A Hypothetical Marital Catastrophe Pt. 01

"You are saying that I've been whoring around on you!" Gail exclaimed. "I'm sure getting a picture of my husband that I don't like."

"I simply asked when you began setting up this charade," I said.

"Calm down and let's be civilized about this," Santini said, his mouth twitching in a smirk. He was enjoying himself. "I will not dignify your accusations about your wife's fidelity; so I will say this one time and one time only."

Santini drew himself to his maximum height as he swore, smiling seductively all the while, that he had never seen Gail before that night. I knew I had been defeated, and, as I unconsciously surveyed the crowd, I heard Gary and Henry threatening Santini. It was impotent bluster, though, since they, too, were staring at Santini's toxic envelopes.

"How much of a bribe is n the envelopes, Santini?" I asked, now truly curious. "Are you buying our wives' pussies by the length of the slits, or the number of orgasms an hour?"

Our four wives literally lost their minds. Santini was laughing with genuine humor. He could afford a pause to tweak our noses, After all, he had won our wives before we were even in the game.

Bob, who had watched intently but said nothing to his wife, abruptly signaled the waitress, who responded though she was carrying a tray of food to another table.

"Does the management know this man is distributing wine among their customers?" Bob, ever the CPA, asked, enunciating as if his words were bullets.

"Yes, sir!" the waitress answered. "Doctor Santini always buys his wine from the restaurant, and very good wine it is."

"Please look at the tag attached to the neck of the bottle," Santini said, thanking the waitress as she moved on.

Bob leaned over the table and read the labelling data, and his head snapped back in surprise. Bob was the quintessential auditor who seldom showed emotion.

"This bottle of wine cost him $1,699.97," Bob whispered, his eyes bulging as he studies the label. "It's Pauillac 1996 Bordeaux."

We sat staring at the bottle in the center of the table. Our wives sat wooden faced, watching us with a curious academic detachment.

"Hot damn!" Gary said as his eyes blazed in snarling sarcasm fueled by palpable fury. "Our wives have gold plated pussies!"

"At least we won't be embarrassed when we go to the bank to deposit their whore money," Bob said. Bob remained the perfect auditor, unflappable on the surface but intensely observing our tormentor in hopes of finding vulnerabilities.

"Gentlemen, Gentlemen," Santini said, his voice soft and condescending, convey without doubt that he was addressing inferiors. "You surprise and disappoint me in showing such disrespect and lack of confidence in your marital relationships."

"Just take your pussy and your wine and get the hell away from here before I kill you!" I heard myself saying. It was not in keeping with my self image. My concept of my personal substance was that of an intelligent, experienced man who was capable of managing any situation he might face. Here I was, however, threatening Santini's life and discarding my wife.

Now, having led us to disable our jousting faculties, Santini could display his brilliance without interference. His raw power over our wives became tangible in the air around us as he theatrically articulated a mental check list.

We could perceive that Santini was extraordinarily powerful both physiologically and intrinsically. The shocker, however, came when the women acknowledged that money had made the difference.

"I knew they had a price," Santini explained. "My objective was to find that price."

Santini made a show of winding down his laughter as he wiped his hands with a clean handkerchief. Then he explained his strategies.

"I simply charmed, delighted and indulged them, flattering their fantasies and capturing their imaginations until I uncovered each woman's price."

"Humor me Santini," I said. "Did you find my wife's price?"

"Let's just say," Santini mused, "that your wives and I, reasoning and using logic, found the selling price for each as a cooperative effort."

"Is that right, Gail?" I asked my wife, levelling my gaze at her eyes. I received another shock when Hail stared back at me, her face revealing no fear or anxiety and certainly no shame.

"Yes!" Gail said forcefully. "I am satisfied with the arrangements."

"She had sex with him three times in the toilet before she got her money," Margie interjected, apparently considering the dialogue nothing more than party banter.

"Gail proved to be a natural sex negotiator," Santini said as an aside to us. "Did we not argue and bargain in good faith?"

Gail wet her lips and grimaced, but she nodded her agreement with his statement.

