Betrayed Husbands Anonymous

"I got that resolved. The divorce will be final soon. She and one-time are living in my old home. You know what? Here's what I wish.

"He is a cheater, he'll cheat, again. It would be nice if someone approached him, seduced him, and gave him a couple of particularly nasty diseases It would be great if that caused them public embarrassment and that cost them their jobs -- they are in the public eye. Then, I could just up and leave. My profession will allow me to find work. I want my hometown in the rear-view mirror and a fresh start.

"Thanks for listening."

I sat down. Ralph looked at me and smiled. "Believe it or not, as wishes go, I've heard more ambitious ones."

"So, what's next? Do I try to find some slut to help me with my idea?"

"No, let me be clear, you expressed a wish here this afternoon, I never want you to think of it, again. Never happened, your trip here is a figment of your imagination. If anything happens to your wife and her new lover, it will be a total coincidence. You will be able to look anyone in the eye and tell them you have absolutely no idea how any of it came about."

"I can do that."

"Now, let me tell you about membership in this organization. Fees vary. Sometimes people have violent or unseemly wishes, they end up having to participate in some violence. We have no free lunches. In your case, we are going to ask $2,500 for your one-time dues payment."

He handed me a shoe box. "The next meeting you attend, you will have exactly two thousand five hundred dollars in this box. No one will count it. Can you afford that?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Sure, we are flexible. You have two meetings left in your membership. The next one, you pay your dues. The following meeting, you pick up a box like this one. After you leave the meeting, you open the box. On top you will find detailed instructions on what to do with the box. The rest of the contents of the box are covered. Under no circumstance are you to look and see what is under that covering."

"So, I never know what request is in the box?"

"Bob, we have all manner of people in this organization. Most are haunted and flaky in their behavior. You, like me, have shown you say nothing to anyone. You can be trusted. There are two types of people in this organization: victims and victors. Depending on the wish being carried out, some of these victors are not nice people."

"Swell. I will be handing a box of money to a criminal."

"Bob! Stop it. You will do no such thing. You will hand a shoe box to a stranger."

"Yeah, yeah. What are my chances of survival?"

"You will wrap the shoe box, in say bright green paper. Your instructions will include sitting in the post office, or a bus stop, when lots of people are around. You will be approached by a man who will ask if that is the package for Aunt Mildred, or something like that. My guess is you'll survive."

"Ralph, you said there was some flexibility in what I pay."

"You pay $2,500 and make on delivery. For every additional delivery you make, knock $500 off."

"That seems like a lot, for a low-risk delivery."

"We find that many of our members will have nothing to do with violence. Not even delivering a shoe box which might contain a nonviolent or violent request. They must pay money, to avoid that exchange."

"Aren't you afraid someone will get caught and give us up?"

"Give who up, Bob? All you know about me is my name is Ralph." He laughed at his own misstatement. You don't know where I live, what I do, and have nothing to use to trace any of us."

"What if the local sheriff happened into our meeting?"

"So what? What did he see? A couple of guys talking to other guys about marital issues. It might strike him as odd he's never seen any of us. He might ask the owner who set the meeting up. What would that give him? I'm sure whoever arranged this is not here, now -- and won't ever be back."

It was as close to iron clad as I could think of. Certainly, I could not tell anyone what my part had been in anything. I would have attended a few meetings in different cities, made a presentation, given a guy a shoe box, received a shoe box, and given that away.

Someone had gone to great care to design a system which enabled people to get revenge without participating in either the planning or the execution of that revenge. But the revenge didn't fall off a tree and hit someone. No matter who, or whether I knew who, someone had to plan and execute this revenge. How did that get done?

I wrestled with that thought on the drive home. As I parked my car, I decided it was all the same to me to presume the revenge did fall out of a tree. Why would I want to know more than that?

++++++

I gathered the money. I decided to give them the $2,500. I had it in the account and getting the cash out of joint funds was a good thing. The ex could pay her half -- which seemed just.

