Mystery Motel

The long and short of it was that my ex-girlfriend was planning to use my family's motel to meet up with her asshole boyfriend so they could fuck. Why couldn't they just do it at one of their own homes, I wondered. It was just another of the continued insults directed towards me after the breakup. I had not taken that well or the fact that she started dating some jerk that I had lost in a fist fight against a year earlier. But look, it wasn't like the guy just kicked my ass. I held my own for a good long while and if I'd gotten my footing to do like I had planned out in my head I could have won. Anyway, it wasn't exactly like me and the guy had ongoing bad blood between us but I had been privately training up in case round two ever happened. And once he started dating my ex, well, I was secretly chopping at the bit to take that guy down a notch.

The enemy wasn't really Chad. That guy left me a lone and I left him alone. I did think of him as an asshole but I could respect him as a fighter and after the fight he never said one word against me. He even bought me a beer once and just waved hi from across a crowded bar. I was surprised he recognized me from that distance too because I'd started growing a beard after the fight as a way of telling myself that I wasn't a kid anymore and couldn't go doing stupid childish shit like fighting. It was time to grow up and start thinking long term about the future. Sure that was easier said than done but you have to start somewhere.

The new enemy was my ex. She knew she affected me. She liked the power it gave her over me. She just did all this crap to punish me even though I never did anything to hurt her. The only reason she ever gave for breaking up with me was that I just wasn't man enough for her. Well, two can play at that game. She wasn't woman enough for me, always acting like a fucking selfish child all the damn time. I was glad to be rid of her, I told myself.

I tried to avoid her but I wasn't going to be run out of town. It should have been a lot easier to get over her but she just kept throwing herself in my face and telling me how happy she was now that she didn't have some loser boyfriend holding her back. This wasn't that big a town and it seemed everyone I talked to had some new thing to tell me that my ex had said about me. I finally had to just start telling people to keep it to themselves because I didn't want to hear it. The most recent thing she'd been doing was getting all chummy with my sister and trying to turn her against me, as if that would be very hard. My sister and I didn't hang out in the same social circles but then again, neither did she with my ex. The bitch was just getting to my sister to fuck with me some more. Vindictive little bitch. And I never did anything to her other than tell her no when she demanded that I drive way out of my way to buy her some ice cream that one time. Why did she hate me so much? I really didn't get it.

Then I found out why they wanted to use the hotel. My ex was trying to con my sister into having a threesome with her and Chad. I heard just a smidgen of the conversation before my sister shut the door to her room when she saw me coming up the stairs. I smiled a bit and then went to my room and switched on my radio wave blocker.

"FUCK!" I heard her scream. "I swear I'm going to call and complain." Ha, good luck with no bars, sis. You'll have to use the land line. She still thought it was the cell phone company dropping calls on purpose to save money and cheat her. My mom thought that too but no, it was just me. I had gotten sick and tired of both my mom and my sister spending all damn day walking around the house with a phone attached to their ear. Live your life, damn. Or at the very least help me run the motel.

Over the next few days I didn't have to do a lot of eavesdropping. My sister talked so loud in her room that I couldn't help but overhear the whole damn plan. It was entirely likely that my ex wanted me to hear the plan, thinking that I could do nothing but feel the sting of her burn. Apparently the idea was that the girls would take one of the rooms in the motel and wait for Chad in the dark. He was going to get to have sex with both of them and at the end if he could correctly guess which girl was which, then they could make it an ongoing sort of deal.

Well, I was going to put a stop to this. I didn't know how and of course I knew I couldn't stop them forever if the really planned on doing this but at the very fucking least they could do it someplace that was more than twenty yards from by bedroom. We are not the only motel in town, people. We're not even the best one. We're basically the Bates Motel from that old movie with a bit more modern architecture and a fresh paint job. Also, instead of the family home being up on a hill, it was directly behind the hotel but the front door looked the other way. There was a bit of a gap between the two buildings actually and legally it was a completely different piece of property entirely but a lot of people who didn't know any better thought the house was directly attached to the motel or even thought that our house was just the second floor of the motel. Nope.

