Jason

I tried to tell Laura that it wasn't looking good for her. That her husband was getting things lined up to present to the court that he and his wife were indeed almost living separate lives, with the evidence being that they spent little time together and each contributed about half of the daily expenses of the family. Jason earned more than Laura and could therefore afford to take care of the kids even after he and Laura physically separate into two homes.

Shit.

**********

Laura

I need to get Jason back into my bed and back into being my husband. I know that he must be getting desperate. We haven't had sex in months. If I can get him back into our bed it won't take long for him to start having sex with me. He'll see that this thing with Scott means nothing to him. Scott only gets the crumbs from Jason's table; really. I'm Jason's wife and my time with Scott takes nothing away from my being Jason's wife. A good fuck and a blow-job is just the thing to get us back to being happy, again.

**********

Jason

Laura's been hinting a to lately that she's still wanting to have sex with me and that she'd deny me nothing. A chill runs up my spine. The idea of having sex with Laura was so...ridiculous. I wasn't about to put my dick where she'd had another man's dick only a few hours ago. Un uh, isn't gonna happen. After the girls were in bed, she had been giving me strange looks and even made suggestions that she was more than willing to blow me. I'm not sure what was driving this, but I didn't really care at this point. All I wanted was for her to leave me alone and do her share to take care of the girls and the house. The rest was all just business.

When the girls were grown up and off to university, I would be able to do whatever I wanted, and I could end this travesty of a marriage to Laura. She would be able to move on to her next husband. He could deal with her need to fuck other men, not my problem anymore.

**********

Time marches on - a few months later

Jason

Enough is enough. I've been thinking a lot lately of ending this bullshit of a marriage. No matter the outcome, I've lost my ability to tolerate our current arrangement. Diane and I are starting to see our lives together, that means that I have to do something about Laura. I have to push this whole train-wreck over the edge. I need to give it the right push. I decided to go see Scott.

I know where Scott works and lives. I decided that he and I needed to have heart-to-heart talk about Laura and him and their future together.

It was a Wednesday and about 6 PM. I was leaning against the hood of Scott's car as he came out of the building where he worked. He was on his phone as he walked up and when he saw me, he fumbled the phone dropping it on the ground. I heard him mutter 'oh fuck.'

"You better pick that up. You don't want to lose it. Phones are expensive."

He was watching me very carefully as he bent to retrieve his phone. I'm sure that he must have figured that I was there to kick his ass. I wasn't about to do something that might land me in jail. That would very much undermine my plans for the future. "Don't worry Scott, I'm not here to hurt you; just the opposite. We need to talk."

I nodded at my car, "Get in, I'm gonna buy you a beer and we're gonna sort out some things that are long overdue." He was looking around for my car, but I was in the truck, not my normal car, the old Subaru Outback.

Scott slowly walked to passenger side of the truck, checking out the back seat thinking that I might have someone sitting there to do any dirty-work that I might be considering. Slowly he got in. "Don't forget to buckle-up."

I drove to an Irish pub that I liked but hadn't been to in a while so was pretty sure that I wouldn't see anyone there that I knew. I parked and got out. Scott slowly got out and I beeped the locks and started for the front door. "C'mon, it's fine." I gestured for the entrance. We went inside and I found us a table in a quiet corner so we could talk. I waved the server over and ordered an IPA and nodded to Scott for him to tell the girl what he wanted. "I'll have the same, please."

I looked at him and I could see that his level of fear was so thick you could cut it with a knife. He was eyeing me closely. Not a word was spoken until the girl came with the beer and I'd taken a sip. I knew what I wanted to say to him. I just had to remember my own script and stick to my plan. I really wanted to leap over the table and beat the shit out of him. But that wasn't gonna work. So, it was back to the main plan.

I started, "Okay, it's time you and I sorted out a few things."

He looked like he was about to get up and run. "Relax, this will probably work out in your favour. I want to know a few things. I have some questions that I want honest answers to, or our next meeting will be in a very dark place." He started to push his chair back.