Our wives were doing nothing, Santini asserted, that their "unconscious will" would forbid.

Staring imperiously into Gail's eyes, he questioned, "One. Will you accept money to provide sex? (Gail nodded "yes".) Two. Has anyone said or even implied that you will be forced to have sex at the party that you have agreed to attend? (Gail shook her head "no".) Three. Did you agree to provide your most charming companionship during a social affair that is of great importance to me and my associates? (Gail nodded "yes".) Four. Did you say without coercion or prompting that you would like to have sex with me and others at the party? (Gail's eyes blinked rapidly and darted toward me, but she nodded "yes") Five. Did you tell me that my suggestions for having sex with you produced a welcome excitement; and did you not volunteer that you had never had sex with anyone but you husband and had frequently wondered what sex with other men would be like? (Gail shuddered as she raised her hands to her face.)

Santini addressed us once more with his bottomless black eyes. In stentorian tones, he assured us that each of our wives had said they would like to experience sex with another man. He quickly added that our wives had also assured him that they loved us and would never jeopardize their marriages; but they would take the risk at his "party of a life time."

"So, you're leaving with this asshole tonight?" I said. My eyes and voice must have betrayed my incredulity and fear, but Gail answered spontaneously without emotion.

"Charlie, I thought we would have an opportunity to talk about it first," she said. "It isn't as if I'm leaving you."

"Come now, Gail," Santini coached. "This is the moment of truth, so tell Charlie what you want to do."

For a painfully stretched moment in time, we all stared at Gail in silence. She paled and I thought she was about to bolt. But she visibly settled the stewing of her mind and answered that Santini's summary had been correct.

"Only this one time, Charlie," Gail said weakly but with determination. "You owe me that after my proving my love and dedication to you for so many years."

"Whore" was the only word my mind could produce. I remember reacting to my own response with horror. Never would I say anything hurtful to Gail. But, there, I had snarled that she was a whore.

What happened next, no one could have predicted. It was a scream that pierced the gaiety of the New Year's Eve celebration. People at tables all over the ballroom paused enchorus but resumed their ritual as Gail's miserable sound escaped her lips, resounded for a nanosecond .

It undoubtedly was a primeval scream.

Some errant emotion must have engulfed Gail. My wife was suddenly inflated and was spewing words that I could not understand. Just as quickly, however, she recollected her rationality; and, though flushed with emotion, she was displaying a degree of self devotion I had never witnessed.

I fell back into my chair and exhaled until my lungs were flat. I gritted my teeth to suppress the intense need to counter her uncharacteristic but incredibly destructive performance. Anything I might say would be a mistake. My wife had just sapped all my energy in one whiff of what had to be spontaneous insanity.

As she shoved her face to within inches of mine and glared threateningly into my eyes, I realized that I had been neutralized and disarmed.

Never had I seen such a sudden display of discernable arrogance. Gail had never empathized with the flint faced post Christian woman. She had always been disdainful of the strident feminists with their war-like dispositions. But the woman I saw before me could have been a bullet with Gail's wonderful face.

"I'm going to do this, Charlie," she said. "I love you and all that we have had. This does not change anything between you and me, but just once, I want to know what it's like to be special and do things we can't do with each other."

My training kicked in as programmed, and I deflated into a calculated silence. Was I to believe that in one hour Santini had recreated my wife into a swaggering, pompous piece of party ass?

"Calling Gail a whore is not going to change the order of things, Charlie," Santini quipped. "Crudity does not become you and won't change the fact accompli that your wife has accepted my invitation to a social event that will enrich her in many ways."

"It's the kind of party I have heard about since I was old enough to have sex," Gail said fervently. "It's an event I will remember forever, Charlie."

"Maybe you'll remember your divorce forever, too," I said, again uttering an ill advised thought. Once again I warned myself not to respond.

"Charlie? Don't do this," Gail said, now pleading. "It's just a party for us wives to enjoy some people who live in a world we can only imagine."

"For the wives?" Gary asked in mock comedic pose, wiping sweat from his brow. "Someone needs to explain to me, please, how our wives came with us to a New Year's Eve Party and all of a sudden they're leaving with this asshole to get fucked senseless at a party they'll remember forever."

