Requiem for a Fallen Wife Redux

Now that her second divorce, nine years later, was in process, Leann thought to herself, "How did I survive living with that pig for a decade? Thompson had turned into an object of loathing very early in our married life, but I continued it for the kicks, I guess."

So, afterward, the long arm of reality was banging on Leann's door. The number one task on her to-do list recently had been to find a suitable but affordable apartment for her and Greg. Her soon-to-be ex-husband was courteous enough to be out of the office and out of town as much as possible. She took time off and looked and visited but found nothing that fit her minimum requirements which were also affordable. In desperation, she paid a roommate share finders fee and her first candidate home-share man she met frightened her, but she persevered and had an appointment to visit the second one.

Per the condo owners instructions, it was today that Leann took her child out of school and drove over. She fixed her make-up sitting in the visitor's parking lot and then looked carefully at the name of the unit owner she was to visit. She said to herself, "J. B. Porter, Mathematician, lives on the tenth floor of this 30-floor ultra-luxury high-rise. That can not be my 'John Porter' as a computer hack couldn't afford to live in this building. But, John does have a Ph.D. in Math even though he never worked in that field. Forget it! It's a common enough name. She said out loud, "Come on, Greg, let's go tour our new home, we hope!"

!!!!!!!!!!!!

As they walked from the visitor parking to the main entrance of the landmark luxury high-rise, she remembered, "Thompson and I attended a gala New Years Eve Party in the Penthouse one year. If I admit the truth, the party and people were only blusterous noise-makers who were record-setting bores, but the apartment and the decorations had been charming - and the hired dance combo was the best I have heard recently."

Later As the two continued walking from the parking garage, she said to nobody, "The building appears as I remember it." About the identity of the owner she would soon meet, she kept reminding herself, "Porter is a common name..'. So relax, the odds are very low that my prospective roommate is 'my' first husband, John Porter. But, it could be! Oh God! Don't let John be the one who will interview us because Greg and I will have no other option except to move into Mom's small house temporarily. Worse than that, I don't want him to call me a slut to my face in front of my child and laugh us out of his condo - which he rightfully could do even after all these years."

At the appointed time she approached the security desk and identified herself." The young man called 'John Porter' and announced her arrival. When he was told to send her up, she and Greg walked towards the elevator bank.

----

Doctor John Porter prided himself as a reasoning man and enjoyed post-doctoral math games he had written along with writing theorem-proofs for sport. Often after writing those games he passed them around to former colleagues - the market was too small to write games for sale. His specialty as a Hack was cloud servers - their installation, roll-out, and securing and maintenance. He lived alone but licensing fees from years of hard work rolled into his Coffers.

That same morning John Porter had sat in his tenth-floor condo home office working on distant problems identified by technical support alarms. These came in every day - some days heavy, and some days light. On the few days when the support calls from his 37 customers around the world were very light, like today, he continuously upgraded his proprietary software. It would further guard his client's servers against phishing, back-door intruding by our own or foreign governments, et cetera, or whatever else the new threat de jure happened to be. But he had finished and was QAing another project, as well, when time permitted, and it would automate much of the changes he manually implemented. He smiled as he thought to himself, "That new patch should become a recurring cash cow as suitable payment for a Ph.D. mathematician whose name is ubiquitous in the Biz as an ethical hacker for Cloud Servers.' "

The 32-year-old was exhausted and had worked twelve hours almost non-stop. In Porter's point of view, he only had two problems. One was that he no time to find a fuck buddy and so mostly relieved himself with his five fingers. The other was that he could not easily afford the 3500-foot condo he had bought - complete with housekeeper quarters. He also could not afford furniture, and he certainly could not yet afford to hire a live-in cook and cleaner. Although his income did far exceed his expectations that he would by now enjoy when he started his business, so did his expenses - even more so. Worse, he was forced to waste his time doing his bookkeeping work on weekends when he would rather have been out looking for pussy. But scant red lights were blinking on his alarm panel a lot during the weekends and then was the only time he had for writing/depositing checks, emails, making journal entries, etc.. But, he was paying the bills most of the time and, all in all, life was pretty good. "Too bad I don't have a buddy who has time to hang out with me - I must spend nearly 100 percent of my time alone, and I don't like it!"