"I said relax; if you talk to me, you'll likely come out on top of this. How long have you been fucking Laura?"

He took a big drink. "Ah...for a while now.". His voice was shaky.

"Define 'for a while now' a little more precisely please."

He swallowed, "For just over three years." I nodded, thinking inwardly that the likelihood of him being the father of any of my children was now eliminated. That was a good thing. That just saved him from the beating in the dark.

"Why did you and Laura start having sex?"

Scott looked at me like I just grew a second head. I added, "Come-on, it's not that difficult a question. How did you and she first hook-up?"

"We met and got to talking. She told me that she was in a 'rut' with her marriage. She said that she was becoming bored with her routine. You and she weren't having any fun, just work, kids, and chores. We made plans to get a drink together and it went from there." He looked sheepishly at me as he said those words.

"It went from there..." Fucking hell! I swallowed very hard as I prepared for my next question. "Are you and she in love with each other? You've been fucking her for a lengthy time, have you developed feelings for each other?"

He refused to look at me. I continued, "Come-on, just try and be honest with me. I'm not here to tell you how you should or should-not feel about her. We're way beyond that now."

Scott took a big drink to summon some courage to answer me. "For me it's complicated. I do have feelings for Laura, but not to the extent that I want her to leave you. I like our relationship. I like having sex with no commitment. I'm not yet 30, and I don't want to settle down to just one person."

"How many women are you having sex with?"

When people don't want to look at you when they have to answer, that usually means you're not going to like the answer. I knew what the answer was, "You're not exclusive with her, are you?" He shook his head to tell me 'No.'

I sat back in the chair and thought about that for a moment. I figured that Laura was quietly counting on him to be her fall-back if things with me went horribly bad. To find out that Scott wasn't exclusive with her was going to be a shit-show. But that wasn't my problem.

"Well, Bud, be prepared when she shows up on your door-step with her suitcase. You might not have realized it, but fucking another man's wife brings consequences. Just because you get to stick your dick in her every week, doesn't mean that you escape without paying a price. You keep doing whatever you want. I'm not going to tell Laura what she can do or not do, or who she can fuck or not fuck. No, but that doesn't mean that I won't do other things. Some of those things might not suit what you want, but right now I don't give-a-fuck about you."

I stood up and dropped $40 on the table. As I turned to leave, I said to him, "You might want to be careful of dark places." I walked away.

**********

Laura

I had to get away from the house. I went to Scott's apartment. He let me in, looking around the hallway to make sure that I was alone.

We spent a couple of hours together. The sex was hurried, and it was as if Scott wasn't even thinking about me. I even tried to suck his dick and he waved me off.

He made an excuse that he had an appointment with his doctor and had to go. I got dressed and he almost pushed me into the hallway.

**********

Jason

It was a week after my little talk with Scott that I decided that it was time for the next step of the plan. My lawyer had prepared all the paper-work and was scheduled to have it delivered to Laura. I told her that I wanted it given to her at my house; there was no need for any embarrassment by serving the petition for dissolution of marriage anywhere else.

I had all the evidence that I needed to go to court and get full custody of the girls. Diane was quietly waiting in the background while I got my shit together. She and I had become...close. That's a gross understatement. When the dust settled on my divorce, I intended to ask her to live with me. I really do love this woman. She's a joy to be with and has a charm and personality that I never get tired of. Her sense of humour makes me laugh and because of that I work to make her, and the three kids all laugh. We have a great time together. Could we be a family? That I didn't know, so that was one big question that could only be answered after the divorce from Laura and a period of time without her lurking in the background, had passed.

I made a point of talking to Laura in the evening after the girls had gone to bed. I got her that glass of wine and passed it to her. She knew that something serious was about to happen.

"Tomorrow, you should stay home in the morning. There will be a delivery for you."

"What?"

"You know what it is."

