I Did It For You

One thing I especially took note of, however, was my wife's cleaning routine. I hadn't noticed in the earlier clips, but a number of items that were normally in the living room had gone missing but were now being put back in place. Mostly photographs that included me.

Frank was sitting at my side and we were eating sausage biscuits and drinking black coffee.

"Damn," I said, "she really erased me, didn't she? I guess that Guard punk wasn't lying when he said Maeve had said she was divorced."

"Wait a minute, go back," said Frank. "Go back to late Friday."

"What'd ya see?" I asked as I moved back to one of the earlier clips.

"Look at her hands," he directed.

Maeve was pacing back and forth in the living room, both hands up and actively texting.

"Wha...?" Then I answered my own half-asked question. "Oh, no rings."

I jumped ahead, clip by clip, to around 10:30 Saturday morning. "Okay, there they are. She was really playing the divorcee role to the hilt."

"Look at the bright side," said Frank. "If this had been a Loving Wives' story on Literotica, she would have jacked the guys off with her left hand or had them shoot their wads all over her rings."

"Bright side. Yeah."

I didn't bother sending any of the post-Daddy video to my lawyer, but I did transfer it all to a thumb drive to give her at our meeting if she did want it.

19.

Kelly DeWit, Esquire, had come from around her blond wood desk to greet me when the firm's receptionist directed me through her office door. She now stood, still holding my hand after the shake, but having stepped back. She really was a striking woman, standing about 5'9", in a well-tailored suit that outlined a slender, but strong frame. But I resolutely kept my eyes on hers. Dark amber, with a slight almond shape. She, on the other hand, moved her eyes frankly from my toes to top, with a noticeable pause in the middle.

"Six feet, one-eighty. Long distance runner with a little extra muscle these days. I guess that means I can take the rest of your self-description to be true too."

Fortunately she phrased it as a statement rather than a question because I had no idea what I should say next.

"Please, have a seat, Matt. I'm sure it's been a rough weekend; how are you doing?"

"Rough pretty much covers it."

"Anything new from Maeve?" I'd sent her a few of my wife's texts, including the one where she'd told me not to come home.

"This one just came in while I was parking the car." I handed her my phone.

Baby, please, please ignore my last message. Yes, I'm mad as hell at you, you idiot, but I need you to come home as soon as you can! I'm dying here without you. Please, Matty, Please!!!

"Okay," Kelly mused. "If the feelings I'm picking up here are at all true, it doesn't seem like your wife did what she did in order to get rid of you. In fact, my gut feeling is that when she finds out you know, that she'll never try it again. Hell, she may never have tried it again, anyway."

"Am I supposed to rely on that, either way? And there's no way I'm going to just pretend it never happened."

"No, of course not. But, if she does explain why and promises that it will never happen again, is there any chance you could forgive her and carry on with your marriage?" Kelly put her hand up to stop me when she saw my mouth open with an apparently angry reply. "I have to ask about reconciliation, Matt, the judge is going to insist. And I mean, I get the feeling that you really do love her."

"I do. I did. But I don't see how I could ever... you've seen a few photos and short clips, but you didn't have to sit through the entire grabbing the tiger by its tail episode."

It didn't strike me until later that Kelly didn't have to ask what I meant by that comment. Clearly, old TigerPop had made an impression on Ms. DeWit as well. She just said, "I get that, I do. But like I said, I'm in Family Law and we have to at least investigate if a family can be saved rather than destroyed. And you need to consider that Maeve is probably going to fight to keep you together."

"She's not going to be able to force me into couple's counseling - that I'll have to pay for - like you hear about in divorce stories, is she?"

Kelly chuckled. "I'm pretty sure not in this case. Okay, let me tell you what I have in mind and then we need to work out the property and financial details. If you want her served as soon as possible, we need to have a settlement plan ready to go."

"Since I'm divorcing for infidelity, am I still going to have to give her half of everything and pay her alimony since my income is twice hers?"

Kelly spent the rest of the morning answering those questions and others, and by one o'clock, including working over deli sandwiches she had delivered, she had sketched out a plan that seemed like it would get me out of my destroyed marriage with the least possible damage to my standing and finances going forward.

20.