Another meeting on a different day of the week, in a different city, at a different time. I had a new identity and sought a different identity. I saw no one I knew, had no idea what was going on; it was comforting - things were just as they were supposed to be.

I was finishing my sandwich when Jim stood to speak. He said, "hi" we said "hi" and he started into his story. "I am married, my wife has three children, all conceived during our marriage; I fathered the middle one. The only parent my children have in common is their mother, each has a different father.

"Get this, my wife claims she has only had sex with two other men, one-time each, during our marriage. I am pretty sure she would deny that if you could pick up pregnancy off a public toilet seat.

"I am told I cannot be too specific here, but we need to find a tissue match for one of the children. My wife is not a match, and the children have no other blood relatives that we know about. Even though my wife only has had sex with three men in 18 years, she seems to have forgotten the other two's names.

Jim stiffened. His eyes teared and he paused. "It is likely a beautiful child who has never done anything to anyone is going to die because he or she was born to a mother who didn't even get the names of potential fathers. What saddens me is the slut is likely to get custody if there is a divorce.

"My wish is conditional. If the child dies, it will have been a painful and horrible life for an innocent. I hope my wife dies an equally horrible death, say chained to a bed in some foreign brothel. If the child lives, I'll see to it we properly take care of the children, until the last is 18."

The look in Jim's eyes made me shiver. They were fixed, determined, and quite dead; devoid of any emotion. If I am any judge of character his wife would be better off in the brothel, than several more years with Jim.

My contact asked me for my shoe box. "How full is it? If I may ask."

"Completely."

"That is what we expected."

"Wait a minute, I have wondered what is going on. It was meeting my needs, so I didn't ask. 'What we expected' says there are some of you who are running this and that scares me."

"Why? Might I ask?"

"Lots of things go on in my little part of the world, every single day. Way too much of it being things I don't want to be aware of, let alone a part of. Now, I am not so prudish that because a - pardon me - sociopath like our speaker, has made a wish that is probably going to be carried out, I am not joined to him at the hip. But I am closer to him than I want to be."

"You are afraid you are an accessory?"

I shook my head, "No, not really. I don't know if Jim is a plant, actually has a wife, etc. I'll never know what happens to her, if she really exists. You are a different story."

"Why worry about me?"

He was starting to piss me off, this coy shit was wearing thin, "It is clear to me that I am at the end of the betrayed husbands route. Now, you need some or all of us to join the support group, or whatever you are called."

"They were right about you. You have what it takes."

I scowled at him and said as sarcastically as I could muster, "Just what does it take? That I have and you were all so right about my having?"

He threw his head back and laughed. "That." He paused for a bit and then continued. "You are smart, quiet, aware, and thoughtful. Those are all necessary traits. You are right, of course, there are two halves to this organization. I'll call them victims and victors."

I looked at him, it didn't sound right. "The opposite of a victim is not really a victor, is it?"

"Winners and losers." He stopped to assess if I was with him. "Between husband and wife, one is a victim the other the victor. Our group doesn't involve the betrayed, but we call them victors, anyway. That aside, this is getting to be a large group, there is much involved. We have a group who finds betrayed husbands, a group that arranges meetings, a group that plans, and a group that executes the mostly legal revenge."

"You suggest more questions than you provide answers. I paid a lot of money, but it is a pittance toward the work you described. Are all these people volunteers?"

"I never thought about that. I can't tell you much because I don't know much. Everyone I know is a volunteer. I do know there are some who are not, but who and how many, I have no idea."

++++++

Chuck's pre-prison life left him with a personal fortune. He was happy to spend some of that fortune avenging the wrongs of cheating wives. His idea of a support group was great. There were plenty of husbands who wanted revenge but lacked the ability or the balls to carry it out. There was also an endless supply of felons, addicts, and other miscreants to execute the crimes. The tricky part was finding someone to create a plan to be executed -- a hungry criminal will do anything for money, just not very well.