She sat back in the chair and exhaled. "I knew that this might happen. Why do you need to do this? Can't we just let each other do what we need to do, for a while? Why does it have to come to this?"

"You're the one that started this. You knew that I wouldn't just stand for you to have a boyfriend on the side for sex. But you also knew that the divorce courts don't really care about infidelity. With two children to sort out, you counted on the likelihood that the courts would give you custody and in the end I'm the one that would pay so you could fuck around. You knew that I'd do just about anything to keep my children. So, you went ahead and did what you wanted to do. You ignored what I wanted. All I wanted was a wife that cared enough about her family to keep her legs closed to other men, but no, you couldn't do that. You had to go and find yourself a boyfriend to fuck and damn the consequences for your family. Well, now it's time to see what the price really is."

I needed to keep control of my emotions, so I got up and went to the refrigerator and got a beer. My blood pressure must have been high, because I could feel that my face was flushed. I poured the beer into a glass and went back to the table. Better to talk this out now than let it fester and pay lawyers a lot of money to sort it out later.

"Jace, I'll fight you against a divorce. I love you and our family..."

I put my hand up, "You have a damned poor way showing your love! You've shown your love of Scott and his dick, that's what you love. Don't sit there and say otherwise, because I know you're lying to me and yourself. Your actions speak louder than any words."

She looked at me, "You know that I'll get custody of the girls and all you'll see of them is once a week and the occasional weekend. And you'll pay to keep us all right here. I know you don't want that. Stop this ridiculous divorce. You and I can get back to being a couple again and things can get back on track. I know you want that."

"Eighteen months ago, yes, I wanted that. But not now. You've done too much to poison that water hole. Let me ask you this: are you willing to give up Scott?"

There was a blank space created by that question.

"Why can't we come to some arrangement. I get to spend time with him, and you can spend time out doing all the things that you enjoy. I'll even agree to come camping with you and the girls. You'd like that wouldn't you, I know the girls would."

I was starting to lose control, "Would you? I mean it isn't until you have your back to the wall here, that you're trying to bargain your way out of the corner that you put yourself into. Why are you agreeing to come camping now?"

"I don't want you to throw away our family because of something that doesn't mean anything for us, for you and me. My time with Scott takes away nothing from you. You get quality time with the kids. You love it and they love it. You know they do, and I know that you love being with them. Don't do this. Don't lose them just because I spend a couple of hours a week with someone else."

I wanted to say something, but I couldn't give away the tactics that my lawyer had planned when we got down to the main event.

"Laura, I used to love you very much. But when you started giving your love to another man you must have known that there were consequences."

"Oh Jace, I don't love him. What we do is purely recreational. I love you and our children. You're my family. If you would come back to our bed, I could show you properly what you mean to me."

"Do you love me enough to give up Scott?"

No answer, Laura was looking at her hands and her glass. "I thought not. I know where I stand. Don't go to work in the morning. Goodnight."

I went to bed.

**********

Laura

Jason was up early and got the girls ready for school. We didn't talk one word to each other before they left. The girls barely looked at me, neither said 'bye' to me as they went out the door to school. There were a thousand things going through my mind until I heard the doorbell sound. I went to the door and was greeted with a middle-aged woman in jeans and a sport jacket. She had some kind of ID badge attached to the pocket of her jacket.

"Good morning, are you Laura Staples?"

"Yes, I am."

"Ma'am. Could I see some identification, to verify that, please."

I went back inside and got my driver's license from my purse. I handed it to her, and she snapped a photo of it with her phone. Then she took the large brown envelope that she held under her arm and passed it to me. "Ma'am, you've been served."

Before I could say anything, she took two steps back and snapped another photo of me holding the envelope. What the fuck? She turned and quickly walked back to her car and left.

For a moment I stood on the front step of the house and stared at the envelope and realized that I had just been served with divorce documents. This was it.