It was time to pull the trigger and I nodded at my triggerman, Kelly DeWit, Attorney-at-Law, to fire. She put my phone on speaker, then pressed the speed dial for my soon-to-be-ex-wife, Maeve.

The call was answered before the first ring finished.

"Matty, Matty? Where are you? Are you coming home? Are you okay? What the hell are you playing at, you asshole? Oh, my god, baby, I need you, where are you—"

"Mrs. Carras, Mrs. Carras!" Kelly almost barked out to stop Maeve's rant.

"What? Who...who is this? Oh my God!" she screamed. "Where's Matt, what's happened to Matt?"

"Mrs. Carras," my lawyer said even more loudly. Apparently, using my phone to call my wife had not been the best plan after all. We'd just been worried she'd ignore any incoming call that wasn't from me or Frank.

"Mr. Carras, Matthaios, is just fine, he's not hurt at all, he's fine."

"Fine? But Frank said... Who are you and why are you calling me on Matt's phone? Are you sure--"

"Mrs. Carras, Mr. Carras gave me his phone to contact you because he wanted to be sure you would pick up the call. I assure you; he is doing just fine. In fact, I'm afraid Mr. Spinner's reports about Mr. Carras being injured were a deception and here I'd like to offer my personal condolences for the unwarranted fear they put you through with their prank." Kelly stuck her tongue out at me.

"Prank? Prank! What the hell is going on? I'll ask again, who are you and why are you calling me on Matt's phone?"

"Mrs. Carras, let me repeat that I'm using Mr. Carras's phone with his permission and I need to also let you know that this call is being recorded. Is that alright with you?"

Maeve's voice went a new direction, still angry and scared, but even more puzzled.

"Recorded? Why? Who are you?"

"Mrs. Carras, my name is Kelly DeWit, and I am an attorney with Greene Family Law in Springville. Your husband, Matthaios Carras, has engaged me to represent him in the dissolution of your marriage."

"Dissolution..."

"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Carras has directed me that he would like the dissolution to happen as quickly as possible, but that he also is not interested in dragging the whole sordid affair out into the public if it's not necessary."

"Sordid affair...?" I could easily visualize Maeve, shell-shocked and glassy-eyed, only able to parrot back Kelly's words. I wondered if she was even still on her feet.

"Yes, Mrs. Carras. Now, normally we would simply serve you with the notice of divorce action, but Mr. Carras is hoping we can reach a settlement that will avoid the courtroom. The purpose of this call is to notify you of what is going on and to encourage you to engage your own attorney and have her or him contact me as soon as possible."

"Attorney..."

"Yes, Ma'am. Do you have a pen and paper handy, Mrs. Carras? I'm going to give you my contact information to pass on to your attorney."

"What? No, no I don't."

"Okay, that's no problem. After I hang up from this call I will send you a text with all my contact information. After that, however, this phone will go out of service and you will not be able to reach me or Mr. Carras through it."

"But...but I need to talk to Matt. This is all wrong, this isn't supposed to happen, we're in love, and... Is he there? I need to talk to him, this can't happen—"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Carras, but Mr. Carras is not ready to speak with you, so you will need to have your lawyer contact me with any messages for Mr. Carras. I'm going to hang up now, Mrs. Carras. Please have your attorney contact me as soon as possible. Good day."

She hung up as Maeve began her next sputtering sentence.

"That went well," she said as she texted her office info to Maeve's phone before shutting mine off. Her words were wry, but she sounded sad.

"Are you okay?" I asked, though it seemed an odd reversal of our roles.

"I've taken satisfaction protecting wives, husbands, and children from abusive spouses, but cases like this make me sad and tired. There's something weird going on here, Matt. I think you're doing the right thing, the only thing possible, but I don't sense any vindictive conniving from your wife. For whatever reason, maybe even a sex addiction beyond her control, she's blown up the center of her life and neither of you is going to walk away happy."

"Fuck me. I'm not even thirty; have I already seen the last happy day of my life?"

Kelly gave her head and body a vigorous shake to break free from the gloom.

"No," she said. "This sucks and it's going to suck for a while, but it's not the end of the book, just this particular chapter. As part of our services, we are going to put you in contact with a therapist. If you take the counseling seriously and follow the advice you're given, you're going to come out of this a lot faster, so I hope you will. Ask Frank. I know he won't mind me telling you that he waited far too long to use those services and it cost him a lot of wasted time and unnecessary pain."

