Marriage Scam

The second document, in Spanish, was a simple one page prenuptial agreement. The relevant parts were "If the marriage dissolves for any reason within one year after a legal Canadian marriage ceremony, Z. A.," her initials, "will be entitled to only $50,000 CAN. If it dissolves for any reason more than one year but within two years after a legal Canadian marriage ceremony, Z. A. will be entitled to only $100,000 CAN. If it dissolves for any reason after more than two years, or after a child is born to B. B. and Z. A., then Z. A. will be entitled to $500,000 CAN and permanent residency in Canada if other requirements of Canadian law are met."

The third document, in English and French with a short translation of it into Spanish, was entitled "A Sponsorship for Canadian Residency," with her name on it, and my signature at the bottom.

Zamira had changing looks on her face as she reviewed the documents; her looks were hard to interpret. After she put down the third document I opened up the box containing the ring with the big stone, and then closed it again.

"Zamira, tomorrow I am taking you to dinner at one of the best restaurants in Ottawa. Then, I have made special arrangements with my government contacts for us to go alone up the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. There, I will ask you to marry me; I hope that you will have enough time between now and then to carefully consider your answer."

She looked at me like I had two heads. "Are you some sort of freak?" she asked, obviously perturbed at my unusual -- if not unique -- approach.

"We have only known each other for a few months, and this would occasion a significant lifestyle change for you. If you need more time to decide I'm happy to wait -- but I felt it necessary to give you a warning." With that I gave her a big smile, a short kiss, then got out of bed and went to one of the many guestrooms in my mansion. "I'll see you tomorrow," I said as I went out the door blowing her a kiss. She looked totally confused.

That night was the first time since the second day we met that we were in the same city at the same time and didn't sleep together. I was surprised that I got to sleep as quickly as I did.

Zamira acted like nothing unusual had happened the next morning, although I did see her with the three documents in hand before she placed them on a desk in the den before breakfast. I had to work that day, and she had her day planned out too and I left her with my limo and driver so that she could get where she wanted to go. "I'll meet you at Signatures Restaurant at le Cordon Bleu at 6:30," I said with a smile as I kissed her goodbye. "Would you please -- please -- wear your green floor length dress?"

"Maybe," she teased, biting her thumb.

I put the finishing touches on my plan -- assuming that Zamira would say "yes" to my proposal -- then did a full day's work before leaving for Signatures at 6:15. I got there only a minute before my driver pulled up with her, and I opened the rear passenger's side door for her. She caused a sensation as she slinked out of the limo with an obviously newly purchased short yellow dress that beautifully highlighted her sleek thighs and ample cleavage, and a ruby choker on her neck with matching ankle bracelet above her five inch heels. In response to my crooked smile -- and the wide-eyes of all the male onlookers -- she said in Spanish "I just wanted you to see that I'm a girl full of surprises."

That night it seemed that every male in the establishment, whether employee or diner, had one excuse or another for walking by our table with frog eyes. "You're causing quite a stir," I chuckled at one point when a flustered and distracted busboy almost crashed into a waiter carrying two orders of duck leg confit while staring at Zamira's cleavage, or trying to look up her skirt -- I wasn't exactly clear on which it was, maybe both.

"Are you embarrassed -- do you intend to rip up those documents that you so inexplicably showed me last night after making a large sperm deposit in my poor little pussy?" she snickered.

"Quite the contrary -- I'm really proud that other men find you attractive," I smiled.

Zamira acted coy the rest of the evening; that is until we were alone at the top of Peace Tower, long after closing. As I pulled the ring out of my pocket and got down on one knee she didn't really let me get out what I had to say. She jumped into my arms and either giving a great Selma Hayek acting job, or with real joy, said "Yes, yes, yes," as she planted kisses on me.

After I stood up and put the ring on her finger she reached under her dress and pulled out a skimpy pair of lace undies, dropped them on the floor, undid my zipper, and moaned "Fuck me now!"