On the day it was supposed to happen I found a way to keep my sister busy in what passed for a downtown out here. My mom was gone on one of her many vacations away from this small town that she disguised as a business trip. Yeah, what business mom? Spending more of the money dad left you? Everybody really knew she was just trying to find out where my dad was and then go be in the same general location to throw herself at him again. She had thought she'd taken him to the cleaners in the divorce. She got the motel and the house and all the other useless land we owned. She also got a nice bank account and an annuity that paid her an income. She should have been happy and she was as long as she thought that she'd gotten everything and had made my father destitute. But once she found out that after being unshackled from her he was out there with loads of money living large, she could never sit still. She had to know where he was, who he was sleeping with, what he was doing, and most importantly how much more money he had.

My father had played the game very well. Well, he later told me it wasn't a game to him but how he'd really wanted to live his life after some kind of religious experience. When he was with my mom he lived modestly, frugally, and faithfully as far as anyone ever knew. He pretended like he didn't have that much money and he made a big deal about any increase in our standard of living. He bought this place because my mom had the idea to run a hotel and he helped her with the business plan but he was adamant that it was her project and he was not going to run it for her. If she could turn it into a success, any kind of success, then he'd see about getting her a bigger one. He bought her inexpensive jewelry and took us on nice vacations but nothing outlandish. Then, right at their eleventh wedding anniversary my mom decided she wanted a divorce. The courts gave her everything she asked for and my dad did not fight her on any of it. He was just eager to get it all over with as quickly as possible. Even when it came out in the divorce that my mom had cheated my dad didn't even blink. He easily agreed to all the terms. The only thing he asked for was for the judgment to be absolutely final with no possibility to come back into court for readjustments.

The court was not going to agree that there were no possibilities for future hearings no matter how hard my dad's lawyers pushed for it. So my dad showed his hand. He escaped the US and had his lawyers present documents in court that showed that the marriage to my mom had actually been illegal. The day after he'd gotten married to my mom he filed for divorce in another country and got it. Just based off that it showed that my parents had not actually been married this whole time. The court found a way to invalidate the foreign divorce and attempted to move ahead with the US divorce proceedings but then my dad's lawyers let the other shoe drop. A month before getting married to my mom he'd gotten married to someone else in another country. Then the lawyers pointed out that my dad hadn't signed his own name to the actual marriage document and no one had noticed. It was very clear that my father had no intention of being married either to my mom or under US law. Well, that made my father clearly not married to my mom but it also made my father a criminal and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The court did not take this undercutting of their authority kindly. They illegally awarded my mom all of my father's assets anyway and my mom in that moment couldn't be happier. My mom thought she had beaten my dad and for about a year and a half she was so happy with her new boyfriend who was nothing but a fucking leech as far as I was concerned. But the young boyfriend's time in my mom's good graces came to a quick end when word got to her of my father building a mansion and buying a luxury yacht. I still don't know how much money my father has or how he was able to shield it all from the courts in the divorce. I mean, I knew a little and my dad started to teach me here and there how things worked when I was in college in Europe but he was always very cautious about revealing too much. I have a pretty good understanding of how he set up the accounts for me when he wanted to give me or my sister money. On paper, I didn't own any of that money. Instead I owned shares in this company in Canada that owned shares in this other company in Argentina that owned shares in a company in Mexico, and then London, and then Switzerland and then on and on. It was very important to keep all that in your head and never write it down.