John solved his pussy problem by becoming so horny until he occasionally bought the services of a knockout escort - only when he happened to be awash in cash, even though he couldn't afford it. He was working on the second problem by currently advertising with a 'roommate wanted' post with a discreet roommate placement firm who specialized in introducing professional people to other like people. (i.e., Lawyers, CPAs, Physicians, etc.). In fact, the finder agency had already sent 4 of the contracted five candidates they would send for the several thousand dollars he had paid upfront as a finder's fee. Of those he had interviewed, he only liked one Chemist about his age slightly and from his same undergraduate school - "But I couldn't stand the guy's anger or his music." He looked at his monitor and said to nobody, "God! It can not be this late! The candidate will be here in 45-minutes. I must spend 15 minutes picking up things and taking out the garbage." In the meantime, his mind stayed mostly focused on a client's new problem that had plagued him for the past half-hour.

John got to a stopping place and rushed out the office door and started straightening up his condo while taking dirty dishes to the sink in the kitchen. He had just finished picking up his dirty socks and underwear lying on the bathroom floor when the front desk called, "A Ms. L. G. Porter is requesting permission to visit and says you are expecting her."

"Thank you. Please send my visitor right up."

When John opened his door, he and Leann just looked at each other, initially speechless and horrified. The details of their divorce flooded his brain as if it happened yesterday. The memory that floated to the top was of John's brother manhandling the newly informed Cuckold whose wife had just given birth to a child, not his, to the hospital ER. But, that was nine or ten years ago, and by relying on his training as a 'thinking' man more than a 'feeling' man, he barely managed to control his emotions today. John smiled at her, and said, "Greetings Ex-Wife. I thought our paths would never cross again. But do come inside."

Tons of 'weight' fell off the shoulders of Leann as she smiled pensively after burning calories to keep her emotions in check as well. After an embarrassing silence in the foyer, she coughed slightly and said "The Bureau of Vital Statistics still carries me as 'Leann Porter.' FYI, I never changed my name after my second marriage. The reason I did not is that my Son's birth certificate had already labeled him as a 'Porter.' And I never changed that either. By the way, the Document says that Mark Thompson is his father, on the advice of my attorney." Looking at her youngster, Leann said proudly, " Say hello to Greg Porter, Doctor John Porter. You know, I thought about changing both our names through the courts but never got around to doing it."

John kneeled down in front of the youngster and extended his hand. The former cuckold said, "Pleased to meet you, Greg. I wondered if you would grow to look just like your Mom and you have. You were a newborn the last time we met, and you are a handsome young man who looks just like your Mom. My! The resemblance is striking."

The youngster kept his placid face at first looking directly into the eyes of the stranger and then smiled timidly. He said, "Hello. Mom and I are desperate to find a place to live because we don't want to move into Granny's small house and be forced to sleep on her couch. May we live with you because my school bus stops for pickups in this building."

Shocked at Greg's bluntness and truthfulness, John stood up as he broadly smiled. Greg's mother interrupted his thoughts and said, "No lies - no exceptions ever - is the one thing you taught me which I retained from all your life lessons. I have passed that to Greg. Even though you didn't father him, John, you would be shocked if you knew how many additional traits he shares with you. Greg Porter is just like you in temperament."

Her ex-husband said, "Well, from my point of view with the limited vision I have, that means you did a good job raising him. Congratulations! So I am shocked that you are here, but let's sit down and have a snack while you tell me why you two are here, Leann. I am curious as to how you concluded that the two of you could make it bunking with me now?" As soon as they had seated themselves, the youngster pulled his digital puzzle out of his sling pack and ignored the adults.

