My Wife's Boss

I first wish to thank everybody for the nice comments on « The Lemon Soup ». That (very) short story was more like a joke, very fun to write!

This new story is totally over the top and was even more fun to write. Ok, there is nothing new here, really. I just wanted to revisit the theme of the wife's bully boss who has an inflated sense of his own importance. The characters may be a bit unrealistic, and I took a lot of liberties with the legal/penal system and with computer and home surveillance technology, but this is fiction! Let's say it happens in a universe where things work like that.

A long-time contributor to this site suggested that I indicated that English is not my first language. I do my best with the grammar and spelling, but yes, there are some tweaks in the writing that give away the fact that we do not speak English at home. Please consider yourself warned.

If you're still with me, enjoy!

***

I was not in the best of moods when I finished putting my tools in my pick-up truck at the end of that Thursday afternoon. The client I had been working with over the previous two weeks did not seem to know what he wanted. He had asked me to make one change after the other to the initial plan of the staircase I was contracted to build. The last request made earlier that morning was so extensive that I had to dismantle about half of the job I had already done. On top of that, I had to go back to the architect and the engineer, because the latest whim of this fickle twat could not be done without redrawing the structural plans. So the next day would be an unplanned day off.

My name is Garrett Morrison. I am the main artist and owner of a small woodworking-carpentry shop specialized in the design and construction of upscale staircases. My clients are wealthy mansion owners, hotels, restaurants, and offices who can afford paying way above 50 grands for a work-of-art exclusivity staircase.

I had just turned 34 and I had been married for four years to Daphne Tupper, 29. Daphne was a young and successful lawyer at Cramer, Boylan and Hendricks, a law firm specialized in commercial and intellectual property law. We did not have any children yet, mainly because Daphne wanted to establish her career first.

I was surprised to see my wife's car in the driveway when I got home at 16:30. Daphne usually worked late on Thursday evenings so that she could finish at a reasonable time on Friday. I entered the house through the backdoor entrance just like I did every time I returned from a construction site. I had installed a small bathroom with a shower next to the door, so that I could shower and change first thing after getting in and avoid carrying dust all over the house.

The water pressure was lower than usual. Was my wife in the upstairs shower? That was odd, because Daphne usually showered either in the morning or just before going to bed.

I quickly finished, donned some house clothes, and went upstairs to see what my wife was doing at home that early on a Thursday afternoon.

As I had guessed, Daphne was freshly out of the shower and was now putting on some sexy black fishnet stockings, and there was a brand-new black dress on the bed, awaiting its turn to be put on.

"Hey honey! What are you doing here so early? And am I forgetting something? Do we have something tonight that I didn't remember?"

She looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her face before. She looked a bit nervous, but she seemed to do everything to not let it show. She sighed.

"No Garrett, you are not forgetting anything. I am going out tonight. You are not. I will be gone until Sunday afternoon actually. I will be spending the weekend with Derek Cramer."

"You what??? What the hell are you talking about? Is it a business trip or what?"

"No, it's no business trip, Garrett. Derek has a hotel suite reserved for him and me. I'll be yours again next week, but I am spending this weekend with him." She looked at me defiantly, but her whole speech sounded rehearsed.

"No you're not! I don't want my wife to spend a weekend with another man! What's that crap??"

"Well, you'd better accept it, Garrett, because that's what Derek wants. And I suggest you don't mess with him," she said, chuckling.

"Oh, I see. You're a happy part of that plan?! You want me to accept this, to suck it up and let you go!? That you will be my faithful wife after this weekend?" I asked, with dripping sarcasm.

"I never said it would be this weekend only. Derek has already told me he wanted to do it from time to time. So yes, suck it up and don't say a word. Knowing Derek, your life will be much less complicated if you shut up and go with the program."

"That remains to be seen. I'm not gonna put up with that kind of shit, Daphne. You better consider what you're doing, because I won't let that arrogant bastard drive my life. If you think I'm a pawn that you can move anyway you see fit without me saying a word about it, you're in for a nasty surprise, I'm telling you!"