"My Personal Assistant will come here after your wives leave to give you a more comprehensive understanding," Santini said thoughtfully. "However, your wives will experience an invigorating reinvention of sensual appetites and aesthetic values as well as an opening of sexual vistas."

Santini studied his watch.

"You will have until the band begins to play to review the compensation and details of the transaction contained in the envelopes," he said. "Then I will come for the ladies."

Santini took a step away from the table, grasped Gail by her butt cheeks and kissed her deeply before breaking and striding away toward his companions across the room. His comic grimace signaled that he had won. His associates were laughing and applauding.

As I unconsciously bounded out of the dining enclosure and took a step to attack the mass of artful arrogance, both Bob and Henry grabbed me. Gary attempted to assist the women to their chairs at the table.

We were alone. Santini's temporary departure had left a void.

Gail snapped out of her trance as June, Margie and Jeanine began jabbering in nervous excitement, obviously unaware that their husbands were attempting to talk to them. Gail turned to look at me only briefly before she raised the envelope to eye level and studied the message that was handwritten in black ink.

"It's for you," Gail said.

I read: "If your wife has presented this envelope for your consideration, you know or soon will become aware that she has agreed in principle to be a party companion and provide sexual service on demand, excluding anal, "water sports" or any involvement of animals. Sexual partners will be confined to the names on the party list included with the contract. All have been certified as free of communicable diseases, i.e., specifically those diseases categorized as Sexually Transmitted.

"You will find halves of 100 hundred dollar bills and a negotiable document to be honored on demand at the Security Federal Commercial Bank in San Francisco. You agree upon pain of dishonor and retribution to receive your wife as is without recriminations when she returns home. If you choose to accept the risks and obligations of this agreement, do so with the understanding that you will have no recourse to stop your wife from fulfilling her part other than divorce.

"When the band begins to play, my personal assistant will come to your table with the forms of the complete and total contract. At that time, my assistant will give you the other halves of the hundred dollar bills.

"Should you choose not to be a party to the agreement, return this envelope unopened to your wife; and your wife will make the final decision about her participation.

"If your wife confirms her decision to participate, she will leave immediately with my assistant.

"It is my sincere hope that your wives will return to their homes and live happily ever after.

"However, your wives have demonstrated that they had independent decision making brains and will make decisions about their future without any influence from me or may associates.

"Do not follow your wife. Once she leaves your sight, you have no role in her life until she fulfills her agreement and returns home voluntarily. However, it would not be wise to lose sight of your options. You may divorce her, or you could resume your life with her. But you must not abuse her physically or humiliate her in the divorce proceedings. You will never cite your wife's participation in contractual sex at our parties as an adulterous affair.

As the four women stood obviously ready to accompany Santini, we four husbands stood mute. Apparently my friends had realized that any reaction on our part at the moment would gain nothing.

"The band should be ready to play."

Gary had read the message on his envelope and left it unopened on the table. His wife, June, stood watching him expectantly. I couldn't determine if she were hoping that her husband would agree to sell her pussy, stalk away and file for divorce or blister her naked ass with the ballroom crowd as onlookers.

Bob was feverishly writing in the notebook that was always with him. He had opened his envelope and spread the torn halves of the hundred-dollar bills in front of him. Jeanine stood beside him blinking as if she were dazed. Her mouth opened and closed at intervals as if sucking in some realization that might lift the thickening fog.

Margie was the most enigmatic of the four wives. She stood impassively watching Henry as he read the message on his envelope. Henry glanced at me and asked what I was going to do. I grimaced and raised both hands in fatigued frustration. I wasn't ready to reveal my decision, though time was short.

We both turned to Bob and Gary who shook their heads sadly.

Once again I could not maintain my resolve to keep my peace and delay my reactions until I could think clearly. I stupidly vented a fragment of my mushrooming anger.

"Decision time!" I hissed. My angry eyes blazed a challenge at Gail. I did not like her wooden face and cold aura. "What will it be, Gail? Do you peddle my wonderfully seasoned 46 year-old pussy like a used car? Or maybe we have a good laugh and call your whoring a joke. Since I lost my wife an hour ago, maybe you have a suggestion for her replacement."

