Soon-to-be-Ex

Alaska, in general, and Anchorage, specifically, sounded like a fun place to be. I'd be working some of the time, but I could also take two weeks of vacation, first. Fly to Seattle, rent a new Harley, ride it to Bellingham, take the ferry to Juneau with my new bike and then ride to Anchorage and return the same route in reverse when I was done sounded like a good plan. Plus, it gave me a prefect excuse to ride a Harley again. (Aelish didn't like bikes and, like a fool, I'd let her convince me to give up riding.)

With any luck, this whole process would expedite the matter of her filing for a divorce. It wasn't just the cold weather she hated, anything outdoors was definitely not on her 'to-do list', so she wouldn't want to move. Plus, she was thinking she was 'in love' with the asshole and wouldn't want to give him up. (He didn't have quite the same affections for her, but she didn't know that.)

It's surprising to most people what can be found out with the proper use of computers. Did you know a lot of hotel security systems can be remotely accessed if you know what you're doing? I'm not quite the equal of the NSA, but I don't do badly in the comparison. The time they spent in their liaisons involved a certain amount of pillow-talk, and I generally knew what they planned to do almost as soon as they planned it. Plus, I heard what he said on the phone after she left. He really was quite materialistic and quite the opportunist. And he liked to brag. If it didn't work, I could up the ante, but I didn't think I would have to do so.

I had my plans and I thought they would work. Only thing left to do was implement them. No time like the present! (OK, I'm exaggerating. I waited until I got to the office to put my plan in place, call it present plus forty-five minutes. Then I had to start with my soon-to-be ex-wife.)

* * *

"Hey, Lish! How's my devoted wife doing today? Miss me?" (OK, I was being a bit sarcastic, but she didn't know that. As far as she knew I was still a mushroom. You know the old joke, don't you? The punchline goes, 'Keep them in the dark and feed them lots of bullshit'.)

She gave me a little wave and an air-kiss and said, "You're home early, aren't you?" (An ace conspirator, she wasn't. Asshole told her to act lovingly until they were ready to make their move, with one exception. That was, 'Don't go giving him any of my pussy. You cut him off, understand?' Hell, he wasn't much of a conspirator, either. If you have a mark you're trying to con, you don't make him uneasy. If anything, you make sure he's getting fucked silly. Lowering his effective IQ by making sure the blood supply to the brain is going in the opposite direction is just plain good business strategy!)

"Well, something came up at the office, and I came home to pack. There's a problem at the Alaska office and they need someone to straighten things out for them. How would you like to come along with me? It could be a nice little vacation for you while I'm working. You could go fishing, hiking or sightseeing while I'm in the office and I'd see you at night. How about it?" (My wife, doing any kind of outdoor activity? Get real! Particularly involving anything in Alaska. I could tell you what was going through her mind at the thought. Igloos, Sled-dogs and Eskimos, that's what. Also cold and snow, deep snow. It was just barely fall and there wasn't any snow except on the mountaintops, but that's the way she'd imagine it to be.)

"How long will you be, Sweetie? ('Sweetie' was a nice touch. Maybe she has at least a minimal understanding of what is required to conduct a conspiracy. Maybe she's a bit smarter than her boyfriend, although that wouldn't take much. I remember a Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw in my youth and Bugs' comment. 'What a Maroon!' was well deserved in dip-shit's case.)

"Open ended, unfortunately. That's why I think it would be a nice thing if you came along. There wouldn't have to be any awkward telephone calls where I had to break the bad news about my delayed return. I have to get up there right away, but you can close up the apartment and join me there. It would give you a chance to have one last fling with your friends and make sure your volunteer work isn't going to suffer, too."

She didn't think I paid any attention to what she did, but she was wrong. I asked around. The volunteer work that she and her cronies did was sit in meetings planning 'benefit' social occasions. Any money they raised for charity was only slightly more than what they spent on holding them. Add in the costs for new dresses and salon appointments and they could have just written checks, given it directly and been more effective at the ostensible purpose of charity. That would not have been half the fun, or gotten them mentioned in the society pages, though.

"I don't think I could get away without some notice. We have a couple of benefits planned that I can't miss. I'm on the committee, after all. It might make me have to take a week or two to get everything together." (Like that's what she'd really be doing! She'd move dip-shit into the condo and be busy fucking his brains out.)

