... 'sex on legs.'

"So," she said, "you two DO know each other, it seems."

Something clicked; a stirring of recognition; then it hit me.

"Uh, Sergeant O'Neal, as I live and breathe. Wow! I never suspected that a policewoman would look as nice as you do off duty!" I was trying to keep my tongue from doing two things; letting it run away with itself and give away what Frank and I had done together; or hang out in an obvious display of lust at this vision standing before us.

"Actually, it's Lieutenant O'Neal now. But that is just the name I go by professionally. When I am out with my husband, I am simply Mrs. Gibson," she said, just as a well-build and well-dressed man stepped over to join her. I did not recognize him, but I detected that Frank suddenly stiffened.

"Hello, Mr. Simmons," the man said. "I see my wife introduced herself to you." Then he looked at me and stuck out his hand. "Jeff Gibson," was all he said as I took his hand and shook. He had a purposeful, but not overly aggressive grip.

Frank cleared his throat and said, "Doug, this is the Deputy Sherriff Gibson I was telling you about who investigated the case involving my soon-to-be ex-wife back a few months ago." I raised my eyebrows and did not say anything to that.

"And I investigated the case involving Mr. Franklin and HIS wife for the Woodstock PD right about the same time," said Lieutenant O'Neal ... well, Mrs. Deputy Gibson, I guess. She looked slightly amused as her gaze went to Frank's face and back to mine. I was working very hard to keep my expression neutral.

"Doug and I met at the office of my divorce lawyer," Frank interjected. "Since we discovered that our wives knew each other and had been ... uh ... involved with the men involved in those incidents that happened at that time, we stayed in touch. Now, we meet once in a while to share the misery, so to speak."

"Except," I took up the case, trying not to let this drag out. "Frank's wife simply ran off and disappeared. My wife and I are trying to patch things up and move on."

Lieutenant O'Neal smiled thinly at me and said, "Well, Mr. Franklin, I am glad to hear that you and the missus are trying to fix things. By the way, we still have an open case file on the attack on Mr. Gerardo." She paused to see if I would respond. When I simply grimaced and took a pull from my beer bottle, she went on.

"He is still in rehabilitation for his leg, but it appears that he will have a limp for the rest of his life. His arm is doing well, though. It is a good thing he is right-handed." I did not really give a shit about the recovery, or lack thereof, of Bill Gerardo. But I simply nodded.

"His wife, Amy, divorced him and took their two kids; along with a huge chunk of his finances. It also seems that his reproductive organs, while still functional, are somewhat lacking in potency at this point. It looks like the low motility rate of any sperm that his body generates will make it difficult for him to have any more children, should he decide to remarry." She seemed to carry an air of satisfaction about that herself. I guess even cops, if they are female, want to see slug-butt cheating men get their due.

"Yeah," piped up Deputy Gibson. "And, Frank, if you ever have any contact with your ex, let her know that we still have the case open concerning the attack on Mr. Avery. His injuries were not quite as extensive or severe as those to Mr. Gerardo, but he still had quite a lot of medical expenses. These hit right about the time that his wife, Wendy, hit him with divorce papers as well."

Frank grunted and said, "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

Both Deputy Gibson and his wife alternated looking at each of us as the silence grew. But neither said anything; they simply sported amused expressions.

Finally ...

"Well, y'all have a nice night now; you heah?" said Deputy Gibson as he took his wife's hand and led her out the front door.

Frank and I turned back to the bar and drank in silence for a few minutes before he looked around and spoke softly to me.

"You did make sure to get rid of that bat, didn't you?"

****

AUTHOR'S EPILOGUE:

I had always wanted to try my hand at a 'Loving Wives' story, being inspired by some of the greats, almost-greats, goods, and even the mediocre writers of that particular genre.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank, for my inspiration, those in the following list of those who have written before about 'Loving Wives.' The list is not all-inclusive, as there are others. But these are just some of my favorites over the years:

Just Plain Bob, beermaker, Denham Forrest/The Wanderer, DG Hear, Daghda Jim, ohio, K.K., patricia51, nici, Troubador, Papatoad, IronDragon, Curious2c, CPete, DanielQSteel1, Rehnquist, Agena, Matt Moreau, SW MO Hermit, HeavyHeartLaments, Just Anybody, Whiteone_Redone, angiquesophie, capecodmercury, Charley Ace, Murphy621, Scorpio044, A.A. Nemo, Azpiri, Barneyr, BDad, BigK10, Big-R, BLBBones, bobfr, Blue88, Britease, BrotherJohn, BTTap, bucksilver, Cageytee, CarterCounty, carvohi, CeeeEsss, Chagrined, Charley Bear, ChilleyWIley, Coaster2, dab10, DangerouslyDead, DeYaKen, DFWBeast, Dr_Know, DoctorWyldcard, EMiamiRiverRat, fawguy88, Francis Macomber, Friskee_cpl, GaryAPB, geronimo_appleby, GToast, h20wader, hansbwl, happyhugo, Harddaysknight, hawkeye007, Headhuntertales, Huedog2, itmgr2010, imhapless, Jack Straw, Jake60, jezzaz, Jidoka, JimBob44, Josephus, juanwildwone, Katmai, Kenn Ghannon, Kezza67, Laptopwriter, LeapYearGuy, LikeGoodWine, Longhorn07, lucsmith, LynnGKS, maninconn, Mandy01, MarvinS, MattblackUK, MendonFishers, MortonGrange, MrRobbur, Nakedsub, Night Scribe, NTropy586, OldHideki, oshaw, PostScriptor, PTBzzzz, Pultoy, qhml1, radk, RealDoc, RobConnor, RPSuch, S-Des, Salamis, SaxonHart, Sid0604, Slirpuff, Slow_n_Gentle, Spykke, StormX, thecelt, Tabooteller, TheUnoriginalist, Tx Tall Tales, valeriahart, vastiesmith, Woodmanone, writingdragon, x_JohnDoe_x, and zeke81.