Stroking my cock in and out of Zamira's snug pussy as she gasped and moaned while her back was pinned against the stone wall and her thighs wrapped around my waist as I looked out at the lights of Ottawa through one of the decorative arched windows was beyond erotic. My ejaculation was so large that I was sure that my knees would buckle, but somehow I was able to keep from falling as she whimpered into my ears as her orgasm took a full five minutes to dissipate.

Two days later we took our marriage application to a guy with a tux on in a room at Ottawa City Hall, and without fanfare said "I do" in both English and Spanish.

*************

Zamira seemed to constantly be perplexed by the arrangements that I made for our life together in Ottawa. To be sure that she was fully occupied and so that she could make her own money to send to her relatives in Cuba, I installed her in a job where her Spanish language skills would be very helpful at one of the companies that I owned, working about thirty hours a week. She used her Cuban name so that no one at that office would think that we were married, and the address used on all of her papers was that of an apartment building that I owned on the outskirts of Ottawa. She never wore her ring to work.

The thirty hour work week left her plenty of time to go to the health club and spa -- which she really took to, and which I was very pleased with since she maintained to perfection her toned consummate body -- shopping, and doing volunteer work for a local charity. She craved attention, even adoration, and liked expensive things, so in that regard she was "high maintenance." However, she kept me more than well satisfied in the bedroom, so I didn't complain -- at least not much, and usually only when I could work a complaint to my advantage for some exceptionally steamy sexual activity.

Zamira seemed to get along with most of my friends and my few relatives. I introduced her to my half-sister as "Sissy Logan," using my pet name for her rather than her given name of Jacqueline. Sissy treated her well, although somewhat at arms' length.

The only times that Zamira returned to Cuba was when she went with me on business. We would fly commercial to and from Miami, and then take a private plane to and from Havana. She would visit her brother, friends, and other relatives in Varadero while I conducted my business, usually in Havana, and then we would fly back together.

There was one significant fly in the ointment -- when the weather turned cold in Ottawa, Zamira hated it. She didn't take to outdoor winter sports, and I usually had to have my driver take her door-to-door everywhere that she went, and she kept the house uncomfortably (for me) warm. Toward the end of her first winter in Ottawa, however, she came up with a plan that she said would make things more bearable for her.

"Brian, honey," she moaned in bed one Friday night after she had sucked my cock and balls and then ridden me like a prize bull, "I'd like to have our baby. I want to go off the pill."

"Are you sure?" I asked, staring into her eyes. If I were cynical I would think that she wanted to in order to latch onto the $500,000 and permanent residency called for in the pre-nup; but she may simply have wanted to be a mother.

"Yes, I so want to. I've always wanted to be a mother since I was a little girl, and of course I want you to be the father."

"If that's what you really want; but you'll have to promise to go to my concierge doctor for check-ups at least once every three months."

"Ok -- father-to-be" -- she mumbled as she took my cock, still covered with her juices, into her mouth and started sucking.

************

Zamira didn't get pregnant, even though we both checked out as fertile, and the two year anniversary of our ceremony at City Hall was fast approaching. I noticed a change in my attitude toward her as that date approached, and she seemed to be very perturbed by it. While we had a seemingly very good relationship the first eighteen months or so after our ceremony, except for the still exceptional sex it didn't seem to be as good since that time. Then, two years and two days after our ceremony, the plan that I had dreamed up even before the first day that I went to Varadero was implemented. Canadian authorities arrested Zamira for immigration fraud.

"But I'm Mrs. Burley, and am sponsored for permanent residency by my husband Brian," she protested at her workplace as she was led away in handcuffs.

"No, you're Zamira Acebo, here on an expired tourist visa, illegally working in Canada, and under arrest," one of the pair of female police officers told her.

I met privately with Zamira at the police station the night of her arrest.

"What's going on, Brian," she asked with tears in her eyes.

"I'm sure that you were planning on leaving me now that the two years since our ceremony is up -- just like your brother Ernesto left my half-sister after his fraudulent marriage to her four years ago," I said, seemingly without emotion. "We never had a legal marriage in Canada -- that ceremony was fake, conducted by one of my employees not someone authorized to conduct such ceremonies, and all of the documents were fake too. Why do you think that we took private planes to and from Havana -- so that your false immigration status could be 'handled' by a few well-placed payments."

