Feb Sucks-And Turns Ugly

I am completely shocked to find myself writing an alternative ending to this story. Although it is an extremely well-written and thought-provoking story, I have never been a fan of February Sucks. I just despise the fact the main character, Jim is forced to smile and eat the shit sandwich that his wife serves up for him. I'm great with a reconciliation story as long as it has three elements: remorse, repentance, and atonement. The original version of the story had very little of the first, almost none of the second, and none of the third. You can let me know in the comments how you think Jim handled himself in my version. Note: there is no violence, 4-iron or otherwise in this story.

*

My anger had cooled somewhat as I entered the lobby of our hotel located on Chicago's Gold Coast. It had passed from white-hot rage to a simmering anger as I glanced around the lobby; a faint hope that Linda had either changed her mind or was waiting to surprise me and laugh at how I had been taken in by her practical joke. Of course, neither event happened.

A glance at the clock over the front desk reminded me that it was early; not even eleven o'clock yet. Rather than walk straight ahead towards the bank of elevators, I made a sharp right and entered the near-empty bar. The bartender had only just set my old-fashioned in front of me when I noticed the woman walk towards the bar and take a seat. She appeared to be in her late twenties and walked in confidently, her head held high. Her raven-colored hair was styled in a chignon, her red lips and flawless skin radiating a sophisticated sex appeal. She wore a form-fitting dress in a deep purple velvet with long sleeves that left her shoulders bare. She wore a black velvet choker centered with an ivory silhouette; her only other adornment was a gold watch with a slim gold band. She glanced around the room before taking a seat at the bar. Unbidden, the bartender placed a glass of white wine before the woman. A working girl, I thought to myself, but definitely high-end.

The woman glanced around the bar, her eyes passing over me but then coming back to rest on me as she noticed my frank stare. She tilted her head slightly to one side as if silently asking 'Yes?'... 'No?'... 'Maybe?'

As I looked at her, an idea popped into my head. An idea so outrageous that, if I followed through, would give Linda, not just a taste of her own medicine but would completely gut and devastate her in much the same way I felt gutted and devastated.

I left my seat and walked around the bar to approach the woman. "May I," I asked, pointing to the empty barstool beside her.

"Of course," she replied. In addition to being drop-dead gorgeous, she had the sexiest accent which to my untrained ear, sounded French.

I stuck out my hand and she reciprocated, shaking with a firm grip. "I'm Jim Williams," I said.

"Ellen Fontaine," she replied with a slight head nod.

"Please don't think me crass," I began, "but you appear to be in search of companionship this evening."

She gave me an appraising look. "You are offering up this companionship?"

"Yes, but not in the manner in which you're thinking."

"And what am I thinking," Ellen asked.

"You think I'm just another out-of-town jerk wanting to pay you for your time."

"But if that is not who you are Jim Williams, then who are you?"

"I'm someone who is willing to pay you a good amount of money for something that will not take much of your time."

"How much money and what would you have me do to earn this money?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Five thousand dollars for four to five hours of your time tomorrow."

Ellen gave me a surprised look. "Tomorrow? Not tonight?"

I shook my head sadly as I replied. "I'm too upset to even think about having sex tonight. Truthfully, I may not even be ready tomorrow but I have to do something to regain my self-respect." I could feel the tears spring to my eyes and start to track down my cheeks.

Ellen grasped my forearm, a concerned look on her face. She pulled me off the barstool and led me towards a table in the corner. She went back for our drinks and then upon taking her seat, leaned forward and gave me an earnest look. "What happened to you, Jim?"

I told her the whole story. Starting with my nearly ten-year marriage to Linda, our kids, and building a new house that would be our forever home and into which we had moved last year. Then how horrible February had been and how tonight was a chance for us to reconnect. I told her about Linda's blue dress and how amazing she looked in it. How she promised all her dances to me. I told her how Marc LaValliere had swooped in and taken her away to dance and how Linda had gone without even a backward glance at me. How she had conspired with one of her friends to sneak out the back door and leave with LaVailliere. How she expected me to be waiting at home for her when she got back from her once-in-a-lifetime experience. How our friends were all aware of what happened and had laughed about it. Laughed at me.

