On His Terms

On His Terms

Took a bit of a break for a few days, but I'm back. As regular readers know, cheaters in my stories generally do not fare too well. This story is somewhat different in that regard, however, the cheaters still pay a price.

As always, constructive comments are always welcome and appreciated. Please refer to my profile for more on my personal policy regarding comments, feedback, follows, etc. (Yes, I moderate comments...) And remember, this is a work of fiction, meaning that it is not real in any way, shape, matter or form.

Tom Wheeler sat in the booth, nursing his drink with his tablet sitting on the table. The constant pressure he felt in his head made it a bit difficult, but he managed. Tonight would signal the end of what he considered the most fucked-up situation a man could find himself in. It wasn't always that way, though.

He met his wife, Melinda, while they were both in college. They were each working toward a business degree and shared several classes together. They spent a lot of time studying together and when it was all said and done, they had helped each other graduate with good grades. During that time, they dated and fell in love. They married after graduation.

Tom went to work as an accountant with a financial services company, while Melinda decided she wanted to sell real estate. She knew there was lots of money to be made selling high-end property, and Tom agreed. So she took additional classes and got her license, then joined a firm in town.

The first five years for them were great. They both made good money, and ended up buying a house. They christened every room in the house and made love several times a week.

Five years after they married, Tom Jr., came into the world. A year later, Timmy joined him. One year after that, Lisa came into their lives. Melinda had a difficult time with Lisa, and asked Tom to get a vasectomy, which he did.

Tom enjoyed being a father, and actively took part in raising the children -- feeding them, changing their dirty diapers, the works. He was always there for them, rocking them to sleep or holding them to give Melinda a break. Sex between the couple dropped off, as one might expect with three very young and active children. But Tom never complained. He loved his family and would do anything for them.

His job at the firm was steady, and he always worked "banker's hours," meaning he generally never had to work late. He also never had to travel out of town, although he did play golf with some of his colleagues a couple times a month. He received regular increases in pay, along with the occasional promotion. He was just a couple steps below the CFO when his life went south.

Melinda, meanwhile, had progressed well at her job, and was frequently recognized as the top sales person in the area. To be successful in this area, one had to be available at all hours, and one also needed to be available for some travel. Such was the case with Melinda, and Tom accepted it as being part of her job. He knew she could accomplish whatever she wanted, and he promised to support her career.

So it came as no surprise when she would sometimes have to work late into the evening showing property, or would sometimes have dinner with a client. There were also times when she would have to travel out of town for a day or two -- sometimes over a weekend -- for a conference or a meeting with clients. He never begrudged her those times out, so long as they never interfered with things like birthdays, planned vacations or anniversaries. Melinda always gave him plenty of warning and made sure to be available for family time.

As time went on, though, it seemed she was gone more often. Then she starting having "girls nights out" to blow off stem, or so she said. Again, he never begrudged her that, as he sometimes spent time out with the guys. Of course, accompanying this was a steady decrease in sex.

Again, Tom never complained. He believed his wife would never step out on him, so he let her have her time and used that to bond with the children. Life in the Wheeler household went on, but over the years, he began to notice a few things.

For starters, he saw a distinct difference in the children. Tom, or "Junior," as they called him, was the spitting image of his father -- they both had sandy hair and piecing blue eyes. Except for the age difference, they could have been mistaken for twins.

Timmy, however, had dark hair and brown eyes and over time, became physically larger and more muscular than his older brother. Lisa had her mother's blonde hair and green eyes, but very few features from his side of the family. His mother mentioned it to him a few times, but he didn't want to accept the idea that his wife had cheated on him. Besides, he loved the children so much he couldn't bear the thought that they might not be his.

Then he began to notice changes in the way Melinda treated him. She would often be gone till all hours, not even bothering to notify him that she would be out. When he mentioned it to her, she would snap at him, telling him it was none of his damn business.

Many times, after being out so late, she would immediately run into the bathroom to take a shower, not even bothering to say hello to him or the children.