As the three enjoyed tea and coffee and helped themselves to a sack of grocery store bagels and cream cheese, Leann told him of why she divorced Mister Mover-n-Shaker. She next described the reason for her resulting housing emergency and concluded, "I had suspected for five years that Thompson was a Randy Womanizer, but being confronted with the reality of it pushed me to action. Three days later he was served at the bank with my divorce petition."

John relaxed his smiling face and said, "Aren't you going to miss luxury cruises, skiing in the Andes, and the hot sex with him, Leann? You know you guys are in the local gossip and society rags often."

She looked directly into John's eyes and answered, "I will be just fine if I never hear an empty suit laugh again. And, since I no longer lie, there was zero hot sex - ever! - Of which he was responsible in my craziness. The multi-orgasmic couplings I bragged about in our final conversation happened once and never again. My depraved conduct was the most sinful thing I had ever done. In fact, even as his wife, my pleasure was never on his list of 'things that were important.'"

John looked at her as he rubbed his chin and asked, "Outside of fancy chow and travel to where the beautiful people hang out which tires a thinking mind quickly, surely there was something of value in your marriage? - like introductions to rich and powerful bureaucrats?"

"No, John, there was no one particularly interesting, no swapping and no hot sex period! Practically speaking, I would today love to have a wildly ecstatic orgasm with someone I love and vice versa, but it won't happen at my age. The sinfulness of experiencing a strange cock as a 22-year-old breaking all the rules happens once and only once. Thompson is and was a failure in the bedroom as well as in just LIVING, but it was our journey on his yellow-brick-road he offered that lured me. Sorry!"

Interested now, John said, "Please go on."

"Thompson wanted an open marriage for years. For example, he one-time wanted me to bed a Washington bureaucrat we had met at the JFK Center For Performing Arts. This Toad's picture is in the paper often, but I refused because empty suits like those two no longer rate a thought. I continued to diddle myself for relief and remember you and me in our youth for the rest of my life -the Bermuda Cruise early in our marriage, in particular."

John didn't know how to respond, and there was silence for a moment and then he excused himself and walked into his computer room. He returned with a framed bon-voyage portrait of Leann and himself. The Portrait was of the couple about to board the Hollande America Vandamm so many years ago for the cruise to Bermuda.

Leann grabbed the dusty picture and looked carefully at the two young people and began crying.

She blew her nose and said, "Thank you for keeping this and showing it to me." Leann continued, "Tell me about yourself. What are some highlights of your love life in the last decade?"

He snickered and raised his five fingers and said, "Here is the source of ninety-eight percent of my sexual excitement, and the other small fraction is that I hire a sexy escort when I have a windfall of cash. For what it's worth, you, Leann, are in my thoughts even when she is busy 'entertaining' me," he said making the quotation marks around the word. John continued, "You know; I, too, often recall the week we spent cruising to Bermuda long ago, Leann."

She raised her tea cup to offer a mock-toast and said, "By a strange coincidence, I still have recurring nocturnal dreams of that week as well. You and I were madly in love then."

John grinned and replied, "As if I could forget."

Leann's face darkened with tears and concern for the man she was conversing with and said, "But surely, you must have had some fun, Dr. Porter?"

"Yes, I lucked up and got laid by the same lady during two math conventions, but she had no interest in leaving her husband or our traveling to meet up with each other regularly, and so nothing came of it. As for social contacts, I belong to a secretive hackers society, and we lunch and do things together, but it's a 100% social thing because there is no candidate for love in that group. Frankly, Leann, I have been trying to grow my business and work many 14 or 15 hour days all week to service my 37 customers and then do my bookkeeping on weekends. I can not afford an assistant to help, and I have no time to find a sex partner even if I wanted to because I work so much. But I have had some good career results over the years and have a substantial income from licensing fees now - two peer-reviewed technical articles on securing cloud data servers helped. I barely was able to afford this place when I made the down payment, however, and now I need a roommate to help me pay the expenses - which are very high at this address even on the lower floors where we 'poor' people live. But, I harbor a goal to buy PH1, on the top floor someday, but that will be far into the future."