By then, she was done getting prepared for the evening. I went back downstairs and grabbed myself a beer from the fridge. I saw a Mercedes just parking in front of the house. Mr. Smugness himself got out and walked up to the front door, then rang.

"Garrett, that's Derek. Will you go answer the door?" she yelled from upstairs.

I quickly punched a code into the back door alarm panel, then set up my cell phone to video recording and put it into my t-shirt pocket so that it would film everything. Then I waited in the living room.

I had known Derek Cramer since the day Daphne had started working for CBH three years before. I met him for the first time at their office's Christmas party. He was a 40-something man, with a very dominating attitude. He seemed to be very buddy-buddy with his fellow partners, and flirty and smooth with his female employees and the wives of his male employees. But in the presence of his male employees and the husbands of his female employees, all his demeanor exuded arrogance and contempt. I took an instant dislike in the guy.

Daphne ran down the stairs, furious. She went to open the door. I was watching the scene from the living room, milking my beer.

"I'm so sorry that you had to wait, Derek. I don't know where my husband's manners are," she said, with a subservient demeanor. She lowered her voice to say something else to Asswipe, but I could not get it from where I was.

"Hey Dusty Boy, I'm told you have a problem with Daphne going on a weekend with me?" he thundered, like a school principal addressing a small child, as he entered the living room to talk to me. I could not believe the gall that this guy had. He was so full of himself he thought he was the boss in my own house!

"Hey Shithead, get the hell out of my house, or I call the cops!" I said, clenching my fists.

He started laughing. Daphne was smirking beside him.

"And what do you think the cops will do? Let me answer you: Nothing. They will do nothing, you know why? Because... HEY, ARE YOU FILMING ME, YOU BASTARD?"

He had just seen my cell phone. He snatched it and tried to stop the recording, but it was password locked. He threw it on the ceramic floor. Of course, the ceramic won the match...

"Listen to me, you smart ass. Your wife is coming with me this weekend, like it or not. And she will spend time with me whenever I want her to. And no, a wood duster like you has no say in this, is that clear? And if you do anything to get in my way, you're gonna suffer. Hell will be a resort compared with your life.

"So you're gonna stay here quietly this weekend and shut the fuck up. If I hear that you upset Daphne or threaten to divorce her or that you do something even more stupid like trying to contact my wife, then everybody will know about the dubious money laundering transactions that you made or the child porn that you have on your computer."

I decided to play dumb.

"That's highly unlikely that people would learn about it. Considering I've never done any money-laundering nor downloaded or even watched child porn," I replied, mechanically.

"Oh, that's easily arranged, you know. Uploading material on your computer is an easy task, you know. I have a lot of stuff that could destroy your reputation in a jiffy."

I decided this was good cause to play even dumber.

"Child porn is illegal. If you can upload some on my computer, it means you are already in possession of illegal material?" I asked, naively.

"That's the difference between you and me. Some things that are illegal for you are perfectly ok for men of power like me who have the right connections. So I highly recommend you keep on playing with the working class and not bother the better people, you understand?"

I could hardly believe what I had just heard. That kind of crap would have been a bit overboard even in a comedy movie. But this guy here in my living room was talking seriously!

"Oh, another thing. Don't think about getting revenge on me or on Daphne. That includes getting even with her by fucking someone else. I don't want to deal with an infection passed from you to Daphne to me, all right? Because no, I'm not gonna ask Daphne to deny you sex, really. At least not for now. See how I'm not a bad guy?

"Bottom line is, you step out of line, I'll know it. All right? Now, let's go, Honey."

They went back to the front door. Daphne grabbed her overnight bag and walked out. She did not say goodbye or even look at me.

Honey. He said 'Honey' to my wife! The whole situation was so out of this world that I could not even be purely angry. My feelings were rather a mix of anger and amazement.

At that precise moment, I blessed the burglar who had broken into my house the year before I met Daphne. I was so upset that I had a complete surveillance and alarm system installed, with motion-activated cameras and voice-activated microphones that could capture everything that took place in the house and store it in the cloud. I had never shown Daphne that the system could be put in recording mode while we were in the house, so she could not know I had activated it before she opened the front door to let the slithering slug come in.

