Christmas Biology Lesson

As Greg said this, several women around the table put their hands to their mouths and began to blush. Greg looked first at Quiara, who instantly went beet red. She couldn't look him in the eye. He then looked around the table. Most of the women Emile had been taking to the restaurant was both embarrassed and shocked to see that they weren't the only one.

Emile's rage doubled as it became obvious to everyone that Greg was talking about him.

"You don't think that a married man spending nearly $20,000 on a tennis bracelet for the married woman he's trying to seduce is infidelity?"

As he said this, Greg withdrew the jewelry box from his pocket. It contained the Tiffany tennis bracelet Emile had given Quiara earlier that week. He opened the lid and lifted it to show everyone at the table. There were gasps all around.

Next to Emile, Elodie had tears streaming down her cheeks. Greg tossed the Tiffany bracelet box across the table so that it slid to a stop in front of Elodie.

"Elodie, that bracelet should be yours and not Quiara's." Greg said angrily.

Greg looked over at Quiara who looked like she was about to be physically ill. Her hand was over her mouth. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, too.

Greg knew that Quiara thought she'd hidden the bracelet where no one would ever find it. She didn't take into account how motivated her husband would be once his private investigator showed him the footage of Emile handing it to Quiara during their secret weekly gourmet French lunch.

Greg then looked at Elodie, who was now furious. She started hitting and slapping Emile and screaming at him in French. It had been fifteen years since Greg's last high school French class, but he could hear Elodie saying, "She's my best friend!" in French over and over to her husband as she beat him.

Emile angrily pushed Elodie away from him, stood up, and charged at Greg. This was easier said than done. He was at the opposite end of a huge oval table. He had to stomp around the outside perimeter.

"Emile, sit down!" shouted Greg. "You don't want this!"

Greg had a momentary flash of fear as the fight or flight reflex kicked in. Emile was probably six inches taller and had at least forty pounds on him. Greg, though, was made of some pretty stern stuff and he stood up and held his ground as Emile approached.

Emile got within striking distance of Greg and stopped. As quick as a snake, his right hand shot out in an attempt to belt Greg across the face. Emile was a lot more athletic than Greg gave him credit for. His fast-twitch muscles and reflex times were superb.

One of the women screamed in terror. "Screaming like that is so unproductive," Greg noted to himself.

Greg backed slightly, rolled his shoulder in, and Emile's fist was a half inch short of his nose. Greg didn't see it, but sensed the other half of a combination punch. He instinctively ducked his head down. Emile's left hand sailed just over Greg's head, actually making contact with Greg's hair. It was very close and was a near disaster for Greg, but he weathered it.

Greg then took one step forward. He bladed his hand and got it locked in right above Emile's elbow. Using Emile's own body weight and momentum, he immediately put Emile in a standing straight arm lock. Greg had to resist the the temptation to break Emile's elbow in half right there in front of everyone. Instead, he applied a little pressure and it made Emile whimper. Emile tried desperately to escape the arm lock. Greg slowly increased the pressure until Emile quit fighting and was standing absolutely still.

"Let me go!" screamed Emile. "This hurts! You are like to break my arm!"

"Shut up, Emile," said Greg. "You attacked me. Did everyone see how he came at me and swung at me?" asked Greg.

"Yes, Greg," Chen replied. "We all saw it."

"I don't want any more violence, Emile," pronounced Greg. "If you continue to struggle and it comes to violence, I will literately break your arm in half. I am a smaller man than you, but what you don't know is that I am the youngest and smallest of five brothers. They beat the absolute shit out of me as a kid on a daily basis. The consequence of that is that I'm extremely tough and I can put up a hell of a fight. My brothers and I went to Brazilian Ju Jitsu together for years. I got my black belt before I got my Doctorate. I earned my black belt, Emile."

Greg looked around the table. Everyone was watching with rapt attention. Quiara had a weird look on her face. It was a disbelieving awe. She couldn't believe her husband had bested Emile in physical combat. She was doing a major reassessment.

Greg suddenly released the pressure on Emile's elbow and kicked him on the back of his knees. Emile plopped down onto his knees with a hard crack. Greg then pulled Emil's arm over his head and put him into a wrist lock. Emile couldn't move as much as an inch without breaking his own wrist.