"But Brian, I loved you..." she started to say.

"Sorry that your plan to have a child so that you could collect on the $500,000 and stay in Canada permanently was spoiled -- see my concierge doctor that you went to wasn't really a doctor, but another of my employees, and those variety of shots that he gave you -- one every three months -- were simply birth control shots."

"But I wanted your baby," she moaned.

"Yeah, well I have to say that you're even a better scam artist than your brother. Now, however, my half-sister is going to get a little retribution. You're going to call your brother Ernesto and have him return the $100,000 that he extorted from her to cancel his sham marriage to her, and give her his deepest apology; otherwise his darling little sister will remain in a Canadian jail for the next few years."

Zamira tearfully made the call to her brother. He was at first incensed, but he couldn't stand her sobbing over the phone or the thought of her being in prison during a cold Canadian winter, even though I had made arrangements to have her put up in posh private detention after a few days in jail. I talked to Ernesto on the phone myself after he had a day to calm down and think about things. He convinced me -- by giving his Cayman bank authority to release the information -- that he had only about $60,000 of the $100,000 left, the rest having been spent on his business, black market luxuries, and travelling. After the money was transferred into my sister Jacqueline Logan's (nee Twist) account and he expressed a hand-written apology letter to her, Zamira was deported.

For some reason I felt it necessary to see her off. "I'm sorry it worked out like this -- that we scammed each other," I privately told her just before she boarded a plane for Miami with a Canadian immigration agent in tow.

"I started out to scam you -- but I fell in love, Brian," she said through tears. "Ask your solicitor about it," she sobbed as she turned away and went through security with the agent, never looking back.

The "solicitor" comment temporarily didn't register, perhaps because I was fighting back my own emotions.

****************

I didn't feel as great about how well my plan to scam the scammers worked as I thought that I would. When Jacqueline, her husband Harold, and I had a celebratory dinner two days after Zamira left I got drunk for the first time since college. The next day Jacqueline called me up.

"You know that you were a slobbering, pathetic ass last night, don't you Brian?"

"That bad, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah. I think that you fell in love with that girl and spent most of your relationship convincing yourself that she was just great pussy and that you had no feelings for her. In some ways you were hurt as much as I was; and while I appreciate you getting me my money back, to be honest, I'm not sure that the revenge was worth the emotional toll on you."

"You're overstating it," I stuttered after a delay.

"Am I? How many times did you get drunk in the last twenty five years?" she rhetorically asked. "Hell, you didn't even get drunk when your marriage to Evelyn fell apart. And what was that shit you were mumbling about what Zamira said to you just before she boarded the plane?"

I suddenly consciously remembered what she had said -- the first time that I had allowed myself to really think about it.

"Look, Sissy, I'd like to continue having you ream me out, but I have to get back to work," I said, trying to sound light-hearted.

"You don't fool me, Brian -- you're suffering. Do something about it!" Then she abruptly hung up.

After staring at the ceiling and counting the number of cross-beams four or five times I told my secretary to get my solicitor Jean Dubuc on the horn.

"What's up, favorite client," came Jean's voice as soon as I picked up the phone when my secretary rang me.

"I'll bet that you say that to all the girls," I laughed. I hadn't talked to Jean in a few weeks -- things were moving smoothly in my life (except for the Zamira situation) -- so we caught up for a few minutes. Then I got serious.

"Jean, when Zamira was deported she made some crack about loving me and if I didn't believe her to ask my solicitor. Do you have any idea what that could be about?"

"No...I don't think so. However, things have been kind of crazy around here for the last month or so. I've had a trial, I had a temp serving as my secretary for a couple of weeks while my secretary of twenty years had an emergency operation...so something might have slipped through the cracks."

"It's important to me; can you check up on it and call me back. Call my cell phone if it's after hours."

"Sure; right away, Brian. I'll call one way or another as soon as I look into it."

It was about 8:30 that night, after I ate dinner in a mansion that suddenly seemed cold and impersonal, when my cell phone rang.