When Junior was ten, he decided it was time to put to rest any question about the childrens' parentage, so he ordered a DNA kit. When it came, he followed the instructions and got samples from each of the children, himself and Melinda, waiting until she was asleep. He sent it off and patiently waited for the results, hoping to finally quiet his mother.

When the results came back, he was shocked. Junior was definitely his son, and Lisa, strangely enough, was also his, but the report said Timmy had been sired by someone different. He wondered if this was a mistake and ordered another kit from another lab. He sent those samples off and waited on pins and needles, but the results were the same.

That meant Melinda had been cheating on him, for somewhere between nine and ten years, at least. He decided to contact a private investigator and had her followed for a couple weeks. When he met the PI for the report, he was completely gobsmacked.

According to the report, which included pictures and video, Melinda was having sex with another man at least once a week. The report said she always met the man in homes she was selling. Her "girls nights out" were essentially cover for public parties with the man. He looked at the man's face closely, and noticed a striking resemblance to Timmy.

He now knew why they hadn't made love much lately -- she was already too fucked out to do anything with him. Worse than the video of her getting fucked was the "pillow talk" where her lover put him down, demeaning him as a wimpy cuckold.

"Who is this man?" Tom asked the PI.

"That is none other than Jake Winthrop," the PI said. "His shingle says he's a family law attorney, but in reality he's a slimy snake. I'd call him a piece of shit, but that would be an insult to pieces of shit everywhere. He has a reputation for seducing married women and destroying families. He's also been known to knock the women up so he can extract exorbitant child support from the husbands whose lives he destroyed. Bottom line is that Jake gets off on fucking up people's lives. And once he has his hooks in a woman, he almost never lets go."

"And he gets away with that?" Tom asked.

"So far," the PI said. "His father happens to be a powerful Superior Court judge with friends in very high places. Anytime Jake gets in a jam, daddy comes along and bails him out." Tom pulled out his cell and brought up a picture of Timmy.

"Look familiar?" Tom asked, showing the PI his phone.

"Yeah, sure does," the PI said. He pulled out a fairly thick folder and handed it to Tom. "You can have this. It's a copy of my dossier on Winthrop. Your wife sure knows how to pick 'em."

"Thanks," Tom said with a heavy sigh.

"Good luck," the PI said. "Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you." Tom paid his bill, thanked the PI one more time and left.

No wonder things had gone to hell in their marriage, he thought. Suddenly, he remembered the few times she would come home and jump him, demanding he eat her out. He felt sick to his stomach thinking that maybe she was feeding him whatever it was her lover dumped in her pussy.

He took the kids to his parents and asked if they could stay the night.

"Sure," his mother said. "Is everything alright, Tom?" she asked. "You don't look too good." He shook his head.

"No," he said. "I'll tell you later."

Back home, he sat at the kitchen table, his laptop and briefcase open and ready. It was after 1:00 am when Melinda finally came through the door. He looked at her, taking in her disheveled appearance. He could smell cigarettes, beer and something else on her.

"Sit down," he said. "We need to talk."

"Later," she said. "I need to take a shower."

"I said, SIT YOUR ASS DOWN!" he yelled. She recoiled from his outburst. Tom had never raised his voice to her like that.

"Please, keep your voice down," she said, pulling out a chair. "You'll wake the kids."

"They're at my parents house tonight," he said.

"Oh?" she asked. "Why?"

"Because we need to have a talk, and I didn't want to upset them," he said.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"How long have you been cheating on me?" he asked.

"How dare you suggest such a thing!" she exclaimed. "I've never..."

"SHUT UP, GODDAMMIT!" he roared, throwing the DNA test results down in front of her. She looked at the report, not understanding what it meant.

"What's this?" she asked.

"DNA test results," he said. "I even had two different labs run tests to make sure. You'll be pleased to know Junior and Lisa are mine. Timmy isn't. Which tells me you've been cheating on me for at least nine years and nine months. Do you even know who the father is?" She shook her head slowly.

"I had hoped it was you," she said.