Of course I never let my mom in on my dad's lessons. My mom was using up all the money she had to try and get the courts to have my father arrested overseas and brought back so she could go after all that extra money she had not known about but my dad's lawyers shut that down and my mom has been on this weird kick ever since. Every new picture my dad posted on social media of him at a new beach house with a new hot twenty something girlfriend, or flying his own plane, or just showing off his Lamborghini; all of it just threw my mom into yet another hissy fit about how the world was so unfair. She could not stand that he was out there being happy while she was "trapped in the back end of nowhere", as she put it. I'd try to tell her that it was so long ago and it was not a competition and she should be happy for him but she never liked hearing that. All she could say was "He owes me. I gave him the best years of my life and now look at me. Won't anyone think about what I've been through?" When my mom would say that all I could do was shrug my shoulders. We were some of the richest people in town, I really didn't know why she was complaining.

Anyway, suffice to say this weekend my mom was out of town, probably looking at my father from afar and slipping notes to the cute waiter guy that she'd like to get fucked by a handsome young stud to, in her mind, get back at my dad. She would eventually get so drunk and so desperate for my father to just give her a little attention that I'd have to go fly out to wherever it was and collect mom and bring her home. That happened so often that I just kept my passport and a 'go' bag in my car.

My ex probably was using my mom's absence to pull her little stunt so that was even more pressure on me to stop it. My sister was going to be busy chasing a phantom package and that left me with a free hand. So how was I going to stop this threesome bullshit from happening in our motel? But then I thought, maybe I should just let them do it and not get involved. But no, cause then my ex would try to turn that around to hurt us since the state had a law about using motel rooms for immoral purposes and the motel owner could get in trouble if they allowed things to happen without saying anything.

One part of their plan was for Chad to park at a certain spot up the road and then walk the rest of the way here so that I wouldn't see his car. Well, with it being out in an area surrounded by trees and shrubbery, that seemed as good a spot as any for a showdown. I had been waiting for either my sister or my ex to show up and find that the room key for the room they wanted had been taken. But then, right as the sun was going down I saw Chad's car pass the motel and continue down the street. I got in my car and drove out that way and pulled to the little side dirt road that still didn't lead anywhere, or maybe it had once had a destination but had simply overgrown with time. I pulled up behind Chad and the way the cars were, there was no way he was getting out of there unless I moved to let him out.

I got out of my car and after a bit of hesitation, Chad got out as well.

"Long time." he said.

"Little bit."

"Nice beard. How long it took you to grow that out?"

"Not that long. Can I ask you what you're doing here?"

"Me. Nothing. This isn't your land or anything, is it?"

"Let's cut through the bullshit, man. I know what's going to happen and I just want to give you the chance to walk away. Go do that crap some place else."

"Look, I'm not trying to have no trouble with you but man you know you have to let her go."

"I did let her go. I'm specifically asking you to go with her to some other place to do what you are planning on doing. No hard feelings."

"No offense but you can't exactly stop us. What are you going to do? Call the cops on us? For what? You're open to the public. I'm part of the public."

"We also have the right to refuse service. You haven't given me any money. As far as I'm concerned you're not my customer."

"You're going to move your car and I'm going to that motel room and what we do in private is none of your business."

"You go anywhere near that motel and I'll punch your lights out."

"Really. You're going to make it like that?"

"I'm asking you nicely to go somewhere else."

"You call this nicely?"

"Dude, just go somewhere else. She's not going to think any less of you if you take her to a nicer place."

"There you go rubbing your family's money in my face again, huh?"

"No, I'm just saying take her to a nicer motel, as in better than mine."

"And then you're going to say you ran me off."

"I'm not going to say anything. Tell her whatever story you want but you are not going to pull some bullshit like this at that motel. It is not going to happen."

"You can't stop us, man. Just walk away."

"My fists say I can."

"Oh, it's like that, huh?"

"It's like that. We both know even if you can beat me, you won't be in any shape for bedroom antics afterwards. This is no win for you, man."

Chad looked off into the trees and then looked the other way. Then he shrugged. "Ok, if it's that way then it's that way. You leave me no choice."

"It is what it is."

"But after I knock you down, you walk away and leave us alone."

"You've got to do it first."