"I have not been whoring!" Gail shouted. Patrons of the surrounding tables fell silent and stared at Gail in the dim light. "You have no reason to talk to me like that, Charlie."

"Why do you smell like fermenting cum if you haven't been fucked in the past hour?" I asked, already inferring the answer.

"You let Doctor Santiago fuck you in the women's lounge," Margie said without looking at Gail.

"You're mad, Margie, because both of you volunteered and he chose to sample Gail," Jeanine said wearily.

"Sample?" Bob responded, raising his eyes in feigned surprise. "You came prepared to give your wholesale pussy buyer samples?"

Precisely at 8 o'clock, the band began to play, and the New Year's Eve revelers crowded onto the dance floor as the lights dimmed. In four laborious hours, this damnable party will celebrate the end of a most miserable year. It also will open the new year with a void in my marriage.

Only an artist crazed by the surreal 21st century could have captured the essence of the moment.

Doctor William Santini Santiago reappeared at my side as if by magic. The young woman accompanying him was all business, quickly raising the matter of signing the contracts.

"It's time, ladies!" Santini said, the word "ladies" enunciated on a rising note.

Gail flinched as she shifted her gaze to Santini's face.

"Sign the contracts," the young assistant said as she placed her briefcase on the table. "And I will notarize your signatures."

Her name was Paula. She talked passively about her duties as Santini's PA as she removed a ream of paper from her briefcase, pealed off several pages and placed what appeared to be a contract document on the table in front of the women.

Paula directed her eyes to Bob. He sadly shook his head "no" and pushed the documents away.

Jeanine signed.

Gary pushed the papers away.

June signed.

Henry signed. Margie signed.

As June handed the signed contract to the assistant, she turned to Gary, her face revealing her anxiety. Gary avoided her gaze and withdrew his arm from the touch of her hand.

Santini had left Gail's signing for last, apparently hoping for an even more dramatic scene between me and her. But her scribbling her name on the offensive agreements was anticlimactic.

With an abrupt sweep of my arm, I sent the contract documents flying across the table toward Santini, Gail and his PA. I managed through incredible force of will to relax visibly into my chair and watch the travesty through lids narrowed to slits.

The PA handed the women the envelopes containing the second half of the hundred dollar bills. Each of our wives widened their eyes in surprise as she looked at the negotiable instrument for the first time. "It's good paper," the PA said. "It is to be redeemed in person at the San Francisco offices of Santini's commercial bank."

Everyone watched my wife as she placed the halves of the hundred dollar bills in her purse along with copies of Santini's contract.

Gail avoided looking at me, and I made no further effort to engage her.

Nothing more was said as a man appeared at the entrance to the ballroom and beckoned to Santini. Santini nodded to the women who walked away from our table without looking at their husbands.

This time I was successful in controlling my need to address my wife. I realized that a husband who truly loved his wife would have pleaded miserably and cried as his wife walked away to get fucked by Santini and who knew how many others. In my case, however, any demonstration on my part would have sealed my fate with my wife. Call it special perception, but I knew that Gail was hopelessly lost for the moment. And any action by me at that time would likely preclude my benefitting from some miraculous reversal of the obvious marital catastrophe. Of course, we all know that there are no miracles along the path to divorce.

"Gentlemen!" Santini said, smiling infectiously and saluting with insipid vigor. "It was a pleasure doing meeting you; and rest assured I will return your lovely wives in time orgasmically exhausted but no worse for the wear."

I stood and tossed a fifty on the table. Gary followed my lead. Bob studiously continued writing in his hardbound notebook and did not look up. Henry sat in what might have been a catatonic state, stirring his drink with his finger while staring vacantly at the dancers.

"My assistant will remain to answer questions," Santini said with mock concern. "When a man's wife leaves for an interlude of luxuriant sex, he is entitled to ask some questions."

Santini strode away to catch the others who had already passed through the exit.

"Only one question," I said, addressing Santini's PA.