Courtesan Ch. 02

"Occasionally?"

"Let me explain. The majority of the stockholders and investors that we deal with are heterosexual men. Men also seem to be a little more open to casual sexual encounters, so hostesses are in greater demand than hosts. We only employ one full time host, the others all have additional duties for the firm. Our hostesses are all very socially skilled, but our hosts are even more skilled. They have to be."

"Why do you say that?"

"Determining whether or not a male associate." He smiled at me. "When we're working with stockholders or investors we refer to them as associates or guests."

I nodded.

"Trying to determine if a male associate is interested in a little extra curricular sexual activity is generally quite easy. Most of the time, all we have to do is ask. If we do feel the need to be a little more discreet about the offer, we'll find a reason to bring one of our hostesses into the room while were meeting with the associate. We might ask her to bring us a file, or maybe a pot of coffee. While she's in the room we watch him to see how he reacts. If he seems interested we'll wait until she leaves and then one of us will make an off hand comment like, Isn't she beautiful? If he responds we pursue it and hint that she might be available. If he doesn't respond or show any interest we simply move on."

Mr. Jackson shook his head. "Women are much more difficult. We have to be very careful. If we're too direct, we risk insulting them. Generally one of my partners or myself will invite our associate to dinner. We'll include Chris or one of our other hosts in the party. Chris is one of our most adept hosts. He's in his early thirties, very handsome, very bright and he has an engaging personality. Most women find him extremely attractive. At dinner we'll make sure that Chris is seated next to our associate. Before the dinner we'll arm him with a detailed overview of her interests. Chris excels at small talk and the information we feed him gives him an excellent opportunity to engage our associate. Once we've finished dinner Chris will suggest an after dinner drink in the bar. The rest of us will decline and politely excuse ourselves. After that, the rest of the evening is up to Chris and our associate."

"I assume that you're telling me this so that I'll excuse my wife's behavior because she was swept off her feet by a master of seduction. Mr. Jackson, I am not upset with Kelly because she was sleeping with another man. I'm upset because she lied to me about it."

"No Mr. Jamieson, I am not trying to provide an excuse for your wife's behavior. I am telling you this because I want you to understand why I feel that I've made decisions that harmed both you and your wife." There was a slight hint of irritation in Mr. Jackson's voice.

Not willing to be cowed, I stared at him and responded in an icy tone, "Very well, go ahead."

Mr, Jackson paused before he answered. It was clear that he was taking a moment to try to quell the tension that had suddenly developed between us. Finally in a very calm voice he said, "Chris did eventually seduce your wife, but it took him almost two months to do it. Not grasping the significance of that fact was my first mistake. Your wife is a gorgeous woman and I jumped to the erroneous conclusion that she was ignoring Chris's advances because she didn't need him. I assumed that she was already overwhelmed by a steady flow of propositions from a large group of very handsome men outside of work."

I laughed. "Kelly has been inundated by propositions since she was a teenager."

Mr. Jackson nodded and then he said, "I now know that at the time your wife was staunchly fending off every one of the propositions she was getting. Sadly, I didn't recognize that fact. I should have. When Kelly was so tenaciously resisting all of Chris's advances I should have asked why and then taken the time to do some additional investigation. If I had done that I would have discovered the vow of fidelity that your wife made to you on your wedding day."

He looked at me. "Mr. Jamieson, I am ashamed that I missed that crucial detail. It was uncharacteristically sloppy research on our part and that oversight caused us to act in a manner that was detrimental to both you and your wife."

"When did you learn about it?"

"Last Friday morning when Kelly came in to see me to explain why she was resigning."

"I thought you asked Kelly to resign."

Mr. Jackson shook his head, "No, the resignation was your wife's idea. I offered her a leave of absence, but she turned it down. Kelly told me that she plans to devote the rest of her life to trying to regain your trust and win you back. Mr. Jamieson, I am a very wealthy man, but I would happily trade all of that wealth to have just one person who loves me as much as your wife loves you."

I stared at him. After a moment I said, "But Kelly lied to me."

