Billie Jean

That night I sat alone in my house getting drunk as hell. I was wallowing in self pity. I'd lost it all, my cushy job, having everybody like me and even my wife. That was the toughest pill of all to swallow. I'd done everything for that woman. I'd even put up with all of her weird ass relatives and all the skeletons in their fucking closet. The first time things don't look good, she bails on me.

That was really it. Mary Beth had always been about appearances. In public she was the perfect arm candy wife. In private, she was an absolute whore. God I loved her. God I missed her. God I couldn't stand that bitch for doing this to me. What had she done to me...I'd forgotten. I must have really been drunk if I couldn't remember what she'd done to me. Well anyway, it didn't matter, I had the power of liquor and I didn't need her anymore. I was thinking clearly for the first time since the last time I was this drunk. Then the phone rang. I answered it.

"Who does this be being?" I asked. Surprisingly he didn't understand me.

"Uhm, Blake, is that you?" he asked. Of course with my absolute clarity of mind brought about by my new mental powers, I totally understood everything.

"Are you drunk?" he asked. "That doesn't seem like the Alexander I know."

"Caesar, is that you?" I slurred. "Seize the fucking day Caesar. It is day isn't it? I don't know about the fucking part. Except that Billie Jean pretty well fucked up all of the fucking. She chased Mary Beth off. Anyway you can have it all now."

"You're drunk aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes, I am." I said. "And you should be too."

"That bitch really did a number on you didn't she?" he asked. "We all warned you," he said.

"I know," I laughed. "People always told me, be careful what you do don't go around...making dumb girls fart. Someone also told me, be careful who you love. Be careful where you toot, or your thighs will fill with poot, hey, hey."

"Damn Caesar, that was good. I should write a song," I said laughing.

"Uhm, Blake, I wanted to talk to you," he said. "So I'll call you in the morning." Then he hung up.

Several hours and a lot of drinks later, my phone rang.

"What?" I said.

"Blake, are you drunk?" asked a voice. Then I heard laughter. "Your life is all fucked up now isn't it? I told you what would happen. You've lost everything, even my stupid sister. I warned you. But it's not over. Wait until you see what happens tonight." Then she hung up and I passed out.

The next day I woke up. I know that sounds crazy, but I was lucky to wake up at all. I could have died from alcohol poisoning from the amount of liquor I'd put away. The phone rang and it sounded as if it was the loudest thing in the world. I quickly turned it off.

My head was fuzzy, so fuzzy that I could barely think. I did remember that Mary Beth had left me. I threw up all over the tile of my kitchen floor. Why had I been sleeping on the floor in the kitchen?

The sound of my cleaning lady coming into the kitchen also focused me. She came in and smiled at me. Then she either saw or smelled the vomit and made a very ugly face.

"It's okay Mr. Alexander, I'll clean it up," she said. I got up and went upstairs to take a shower. I noticed that most of Mary Beth's clothes and jewelry were still there. Her clothes were everything to her. She was planning on coming back. I'd have to tell Burns to find out who she'd hired as an attorney and arrange for Mary Beth's things to be taken somewhere.

If she wanted out of the marriage, that was fine with me. I didn't blame her. I guess I was more hurt than anything else. It just goes to show you how little we know the people we love. I'd always thought that MB and I were forever. But the first spot of trouble and she goes running. I guess it didn't do her image any good to see in the papers that her husband had gotten some girl pregnant, even if it wasn't true.

I'd always thought that MB would stick with me through thick and thin. I guess it's good I found out now, that it wasn't the case. I got to my feet and slowly made my way up the stairs. I hadn't been this drunk since college. What did I do back then?

I took a long cold shower which focused my brain a little bit. Then I threw on some running shorts. I stopped off in my kitchen after that and drank a half a glass of orange juice and a handful of tiny twisted pretzels with cheese on them. I ate a couple of slices of my favorite Canadian Maple turkey and threw on my running shoes. It had been a while since I went out for a run. There usually just wasn't time for it while I was working so much.

The first few steps were the worst. My lungs burned and my head ached. After that I got into an easy rhythm and it was as if I'd never stopped running. Sure my pace wasn't as fast as I used to run, but this was about thinking and getting clear, not speed or distance.