"But you knew otherwise, didn't you?" he asked her.

"I suspected," she said.

"Yet you had me get a vasectomy knowing full well I wasn't Timmy's biological father. And you never stopped." He tossed down the photos of her in bed with Jake. Her eyes grew wide as she saw the photos.

"You bastard," she exclaimed. "You had me followed. How dare you!"

"No, bitch," he growled. "How dare you! According to the PI report, you had sex every week with this clown while denying me most of the time. How many times have you given me sloppy seconds or made me eat this guy's cum out of your nasty cunt? How many?"

"I don't know," she said. "A few, I guess."

"You guess?" he asked sarcastically. "You've fucked him so many times over the years, you don't even know? Who else have you screwed behind my back?"

"You don't understand," she said. "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. You have no idea how hard it is to sell in this area."

"So you offer your body to spice up the deal, is that it?" he asked. "No wonder you're always getting the top sales awards." She shrunk in her seat a bit, but Tom continued.

"I also noticed this guy never used protection," he said. "For all you know, he could have given you a disease and you would've brought that home to me. Is that your plan? Give me something to make me sick, or worse, kill me?"

"No," she said emphatically. "Look, it was just sex. I did it for us. None of what I did affected you."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" he asked. "You have me raising a boy who isn't even mine, you risk giving me a deadly disease and you have the gall to say it doesn't affect me? Are you out of your mind?"

"So what are you planning to do?" she asked.

"I'll be seeing a lawyer to start the divorce," he said. "In the meantime, I've moved all your stuff into the guest suite and changed the lock on the master bedroom. I trust you haven't fucked your boyfriend in the house."

"No, I haven't," she said. "And there will be no divorce."

"You're kidding, right?" he asked.

"My client happens to be a high-power family law attorney," she said.

"You mean, Jake fucking Winthrop, your fuck buddy," he said. She shrugged her shoulders.

"Whatever," she said. "He told me that if you threatened divorce, he would represent me for free. And he said we would ruin you. Not only would you lose the kids, you would lose the house. You would have to pay so much in alimony and child support that you would be ruined financially. Your reputation would suffer as well. He would destroy you in more ways than one. Divorce me, and you'll end up a pauper."

"We'll see," Tom said. She smirked.

"Yeah, we'll see," she said as she turned to go upstairs. "Now, are you coming to bed or what?"

"I don't ever want to touch you again," he said.

"Have it your way," she said. He watched as she went upstairs. He heard her try the master bedroom door. Finding it locked, she went to the guest suite. He waited until he heard the door close before heading upstairs with his laptop and briefcase.

Over the next few days, he visited several divorce attorneys, all of whom told him basically the same thing. Sure, he could file for divorce, but the state they lived in didn't allow for divorce on the basis of adultery. The judge would give her the children and the house while making him pay the mortgage.

In addition, he would be required to pay a hefty amount of child support for the three children, even though Timmy wasn't his. As far as the state was concerned, the fact that his name was on the birth certificate was all that mattered.

Then he would be required to pay alimony, or spousal support, as it was called, since their last few tax returns showed he made considerably more than she did. On top of that, he could lose half of his 401K plus half of their marital assets. And he could end up paying for her attorney -- Jake -- and court costs. Talk about fucked up!

"Look, Mr. Wheeler," the last lawyer he spoke to told him. "It's not about justice. The court doesn't give a damn about that. It's about economics and the children." Tom did the math in his head, using the numbers the lawyer gave him. If correct, he could end up losing over 60 percent of his take home pay before it was all said and done. And he would end up being a part-time parent, maybe seeing the children once every couple weeks if he was lucky.

Meanwhile, Melinda would be living in the house on his dime, fucking her slime-ball boyfriend in his marital bed. Fuck that, he thought to himself. Then he had an idea, something he had read about once.

"What about an agreement of some kind?" he asked.

"You mean, like a post-nuptial agreement?" the lawyer asked.

"Yeah," Tom said.

