Outsource@Home—Pt. 01

I think my IQ dropped at least 10 points while I composed that thing.

Lisa's email told her to park—oops, 2 park LOL—south on Carriage Drive, and Zoë's told her to park north on Carriage Drive; when all three were staged they wouldn't be aware of each other. I called the catering service O@H uses and ordered a couple of platters of finger food, beer, wine, and soft drinks to be delivered at 5:00 Friday afternoon.

I monitored Mark's email account and responded to a few questions, mostly from Zoë. All three were eager to party, almost as eager as I was.

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MID-MORNING WEDNESDAY I called Mark and reluctantly told him that I had an urgent assignment in the Napa Valley. I had to leave right away and would be home Saturday afternoon. He used to complain about my out-ot-town assignments, but lately he would just shrug and tell me to have a good time. After a perfunctory goodbye kiss, his farewell words were "Don't forget to call every night, sweetie." You'll think sweetie when the party's over, you prick.

I assured him I would and drove to the same apartment where I lurked after finding Heather with Mark. I spent the next couple of days monitoring and responding to Mark's emails while binge-watching Downton Abbey and old black-and-white episodes of The Avengers (yes, I think John Steed was sexy, so sue me; besides, he drove really great cars).

I left the apartment in time to meet the caterers and direct them to lay out the food and drinks. The surprise party attendees arrived at the school parking lot within 10 minutes of each other. I ferried them to our place in three trips and settled them in the family room with the food—canapés, ham and beef sliders, cheeses, and melon balls—and drinks.

The family room was down half a level and separated by two doors from the kitchen, so I wasn't worried about their chatter being heard. The 80" flatscreen was muted, showing some tennis match, but nobody was paying attention. They'd be a lot more interested in a few minutes, though. I could hardly wait for the party to begin.

Timing was critical the second Mark got home. The garage fronted the house; the kitchen door was down a concrete walkway to the left of the garage. It would take each of tonight's stars about 45 seconds to get to the kitchen door (I made three dry runs to make sure). All three text messages were queued on my phone.

Mark drove into the garage right on time at 6:20. I sent the first text as soon as he opened the door to the house, then switched the TV feed to the kitchen camera. We watched him walk into the kitchen, put his briefcase on the island, and head for the fridge to get a beer.

Just as he twisted the cap off his microbrew of the month, the show started. Carrying parallelism to a pathetic extreme, Lisa burst through the kitchen door, her boobs bursting from her bra, and she burst into song. I sent the second text.

Lisa was resplendent in white: demi bra, minuscule thong, thigh-highs, and 5" CFMs. Hoisting her bottle of Yellow Tail Merlot, she launched into a piss-poor imitation (in my humble—but correct—opinion) of Marilyn's iconic presidential serenade.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Markie—" But dear Markie looked neither happy nor lustful, he looked like he just swallowed a turd. Every eye in the family room was fixed on the huge screen, the silence broken by scattered oaths or whimpers.

"Holy shit, Lisa! How'd you know it's my—"

But before Mark could finish his question, Zoë came in the door without knocking, sporting a similar getup in red (holding a screwtop of Gallo rosé). I sent the final text. Being a well-trained young lady, Zoë took the time to close the door before starting her serenade. She got out "Happy—" but stopped with a confused look when she noticed Lisa. "Why is Lisa here—" (Zoë wasn't the sharpest tack in the corkboard).

She was silenced by the kitchen door flying open with such force that it smashed her against the wall. Heather made her grand entrance wearing nothing but black thigh-highs and CFMs. Never one to fret about wretched excess, she sported nipple clamps joined by a heavy gold chain, a mousetrap on her clitoris, and carried an open bottle of 1990 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut.

Being possessed of somewhat greater situational awareness than her two co-stars, she noticed Lisa before breaking into song, then moved the door away from the wall when she heard Zoë's moan. She puzzled for a moment over the blood streaming from Zoë's nose; her face clouded, then twisted into a mask of rage.

"What the fuck! Why are these two sluts here, Mark?" The mask of rage quickly transmogrified into a mask of fear." Oh my God!" Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. "Please don't tell me you're fucking them!" Mark looked like he had just fallen into the Bronx Zoo tiger cage at feeding time.

Iacta alea est—or, depending on your preferences, Higashi no kaze ame. In pale imitation of Maximus Decimus Meridius unleashing hell, I led the stunned audience to the kitchen.

Everybody had a dog in this hunt. Mark's parents walked up to him; his father just shook his head. "I used to have a son." His mother didn't say anything, just narrowed her eyes and slapped him as hard as she could. They turned and walked back to the family room to wait for their shuttle back to the church parking lot. Mark stood, frozen by his parents' anger and rejection, absently rubbing his slapped cheek.