"Yeah, it did," Frank confirmed a few hours later as we ate chicken wings and chilled shrimp with bloody marys during Happy Hour at a downtown sports bar geared to the office yuppies.

"I blew it off as a bunch of psychobabble that a real man didn't need, but I ended up just stewing in my own shit like a backed up toilet."

"You talked to me some, you could have talked to me more," I said, as I tried not to picture his last metaphor.

"I know you had my back man, but to be honest, it hurt more than it helped. At least before I got the outside counseling."

"But why?" I asked.

His face crumpled. "Because of you and Maeve. You were so happy, you seemed so perfect, and it just made me mourn what I'd lost even more. Especially when I found I'd been living a lie for so long without a clue."

I didn't know what to say, so just sipped my drink.

"Then, after I went to Kelly's therapist, I could finally start looking at the two of you as a sign of hope for the future instead of a reminder of the past." His voice petered out.

"And it all turned out to be just another lie," I said.

"Fuck me," he mumbled.

"Fuck me," I repeated and held my glass out for a toast. We clinked quietly and drank deeply.

21.

"Hey, Matt, have a seat," Kelly DeWit told me for the second time in two days. This time, however, we were in a small conference room and she had a number of papers lined up on the six-person table.

It was three o'clock on Tuesday, but I wasn't at work because when I'd gone in the afternoon before to change my direct deposit and family contact and beneficiary information, I'd checked in with my manager who'd given me today off and authorized vacation days for the rest of the week if needed.

I'd spent the day mostly at Frank's, researching things like finding my own apartment to move to. I certainly wasn't going to live in my corrupted house again; we would have to sell it if Maeve didn't want to buy me out. I also went for a five-mile run in the morning and another three-miler about an hour before my meeting with Kelly. I was hoping that the mixture of endorphins and tiredness would help me stay calm through what I expected was going to be a test of my emotions.

When she'd called me to schedule the appointment, Kelly had said she'd spoken with Maeve this morning and that my wife had explained the whole Daddy fiasco. Kelly told me that I really needed to hear it person, it was too weird for a phone call.

When the receptionist walked me to the conference room instead of Kelly's office, my gut clenched and I half-expected to see Maeve and her attorney sitting there waiting to ambush me. I must have been pretty loud when I let out my stopped breath because Kelly gave a little laugh as she waved her arm across the room, as if to demonstrate it was empty.

"No, no, just the two of us," she said. "Just needed a little room to work is all."

When I sat down around the table corner from her, she added, "Although, Maeve was begging to be here to tell you all this herself. If this was a TV show, it would be the classic showdown."

"Then I guess I'm glad it's not TV," I said.

Kelly gave me an evil little grin and somehow it made her look sexy as hell. Frank had said she was hot and he'd been right. But when I'd thought about her yesterday after our meeting, I realized how glad I was that she didn't resemble Maeve in the slightest. Maeve was all curves and auburn waves and peaches and cream complexion, while Kelly clearly was mixed race, I guessed Hawaiian and White. The leg and arm I could see were firm and athletic and golden brown. Her hair was straight and black and although she had it up in a professional 'do, I estimated it might reach her shoulder blades or further when it was down.

Kelly said, "I think I'm going to see a wonderfully shocked look on your face but can only imagine how much better it would be if you were hearing this from your wife's own lips."

"Enough with the buildup," I said. "Hearing what?"

"That she did it all for you," she said.

I'm pretty sure she got more than the shocked look she was expecting.

"What the fu—" I finally said, barely cutting off my profanity.

The grin dropped from her face and she put one hand over on top of mine, where they suddenly sat in two fists on the table top. The knuckles of the thumbs and forefingers of each hand were touching their twins on the other and all the knuckles were showing white from the sudden clenching.

"Did that bitch claim that I'm some kind of willing cuckold? That I wanted her to screw a bunch of guys, that I got off on it?" My voice was going up and my hands moved to the edge of the table, ready to push back so I could get up and... well, I didn't know what I could do, since Maeve wasn't there for me to smack.

Kelly almost lunged across the corner of the table and locked a strong grip on my nearest wrist.

