Friend in Need, Slut Indeed Ch. 02

I never really intended to do a sequel to this story, but the view count was so high and the triggered comments were so stupid that I couldn't leave it be. Rather than listen to the comments demanding comeuppances, I'll double down.

If you're new to the story, you should definitely read Ch. 1. I always hope that people enjoy my stories. If you do, let me know! Any feedback, critiques, or story ideas are always welcome. If you hate the story, that's cool too. I'm quite certain you will give it 1* and leave a nasty comment.

********

Well holy shit, I wasn't as effed as I thought. A year after the fateful conversation when Becca cooly informed me that she had given birth to my illegitimate child after an unexpected late-night-rescue-turned-fuckfest, things in my family life had remarkably remained unchanged. Was Becca a crazy person? Sure. But during our extended conversation she informed me that she wasn't interested in leaving her husband Ed, and she apparently wanted to stay in the small university town rather than tail me to a large city and leech me dry with child support litigation. Lucky for me, I suppose.

That's not to say I hadn't taken steps to protect myself from that eventuality. I met with one of the top family attorneys in the city, generally described my situation, and tried to do what little I could do to protect myself in the event Becca changed her mind and came after me. I learned new phrases describing my situation like, "issue of adulterous intercourse of a wife during wedlock." That's certainly the legally sanitary way of putting it.

In short, I wasn't necessarily screwed, but I was subject to the whim of Becca - a frightening proposition. The law mostly favors maintaining the legitimacy of a child, I learned. My understanding was that Ed was listed as the father on the birth certificate, so she would have to go through steps to disestablish legitimacy only to turn around and sue me to establish my paternity. That would be a long slog, and I figured she would have done that originally if her goal was to trap me in a relationship.

But the scary part of it was that I knew she would eventually win a paternity action. I had seen photos she posted on Instagram, and I was sure the boy was mine. He looked exactly like me at his age...and nothing like Ed.

And don't get me wrong, I felt kinda bad for not being a part of the boy's life, but it wasn't like I'd left him abandoned. He had a two-parent family; he had a home; he was provided for. I saw myself as more of a sperm donor. A sperm donor who had chosen to fuck the shit out of a married woman in front of an unconcious husband, mind you, but you'll forgive me for thinking that that option was more appealing to me than jizzing into a sterile jar.

*****

A few months later, I got a pretty interesting email from my alma mater:

From: Dean Jean Acheson

To: Me; Rebecca Caswell

Subject: Congratulations! Young Alumni Excellence Award Winner

Date: Friday, August 9th 2:26 p.m.

Keith:

We at the University would like to congratulate you on being selected as one of this year's winners of the distinguished Hoover Young Alumni Prize for Early Career Excellence. The Society's Selection Committee has noted your career accomplishments and would like to bring you and other award recipients to campus to lead a panel discussing professionalism and career development for current students. The awards ceremony and panel will be held the weekend of October 11th.

Also part of the weekend's festivities will be a Cocktail Reception and Fundraising Gala. Black tie optional. We hope you can join us!

Please RSVP to Rebecca Caswell, Senior Associate Director of Alumni Engagement, by August 30th.

Again, congratulations on the honor and we hope to see you soon,

Dean Jean

******

Alumni Engagement indeed. This was both highly flattering and highly dangerous. My firm would be overjoyed by the news though. Our Marketing Director ate up opportunities like this to post press releases and photos of our attorneys receiving awards on various social media platforms.

It was obviously dangerous though, because there wasn't really a way to dodge interacting with Becca. I suppose I could just ignore the email, but for the past year my goal had been to stay off Becca's radar. I was definitely more than a blip on her screen now.

Having involuntarily come to this position, I started to get pretty worried. How do I accept the award and turn down physically showing up? What excuse could I gin up to the university? As various scenarios were playing out in my mind, my laptop's notification window dinged again:

*****

From: Rebecca Caswell

To: me; Dean Jean Acheson

Subject: Re: Congratulations! Young Alumni Excellence Award Winner

Date: Friday, August 9th 3:08 p.m.