Ellen was appalled. "That is the most disrespectful thing I have ever heard of a wife doing." Ellen shook her head in disbelief. "Obviously you have a plan for revenge that includes me. What is your plan?"

As I explained my plan, her smile faded. "I think she will be very angry with you. It may be the end of your marriage if you follow through with this plan."

I nodded in agreement. "It could be the end. Our marriage is probably over anyway. I just want her to get a taste of what she put me through tonight."

"I don't go home with strangers," Ellen said. "I think your plan will not succeed if I do not go to your home and I do not go to the home of men I do not know."

I nodded my head in agreement. "Yes, for my plan to work, you must go to my home. How about this; I'll Venmo you $2500 right now. You can also take a photo of my driver's license. You go home and research me as much as you want. I have a pretty large online footprint due to my work so I'll be easy to research. I'm not on Facebook, but my wife Linda is so you'll be able to verify everything I'm telling you. If you agree to help me, come to my house tomorrow morning and I'll Venmo you the other half of your money and we can carry out my plan."

Ellen smiled and nodded her head. "I can live with that. But how do you know I will not just keep the $2500 and not show up tomorrow?"

I looked Ellen in the eye. "Is that the kind of thing I have to worry about with you?"

Ellen grinned and said, "Not at all. Unlike your wife, I honor my commitments."

+++

It was nearly 1:00 AM when I entered the cold empty husk of what had once been a happy home. I set my alarm for eight and was asleep almost immediately.

After showering and shaving, I made coffee and toast while contemplating my situation.

Obviously, my marriage was over. There could be no coming back from Linda's actions and if my plan went the way I hoped, there would be no forgiveness toward me on her part either. As 9:00 approached, I called Mrs. Porter and asked her to could keep the kids a few hours longer as something had come up that required our attention. She was happy to keep Tommy and Emma for the rest of the day.

I wandered into my home office and researched Illinois divorce and what I could expect. I was a consultant and worked from home and had not had to travel for work in years. Working from home had let me take on an outsized role in the parenting of Emma and Tommy. I was able to fix breakfast every morning and prepare their lunches before they left for school. In the afternoon I was able to help them with their homework and cook dinner so that when Linda arrived, she had nothing to do but relax with a glass of wine. Her commute was thirty minutes each way on a good day, but forty-five to sixty minutes was more the norm. She also frequently put in 45-50 hours a week. Until today it had never occurred to me that she might be using that supposed overtime to cheat. From what I could read online, I stood an excellent chance of getting primary custody of our children, although due to the disparity in our income, I would probably be on the hook for some alimony.

Promptly at 9:00, I heard a car door slam followed shortly thereafter by the front door bell ringing. A glance out the window revealed a BMW parked in my driveway as I opened the front door and ushered Ellen into the house.

She was dressed casually in a light-yellow sundress and wearing white, Tory Burch ballet flats. Her hair was worn down and held back with a headband that matched her dress. Even dressed casually she was a knockout.

"Your home is beautiful," she exclaimed, as she looked around the entry. I gave her a quick tour of the house, explaining that we had only lived in it for a little over a year.

"This was supposed to be our forever home. A place in which our children could grow and come back to visit with their children. Linda and I often spoke about how wonderful it would be to be retired and have a house full of grandkids to spoil." I could hear the bitterness in my voice as I said, "She took all that away. She destroyed that dream without a moment's hesitation."

"Oh, Jim! I am so sorry for your pain. You must try to reconcile with your wife! If we do as you plan, there may be no way back for the two of you."

I shook my head and continued the tour.

The tour ended in what Linda called the main bedroom but which I still referred to as the master bedroom, despite my wife's gentle chiding of me. Old habits are hard to break but hard does not mean impossible. Linda and I had long been in the habit of showing each other our love for one another. So yeah, habits are easier for some people to break than they are for others.