To the table as a whole, Greg said, "In case you all didn't realize what just happened, we just established that Emile takes all of our wives out to secret romantic lunches at Le Coucou. Emile, don't you tell those women the lunches are so that you can have a bit of a romantic tête-à-tête in a private setting?"

When Emile didn't respond, Greg applied more pressure to his wrist. Emile grunted and said. "Yes, that is what I tell them."

"Ladies, if you were not taken by Emile to Le Coucou for a romantic tête-à-tête in a private setting, please raise your hand. Be honest, now. I have had been watching Emile for quite some time and I know who has and who hasn't. Don't make me call you out as a liar."

Only Churan and Gita raised their hands. Greg looked over at his wife to see if she had the balls to lie. She didn't. Her arm was down. She wouldn't look at him.

Greg barked a laugh in disbelief. Other than Quiara, Churan and Gita were the prettiest women in the room. In fact, Greg thought Churan was among the prettiest woman he'd ever seen in real life. She was regularly mistaken for Lin Chi-ling, a famous model and actress.

Gita, had been adopted by a large family from Madison, Wisconsin. She was a multi-sport athlete and had gone to Duke University on a cross country scholarship. She was distance-runner with exotic looks and a midwestern-America cultural upbringing. Greg thought she was extremely attractive.

"Well, Emile, why didn't you ask Churan or Gita? Are you racist against Asians?" Greg asked.

Emile didn't answer, so Greg ground the bones of his wrist together. Emile grunted and said, "They are both too new to the department. It will be a little while before we can build the necessary rapport."

Chen, Churan, Gita, and Gita's husband Raj all opened their mouths in shock.

"Well Gentlemen," said Greg, "it must be a shock to learn that your wives consented and submitted to romancing, wining, and dining by their department head. I'm very sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings for you.

"The restaurant name, Le Coucou, was part of Emile's subtle messaging. Le Coucou is French for the Cuckoo Bird. For those of you with little to no background in Biology, many of the species of the Cuculidae family are infamous for practicing brood parasitism. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and force others to pay the costs for raising their young. From this, we get the word 'cuckold'."

Greg got some nods from the men around the table.

"Make no mistake, gentlemen, the women know that Emile's intent was to sleep with them. I've seen the transcripts of several of his dates. He comes right out as bold as brass and tells the wives that his goal is to convince them to cheat on you with him. He uses every means at his disposal to do this.

"Emile denigrates us to our wives. As your boss, he knows where you stand career-wise. He makes wife is aware of how disappointing you are and how you aren't measuring up. I'm the only husband of a wife who isn't in the department. He cannot use my own career to denigrate me, so instead, he plays up my physical inferiority when he attempts to seduce my wife. Isn't that a laugh? When he tried to fight me, I beat his ass in five seconds. I defeated him and he never laid a finger on me."

Greg made it a point to smile and meet the eyes of every person at the table.

"Emile flaunts his wealth to our wives by pointing out he is taking them to the most expensive restaurant in a hundred mile radius on a regular basis. He talks about his wealthy upbringing and brags about the resources he has. Little do most of the wives know that he is really broke. The investments, the yacht in Nice he likes to mention, and the fortune allegedly left to him by his parents are all fictitious. He took out a second mortgage on his house to buy that Mercedes he drives our wives around in. Both are close to being repossessed. Tell them where your money comes from, Emile."

Emile said nothing, so Greg, bent Emile's fingers back.

"The money comes from Elodie's parents," he grunted. "She had an inheritance and a trust. She ask me to look after it."

"Emile flaunts his intellect to our wives by talking about his papers and bragging about how he is being referenced in the academy. He is a fraudulent academician. His claim to fame was his critique of Éliane Grimaître Taïeb. This was considered so fresh and innovative at the time, that it was published in hardcover and it is where almost all of his references come from. Guess what? He didn't write it! He bought it from the woman who actually wrote it, a fellow-student who had a heroin problem. He's been paying her hush money for years to keep that a secret."

Greg, put a slight twist on Emile's wrist. "Tell us her name-- the woman who wrote your dissertation."