Keith:

Congratulations! We all hope you will be able to join us for the celebration weekend. I have been asked to follow up with our winners to facilitate travel arrangements. The Hoover Endowment will cover your travel and lodging. Unfortunately, a horse show is in town the weekend of the event and has all the hotels booked up. Luckily, we have a room in the Fuller House reserved for you. As you may remember, the Fuller House is attached to the Alumni Engagement office, so don't hesitate to contact me morning, noon, or night and I will service you in any way.

Yours,

Becca

p.s. I hope you will be able to come. You have to meet my son. He's the spitting image of his father, who you know well.

******

Needless to say, there was a colossal amount to unpack in her email. On its face, it was relatively tame. Sure, it was a little weird to sign off a professional email with "Yours" or say "service you" rather than "be of service," but that's not necessarily something that the dean would automatically pick up on. There was, however, a lot for me to pick up on. Servicing me; yours; meeting my son. There was no way I was going to this event.

I started flipping through my calendar and emails, looking for a reasonable excuse to decline, when Janine, the firm marketing director, walked in my office.

"Keith, I just got a call from your alumni office requesting your bio sheet for a press release they're drafting about an award you're receiving - Young Alumni Excellence - Congratulations!"

"Thanks Janine, it's unexpected," I responded.

"And to get the news from an old friend like Becca, she sounds like a firecracker!"

"She worked at the university when I was there; our paths crossed a few times. But it doesn't look like we'll cross again soon, I can't make it the weekend of the event."

"Like hell you're not going to make it. A focus of the marketing team is to highlight the accomplishments of our young attorneys."

"I'm a little behind on my billables and the timing is around a major motions deadline."

She walked away in a huff.

*****

A half hour later the lead partner of my litigation team let me know the firm would allow me to bill for my time receiving the award to a firm code and that I would be getting help on any motions I was working on. He also mentioned I could interview an applicant or two for an upcoming summer associate program when I was up in my old college town. What this really meant was that I couldn't really place any more obstacles between me and a weekend with Becca. Here we go.

******

After a short flight and quick rental car drive up the highway, I found myself in my hold college town. Late fall in the mountains was beautiful around here, and when I inhaled the cool air, it smelled of fallen leaves. This should have been the most relaxing place in the world, but my stomach was in knots as I walked up to the Alumni House to check into Fuller House. Fuller House is an old mansion on campus that the university uses to house visiting speakers and other VIPs. It was much nicer than a Holiday Inn, so that would be nice.

I had forgotten that the Alumni House actually connected to Fuller House by a covered walkway, but Becca's email had reminded me just how close I would be to where she worked. Luckily, it was the weekend, so it's not like she was going to be forty feet away from me the whole time. She had a family and home a few miles away. She couldn't just ditch them.

******

Becca greeted me at the steps of the Alumni House early Friday evening with her boss, Bob Figgus, the Head of Alumni. He was a tall, gaunt man, about fifteen years older than us, wearing his customary ill-fitting suit and bow tie.

Becca hadn't changed. She was still pretty in her trashy kind of way: great smile, blonde hair that was assisted by the best a small town beautician could dye - meaning her roots always needed a little work. Her legs were shapely, she hadn't lost her figure after giving birth and turned frumpy. And if anything, the pregnancy had improved her. Her tits were bigger now than they had been, and that's saying something. They were already her best feature. Before the kid I would have pegged them at low Ds / high Cs. Now she was getting to those sizes where you don't know where DD ends and E starts. Her girls were noticeable but still professional in a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A few buttons at the top were undone, but not too many to look inappropriate at a professional cocktail hour. The shirt was tucked into a skirt that hugged her ass and flared just below her bottom. It was kinda like a schoolgirl skirt, but a little more substantive and business-minded. Based on the flare and pleating it looked like a lot more skirt than it was because it ended well above the knee.