"Have a seat on the bed and I'll get it," I said as I left to go to my home office. Our house was two stories, with the first floor containing a large family room, a more formal living room, the kitchen, the main bedroom, and my office. The kid's bedrooms, two guest rooms, and a large game room occupied the second floor. In my first-floor office was a large fireproof gun safe that measured 3'x7'. It did actually contain one pistol; a Colt M1911 that my great-grandfather had carried in the army during WWII, however, the main reason for the existence of the safe was contained in a white garment bag hanging from a rod welded onto the rear wall of the safe. I grabbed the garment bag and returned with it to the bedroom and laid it on the bed.

The bag was made of heavy white canvas and had tan leather piping around the edges. The top of the bag had been reinforced with the same leather to strengthen the bag when hanging. Due to being manufactured before the prevalence of zippers, there were a series of leather straps with buckles down the center of the bag to keep it closed. I unbuckled each of the straps and spread open the garment bag to reveal the white dress it contained. Linda's wedding dress. But not just any wedding dress.

Ellen pulled the hangered dress out of the bag, casually glancing at the label as she did so. She let out a gasp and let the hanger slip from her hands.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked incredulously.

"I do. I'm the one who pays the homeowner's insurance. I have a special rider for that fucking dress."

"You did not tell me about this. I cannot help you with this," Ellen said, shaking her head in irritation.

"Hear me out," I replied, raising my hands in what I hoped was a calming gesture as I prepared to sell her on the idea of helping me out.

My parents had moved to our town on the North Shore outside of Chicago when I was in the third grade. Linda's family, on the other hand, had lived in our town for generations. Linda's great-great-grandfather had been the president of the First National Bank in our town. This was decades before the advent of retail banking which placed a bank branch at every strip shopping center in town and gave a bank manager the same level of prestige as an Arby's manager. In the days of old, when a town only had one or two banks, the head of the bank was an important position in the community and that man was one of the wealthiest men in town. So, it had been with Linda's great-great-grandfather. When his only daughter became engaged, his wife and daughter took an ocean cruise from New York City to Southampton, England, and then a ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre, France, and then traveled by train to Paris. In Paris, Linda's great-great-grandmother and great-grandmother had appeared by appointment at one of the most famous addresses in all of France: 31 rue Cambon, the salon of Coco Chanel.

As Ellen ran her hand over the label, I gave a sardonic smile. To a generation of people who only knew of the backward and forward intertwined double "C" logo, seeing a different label would create a big red flag. Not for Ellen. At the hotel, as we chatted, she told me her story. Born in Nice to well-educated and moderately wealthy parents, Ellen had moved to Paris to study fashion design. She had apprenticed at the very fashion house that so long ago had made the wedding dress she now held. Instead of the well-known Double "C", the label read "Gabrielle Chanel." The "l" in Chanel ended with a sweeping loop that swooped back and underlined her name with a flair. Below the flair was the word "Paris."

There was a pocket sewn into the panel of the garment bag and I took out the contents to show Ellen. The pocket contained the drawings and designs for the dress, all signed by Gabrielle Chanel. Also in the pocket was a receipt for the dress showing the price as "1958." The top of the receipt said simply Chanel Boutique and the address on rue Cambon. Written across the face of the receipt were the words Entièrement Payé; Paid in Full and below that, the signature of Gabrielle Chanel.

At the shop, Madame Chanel herself had taken measurements and shown her drawings of the planned wedding dress to the delight of the mother and daughter pair. A deposit was made, a date decided upon for a final fitting, and the pair took a train for the French Riviera where they spent the next few weeks vacationing and waiting for the dress to be completed. Upon returning to Paris and seeing the wedding dress, both mother and daughter were in tears at the beauty of the garment. Blinding white with delicate lace and intricate beadwork, the dress was a work of art. The decolletage was only slightly daring for the time, but the accompanying lace shawl could be used to cover the bosom if necessary. The two were in Paris for one more week to select shoes and the rest of her trousseau before reversing their passage and arriving back home; three months after they departed.

The story of how the dress came to be had become an ingrained part of the oral history of Linda's family. Everyone knew the story of the Chanel wedding dress and the legend and the dress were passed down to succeeding generations. The Chanel wedding dress had been worn by Linda's great-grandmother, and then Linda's grandmother; Linda's mother had been married in the dress, and most recently, Linda wore the dress nearly ten years ago at our wedding. Emma was to be the fifth generation to wear the dress.