As I ran I took stock of my life. The main thing that most people worry about is survival. In real world terms, that meant having a place to live and food to eat. Those are the true necessities. For a man once those have been solved, the next things are a reason to be and someone or something to share it with.

Suddenly I started smiling. I had enough money that I never had to work again unless I just wanted to. Food and shelter were a given. My house was in my name and paid for. Even in a divorce it would be difficult for Mary Beth to get the house. I could start moving money around instantly to cover myself in the divorce. Getting another job wouldn't be difficult once the Billie Jean thing died down. There'd be lots of companies that would be willing to give me a chance as soon as I cleared this shit up.

And as for Mary Beth, if I couldn't count on her when the going got rough, as bad as I felt right now, did I really need her? I was sure that when all of this was over she'd come crawling back to me. But I wasn't so sure I wanted her back.

When I got back from the run, my maid's car was gone. Mary Beth's car was in the driveway though. I quickly opened up the door. I was sure she'd be bent over the couch waiting for me. That was the way we always made up. Make up sex was the best.

I stealthily opened the door and my heart almost popped out of my chest. Mary Beth was naked as a jaybird and bent over my three thousand dollar sofa alright. Only some guy I'd never seen before was pumping his dick in and out of her like there was no tomorrow. I watched for a few seconds before anyone was aware that I was there.

The weirdest thing about the scene was that the guy was doing his best to fuck the shit out of her, but MB was just lying there taking it. It just didn't seem like her at all. Then I noticed Tina sitting in a chair just watching them, as calmly as if she was watching it on TV.

I stepped into the room and grabbed the guy with both of my hands around his throat. I yanked him backwards out of my wife. Unlike what you read on the internet there was no popping sound as his dick came free. There was only the barest possible shattering sound as my already broken heart disintegrated even further.

The guy was slightly bigger than me but it didn't make a difference. He was already off balance from being pulled backwards out of MB. I slammed him down onto the hardwood floor and pistoned my fist into him several times. I hit him in the face and the stomach. Then I dragged him out the door and left him naked from the waist down in my driveway.

I turned to face Mary Beth and her sister. "Get the fuck out of my house," I said calmly. Tina sat there smiling. Mary Beth was shocked. The expression on her face let me know that this wasn't what she'd expected.

"Blake this isn't your house, it's ours," she said. "I live here too."

"Show me your name anywhere on the fucking mortgage, or anything else," I snapped.

"You filed for a fucking divorce. When we get to court, if a judge rules it, you might get the house. That is if I don't have my lawyers keep us out of court for 5 or 6 years, in the meantime I'll be living here without you. That is also only if I don't burn this fucking place to the ground before you move back in. More than likely in a divorce we'd have a fifty/fifty split of the assets and I'd make sure you didn't have enough money to buy me out of the place. Now go."

"Blake I don't really want a divorce. Tina said that if I filed, the reporters would find out about it and then leave me alone. I just felt so bad about you lying to me about this whole thing. Tina said that the only way for us to get even would be if I did something too. So we went out and I did some really bad things. And I'm sorry Blake, but it still didn't feel right," she said. "After I wrote you that note I knew it was wrong. I didn't really want to be away from from you. I love you too much for that. But Tina was right, I had to do something to let you know the pain that I was feeling. So I figured that letting that guy fuck me would hurt you, like you and Billie Jean hurt me. It didn't mean anything and he wasn't even any good. It was..."

"Mary Beth get the fuck out of my house and take your piece of shit sister with you," I snapped.

"Blake if I leave, I'm not coming back," she said. "Everyone knows how you've humiliated me in public with this whole fucking Billie Jean thing. If you'd just admitted it from the beginning and gave the little bitch some money it would be all over by now. But day after fucking day, I'm humiliated over and over again because of you. You should be kissing my ass to get me back."

I just started laughing. "Thanks MB," I said. "Last night I got so drunk I couldn't see. Not because I lost my fucking job or anything like that but because I was so upset about losing you. Now I see that I haven't lost shit. And don't worry about coming back. I'm sure our security system has footage of what you were doing with your boy toy. I'll use that when I counter-file for the divorce. We had a great marriage or so I thought. But once again I was wrong. I thought you were the person I wanted to see eternity with. I'm glad I found out that I was wrong so early in life and don't have to waste anymore of my time on you. Boy are you going to feel stupid when this is over, now go."