Apparently the cocktail reception had already started, because there were twenty or so other people in the spacious entranceway to the Alumni House sporting cocktails and leisurely chatting. I suppose the slight delay of my flight set me back a few minutes longer than I'd realized. I thought I'd have at least an hour to change and decompress from the road before everything started.

"Keith, it's so good to meet you. Welcome back to town and congratulations on the award," Bob said.

"Thank you, it's always good to be back."

"And Keith, I believe you know our Mrs. Smithson," he said referring to Becca.

"Actually, sir, he certainly knows me but not necessarily as someone else's wife. It was before I met Mr. Smithson. But I guess he knew me after as well," Becca toned in with a little sass.

'Holy shit it's starting.' I thought to myself. It's the first sentence out of her mouth and it's already dripping with innuendo.

"Certainly," Bob said. "Keith, what can I get you to drink? Becca, why don't you show him to his room so he can put his things down and join us."

"I can find my room myself, but if there's a gin and tonic waiting after I put my things down I'd appreciate it."

"G&T coming up, and, nonsense, let Becca show you your room. It's connected."

"Becca, you know where Keith is staying, right? The Bookman Suite. Keith, you are one lucky SOB. You'll have Fuller House to yourself this weekend."

"Where are the other winners staying?"

"Oh we got them booked in a local hotel. Apparently there's some other local event and we couldn't get you a room, so Becca arranged for Fuller House."

"Yes sir, lucky for him. He gets the mansion right attached to my closet of an office," she quipped.

*******

Three minutes later Becca and I were alone in my room, with me putting my stuff down. I had no clue what to do. Break the silence with some inane small talk or go right at it and bring up what happened the last time we were in a room alone together? Actually, strike that, I couldn't remember the last time we were in a room alone together, because her husband, though passed out, was in the room when I fucked her to oblivion.

She was just standing there in her professional but short little skirt - watching me open up my suitcase, putting my dopp kit in the bathroom, thinking about changing clothes - but not in front of her. I think she picked up on how conflicted I was to get ready with her present.

"Oh don't mind me. You can change, nothing I haven't seen before."

"Becca, do we need to talk? I know a ton has happened between us, and I want to be sure I'm doing what you want. You made it sound like you didn't want me to be a part of your life."

"That's not totally it. I just didn't want to leave my husband and move somewhere to be with someone who doesn't really care about me."

I thought about saying something appeasing, like: 'oh, don't say that - I care about you.' But I didn't. Because I couldn't. She was a fantastic lay and an alright person, but for once in our interaction she was showing some reasonableness. Admittedly, there was a lot about her that was way off - but she's not a terrible human by any means. By all accounts she was a good mom. The fact that she had a baby with someone that wasn't her husband was shitty, but that's certainly not the first time that ever happened.

Finally, I realized that a limited retreat was the best policy. I grabbed a fresh set of clothes and headed to the bathroom to change. I quickly changed and stepped out into my room. She had left. Thank god.

Round 1 to me.

**********

An hour later I was two stiff gin and tonics deep and generally having a good time. I met the other three winners of the award. It was funny how the Committee had chosen a token member of several marketable groups: a girl who started her own community service non-profit, a guy who launched a promising tech startup, a chief of staff for a powerful congresswoman, and me...a successful lawyer.

I chalked up my selection to a famous case that I handled that made national headlines. Our client got seriously screwed by company hired by a federal government agency, and we were able to document this company doing some really shady shit to the public, without any oversight, after receiving a wildly bloated budget. It was a pretty big deal and was a really rewarding case to work on. Using the law to help the community and the little man. Look at me not being a total asshole. I juxtaposed that feeling with the thought that, in this room, was a married woman who I had knocked up and pretty much left to her own devices. It was contradictory to say the least.

But that inner turmoil gradually subsided as the night wore on. It was a pleasant party. Becca was bouncing between groups, acting professional, and her interactions with me were limited and civil. I was doing so well I thought about grabbing another drink. Without having dinner, I knew it would push me over the edge of tipsy and into the saucy zone, but I figured I was twenty feet from my room and wouldn't have to drive tonight. What the hell, liquid courage.