Then I had activated the recording on my cell phone. That was more like a decoy, actually. I was more or less counting on Cramer to see it and find a way to turn it off. This would let down his guard and then he would speak more freely, thinking he was no longer filmed. I was hoping this could be a good way of gathering useful material for a likely divorce. The asshole gave me so much more than this...!

The cell phone that was now all over the floor was actually my business cell phone. After I had started dealing with a wealthier clientele, I had quickly realized that if I gave them my main cell phone, I would be at it almost 24/7, because some of those people are like children: when they want something, they want it now. In their mind, there was no bad time for them to call you, even after 23:00 and on weekends. A dedicated business cell phone could be turned off at the end of the day, and I could take my messages the next morning.

So at least, I was not without a communication tool. I took my personal phone and called my business lawyer and best friend Harry.

Harry Davenport had married my big sister Jennifer 10 years before. They were the perfectly happy couple until tragedy struck. They had been married for four years when Jennifer, traveling with three of her girlfriends to Guadeloupe, got caught in a killer wave and drowned. My parents and I loved Harry, and even after my sister had died, he had always remained a member of our family. He met another woman three years after Jennifer's death. Christine is a fantastic woman that he married after one year of dating. My parents and I (along with Daphne) were invited to the wedding. To this day, Harry and Christine are like a brother and sister to me.

"Harry, I need your help!" I shouted when he answered.

I proceeded to explain the situation to him. I repeated the threats that Cramer made before he took off with my wife to their private weekend. Harry picked up on those threats.

"Ok, don't get out of the house, don't call anyone, don't answer your phone and don't open the door to anyone you don't know. And turn off your computer. Christine and I will be there in an hour. We'll bring dinner."

I swept what was left of my business cell phone, grabbed another beer, and sat in the living room to try to calm down after the events of the previous hour.

I knew that Daphne was attracted to Dickhead. Or rather that she was enticed by the aura of power that he displayed. But I never thought that she could toss me aside like some useless garbage and go with him. I thought she loved me as much as I did her. That was a resounding wake-up call.

I had met Daphne five years before, at a party thrown for the birthday of a friend of a friend. I don't even remember how I had ended up there that evening. I did not know more than one or two people. The birthday boy was best buddy with Daphne's brother, who could not even be there himself because he was in the army, and he had been deployed to Afghanistan. I had ended up chatting with Daphne all evening. We started dating the week after and married the year after.

At that time, I was still working for Mr. Duncan. Craig Duncan was the founder of his small company. He was an excellent woodworker, renowned in our area. But his accounting and managerial skills were essentially non-existent. He had hired me as a part-time accountant to do his bookkeeping while I was still in college. A couple of months after I had started working for him, he landed three large contracts that were way too heavy for the time he had to put in, but his clients would not take no for an answer. So he had asked me to jump in and help him in the field. I started by being the helper, running errands, ordering supplies and holding the long pieces he had to handle.

But I was a quick learner and it turned out that I had a real talent for the job, so after a few months climbing the learning curve, I was able to handle simple jobs all by myself or to be a real help on more complex jobs. I got my degree in accounting, but since I really loved the hands-on job, I also started my apprenticeship and got my certification after a few years. I soon became Mr. Duncan's associate and when he retired, my parents helped me by fronting the money so that I could buy him out over two years.

I was well aware that the lawyers at CBH regarded me as an uneducated dusty shop worker and did not think very highly of me, but I could not care less. My company was doing extremely well. I did not bid on a lot of projects, but those I took on were complex and very lucrative. I had hired two assistants over the preceding months, and my net income and value were higher than most of the lawyers working with my wife. But even she did not know that detail.

My train of thoughts was interrupted by Christine and Harry who had brought Chinese take-out and some beer.

"Are you ok, Garrett?" Christine asked, giving me one of her warm hugs. "I can't believe Daphne did that to you. This is so unlike her."