"Marie Cellier-Anouilh," he said, grunting in pain. "We were in school together. We dated until she developed that habit."

This brought gasps from the table.

"Emile also flaunts his social position, making sure your wife knows that he is her boss, that he is an aristocrat, and that he has an important and extensive network of friends and connections that make him an amazingly powerful being. It's all horseshit. He was never an aristocrat. He was the son of a man who owned a tobacco shop in Grigny, France. Tell everyone, Emile, how your dad lost his Tobacco shop. Go on."

Greg twisted Emile's wrist again and said, "He sold it to get me on the tour."

"Which tour?" asked Greg.

"The pro tennis tour," said a very clearly exasperated Emile.

"The only legitimate claim he makes is that he was a tennis pro. He was briefly on the tour in the late eighties," said Greg. "I managed to have a conversation with his old coach. He said he was good enough to be on the tour but would never be good enough to win anything. He was essentially known only for his good looks. He was the male version of Anna Kournikova. What was your highest finish at any tour event on the tour?"

"Twenty fourth," he said.

"Tied for twenty fourth," corrected Greg.

"So, Gentlemen, to land this plane and tie it back to my little biology lesson from before, this piece of shit was leveraging hypogamy and hypergamy deceptively to make a run at our wives.

"He artificially presented himself as being a higher status male looking for mating opportunities further down the hierarchy. They all, to one extent or another, bought it. I know every woman here. They are neither stupid nor foolish. What this tells me is that Emile was exceptionally good at it. 'All of the people some of the time' is a pretty high bar. He's one of the better con men any of us have ever run across. Unfortunately, he is, at the end of the day, just a charlatan."

Greg looked around the table. The faces showed varying degrees of anger, disgust, and humiliation.

"Elodie," continued Greg, "You have my deepest apologies that you had to find out what he did to you this way. I did not want to do this publicly, but my hand was forced. I do have something for you. It is a Christmas gift that I beg you to accept."

Greg pulled a box out of his jacket. He handed it to Churan. "Can you pass this down to her?"

The box went from hand to hand to Elodie. Elodie asked, "Shall I open it?"

"Yes," replied Greg.

She opened it up and there was a remote key fob for a Honda. She sat there stunned.

"My oldest brother owns a Honda Dealership and he owes me several huge favors. He paid them off by giving me a Honda Odyssey mini-van. It is used and a couple of years old, but it's in excellent shape. It is totally paid for: tax, title, and registration included. The only thing I couldn't do was add it to your insurance. Hopefully, this will take the pressure off begging for rides to get your kids to school. It's in the parking lot outside right now.

Elodie started crying and sobbing. Both Quiara and Kailey were instantly up and rushed over to comfort her.

"I will also say this, Elodie. If you are not comfortable remaining in your current home, you are welcome to bring your kids to live at my house. Your kids will have to share bedrooms with ours, but you can have the guest bedroom and we'll make it work. The house is in my name, so you can stay there as long as you want, even if things don't work out between Quiara and I."

With that pronouncement, Quiara started to cry. Kailey and Elodie were suddenly comforting her. Greg never ceased to be amazed how crazy tight that those women were as friends. Even after Quiara's treachery with the bracelet and the secret lunches, Elodie had her back.

"Emile, are you listening?" asked Greg.

"Yes," responded Emile with supreme contempt.

"This is where you leave us," said Greg. "When I release you, I want you to stand up, walk straight out the door, and leave this premises. If you don't, I will beat the living shit out of in front of twenty-two witnesses who despise you and are all willing to testify that you swung at me first. Do you understand?"

"Yes," replied Emile with his trademark contempt.

"Yes what?" Greg asked.

"Yes, Sir," Emile responded.

I barked out a laugh. "I was looking for 'Yes, Greg', but 'Sir' will suffice."

Greg let him go without warning and took three steps back to give himself some maneuvering room. Emile stood up, shot his cuffs, and walked straight out the door. He closed it behind him. He did not look back.

With a deep breath, Greg sat at the table. All eyes were still on him. Greg killed the glass of water at his place setting. He was parched. His hand was shaking as he drank.