Another thing at which Chuck had excelled was planning. He decided the way to enable his support group with an endless supply of thugs and henchmen was to form a legitimate company, which in turn, could carry out various and nefarious tasks. Chuck found a couple of partners and formed Bright Edge Capital, whose purpose was to provide venture capital to new, emerging technology companies.

Chuck's two partners were brilliant young guys, who needed capital, themselves, to get started. Chuck provided all the money for a 40% ownership, his partners holding 30% each. They thought it a great deal, they were the partners and held 60% of the vote. They had no problem with Chuck operating his small, "skunk works" on the side.

At the weekly partnership meetings Chuck was very helpful to the two entrepreneurs, who could tend to get too excited about some concept, which had no real chance to make money. They were also very "helpful" to Chuck, paying almost no attention to anything his skunk works was doing. It was a match made in heaven, with an unknown to most, dark, dark side.

One legitimate business the skunk works undertook was a multi-city detective agency. The revenge business would need private investigators, who might as well do work for others, as well.

The second business Chuck established was Perfect Project Planning. There were so many small businesses in need of temporary help to: build their new offices; install major office equipment; set up an accounting system; and a variety of similar tasks. Perfect was also a place from which to pay planners of revenge.

Chuck's partners were close to telling him not to do his current plan, until he assured them, he would still make the weekly partnership meetings. Chuck claimed boredom and wanted to do a "real" job. He wanted to run a local office of Perfect Project. So, in addition to being on the board of Perfect, and its de facto CEO, he was a second-tier executive, working 300 miles from Perfect's central office.

Chuck found a former BHA member, who was an accountant. The accountant's wish had been a parking lot mugging gone bad. His ex-wife's new husband had been fatally shot during the robbery. The thief got away with $47.00. Like Chuck, the accountant had no remorse and a newly found appetite to "help" others. Chuck had an accounting system which would launder his own money, and cash from the support group, to go with regular business payments, so his office turned a small profit each month.

The accountant quickly pointed out to Chuck that Perfect would need to hire women. Failure to do so would bring down the Equal Opportunities people. So, the office where Perfect was headquartered did legitimate work, with a balanced workforce and the BHA work, done only by men, was done from a different, private office. The men who worked there were contractors for, rather than employees of Perfect.

Every presentation by every member of Betrayed Husbands Anonymous was recorded. The recording was given to one of Perfect's project planners. His role was to make the wish a reality.

Nearly every contract employee of Chuck's branch of Perfect was a former BHA member. They provided several services: arranging the time and place for meetings; recruiting new members; adding members to Perfect's consultants; and planning through execution of all wishes.

++++++

There was a knock at my door. A man was standing there holding a card. The card was from Betrayed Husbands and the centered name was Ralph. The man who handed me the card said, "You may call me Chuck. [author's note, this is the founder, Chuck, though he will lie about it.]"

"That's a new twist. Usually, a man gives me a card and name which are the same and I know - not representative of anything. Now, you give me a name different from the card, which I believe is yours."

"They told me you were smart. May I come in?"

"Certainly, Chuck. I have been wondering who would approach me and when."

"I guess I drew the short straw and they sent me."

"Might I ask who 'they'", I said with air quotes, "is?"

"Well, you might, but I am not at liberty to divulge those for whom I work."

"Okay, Chuck, let me have it, why are you here?" I gave him my warmest smile; I didn't want to put him off.

"First, I have some news. The company your wife works for is about to have a major overhaul. They have had no morals clause for some time because the man who runs this part of the organization, has no morals. It turns out, he is about to be taken to the cleaners by an irate wife, who has a number of particularly nasty STDs."

"I hope he didn't get them from my soon to be ex." I laughed.

"You will get a kick out of this. His wife was no longer willing to sit and pretend not to know of his philandering and decided to get a little on the side, herself. Being a neophyte, she contracted the diseases and gave them to her husband.

"Her fuck-buddy, as it turns out was the man your wife is involved with. He was infected by some person who seduced him, oddly just as you wished. From there it is unclear. He, of course fucked your wife and the boss's wife. Your wife also fucked the boss. So, you would need timing information and who knows what else to actually know who gave what to whom. But, the wife, being no fool, accused her cheating husband, who in turn blames your wife."