"I can't do this," Ellen said. "Please. It is sacrilege."

"Do you know Coco Chanel's history?"

"I know hers is a complicated story," Ellen said.

"No, it's really not. My great-grandfather flew B17 Bombers in World War II for the Army Air Corps. He had one brother who fought in the tank corps with Patton in North Africa. He had another brother in the infantry in France. Both his brothers were killed in combat and my great-grandfather was severely wounded by anti-aircraft flak. He never fully recovered from his wounds.

"I will never purchase a Mercedes Benz because they manufactured engines for the Nazis. I will never own a Hugo Boss suit because they made uniforms for the Waffen SS. I will never own an IBM computer nor will I own stock in IBM because they knowingly were complicit in supplying the Nazis with punch cards and computer systems to more efficiently manage their death camps. Coco Chanel was a collaborator with the Nazis at best and there is strong evidence that she spied for them at worst. I don't give a damn about Coco Chanel or that dress."

Ellen nodded her head sadly. I was not telling her anything she did not already know from working in the fashion industry or apprenticing at Chanel. I knew as much about Chanel as I did because I had done my research when deciding how much to ensure that damned dress for. Our homeowner's policy had a special rider insuring the Chanel dress for $150,000. The drawings and receipt, all authenticated and signed by Coco Chanel herself increased the value by $100,000; so, the dress with accompanying documentation was insured for a quarter of a million dollars.

"If this is what you really want, then I will acquiesce. But I think you are making a grave mistake if you want any chance of reuniting with your wife."

By now, it was 10:00 and I had no idea what time Linda was going to grace us with her presence. I sent Ellen the remaining $2500 by Venmo and began unbuttoning my shirt as she pulled her sundress over her head. I could not help but notice her body as she began readying the Chanel for wear. Ellen's boobs were small, with long nipples. Her body was slim with muscles visible beneath the flesh of her stomach. Her ass was firm and well-proportioned to the rest of her body. Ellen very clearly spent a great amount of time working out. Her clitoris was visible and extended from her pink slit approximately a half inch.

She was stunning.

Ellen stepped into Linda's wedding dress and turned for me to fasten the loops in the rear. The dress predated zippers so the enclosure was a series of loops that hooked around buttons covered in the same fabric as the dress. I put the garment bag on the floor in front of the bed, a few feet from the bedroom door where it could be seen from the doorway.

"I'm not going to button the dress all the way up," I said to her as she nodded. Unsaid was the thought that she may have to undress hurriedly.

Naked, I lay on the bed and watched as she removed her headband and shoes. She was a beautiful woman who due to some extraordinarily bad luck during Covid, had found herself without a home and a job. At the bar, Ellen had explained that during her apprenticeship at Chanel, she had been able to work closely with Karl Lagerfeld, the famous designer who had brought the Chanel brand back from the brink of death in the early eighties and returned it to the glory it had known under Coco Chanel.

After five years at Chanel and since her parents had passed away, Ellen had immigrated to the United States. She had sufficient savings to open her own clothes boutique on Oak Street in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood. Her boutique opened to great acclaim in February 2020, however, one month after her grand opening the world went into lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. In a matter of months, Ellen lost everything including her business, home, and car. With limited options, she made the choice that women have made for centuries: to sell her body while trying to keep some semblance of her soul intact.

She turned to escort work and had been working as a prostitute for two years to pay off her debts. She had a full-time job which she declined to disclose to me, but she was hoping to stop doing escort work within the next two years. Her story was sad and certainly plausible, but I am not so naïve or gullible as to believe every sad story a pretty woman tells me, especially one who makes a living playing off the feelings and emotions of men. Still, there was an air of melancholy about her as she talked to me about how she wound up alone in a hotel bar last night. She had arrived at a client's hotel room at their scheduled time. She had visited this client once before and the experience had not been awful. Not great, but at least not awful. This time, however, when she knocked on the door of the client's hotel room, the door was flung open by a large angry woman with makeup streaked by tears running down her face.