After finishing my current drink, I found myself standing next to Becca in the bar line. We had a pleasant chat, mostly about the university and my big case. The elephant in the room, my child, was not discussed. I figured it would come up at some point this weekend, but it was being put off for now. As we chatted I also noticed that Becca was slurring her words ever so slightly. And it wasn't hard to figure out why. She'd been ordering triple bourbons on the rocks, splash water all night. And she must have known the bartender, because he was giving her the country club pour.

"Wow, Becca, that's quite the drink you've got," I said as she brought the loaded highball glass to her lips for another sip.

"Yea, I'm a whiskey girl. I like em stiff, big and strong." She winked.

Damn, we had been doing so well and here she was kicking it up a notch.

"And it doesn't hurt that I'm good friends with the bartender, Dave. He and some other guys in Catering Services serve me a helluva lot more than just drinks."

"So you've kept up your extracurriculars?" I asked cheekily. I figured she would keep casually inserting sexual elements in conversation over the course of the weekend and I'd have to play along at some point.

"I more than keep up. Everything is discreet, but no one up here can hold a candle to your performance."

...

"WELL, WELL, WELL, if it isn't Captain America," a shrill, obnoxious voice announced behind me.

Goddammit. This was the last thing I needed. Tina Anthoupolis. She graduated my year in law school, and she was every bad stereotype about law students and lawyers all wrapped into one twiggy body. She always called me Captain America, and she did it to make fun of the fact that I was tall, handsome, and athletic. She totally discounted me as an intelligent person. More than that, she discounted the fact that anyone could be as intelligent as her. And don't get me wrong, she's smart, did well in school, and had a high class rank. But she got there by using every dirty trick in the book. No one could prove that she cheated, but I know for a fact there was one exam where she read for hours on one incredibly specific and obscure topic to the exclusion of almost everything else. Sure enough, that topic was the focus of the exam. Coincidence? No way. On one writing assignment where the class had to research cases using actual books (to learn legal research), she tore the needed pages out of the one book in the stacks with the proper case - just to undercut the others who hadn't found it yet. Bitch.

I heard she was teaching classes at some shitty law school after bouncing around a few clerkships and jobs. Apparently, every group that employed her grew to despise her within a few months. Now she'd fled to academia.

I mentioned twiggy body before. She was one of those people whose looks matched her personality and soul. Odd and off putting. The first time you met her you'd say she was very skinny and very angular. Once you got to know her you couldn't separate how terrible she was as a person and just found her ugly. Her bony elbows and knees made her slightly skeletal.

"Keith, who would have thought you would be the one to get some recognition in our class? You were always so corporate and uninspiring."

"Good to see you too, Tina. If by uninspiring, you mean Top 5 in our law class and still working at a great firm where people enjoy my company."

There was no way I was going to just take this bitch's shit. Let me tell you one other thing about me. I have a bit of a temper. When I'm sober and in a professional setting I can easily keep it in check, but when I'm pretty drunk and taking shit from a huge bitch there's a good chance of me losing it.

Becca knows this and, admirably, tried to head off the impending collision.

"Tina, glad you could join us. I'm Becca, from the Alumni Engagement office. Your request to be on one of the panels to speak to students was unexpected but welcome."

Hearing that, I figured I'd pounce a little. "Oh wow, they didn't even ask you? You invited yourself to the party? Sounds par for the course. What will you be discussing: how to successfully transition jobs when your last employer declines to give you a positive reference."

"That's what you would think. My prospects are excellent. I'm starting a clinic that empowers women in marginalized industries throughout the area. What did you do? Get a lucky assignment and catch another entitled asshole mistreating people? And who is this, your new puppy dog admirer?" referring to Becca.

"What the fuck did I ever do to you, Tina? What did Becca? Why is it every time you arrive to a nice event like this you have to fill it with venom?"

By now, several people were starting to take notice of our heated conversation and were slowly moving to see what was going on.