"I suppose we could put something together that would be binding," he said. "You know that in order for it to be valid, your wife would have to sign off on it as well."

"I figured that would be the case," Tom said.

"Alright," the lawyer said. "Why don't you take a few days and think about what you would like to see in the agreement and then get back to me."

Tom took the attorney's advise and spent a few days thinking about what he wanted in the agreement. In the meantime, things were frosty between him and Melinda and the children noticed it. Very little was said between the couple and they continued sleeping in different rooms.

"Dad, are you and Mom getting divorced?" Junior asked him.

"I don't know. I don't think so, son," he said, giving him a hug.

"I hope not," he said. "I'd hate having to pick between you and Mom."

"Me too," Tom said. A few days later, he met with the attorney and hashed out the agreement. That evening, he took the kids back over to his parents' house and explained the situation to his mother, who was shocked.

"I'm so sorry, son," she said. "What are you going to do?"

"I hashed out an agreement with an attorney," he said. "I'll be giving it to Melinda tonight. Either she accepts it or we'll end up divorced."

"Let me know how it goes, and for God's sake, don't do anything stupid," she said.

"Don't worry," he said.

That night, he was at the kitchen table when Melinda finally decided to come home. Again, she looked as though she had been partying with her lover, and he could see a blob of gunk on her leg.

"Sit down," he told her. "We need to hash a few things out."

"Can I at least take a shower?" she asked.

"Later," he said. "Sit." She knew better than to push him so she sat down. He pulled out an envelope and put the agreement in front of her.

"What's this?" she asked. "I hope you didn't file for a divorce. That would be a big mistake."

"No, this is a post-nuptial agreement," Tom said. "It spells out how our marriage will be from here on out, and how things will be divided in the event of a divorce." She began looking over the paperwork, getting agitated as she read.

"I don't understand. What is all this?" she asked.

"It gives you what you wanted," he said.

"I didn't want any of this," she said. "No celebrating anniversaries or birthdays, no gifts for Christmas? What is this shit?"

"It's what you wanted," he said. "A sham, loveless marriage. We'll be in the same house, we'll still take care of the kids, but things will be different. You can fuck whoever you want, but as long as you're fucking other men, you'll never share a bed with me. At the same time, I'll be free to fuck whomever I want. We both agree not to bring our fuck buddies into the house and we both agree not to rub it in the other's face."

"But I don't want this," she said. "I love you!"

"No you don't," Tom said. "If you did, you wouldn't have cheated on me to begin with. And to be honest, right now, I don't love you either. I'm doing this solely for the kids. By the way, notice that the agreement stipulates that if you get pregnant, you'll be expected to get an abortion on your own dime. I'm already raising one of your bastard children and I refuse to pay for any more. The agreement also requires that you surrender your wedding and engagement rings for the duration."

He reached over and grabbed her left hand, removing her rings. He put them in his pocket and continued.

"The first chance I get, I'll be removing you from my insurance, both medical and life," he said. "I'm also removing you as a beneficiary of my 401K. From now on, we'll have three separate accounts. One will be for the bills, mortgage and household expenses. We will each contribute half of the expenses to that account. The amounts are shown in the table. We will each have our own accounts for whatever is left over. You'll be responsible for your own car payment and maintenance and I'll be responsible for mine.

"In addition, we'll each file married but separate tax forms. You will be expected to care for the children as you have, well, at least when you're here, and I'll continue to take care of the general house and yard maintenance. We'll act as a married couple in public for the kids' sake at least until they leave home. If any of these conditions are violated, the next step is divorce. The division of assets are as stipulated. We sell the house, split the proceeds, take what is ours and go our separate ways with no support from the other. Any questions?"

"What if we decide to reconcile?" she asked.

"If that happens, you'll need to prove to me that you've been celibate for at least six months, and have a clean bill of health," he said.

"How do I prove something like that?" she asked.

"Not my problem," he said.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What about me?" Tom asked in response. "You're the one who wanted to have your cake and eat it too. Now you can have it. I'm not the one who's chasing others for a roll in the hay."