"Yes Mr. Jamieson she did, but before you decide to end your marriage, I suggest that you try to find the answer to one very important question."

"What's that?"

"Why would a woman who professes to love you so much, decide to lie to you?"

Mr. Jackson glanced at his watch. "Our time is coming to an end. At the beginning of this meeting you asked me why I felt responsible for your wife's sexual indiscretions and why my attorneys thought my firm was vulnerable to a law suit. The answer is quite simple. Your wife came to us seeking a normal job. Because of a negligent failure on our part to gather adequate background information, I deliberately threw a carefully calculated temptation at Kelly and kept throwing it at her even though she repeatedly rebuffed it. Once she finally succumbed to our temptation I callously ignored some obvious signs of unhappiness and distress in your wife and allowed her to continue working in the job that was causing that unhappiness and stress."

Shaking his head, he said, "Mr. Jamieson, at best we are guilty of callously ignoring the desires, health and well being of you and your wife and at worst we are responsible for deliberately entrapping your wife in a life of prostitution and destroying your marriage."

Mr. Jackson rubbed his forehead. "My lawyers tell me that if we are lucky we might be able to settle for as little a $500,000 in damages, but they think the amount could easily be as much as $2,000,000. I am prepared to offer you a settlement of $4,000,000."

I stared at Mr. Jackson. "Why are you being so generous?"

"Mr Jamieson, I am a businessman, I am not a monster. In the past two years I have made several critical mistakes that resulted in injury to both you and your wife. I wish to try to atone for those errors."

He paused for a moment and then he continued. "I also wish to add another incentive.'

"What is it?"

"If you are able to reconcile with your wife I will double the amount. That's $8,000,000 and if you are willing to trust me with that money for five years, I believe that I can easily turn it into thirty million dollars."

I laughed. "That's a very attractive offer." And then I closed my eyes and sighed. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I think that you and your wife had a storybook love and I was responsible for destroying it."

"But my wife lied to me."

"Yes Mr. Jamieson, she did; but I suggest that you ask yourself why she did it. Your wife loves sex. Her vow of fidelity was never realistic. She wanted to be the perfect wife for you, but her model of perfection was based on the cultural norms that had been instilled in her since she was a little girl rather than your actual expectations. I believe that she understood that you had no objection to her dating other men, but she couldn't reconcile that fact with her conception of how a proper wife behaves. She had to slip. It was inevitable. I don't believe that Kelly is capable of being faithful to one man."

Mr. Jackson smiled at me. "The problem is that when she slipped she felt like she was letting you down. We both know that she wasn't, but her traditional upbringing made her feel like she was. After Chris finally succeeded in seducing her, she was too ashamed to tell you about it. Of course that pushed her into a new quagmire. Now she'd lied to you and of course that was the one thing she'd promised that she would never do."

Mr. Jackson shook his head. "It's ironic that in her desperate effort to keep you, she committed the one sin that you could never forgive."

"Okay, Chris seduced her, but she ended up working as a corporate whore."

"Mr. Jamieson, you are an intelligent man. I am certain that you understand that the first bite of the apple is always the most difficult to swallow. After that each bite gets easier. We all live on the edge of a slippery slope. Your wife's problem was that as she slid down that slope it became increasingly difficult for her to tell you about it."

Mr. Jackson looked at his watch and stood up. "Mr. Jamieson, our half hour is over. I would love to spend the rest of the afternoon talking with you, but I have some pressing business that requires my attention. I hope you'll understand."

I stood up. "Mr. Jackson, if you'll indulge me I have one more question."

"What is it?"

"Who is Roger Baldwin?"

Mr. Jackson smiled. "Roger Baldwin doesn't exist."

"Of course he does, I heard him talking to my wife in that hotel room." I shook my head. "Judging from the conversation between Kelly and the bellman I gather that the two them are frequent visitors to the hotel."

"Mr. Jamieson, the stock holders and investors that we deal with are all extremely wealthy individuals and often pillars of their communities. When we're entertaining them it's essential that we take utmost care to protect them from scandal."

"You don't want them to get arrested."