I went back upstairs for another shower. But this time I felt good about it. I realized then that I'd truly hit bottom so there was no way for things to get any worse. I was down as far as I could possibly go. The only way left for me to go was up. I even smiled at Tina as I flashed my middle finger at her on my way up the stairs.

When I came back down the stairs after taking another longer, slower shower and changing into more comfortable clothing, I was ready for a more reasonable talk with Mary Beth. I'd listen to whatever she had to say but Tina had to go. Luckily as I looked around the house I discovered that both of them had already left.

My head was clearer and surprisingly I felt good. I know that it seems like I was in denial or shock. Some would think that I was running on adrenalin after all of the shocks I'd recently suffered. And maybe that was a part of it. I remember once when I'd been marketing a book by a famous psychologist that he'd written about divorces and infidelity. He seemed to think that if you could quickly just walk away from your spouse, then you had never really loved them in the first place. For years I'd believed him. But right then I wanted to sit down and talk with him about updating his theory.

I had loved Mary Beth for as long as I'd known her. But her actions had destroyed it.

Walking in and catching her drunk and fucking some guy was just the tip of the ice berg. Her lack of faith in me had been the real deal breaker. As I thought about it, her not believing me wasn't even the worst of it. I remembered back a little over three weeks ago when this all started. She'd offered me a get out of jail card, if I confessed. That told me something even worse about all of this. She'd been willing to forgive and forget, me cheating on her. What she couldn't get past was simply her reputation being damaged by the negative publicity.

So the woman I loved above all else, was vain above all else. Maybe she was right about all of this, we did have irreconcilable differences. Had the shoe been on the other foot, I'd have reacted totally different. I wouldn't have cared a whit, if every newspaper in the world thought she was a whore. I'd have proudly gone everywhere with her on my arm. But if she had actually cheated on me, that would have killed me. So what did she do? She went out and cheated on me. Game over we were done.

I was just trying to figure out how to explain all of that to her, when I realized that it might be best to give it a day or two before trying to contact her. We'd both probably said things that could have been said better. I was sure that the two of us were done, but I really wanted an amicable divorce.

Now I had to figure out what to do with myself. I decided to do one of my very favorite thinking activities. I went out to the garage and got out all of my car cleaning and detailing products. Back when I had a job I couldn't afford the time necessary to wash my car myself. I liked doing it but it just took too long to do it right.

Since I was a bum, I had all of the time in the world. It was early afternoon and I rinsed the car down to loosen all of the accumulated surface dirt. That was all it took to jog my memory. As I looked at the car it started me to thinking about the other Mustang. Myra had arranged for me to buy that car if I wanted it and I did. That got me to thinking about Myra. I pulled out my cell phone and called her.

"It's about time you called me," she snapped. "I can't take any more of this."

"Can't take any more of what?" I asked.

"Being out of work and sitting at home," she said. "My husband is at work and my kids are driving me crazy."

"Myra, you aren't out of work. There are probably 5 or 6 of the associates alone who'd want you. And if you didn't want to work for them there's always the pool," I said. "I'm the one who's out of work," I said. "Not you."

"There were more than ten who wanted me," she said. "But you kind of get used to working for the best. It took me too long to train you to how I like my boss to work."

"Ha, ha," I said. "When I first picked you, you couldn't even sharpen a pencil." We spent a few minutes laughing and reminiscing about things we'd done over the past few years.

"Blake, seriously," she said. "What did you think about Anthony's offer?"

"What offer?" I asked. As I said it I remembered talking to him the previous evening, but I couldn't remember a word of the conversation. "Oh, shit," I said. "He called me while I was drunk and depressed. I probably made a fool of myself. Well I guess that's off the table whatever it was."

"He wanted you to come to work for him," she said.

"Myra I love you, but you're deranged. I made more money last year in salary than his agency brought in. He can't afford me," I said. "But you know what," I said, thinking about it. "Maybe I should start my own agency. Myra, you're on vacation for the next couple of days, until I get some things straightened out. Be ready to go back to work. We'll negotiate your new salary and responsibilities as soon as we get a chance."