"No, no, no! Oh, jeez, Matt, no. I'm sorry, I fucked up again."

I half relaxed in my chair and stared at her.

"I was being a wise ass again, I never even considered you'd take it like that. I'm really sorry."

I relaxed more and cocked my head in a question. She released my wrist and straightened up in her own chair.

"Maeve didn't say anything like that at all. In fact she's crushed that you found out and are leaving her."

Leaving her. I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but that is what I was doing, wasn't it?

"Then what does 'did it all for me' mean?"

"The baby," she said in a quiet, miserable voice.

It hit me all at once. Maeve's Daddy fixation wasn't about incest, it was about finding a father for the child we'd been trying, unsuccessfully, to have for the past eleven months. Finding some guy who looked like me to get her pregnant, since I hadn't done the job yet. I knew she really wanted the kid, hell, we both did, but I had no idea that she was so desperate about it that she would go to such crazy lengths.

"She was doing this to get pregnant?" I asked, looking for confirmation of my outrageous conclusion.

"Yes," said Kelly. "Here, you need to look at this." She pushed some pages to me.

It was a lab report from some medical testing place dated three months back. I didn't see my or Maeve's name on it, but I did recognize the name of her gynecologist as the requesting physician. It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally sussed out that Dr. Wellborn (how's that for an OB/GYN name?) had provided two samples from 'Patient 25473' and both had shown sperm counts that were well below normal, according to the accompanying graph.

"I'm patient 25473?" I asked. Kelly nodded. "But how did she get samples? I mean, she couldn't just scrape out my seed after intercourse, could she? That couldn't work, could it?"

For the first time in our short relationship, I saw embarrassment on Kelly DeWit's face.

"Umm, she said that she asked you to use condoms a couple of times..."

Condoms? We certainly weren't using condoms while we were trying to get pregnant. Ah... except that a couple of times when we'd done anal a few months back, she had asked me to wear a condom so that if I got close to coming, I could pull out of her ass, whip off the rubber and stick my clean dick into her pussy. Or, failing that, she could try to squeeze the contents of the filled condom into her vagina. I remembered having to stifle a laugh when she'd told me that plan in all seriousness and actually tried it a couple of times when her incredible rectal massages made me fill the rubbers. Know I knew who was really being laughed at.

"She was actually secretly taking semen samples to be tested when I hadn't gotten her pregnant after a half-year of trying." I said it as a statement rather than a question, but Kelly still nodded.

"Then, after she got the test results, instead of talking to me about it, she went ahead and recruited guys who looked like me as sperm donors - and decided to accept their donations the old-fashioned way." My stomach heaved a little when I remembered her comment in the chat about some kind of injection therapy to get over her daddy issues.

Kelly said, "She said that your medical insurance doesn't cover A.R.T. or Assisted Reproductive Technology, which can be quite expensive, and that you'd already dipped deeply into your savings last year to buy the house where you hoped to start your family."

I closed my eyes and let myself lean forward until my forehead hit the table with a dull thump.

"Fuck me," I moaned. "No wonder your funny bone was tickled. She's nuts."

22.

"Oh, shit!" I exclaimed as my head shot up off the table. I began tapping hard on the fertility report with my fingertip. "This means I won't have to pay child support if her plan works, right?"

Kelly's face got even sadder. "There would still have to be tests since your count is low but it's not zero," she said. "But that probably won't be needed."

"Why not, what's happened?" My stomach knot twisted tighter.

"After Maeve and I talked this morning and she understood she'd been exposed and you were threatening to divorce her over it, she went to see her OB/GYN. This Dr. Wellborn gave her a morning after pill for emergency contraception."

"But today isn't the 'morning after'," I said. "She was with the first guy Thursday night."

"Well, she actually had Dr. Wellborn call me to prove it was true that she was going through with it and the doctor said there's a pill called ella or something like that, that you can take up to 120 hours after the unprotected sex. So, Maeve's right on the edge of that window, but Dr. Wellborn thinks it will probably still work."

I didn't know how to take that. Maeve had gone through an insane effort to conceive a child but now that she knew I wouldn't be an ignorant cuckold and raise another man's spawn as my own, she was literally erasing the mistake. It was all just so fucking sad.