Lisa's husband met her pleading face with a cold stare that would freeze a candle flame. "I'm sure you'll find a ride home. I'm not moving out, you are. Tonight you'll sleep on the couch, but I expect you to be gone by tomorrow night. From now on we'll let our lawyers do our talking." I was surprised to see her react with a hint of anger instead of fear, but he had already turned away.

Zoë's husband went over to where she was still sitting up against the wall where Heather's grand entrance had smashed her. Instead of yelling at her, he squatted down in front of her; using a paper towel he'd grabbed from the counter, he gently wiped off some of the blood that had gushed from her nose when the door bashed into her. Finally he spoke softly. "Would you like to come home?" She nodded and he helped her stand.

Taking advantage of the turmoil and intense emotions, Heather started sidling toward the kitchen door. I quickly moved alongside her. "Going somewhere, Heather honey?" She, too, surprised me by reacting angrily.

"Yeah, I'm getting out this clusterfuck so I can get some clothes on and decide who I'm going to sue first." I couldn't believe she said that.

"Oh? Just who are you going to sue, and for what? You really think anyone here would be a helpful witness? I don't think so. Face it, dude, you're screwed." She wasn't really a dude, but I'd always wanted to say that. It was especially sweet because she was screwed in every sense of the word.

I wanted to bitch slap her until my hand hurt, but had no desire to be charged with assault. Then two things dawned on me: (1) I could realize another of my long-held secret desires; it, too, could warrant an assault charge, but (2) I was pretty sure she didn't want to describe the circumstances.

Just as I had years ago when I dealt with John (Dickhead) Thompson, I faked a sweet voice, laying on the Texas accent I never really had. " Hon, I know y'all are majorly proud of your tits and pussy, but I don't think you'd want to go out in public with this—"

I reached up and yanked the gold chain connecting her nipple clamps. She hadn't clamped them real hard, but when I whipped them off it still had to hurt like a sumbitch. God, I'm even thinking in that phony accent! She yipped something fierce and said some really bad words. I was disappointed there was no blood.

"Or this." I snatched the mousetrap off her clit. That hurt a whole lot, too. So much, in fact, that she sank to the floor and curled up in a fetal position. Her boss walked up and told her to be in his office first thing Monday morning, then walked away.

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Epilogue

You can't make a meal of just desserts. Can you?

LISA'S HUSBAND DUMPED her. Turned out this wasn't the only time she cheated, so he went all Marching Through Georgia and let slip his lawyer, a honey badger who snacked on sharks when she ran out of Fritos. They didn't have any kids and Lisa was lucky to walk away with the short end of a 30-70 split and both ovaries. No one has heard from her since the divorce was final; it's rumored she entered a cloistered religious order in Albania.

Zoë, on the other hand, had never strayed before and was too naïve to realize that Mark had drugged her the first couple of times, then played on her guilt. Her husband gave her another chance, assumed a more dominant role in their lovemaking, and made sure she understood that she had no more chances. She signed a postnup that said the slightest hint of cheating would leave her divorced with nothing but the clothes on her back, a $20 bill, and a bus ticket to El Paso. Last I heard, they had three children and lived happily ever after.

Heather lost her job (thanks to me) and decided to move back to Texas, where she assumed she would regain her role as Luling nobility. She didn't (again thanks to me, but it couldn't have happened without a lot of help from Sandy). Marie keeps me posted; for the past few years, Heather's been shoveling zebra shit on her parents' exotic game ranch and selling 40-pound bags of compost out of her old F-150 in the Wal-Mart parking lot on weekends.

Sometimes the wages of sin isn't death, just eternal loneliness.

I divorced Mark, and with a little help from my friends he, too, lost his job; so much for his career-enhancing marriage. I think he's selling insurance in Turlock.

I loved it when my plan came together perfectly, but wondered if I had exhausted my supply of good luck. I went back on standard ops rotation; two years later I didn't have to wonder any longer about my luck. An operation didn't just go south, it ended in an epic clusterfuck. I got in the way of another shooter, this one a half-way decent shot. He hit me four times: once alongside the head, twice center mass, the last in my right thigh (again!).

No through-and-throughs this time; the near-head shot plowed a groove on my skull starting outside my right eye and ending just past my right ear, where the deformed slug finally caromed off. One center-mass shot went through my right nipple (and lung), then pretty much destroyed my right scapula; the other wrecked a rib and turned a lot of my diaphragm and stomach into aspic before it stopped dancing around. The thigh shot hit my right femur dead center but missed the artery.