Mr. Jackson shook his head. "That's not the problem at all. No money changes hands when our hostesses are entertaining an associate. Prostitution laws aren't an issue."

"So why are you worried about scandals?"

"Business Mr. Jamieson. When our hostesses are entertaining an associate we're trying to influence them to do something that we want them to do. The worst thing that could happen would be to let an unethical competitor catch them in a compromising situation. We have to be very careful that we don't put our associates in a position where they can be blackmailed."

I nodded. I was starting to understand.

"When they're visiting this city, most of our associates stay at the Calvert Hotel. We employ four full time hostesses and one full time host. The firm maintains a permanent suite at the Calvert for each of them. Your wife's suite was 1712. Those suites are all reserved under fictitious names. Kelly's was registered to Roger Baldwin."

I closed my eyes and sighed.

Mr. Jackson continued. "When we set up a date for one of our associates we give them a room key and instruct them to arrive at least fifteen minutes before our hostess. The night you followed your wife, her associate was already in the room when she got there.

"Several of the bellmen, including the one you saw, are well paid to help us play out a charade. After our hostess arrives they always bring a bottle of champagne to the room. Whenever there is a knock at the door our associates are instructed to go into the bathroom. This is to insure that they're protected in case a photographer tries to burst into the room when the door is opened. When the bellman delivers the champagne he and the hostess have a script that they follow that's designed to fool anyone who might be outside the room listening."

He smiled at me. "It appears that our system works. We certainly fooled you."

I shrugged. "Yes you did."

"When a hostess is with an associate she's instructed to always use the name of the man that the room is registered to. In your wife's case it was Roger. Again we are attempting to confuse anyone who might be listening at the door."

He stared at me. "Mr. Jamieson, your wife was not having an affair with another man and she certainly hasn't fallen in love with anyone else. Please believe me, she loves you and she loves only you."

I shook my head. "But the man had a pet name for Kelly. He called her Melody. That name is extremely important to my wife. He had to know her very well."

Mr. Jackson smiled. "Mr. Jamieson, I don't know about the importance of the name to your wife, but I can tell you this. In order to be discreet, all of our hostesses use a pseudonym. Your wife chose the name, Melody. The name may be important to Kelly, but I can assure you that the man she was with that night at the Calvert didn't know anything about its significance to her."

I took a moment to digest that information and then I looked at Mr. Jackson and said, "May I ask you one more question?"

Mr. Jackson took another quick glance at his watch. "Yes, but only one more."

"Have you had sex with my wife?"

Mr. Jackson closed his eyes and sighed. "At the beginning of this meeting I promised you total candor, so I'll answer that question. Mr. Jamieson, do you remember when I alluded to the fact that there are some men for whom fellatio is the ultimate sexual pleasure?"

"Yes."

"I happen to be one of those men. Please excuse my vulgarity, but I don't know how to put this any other way. For the past year your wife has been giving me a blow job at least three times a week."

I slowly nodded. "Mr. Jackson, thank you; I appreciate your honesty."

"Please believe me Mr. Jamieson, I never would have done that if I'd known you were unaware of your wife's activities."

I smiled at him. "It's all right." And then I chuckled as I added, "She gives a pretty good one, doesn't she."

Mr. Jackson grinned at me. "Mr. Jamieson, your wife is an artist."

I nodded in agreement.

"And now Mr. Jamieson you will have to excuse me. I must move on to other business."

He took my arm and led me to the door of his office. As he opened it he said, "Janet has your five thousand dollars. She'll give it to you on your way out. John is waiting in front of the building to drive you back to your car. My attorneys will contact you next week to start negotiating the financial settlement that we discussed."

He extended his hand. "Mr. Jamieson, it was a pleasure to finally meet you and I do sincerely hope that you will be able to reconcile with your wife."

I shook his hand and said, "Thank you Mr. Jackson." And then I stepped out into the hallway and he closed his door behind me.

When I passed by her desk Janet Collins handed me an envelope. She told me that it contained fifty one hundred dollar bills. While I was a little uncomfortable about accepting the money, Mr. Jackson had just told me that he was a very wealthy man. I really needed the cash; so I thanked Ms. Collins, put the envelope in my pocket and left the office.