We squared each other up for a bit and then slowly got closer. As we were right at the correct distance it all happened so fast that you'd need a high speed camera to catch the action. If someone had just been watching they might have thought that Chad had tripped and fallen or something. He tensed up his face and then threw a punch at me with his right hand. I felt like spiderman with that slow motion thing. I got my head out of the way, caught his wrist with my left hand, and with my right hand I made his elbow buckle and I had his arm bent back on itself. At the same time, my right leg swept behind him and I was able to throw him off balance and fall backwards.

I jumped back a bit and waited for him to get up. I waited as my breath was going in and out and I was ready for the next bit of the fight to happen.

Chad wasn't getting up.

I cautiously approached him. He was out cold. I didn't even get to punch him. What the hell? I'd won and nobody was around to see it. Fuck. Then my mind had a very disturbing thought. "Oh, shit." I said. "Don't be dead." I checked him and he was fine, just knocked out. Well, that takes care of the orgy problem. I put Chad in the backseat of his car and left him there. I was surprised he didn't wake up as I was moving him. Man I felt good to finally beat that guy. Hell, yeah. Had using kung fu been cheating? No. I mean, we hadn't agreed that it would only be a fist fight. No weapons was obvious but we hadn't agreed to just punching. Still, as I went back to my car and got ready to leave I was worried, if ever so slightly, that he might actually be really hurt. I couldn't think how but I'd never knocked someone out cold before. Maybe I should drive him to the hospital. Nah, he can sleep it off. He'll be fine. There was no blood or anything, not like last time where we both needed stitches. There was no blood this time so he would be fine. He was fine ... I hoped.

I drove back to the motel and wondered what I would do and what I would say when my ex arrived and I could tell her to get lost. But before all that I had a date with a razor. The beard and the long hair had sort of been a response to losing that fight. Now that I'd won, did I need either? I shaved and then I used the clippers to do my head. Hey, there I was, the real me. I'd beaten him, even if only I knew it. My self esteem was back, not that it was exactly gone but it had taken a bruising. I smiled at my reflection in the mirror but in the back of my mind I was worried about Chad back in his car. I debated in my mind to go back out there and see how he was doing.

I took a closer look at my now shaven face in the mirror and I actually found that I didn't like what I saw. I was feeling regret over losing my beard but it was too late now. Damn I sure hoped Chad was ok.

Anyway, had the girls shown up for the orgy that was not going to happen now? I went to the motel office and the old guy who used to be a hippie was there just staring off into space as usual. I think he never actually came back to us after his last trip on drugs. He was functional but just barely. Hey, don't look at me, my mom hired him. At times I'm not even sure he understood that we paid him actual money for this job.

"My sister back yet?"

"No. I haven't seen her man. I thought your sister got married and moved away."

"No, I just asked her to go downtown to get something."

"Shit. And I bought a wedding gift and everything, man. Well, listen, Chad, if you're sister's single again you think I got a shot with her?"

"Um, sure. Why not?" I said as I laughed. He thought I was Chad. Open your eyes for fuck's sake.

I pulled out the key to the room that was to be used by my sister and my ex and I went to confront them since I figured they had to be outside waiting for Chad by now. I went to the door but they still weren't there though it looked like they'd found time to do some prep work to the room. There were black garbage bags taped to the window to prevent light from getting in. I just had to shake my head in disgust. Life could not be that boring that someone would need to resort to this kind of thing to have something to do. Read a book or better yet go get a job. Then I had the thought that maybe my sister would have gotten a copy of the master key and maybe they were inside the room. I went in and found that they weren't in there either.

The longer I waited for the girls to show up so I could confront them and tell them to take their shenanigans somewhere else the more I kept thinking that it would be Chad who came up to the door ready for a rematch. Or maybe they had found Chad in his car and they had taken him to the hospital and now the police were on their way here to apprehend me. Well, whatever happened I was going to be ready.