I'm still alive because (a) the bad guy was shooting a 9mm Glock with crappy old parabellum rounds, not a 7.62 assault weapon. Even more important, (b) our team's medic specialist, a former Navy Corpsman who served with Marine combat units, was really strong. (He wasn't a bad shot, either; it only took him a few seconds to drop the sonofabitch with a double tap to the face).

Our field emergency kit included hemostatic wound dressings and a small oxygen tank. He slapped on the dressings, strapped the O2 mask to my face, then picked me up and ran almost half a mile to our helo (did I mention he was really strong?). If we hadn't been within 30 minutes of Landstuhl I still probably wouldn't have made it, but we were and I did. Eventually.

Eventually turned out to be a month at Landstuhl (the last week mostly physical and respiratory therapy) and two months at a rehab center in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was going to walk with a slight limp the rest of my life, despite the best efforts of the orthopods and physical therapists, and I probably wouldn't be playing much tennis or beach volleyball. Or running. I might dance a few slow ones, but no polka or even a schottische, and sure as hell no tango or salsa.

That's if I ever found anyone I wanted to dance with. Not bloody likely.

I'd been on the job for nine years—five years before marrying Mark, two years of marriage, and two years since the divorce. It was time I got out before I ran across a bad guy who was a good shot and was carrying a proper weapon.

When my boss's boss came to the rehab center on his next biweekly visit, I told him I was going to retire. I didn't expect his response. Turned out that the mandarins (or panjandrums, depending on your POV) had already decided that my good luck quotient was exhausted; they had a proposal for me.

Seems that O@H had become quite successful, and was actually producing a healthy profit (ignoring the not-inconsiderable cost of our extracurricular, and often extralegal activities).

To enhance its viability as a cover—and, not incidentally, provide a legitimate career path for used-up warriors and warrior princesses—the powers that be decided to expand by opening additional offices that were nothing more than what they purported to be: a supplier of skilled temp workers. Would I be interested in finding a location for a branch in Dallas, overseeing the staffing and training of new hires (who wouldn't have a clue about the clandestine goings-on at the original offices), then managing the enterprise once it was underway?

This obviously called for another consultation with my moms. They weren't married—Sandy didn't think the San Marcos PD was quite ready for that—but were due to celebrate their 30th anniversary in a few days. I decided to fly down to help them celebrate.

They thought the new job was a capital idea (even though it was in Dallas, not Austin). I'd be back in Texas and it was safe, so I wouldn't be giving them the jumpin' cold robbies whenever I went on assignment. In fact, they urged me to accept right now, just pick up the phone and say yes, then let's find some honest-to-Gawd Tex-Mex and drink way too much cerveza.

When I blanched, Marie figured it out right away and smothered me in a momma hug. "Kat, you'll be with us, not one of those losers you're so good at picking. Let it go. Pick up the goddam phone, accept the new goddam job, and get shitfaced with your moms."

So I did. We ate entirely too many chips and salsa and tamales and empanadas, and drank entirely too much Bohemia and Modelo Negra (Uber brought us back to Sandy's apartment). I got on the plane back to Virginia with the abuela of all hangovers.

I've been managing the Dallas region of O@H for almost five years now. Yeah, the Dallas region. Because I insisted that we pay our consultants above-average wages, we attracted (and hung on to) really good workers. Less than a year after we opened we were attracting clients outside Dallas and starting to have trouble keeping up with the demand. (It also helped that I hired quite a few retired O@H colleagues, who had lots of experience as temp workers in addition to valuable tech skills; invariably, wherever they were placed they got top ratings.)

Because our branches were exactly what they purported to be—profit-seeking enterprises—we started expanding the Dallas branch with satellite offices. I did the preliminaries again, nailing down good locations in Fort Worth, Irving, and Plano, then managed staffing and training. My salary was pretty much capped, but I was getting very nice bonuses every year (there's always a way to snooker the bureaucracy).

My leg's a lot stronger now, and every once in a while I wonder if the O@H folks could use my skills. I'm a little shopworn for the Mata Hari stuff, but I've stayed in shape, can run again, spend time at the shooting range once or twice a month, and two or three times a year I fly to the Bay Area to lead Krav Maga workshops.

I haven't dated anyone more than twice since I booted Mark, because I've never met a potential partner I wanted to trust. But I've got my Womanizer, and when things get out of hand (as it were), I can make a safe booty call to any of half a dozen former colleagues (all single, of course; our divorce rate is majorly depressing and I won't contribute to it).

I doubt that I'll ever trust again, but what the hell...this fish don't need no fucking bicycle.