She suddenly remembered, "Strange that you should mention PH1 above. My ex and I attended a New Years Eve party in that penthouse. The hostess told us that there were 45 coats of varnish on the woodwork in the kitchen. Knowing your taste for quality artistic things, I believe you will enjoy it after you get there - and, I have every confidence you will get there!"

The room was silent, and then John said, "Leann, regarding your just living, there must have been more to your relationship with your ex-husband than what you have described. Why did you maintain the facade of a loveless marriage with him all those years after you learned that he is just another muddled Toad born with a silver spoon and Washington connections?"

"I am sad to say it, but a 21-year-old courted by a mid-30s mover and shaker is apt to get swept off one's feet. It happened to me. I knew he was going to be a shining star in this industry even then, because of his family. He had 'pull' with powerful friends in Washington who are often in the news. I compared what was possible versus your and my struggle at the time. Recall that we lived in that small apartment on the South side that was overflowing with your computer gear. I hated the place and concocted the hairbrained plan to have it all visa vie that particular Toad. Worse, I plunged in because of my hubris - and naively was convinced I could win his love in time as a trivial task. In youth, one's naivete is unbounded, and I was no different. My plan was to get a divorce from you and win his heart and then marry him even though I knew I didn't love him at first. But, becoming pregnant interrupted my plans, so I put all that on hold."

John took a sip of his coffee and said, "Whew. Your story is right out of a soap opera, Leann. After you learned that he was Greg's sperm donor, why did he marry you? Why not just write you a fat check?"

She replied, "Because, you hired a widely known and flamboyant women's activist attorney who hated Thompson, his family, and our top bank officers whom she knew well. Thompson and his counsels concluded that marrying me was less expensive than the personal and bank's bad publicity that would result if she filed her threatened, 'Workplace Morals Suit a.k.a, alienation of affection.' Thompson's counsel did this knowing that your 'Fat Bitch' counsel couldn't win the case because of their Washington Connections, but the gossipers would have a heyday! John, I was ignorant of all of this at the time, and my focus was that I had a new baby to love and educate and an ex-husband I loved desperately but whom I would never see again. Looking back, you rightly insisted on a divorce because you could never again trust me."

John said lightly trying to bring some humor into their conversation, "This tale is getting 'curiouser-and-curiouser.' Please go on."

After an embarrassing silence where both looked at each other, Leann continued, "Thompson asked me to marry him unexpectedly and for one fleeting moment I mistakenly believed he would learn to love his child and me."

John asked, "What about your love for him?"

"I knew that would never happen because I loved only you and would always, but I was dead certain - and wrongly so - that he would learn to love Greg and me and from there I would adjust as needed. There were other considerations as well. I could see that such a marriage provided lots of high-end opportunities plus our relationship just might grow into love. For example, we often dined on $150 dinners cooked by a famous European chef - and I loved those dress-up dinners. Recalling again the party alluded to earlier in this building, I ate the first Turtle Soup of my life at midnight dinner. After I had forced down the awful tasting concoction, it was a struggle not to grimace. Later at home, I cried. The reason was that I not only didn't like its taste but had to slurp it up pretending our host's hired European Chef was the Planet's best. I even felt sorry for the endangered turtles. And, if truth is known, I even wondered what kind of NYE celebration John Porter had as I lay awake in the wee morning hours that January 1st after we returned to Thompson's stately home. But there was not one shred of love enjoyed by either of us, ever. Worse, Thompson never developed a relationship with his son."

John said after a long silence, "Well, Leann, thank you for your candidness and introducing me to, Greg. I need some time to get my brain wrapped around all you have said. My questions for me will be whether or not Leann and her child being here would be a welcomed addition as well as something I could emotionally handle. Another such question for me is, what if you haven't changed but just happen to find yourself smacked hard by reality and are just grasping at John for a lifeline? Let me give you a cook's tour of the place and in particular show you where the chosen roommate will live."

"O.K., please do, John."

He said, "I don't have a cleaning service and don't have time to do it myself, so excuse the mess."