John was waiting for me in front of the Whetmore Building with the Lincoln. He drove me back to Kirby's Quick Stop so I could get my own car.

After we arrived at the store I stopped inside and said hello to Elvira Higgins and then I got into my car and drove to a small park that overlooked the river. It was a place that I visited when I needed some time to think or relax.

I parked my car, walked out to a bench, sat down and began trying to make some sense out of this situation. The meeting with Martin Jackson had been filled with startling revelations. Of course, the most startling of all was that my wife was working as a prostitute for his firm.

I understood that he preferred other terms, but it didn't really matter. You could call Kelly a courtesan or a hostess, but it still boiled down to one fact. They were paying her to have sex with their business associates.

As I thought about that, I realized that as long as Kelly was doing it because she wanted to do it and they weren't coercing her, it really didn't bother me. Actually it sort of helped. I could easily understand that my wife was so worried about how I would react to what she was doing that she would try to find ways to avoid telling me about it.

Still, why didn't she tell me when Chris Kendricks seduced her? She had to know that it wouldn't upset me. I considered this for a few minutes and then I remembered Mr. Jackson's words. "Kelly wanted to be the perfect wife for you, but her model of perfection was based on the cultural norms that had been instilled in her since she was a little girl rather than on your expectations."

That actually made a lot of sense. I thought back to our college days. Sometimes late at night, when we were lying in bed after she'd come home from a date, Kelly would ask me if I hated her because she enjoyed having sex with a variety of men. I would scoff at the idea and tell her that we were perfectly matched because I loved being a cuckold. That always seemed to placate her fears, but now it was apparent to me that her infidelity had always bothered her. That would explain why Kelly was so insistent on making a vow of fidelity to me when we were married.

As I considered that I began to understand that when a handsome man like Chris Kendricks started trying to seduce Kelly, the conflict between her need to be a proper wife and her desire for sexual adventure must have created a nearly unendurable level of anxiety inside of her. I also realized that she must have been incredibly ashamed when she finally succumbed to his advances. She didn't lie to me because she wanted to deceive me, she lied to me because she was ashamed of what she was doing.

But what had caused Kelly to make the transition from having a casual affair with a handsome man like Chris to becoming a courtesan for JTandR?

As soon as I asked the question the answer became obvious. Part of it was the slippery slope that Mr. Jackson had alluded to, but there was another factor. It was the reason that Mr. Jackson was so worried about legal action. Kelly's boss and his partners wanted my wife to be a courtesan and they deliberately created an environment that would encourage her to behave like one. Of course, that fed right into my wife's love of sexual adventure. It was a little like giving a candy lover a job in a chocolate factory. In Mr. Jackson's defense, he didn't know that the candy lover had vowed to only eat sweets with her husband.

Part of me, the offended husband, protested that all of this was just psychological mumbo jumbo; but another more rational part of me argued that this situation was much more complicated than my original assumption. This was definitely not just a simple case of my wife deliberately trying to deceive me in order to hide the fact that she was falling in love with another man.

The rational part of me won the debate. I now understood that before I could give up on our marriage I had hear my wife's explanation for what had happened. I had to call Kelly.

I turned on my cell phone. There were eight messages. All of them were from Kelly. I ignored them and pushed the number for her cell phone on my speed dial.

My wife answered after three rings. "Timmy is that really you? When I saw your name on my caller ID I didn't dare believe it."

"Yes Kelly, it really is me."

"Timmy thank you for calling me. Baby, I'm so sorry I lied to you and I've been so awful to you lately. I don't blame you for hating me."

"Kelly, I'd like to get together with you and talk about this."

"Oh yes please, that would be wonderful."

"Kelly listen to me."

"Yes, I'm listening."

"I don't care what you have done. It doesn't matter to me if a thousand different men have fucked you in the last year. I can forgive anything, but please do not lie to me anymore."

"Timmy I promise to tell you everything." She paused a for a moment and then she continued. "But Timmy, I've done some awful things. I'm afraid that your going to hate me after you learn the truth."