Duplicity Ch. 03

You could've heard a pin drop in that meeting room. On the acoustic carpet.

They met again just before she was expecting me back from the UK, the whole afternoon this time. Same thing. Some hand holding, a lot of talking. This time the discussion went on for longer and explained quite a bit. The explanation had me feeling marginally better, but Agnes in tears all over again.

It seemed that the two had really fallen in love at school. Carol had been truthful to me about saving herself for marriage, and apparently Brad wasn't used to being denied. Agnes and his mother's threats had caused Brad to rethink his situation. He was used to the easy life and losing that wasn't an option. However we all yearn for that which we couldn't have.

So he decided to keep at it, trying to break down her resistance. When he got his car, they started going to the motel. Not even getting his hands into the cookie jar left Brad really frustrated, but resolute.

The human psyche is fascinating.

For her part, Brad was Carol's first boyfriend. His seeming defiance of the wishes of his mother and aunt was to her the most romantic expression of love possible, and it impressed her so much, that she didn't even try to date anyone else for the rest of her time at school.

Brad at college was Brad. He kept sowing wild oats and apparently the parties got quite wild. A worried administrator contacted his mother and Agnes despatched a PI to do a 'health check'.

Following the PI's report Agnes had decided that Brad might as well come home as waste her money at college. The wannabe 'lovers' were overjoyed.

Just after getting back, Brad picked up on the PI having checked up on him, decided Agnes was aware of his ongoing dalliances with Carol and came up with the hair brained idea that she should get married.

Enter 'The Beard'. Me.

Brad had overheard Geoff speaking with his aunt one afternoon. Marcy had told him everything she had learnt and surmised, from my spilling my guts to her. Geoff had met Agnes at home since he was worried about me as a friend, not an employee, telling her of my problems and of his becoming aware thereof due to my teenage boy crush on Carol.

I was ideal to Brad's purpose and my meeting Carol in the deli was of his making.

"So she hasn't even properly kissed him, and he's still yearning for her after more than ten years?" said Mrs. Hammond. "Sweetie, some people have bigger issues than you!" The latter bit addressed to me with a big smile.

No matter that there had been no sex. The little issues of trust and respect in a marriage is something I take very seriously.

So there would be a divorce. And payback.

Divorcing Carol would be expensive. I had been left well-off, very much so, by inheritances from my father and grandmother. I have also done quite well in my own right and there was no way in hell I was going to share any of it with a ....? What was she? The lack of sex left me with no proper descriptor. The lack of a prenuptial agreement of any type (I was in love remember?) meant she'd get half and probably decent alimony as well. Thank God we hadn't bred!

We decided to keep what we knew a secret for now until we had a decent plan. We also decided to leave the PI's equipment in place. He had basically hired the motel room on a permanent basis at the onset of the little fiasco and had 'convinced' the proprietor to ensure that this room would be allocated to the paramours at every visit. Thus far this hadn't raised any obvious suspicion in them and I was really hoping for video of something untoward happening. I told the PI to only contact me if anything relevant came up. I felt no need to sit listening to hours of teenage angst from two grownups.

My time in the UK had to some extent hardened me to Carol's betrayal and I thought I could fake a few weeks of happy matrimony whilst I got my ducks in a row. It took three years...

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Which brings us back to the start of this miserable little tale.

Agnes' lawyer had convened a meeting of interested parties on the day following her funeral. The la per her wishes and as she had arranged, was a low-key affair with her donating her body to a local cancer research centre.

As the lawyer droned through his introductory remarks, I looked at Carol, remembering the last three years of admittedly good sex. I had been feeling increasingly frustrated with the course of events and expressed this in the bedroom by expanding our sexual horizons. Yes, treating my wife as a slut had helped and anal and bondage had been fun. The revenge however, had been telling Brad all about it at the club and seeing how that hurt him.

I snapped back to reality as, over Brad's loud protestations, the lawyer told the assembly that I would be chairing the meeting.

I looked at the faces around me and couldn't properly suppress a smirk when, looking at the DNA report showing their sibling status, I started, "Brad and Carol, I have some really bad news for you..."

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That's all I have. Use your imagination about what Agnes bequeathed to whom and how sibling's lives turned out etc etc.

If anyone wants to honor an amateur hack by writing a better, more fitting ending go for it.

For now, I am done.

_P_