One More Notch on the Bedpost

"What was the purpose of all this spyware, what did they want to find out from it?"

"George said this was a test run. That's what he called it. I asked him what he meant by that and he said they planned to do this at other houses and they just wanted to practice to make sure they were doing it right."

"Did you do any other things at Gwen's house?"

"Well, there was the laptop. George gave it to me and I fixed it up and put in a drawer where nobody ever went."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. Can you explain about the laptop?"

"Well, George had these laptop computers. They weren't new. I don't know where he got them, but he showed them to me, about twenty of them, I guess. Different makes and models. He said he had erased the hard drives and memories, and loaded them with Windows and some applications. Then he had put in a lot of pornography. He showed me some of it. It was pictures, some black and white and some color. There was some pretty wild stuff there. Some of it was -- wait, uh -- Photoshopped. He had taken pictures of Gwen, from the spyware, and combined them with pictures from the porn."

"Where did George get all the porn pictures?"

"I asked him and he said mostly France and Germany, and some from Thailand."

"Did you say that you fixed the laptop up?"

"Yes. I took it and copied some files from Gwen's computer onto it. Names and addresses of her friends, and some other files that were hers so the laptop had her personal stuff on it."

"Is that laptop still there?"

"One of the things I did every time I went to the house was to look and see if the laptop was where I had put it. I checked it last Friday night and it was still there."

"All right, so you did that at Gwen's house. What other houses did you go to?"

"Well, there was the Mayor. I worked on his wife and started to meet with her and have sex. At first she insisted on a motel, but after a while we started to fuck at her house. Then I could do the spyware and laptop just like at Gwen's."

"Wasn't that hard on you, doing Gwen and the Mayor's wife all at the same time?"

"Well, first off I've been doing a lot of this sort of sex stuff for a long time and I've trained myself to be able to have a lot of sex. Another thing was that I told Gwen that I got a part time job so I couldn't fuck her as often. It all worked out all right. But when I got a third one going, I had to limit my visits a little."

"So you planted a laptop at the Mayor's house?"

"Yes. George wanted that one to have the Mayor's files on it, so you could see that it was his, not his wife's."

"Where else did you plant laptops?"

"Well, let's see. There were two City Councilmen. And one County Supervisor. George wanted me to do the Sheriff's wife, but I couldn't get anywhere with her. I tried all the tricks that usually worked, but she wasn't having any of it. Then when I tried harder she said she'd have me arrested, so I backed off. Sheriff's deputies, three of them. Two police Captains. Then I did a State Legislator. Their wives, of course, you understand. Then I got going with the wife of a police Lieutenant. That was just last month. But I never got the laptop fixed up and planted there. Maybe after I get all fixed up here I can get back to her and finish what I started. She's probably the best of the bunch."

"What's next?"

"Well, I don't have a lot of time left on my contract, and I don't know if it'll be renewed. I think George is waiting to see how it goes with the Lieutenant's wife, and if that goes well we may do a lot of the other high ups in that police department. But I'm not sure that's what his plan is. When he talked about that it seemed that he hadn't made up his mind."

"Help me understand this. You would strike up a conversation with a woman, then seduce her and go to her house often to have sex. You would plant bugs in the house and recording devices. Then you would personalize a laptop that was loaded with porn and plant that where it would seem to have been hidden. Is that all you did?"

"That's it. Oh, once when things were slow for a month or so, I met some of the client's friends. That's what we called the women I was fucking, clients. So I started doing four of her friends, but when I told George he told me to stop and just do the women he picked out for me. I hated to see that stop. We had a couple of really good orgies, just me and five women. They were great!"

"If your contract isn't renewed, what do you plan to do next?"

"I've had calls from Oregon and Maryland. I'd like to try Oregon because I've heard it's a nice place. I'm not sure I'd like Maryland. Too much political corruption, and that makes it dangerous. You step on the wrong toes and you can wind up going for a long swim. At least that's what I've been told. And I get calls all the time from Washington. Not the state, I mean Washington DC. But I'd never go there. Too much competition, from professionals and amateurs. I like to go where I've got the whole place to myself."

"Well, Mister Rogers, I think that about wraps up what I wanted to talk with you about. Is there anything important that we missed?"

"No, I guess not. I think you can see that this sort of work has been good for me. It's a nice way to make a living, fucking women who can't get enough of me. My daddy said to me when I was a little boy, 'Try to make a living at something you like to do, and then it won't seem like work.' Well, I think he was my daddy. It was pretty hard to tell, but my mom said he probably was. Anyway, I've tried to live by that advice, and it hasn't failed me yet."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Tony and Ellie put all the electronic gear back into the trunk, and then came to find me. I was on my knees in the bathroom, throwing up my picnic supper. The way it felt, I thought I was throwing up stuff I hadn't eaten yet. They got Doctor Johnson to fix me up with some liquid medicine that didn't taste bad, and in a few minutes I was ready to travel. Ellie told Doctor Johnson to hold onto Rogers until she and her boss could decide what to do with him.

The next morning I called my Captain and told him I had a touch of the flu, and would probably be out for several days. Then I sat and told Sherry all about what we'd heard from Tom. She asked what would become of him, and I said that he'd been under a lot of stress lately and might take a vacation in Mexico. That seemed as good an explanation as any.

As for the disposition of the case, it was in the hands of the FBI and I was glad to let them have it. But I always read the newspaper, and I saw an item about George DePuy, a member of Commissioner Lippincott's personal staff. He was in a single car accident, in which his car went off the road and hit a bridge abutment, crushing his skull and killing him instantly. Funeral arrangements to be announced.

It turned out to be a bad week for the Lippincott family. The commissioner was found in his Lexus out in the desert, dead from a single bullet wound to the head. Sheriff's Deputies determined that the wound was self inflicted. No suicide note was found.

As for Edwin Smith or whatever you want to call him, Tony said that Doctor Johnson cleared out a lot of his memory and then had him dropped off somewhere in Mexico, on the return flight of a small plane that made regular deliveries of marijuana to southern Arizona. The pilot is the son of a doctor in Phoenix, and a personal friend of the Johnson family.

One interesting development is that my friend Tony, the confirmed bachelor, is dressing a little better now that Ellie has moved in with him. He's lost a few pounds, goes to the gym twice a week, and smiles a lot.

Sherry and I have made some new home movies, of me using the gift she gave me. We have them stored away with all the others, where we can pull them out to watch after the children leave the nest. Yes, that's right, children. Sherry is now two months pregnant. We don't know which sex yet, but we're hoping for a girl. We're keeping the video stuff set up in our movie room, so we can take movies of the kids as they grow.

We're doing pretty well. There are still times when one of us will suddenly be reminded of what we went through with the serial seducer. When that happens we hug each other tight until the thought passes. It happens less and less, and I'm sure that we're going to be okay. I believe more strongly all the while that love conquers all, but it doesn't happen overnight.

Every time the sun comes up, it's a new day and we handle it carefully, making it as good a day as we can. Life goes on.