I went inside and put the envelope on the dining room table and sat and looked at it. For a second or two I thought that if I didn't open it, it wasn't real. Jason wasn't going to end our marriage. I was going to get to keep doing what I wanted to do. But for the first time I had a doubt that spending time with Scott wasn't such a great plan. Now what do I do.

I got a glass of water and sat at the table staring at the envelope. Very slowly I picked it up and used a knife to cut open the flap at the end. Inside was the thing that was going to change my life. Why did Jason have to do this? Why couldn't he just let me have this. Eventually it would end, and we would be just us. We would be together as the girls grow and go to college. We would be able to travel more and do some of the things that we talked about after we got married. We both work hard and that leaves little time for us to be intimate. My being with Scott once-in-a-while wasn't a big thing. It didn't interfere with my family. It meant nothing to Jason. Why did this turn into such a big deal? When I came home from being with Scott, my itch was scratched, and I was a better wife and mother. What Jason didn't know wasn't going to hurt him. I was stupid when I confessed to having sex with Scott. I should have worked harder at keeping it a secret. Now look what's happened. This has all gotten way out of hand.

I need to call Claire and go and see her.

**********

Claire (Laura's Lawyer)

When Laura Staples came to see me, all in a panic, I knew that her husband was fed-up with her and decided to get on with the divorce. From a personal perspective, I thought he was way too patient with her. But, as I looked at the divorce documents that his lawyer prepared, I understood why.

The case for her husband to have full custody of the two minor children of the marriage and maintain the family home was meticulously prepared. He had carefully documented the time since learning of her affair with her boyfriend, showing all the many instances that Laura was not with her family, when it normally would have been reasonably considered that she should have been with them.

There were school events, family vacations, camping trips, daily routines, drop-off and pickup from school and friends' houses, after-school sports and recreation events, even Christmas school concerts. Jesus! On the surface of this, it painted Laura Staples as an absentee parent who fundamentally couldn't care less about spending time with her family.

As well, it identified all the evenings and weekends that Laura intentionally spent with her boyfriend, one Scott Williams, and even sightings of them in public with public displays of affection. It listed names of people, mostly friends of Jason and Laura, who saw her in public with Scott Williams. Jesus!

There were even printed copies of cellphone pictures taken by people showing Laura and Scott in public, together, holding hands and kissing. The photos were taken by friends of Jason and Laura and given to Jason by various means.

Laura was fucked; in more ways than one. She sat quietly in the chair at my conference table as I reviewed the paperwork. I tried to imagine the questions that the family court judge might ask and the answers that would be given. How Laura tried to justify her actions with Scott Williams, was going to be interesting to listen to. It wasn't the fact that she was fucking Scott Williams (family law courts rarely care about that) it was the fact that Laura Staples ignored her children and husband so that she could spend time with Scott Williams. Yup, that was the thing that was gonna sink her ship.

I tried to get ready to tell Laura that she was essentially going to lose here, and it might be best to agree in principle with the demands that her husband was making. Oh, we could negotiate some of the small things: the furnishing and her jewelry, maybe some of their savings, her car, and maybe get a few other things, but overall, what Jason wanted was his children, his home, and to keep most of his income to support his children. The rest was all minor details to him.

"Laura, have you read this Petition for Dissolution of Marriage?"

She stammered a bit, "I skimmed it, but I can't remember the details. How do I stop this divorce nonsense? Jason and I and my girls are a family, and I want us to stay that way."

I was beginning to think that my client was somewhat delusional. She was ignoring the reality of the situation. Jason was holding most of the cards in this game and I would have to work hard to try to even the playing field.

"Laura, I'm going to need to talk to your husbands lawyer before I can offer you any advice regarding what you can and cannot do about this. Recall that you and I talked before about what things the courts take into consideration when they consider the best parent to have custody of the kids. When I read this, I'm not sure that you'll get custody, at least not to the degree that you want. As far as keeping Jason as your husband, that's not something that is going to happen. "

"What do you mean? I can't lose him. He's the father of my children. He and I are married. He can't just walk away from me and the kids." Her tone was indignant.