Why not? Why couldn't I start my own agency? Just as I was starting to consider how I'd go about it, my phone rang.

"Mr. Alexander, I have some information for you," said Sarah. "I've found out where she lives, but still no sign of where the baby is. She has a boyfriend. A guy named believe it or not Carmen San Diego. I have no known address for him either. I believe she has someone looking after the child while she's been in Cali. Mr. Maitland has been trying to find out things about her too, may I share our information with him as well?"

"Yes Sarah, please do that. And share it with Miss Martinez as well, "I said "Although in her case you might not want to mention that I asked you to. I'd imagine she'd pretty pissed at me for the articles in the paper."

After the call from Sarah, I started imagining what the logo for my new agency would look like. I saw two crossed A's. Alexander Advertising. I was just rotating the image in my mind when the phone rang again.

"Damn it, Blake, I can't keep up with you," said Burns. "As soon as we get off the fucking plane, I'm bombarded with questions about your divorce and who's getting what. Then this morning, before I can even call you to ask you how you'd like to proceed Mary Beth calls me, crying. Not her lawyer, Mary Beth herself. In all of the years I've known the two of you I've never heard her cry. The woman is usually as composed as a beauty queen. But she was bawling her fucking eyes out. I told her that I shouldn't be speaking to her that it's unethical. She should have her lawyer call me. She told me that she wants to stop the divorce proceedings immediately and that she'd made a terrible mistake. How am I supposed to tell the fucking reporters that there isn't going to be a divorce? Should I just tell them that the whole thing was from someone being misquoted?"

"Monty, who do you work for?" I asked.

"You Blake," he said.

"Have I asked you to stop the divorce?" I asked.

"Well, uhm, no," he said. "But I..."

"No buts, Monty, get back to work," I said and hung up.

Just as I was about to dip my microfiber towel in my bucket of Turtle wax car wash solution, a car pulled up in my driveway.

Caesar Anthony got out of it.

"You look better than you sounded on the phone last night," he said.

"I still feel like shit, Seize, but I'm going to take it one day at a time," I said.

"Same old Blake," he said.

"Nope," I said. "This is a totally new, far more driven Blake, standing in front of you. I'm like a guy in a bar fight. While I've been sitting here drinking on my stool, not bothering a soul, some asshole comes up and sucker punched me. That's really what Billie Jean did, she sucker punched me. I didn't know what was going on and my whole world just went to shit. There was nothing I could do about it but absorb the punches and let everyone get their shots in. Lately the punches have kept coming but I've suddenly got my guard up. I've taken some steps both here and in Florida to get that guard up and I'm defending myself against those punches now." I took up a boxing stance and held my hands up in front of me so he could see them.

"So Seize, if you've come here to gloat or to take your shot at kicking me while I'm down, get on with it but remember, I won't be down forever. Long before anyone expects it, I'll be on my way back up. And this time I'll aim even higher."

"You know," he said. "Last night I understood it. You were upset about the whole Billie Jean thing. Then on top of that, your wife files for a divorce while you're out of town. But maybe you should take a look at yourself too, Blake. All through college you and I competed with each other. Sometimes it was tooth and nail. But it was always in my mind, a friendly competition, based on mutual respect."

He paused and looked at me. "We competed because we both wanted to be the best, but we never cheated. And we never kicked each other when we were down. Something else I remember about you Blake. You always had class. Remember when you broke up with that cheerleader...Sue Anne something or other? I started dating her about a week after you two broke up. I never knew it but she was just trying to use me to get back with you. When you ran into us, you didn't whine or act like a little bitch or try to get macho. You came over shook my hand and wished us well."

I smiled remembering what he was talking about.

"Then in our sophomore year, Mandy Grayson dumped me," he said. "That bitch put me through hell. I knew she was trying to go after you, but you didn't give her the time of day. I'd been trying to get myself ready so I could handle the situation in as classy a way as you had, but I didn't think I could, I was still too hurt. I still remember you coming over to me and telling me, that the true measure of a man isn't the respect he gets from his friends, but the respect he gets from his opponents. And you respected me too much to go after Mandy when A she wasn't worthy of me anyway and B there were plenty of other women around."