"Brian here, Jean; what's up?" I answered after seeing Jean Dubuc's name on the caller I. D.

"Don't kill me Brian; I'm falling on my sword, and I'll do anything I can to make things right; if you want to scream I'll just take it..." his voice trailed off.

"Get to the point, Jean...what the fuck is going on."

"After we tore the whole office apart, including after taking a break for dinner, about ten minutes ago my secretary found a letter from Zamira that the temp had just put in one of your files without bringing it to my attention. Anyway, it's dated three weeks ago -- at least she stapled the envelope with the postmark on it -- almost two weeks before your two year anniversary with Zamira."

"OK, OK, get to the point," I impatiently said.

"It says, I Zamira Acebo Burley hereby relinquish any and all rights under the pre-nuptial agreement dated..."

Jean kept reading, but by then my mind was not receptive anymore. After a long silence when Jean finished reading the letter he said "Are you there, Brian?"

"Yeah; I'm here," I replied in a hollow voice. "Tell you what; I'm going to want you to call your contacts in the U. S. tomorrow. What I want to do is..."

*************

A week after my phone call with Jean I arrived in Varadero, accompanied by an armed Cuban who usually worked on the protection detail for el presidente Castro [it's amazing what you can do when you put hundreds of thousands of dollars of hard currency into the Cuban economy every year]. I was not taking the chance that my reception in Varadero could turn violent.

The bodyguard and I turned up at Ernesto's place of business where Zamira was listlessly working in the front office when I entered. With a startled look on her face she immediately went into the back office while the receptionist asked what I wanted. Ernesto came storming out of the back office, swearing at me. The bodyguard implanted himself between us, exposing his holstered gun and telling Ernesto that we were not after trouble and that I just wanted to talk to Zamira. After fifteen minutes, Ernesto finally calmed down and went to talk to Zamira. He came back after only a minute or two.

"She doesn't want to see you; you broke her heart," Ernesto snarled, with crossed arms.

"Please give her this note," I said, handing him an envelope. "I'm not leaving town until she agrees to talk to me. I'll camp out in front of your business and house if necessary.

Ernesto reluctantly took the envelope, and the bodyguard and I left.

I sent the bodyguard back to Havana the next day, and did camp out in front of Ernesto's business, and the house that Zamira lived in with Ernesto and his wife, for the next two days until Zamira finally agreed to talk to me.

"Can we talk at the beach?" I asked. "My knees will do better on sand than kneeling on the hard floor here, or in the street."

That actually got a small smile from Zamira, which quickly turned back into a frown. "I'll meet you at the Iberostar beach at 11:00 this morning," she snarled.

When Zamira sashayed up to me at the Iberostar beach at 11:44, obviously designed to test my resolve by making me wait, her arms were crossed and her face impassive.

I got down on my knees and immediately started babbling, barely holding back tears. That caught her by surprise. Although far from coherent, and switching from Spanish to English and back to Spanish, what I got out was:

--I was blinded by my need for revenge since I loved my sister so much.

--I fought falling in love with her but on reflection realized that I had a mere few weeks after I met her even though I'm sure that at the time her attention toward me was part of a scam.

--I now had to admit that I loved her, and believed that at least before she was arrested that she loved me, and I apologized for becoming distant as the second year anniversary of our sham marriage ceremony approached.

--I handed her a ring with a real diamond to symbolize that now my intentions were real, not fake like the zirconia stone on the ring that I had given to her two years ago.

--I handed her an application for a marriage license in Cuba, which I had already signed.

--I begged her to marry me for real.

Zamira gave every indication of being flabbergasted. Actually, she put her hand to her head and looked like she might faint. I quickly got off my knees and led her to a bench in the shade.

After a long pause she barked "Where's the pre-nup?"

"No pre-nup," I quickly replied, startling her.

"I hate Ottawa winters," she bellowed.

"We'll live in Miami November through April, Ottawa the rest of the year, with at least four trips to Cuba every year," I replied.

"Not possible -- you can't arrange a green card for even you, let alone me, to live in Miami six months a year," she responded, although with less bluster than with the last statement.