Harry gave me a manly hug. "Don't worry buddy, we'll sort things out. Let's have dinner and then I'll have a look at your recording."

I gave them the details of Daphne's cold welcome when I had arrived home earlier that afternoon. After dinner, I got my portable computer and retrieved the files of the two camera and microphone recordings. Fortunately, the conversations were crystal clear.

"I can't believe what I just heard," Harry said.

"Pretty arrogant prick, hey?"

"No, pretty stupid prick," Harry replied. "This guy is what, 40-42 years old? That means he ought to have been practicing law for about 15 years. So he's not a recruit. But he's so full of himself that it doesn't come to this mind that sometimes, you just shut the fuck up! Seriously, your idea of tricking him into thinking he was no longer recorded after he destroyed your cell phone was very, very clever. He completely took the bait and told us everything we need!"

"Ok, but can I really use it if it was recorded without his consent?" I asked.

"Absolutely! This is your house. You're free to record whatever you want in your house!" Harry assured me.

"So I have nothing to be afraid of. Is that what you're saying?" I asked.

"No, that's not what I'm saying. We have to be extremely careful. I did some research on my way here. Chris was kind enough to drive and take care of the take-out. It appears that our guy, Cramer, is the son of the founder of their law firm. You already knew this, didn't you?" Harry explained. I nodded.

"What you may not know is that his father, Marvin Cramer, had quite the reputation. He was not a very good lawyer, but most of the judges in the area were his former college buddies. Since he personally knew everybody, it was easy for him to win most of his cases. Unfortunately, his son Derek was a model student of his father's teachings. That's what makes him dangerous. He has a vast network of very amicable judges and if he files a case, it will be extremely difficult to obtain a judgement in our favor, no matter how illegal his shenanigans are."

"Wow... so you mean that whatever I do, I'm toast?"

"No, not necessarily. It will be difficult to win, but not impossible. I know people too, you know. The trick is to obtain enough proof to make the case a slam dunk against him. I have a plan."

"But you say that the judges will always rule in his favor?" I asked.

"Unless the case goes to a criminal court. That's what we'll try to do."

We were interrupted by someone knocking at the front door. A small brunette was standing on the porch.

"Hello, Mr. Morrison?" she asked.

"Oh, hi Laura, come in!" Harry said, behind me. "Garrett, this is Laura Foster. Laura is the computer specialist at the private eye firm we work with. I took the liberty of contacting her after hanging up with you earlier tonight.

We gave Laura a summary of the situation and had her watch the exchange we had on tape, especially the part where Cramer threatened to upload incriminating material into my computer. Laura watched attentively, then explained the game plan.

"Ok, there are two things they can do. Either they come here during the day, probably with your wife's help, then sit at your computer and upload their shit after they had changed the date to make it appear like the material has been downloaded prior to Cramer's visit. If they do that, your camera system will record everything. Just make sure you leave it in record mode before you leave for work in the morning."

She took a small grey box from her bag.

"The other thing they could do is to access your computer remotely to do their monkey business. I'm going to install this module upstream of your modem so that we can record whoever tries to access your router and what they try to upload or download.

"Take a few minutes to transfer all your personal or sensible data and files as well onto a flash drive and delete everything on your computer. The idea is to prevent them from accessing it. I'll give you a hand with this, even if only to make sure there is no hidden data that you leave on the computer unknowingly," Laura explained. She really seemed to know her stuff.

Harry jumped in.

"You see Garrett, right now, the only thing you have is a recording to sue him for blackmailing. Your case would be dismissed before you can explain it, because in public opinion it's not a very serious crime and the judges he knows would probably support him. So the best thing that could happen is that Cramer actually uploaded illegal material into your computer and told the police that he has evidence that you're in possession of illegal stuff. Then we will have a trace showing that everything had been done without you sitting in front of the computer. With the advance warning that Cramer gave us and that you recorded, we will have enough material to get back at him with a serious case before a criminal court. At this point, none of his judge friends will want to appear as condoning criminal activities, especially anything involving child porn, so they will dump him."