"Oh, that's sweet." I could not have been happier. "Sounds like she is the victim in this and ends up wearing the shame of the 'perp'. I'm sure her boyfriend is not going to volunteer he is fucking the boss's wife." I could not contain my glee. "Gee, I feel bad for her."

Chuck was smiling, too, "Yes, I can see you are heart-broken; maybe in time you will get over it."

"Well, I hope not, but we will see."

"Unfortunately, it gets worse for her. The wife is the daughter of a past CEO of the company. She has complained to the company head quarters and all of them are going to lose their jobs. It is going to take corporate a couple of weeks to get replacement personnel, so this mass dismissal is unknown to anyone local. It is a great time for you to quit your job and disappear."

"Well, I have wanted to go out on my own for a while now. But I can't see how I could possibly do that. I have to get established in a strange city, that could take years."

"More good news. I am a mid-level manager in a company, Perfect Project Planning. I have a certain amount of latitude, the owners don't pay attention to what I do, only how much I make. I can offer you a job. Some of what you do would be for Perfect, some of what you do would be for Betrayed Husbands Anonymous, but paid by Perfect, and some of what you do would be for yourself and paid by Perfect."

"Chuck, being honest, I don't want to get involved in criminal activity. The guy I saw the other day wanted his wife to die in a foreign brothel. I can't say whether she deserves such a fate, but I can't be the one to condemn her to it."

"You don't need to worry about that. Our part of the victors has nothing to do with anything illegal. Well, that's not 100% true. Your wish was that people got STDs; it turns out they did. If someone did something to cause that, I suspect it is a crime."

"That I could live with. One way it might happen is to hang out at a free clinic and offer some pretty young thing a wad of cash to payback what her cheating boy friend did to her. Who's she going to tell and what would she say?"

"Exactly." Chuck looked like he was going to add his usual, disclaimer, but he let it go. "I have been informed that you are a guy who can put a plan together. If you come and work for Perfect, you will have resources to help you. If you are asked to do something you are not comfortable with, decline. I will be your boss; I guarantee I will support you."

"How much time can I devote to my new business?"

"At first, for the first three months, 10 hours a week plus anything over 40. Then, a quarter of 20 hours, then 30. I can't predict, nor can you how successful your new endeavor will be. You may want to break away from Perfect or stay in some sort of profit-sharing arrangement. You and I will work that out."

"So you will own some part of my business?" I didn't like that.

"No. Unless, you want to remain a part of Perfect Planning. If you do, we will work something out. If we can't, you can go your separate way."

"Why would I stay?"

"Two reasons. First, you might enjoy helping guys like yourself, who have been betrayed but have no way to exact revenge. Second, Perfect provide a wide range of client services. You might prefer doing that work."

"Several possibilities, I like that."

"Oh, I almost forgot. I have another story for you." Chuck sat forward; it was clear he liked the story he was about to tell. "You may remember hearing about a guy who found his brother fucking his wife. He lost his wife, his children were being turned against him, and his father sided with the brother. The poor guy just wanted his dad to see he'd been wronged."

"Sure, I remember."

"There little business is pretty nice. Worth about 5 to 6 million. Dad got an offer of $11 million, providing the business stood up to a private audit. Of course, he greedily agreed. The auditor said the business was too risky and pointed out nearly $500,000 in embezzled funds."

"Let me guess -- the brother."

"Yes, and he'd used the money to do things like seduce our member's wife, and 6 or 7 others. He also was hiding gambling debts. His father was furious. The brother had sworn he didn't do any of those things. Dad now knew him to be a liar and a thief. Both are traits he will not abide."

"Our guy must have been happy with that."

Chuck shook his head, "I'll be honest with you, I don't like the ending here, but our member does, so that is more important. The audit showed our guy was the big reason the company was successful, and his big brother was not only limiting the success, by stealing from his family, but blaming things on our guy. The father fired and disowned his former, favorite son and begged forgiveness of the other."