Greg said, "I will tell all of you something that you may not know. This private University has a relatively small faculty. Everyone in the other departments have observed what is going on in the Languages Department and they all know that there is, figuratively speaking, something rotten in Denmark.

"Emile is the only department head at any college anyone has ever heard of who only hires married couples to staff his department. In fact, my wife is the only department member who was hired into the Language Department without a spouse being hired at the same time. The reason why that happened is that I was personally head hunted by the Chancellor himself as a potential head of the Biology department. Emile hired Quiara because the Chancellor gave him a direct order to do it.

"Emile always told everyone his unusual hiring practices were designed to promote department stability and help staff retention. but the rest of the faculty doubts that is true. It isn't lost on the faculty that his practice gives him total control over both husband and wife. That doesn't sit very well with the rest of the faculty. I can tell you, the faculty in the Biology department have taken to referring to the Languages Department as 'the Harem'.

"How you decide to collectively manage this crisis will determine how the rest of the faculty responds. If you lock arms and circle the wagons as a group, you'll probably be able to emerge from the disaster without become a laughingstock.

"My advice to the ladies who have been targeted by the charlatan is that you go to together to HR and submit a group sexual harassment claim. Get this asshole fired, and then work like hell to rebuild the reputation of the department."

He took the glass of water from Quiara's place setting and drank that down.

"I have evidence that Emile was bedding a couple of the wives. I debated whether to inform her husbands tonight. I decided that I don't want to humiliate them. They were clearly clueless about what their wives were doing. I profoundly believe what happened is a matter that only concerns the husband and wife. It is no one else's business.

"I propose that as a group that we decide collectively that no woman will ever make a public statement about whether they were or weren't having sex with Emile. Ladies, that means if you are innocent, you are bound by your sacred honor to keep your innocence to yourself. Say nothing so that your guilty colleagues aren't humiliated and can maintain a shred of dignity. Does anyone disagree?"

The room was silent. Greg said, "Then from now on, let us never discuss who was or wasn't sleeping with Emile."

The room was totally silent. Greg decided to address his final subject.

"In a few minutes, I'm going to leave the room and let you discuss between yourselves what you should do. Before I leave, however, I want to address the topic of forgiveness.

"Despite the bullshit I was floating earlier about breaking pair bonding agreements, there are are no ethics or morals in Biology. More often than not, the strongest creatures just take what they want. That's a terrible and awful thing to contemplate, but it is the only law in nature.

"A young male lion takes over a pride by killing or driving off the previous male. As soon as he does, he kills the cubs or drives them away so that all of the offspring will be his. There is no right or wrong to this. He just does what he wants. If that means destruction of a bunch of cubs, so be it.

"Brood parasites leave their eggs in the nests of a different species. If the nesting pair don't detect the interloping egg, their brood is doomed. The parasitic egg will hatch before their own. The first thing the newly hatched parasite does is immediately destroy the other eggs or kill whatever hatchlings are in the nest. There is no right or wrong to this. Brood parasites can get away with it, so they do it.

"Obligate carnivores don't feel bad about the other species they eat. Cannibalism is common throughout the animal kingdom, particularly cannibalism of the young. There are species that deliberately destroy the habitats they live in to discourage competition. There are even plants species that deliberately destroy their own habitats to discourage competition.

"There is no right or wrong to any of this. It is just what they do. That's a harsh reality. Humans are different from animals because humans have a very strong conception of right and wrong built into our consciousness. The term 'sapiens' from 'homo sapiens' derives from the term meaning 'wisdom'. The wisdom we have is separating right from wrong.

"To go along with our rules on right and wrong, we humans have developed a lot of related technologies: apology, forgiveness, and restitution. These are the things that make us different from animals.

"We had a discussion earlier about the male to female reproduction ratio of one to seventeen. If we lived eight thousand years ago, here is how tonight would have gone.

"Emile was your alpha. This was his harem. I say that it was his harem because all of the women in here, save Gita and Churan, submitted to his authority by allowed him to romance them behind her husband's back."

Kailey started to object, but Greg raised his hand and said, "Let me finish! I think I earned the right to finish my address. I promise you it will only last another couple of minutes."