I knew he had planned for something like a opportunity like this. Judging by the quality of his 'planning', she'd already succeeded in considerably lowering his effective IQ. One or two weeks would become three or four and then she'd probably try to surprise me with having me served with divorce papers. Oh, woe is me! Like Br'er Rabbit said in the fable, 'Please don't throw me in the briar-patch!'

"Of course, Baby! You take whatever time you need to be comfortable. I'll book a hotel room for you to stay in, I'd be worried about you being on your all alone. I'll arrange for you to have access to the condo if you need to have a meeting or something and leave papers with the leasing agent that will make it OK. I'll miss you but when you get there I'll have all sorts of things to do lined up that you've never had a chance to try. We can take a canoe trip, go hiking, try skiing, all kinds of fun stuff you've never experienced! It will be a chance for us to get away together and experience Nature first-hand. I know you'll love it." (Actually, what I knew was the diametric opposite, she'd hate it! If this didn't motivate her to pull the trigger, nothing would.)

"OK, Honey. I'll start winding up some of the things that I'm involved in right now and then I'll see about joining you. When do you have to leave?" (Somehow I sincerely doubt she's intending on 'winding up' what she's involved in. Still, she might try. Dip-shit needs a lot of things, like morals, integrity, ethics and a conscience, but I don't think he needs any help 'winding up' and becoming more twisted!)

"Depends on how fast things come together. A few days at most, though. I might have to go through Seattle to pick up some stuff and make sure it gets to Anchorage, but that depends on other things. (Yeah, it depends on whether they have the bike I want. Fuck it! If they don't have the one I want, I'll buy one! There are lots of Harley shops in the Sea-Tac area. Someone will have exactly what I want.)

Considering I carry an Amex Platinum card, there won't be any trouble with any purchases I make. I wonder if I could get a Corporate Amex Black card as one of the perks of my new position? That would make entertaining new and existing clients a very convenient experience. It would make business traveling easier, too. I'm really looking forward to my new job!

I'm not particularly looking forward to my divorce, but I'll be loosing some unneeded and unwanted weight. About one hundred-twenty pounds of lying, cheating slut-wife. This will be the first time I've ever experienced a major weight-loss, and I think I might enjoy that part of the experience!

So, here I am in Anchorage. I did buy the Harley instead of renting one, and it's a sweet ride. As I predicted, dip-shit and dumb-shit fucked themselves by fucking each other. She moved him into the condo and tried her best to fuck his brains out. (Sorry, sweetheart, he didn't have much in the way of brain-matter to begin with, so most of your effort was wasted.)

It's amazing how dumb my soon-to-be ex-wife was. She knew we had a security system in the condo. How long do you think it took me to access the system and down-load a copy into my laptop? If I had snapped my fingers after I was finished, it would have doubled the time required. (Not really, it took almost five minutes to get what I needed, but it sounded good. People are allowed to brag a bit about how well they do their jobs, aren't they? If they aren't, they should be!)

I got the videos of the condo-follies featuring dip-shit and dumb-shit while I was on the ferry heading north. I've got a satellite-phone that lets me access the internet from practically anywhere in the world. Now I had evidence I could use in court. (I couldn't use the evidence I got from the hotel-security systems. That was illegally obtained. Not throw-you-in-jail illegal, it just couldn't be presented as evidence.) I got it because Texas was one of the few remaining states where adultery mattered when it came to property divisions in divorces.

I probably wouldn't have to use it, but it pays to be prepared. I was pretty sure that Mr. Dip and Ms. Dumb would ask for everything including my molars when they filed, it was standard procedure in any negotiation to start with a high demand. My apparent assets were about a hundred thousand so they'd ask for ninety percent of it, as well as sky-high alimony lasting for years. I'd counter-offer with the same ninety thou, but only thirty in cash, no alimony and the rest spread over a year or so.

They'd go for it like starving piranha would go for an animal that stumbled into their stream. If they didn't my attorney could show them the videos, with a comment that 'He doesn't want me to use this, but I think I can convince him to let me, if you fight our offer'. (That's the way Engineers think. Have both a plan and a fall-back plan if the first doesn't work.)

The part about not 'wanting to use this' was total bullshit. The reason I wasn't going to say it myself was I was afraid I couldn't keep a straight face while doing so, I'd probably burst out laughing! I was going to use them. They were going to be posted everywhere I could manage to get them posted! They were legally recorded in my own home, and there was even a sign posted that there was electronic surveillance on-site.

I checked, and that meant that 'interlopers' had no right-of-privacy. They were both technically interlopers, because the papers I filed with the leasing agent said I was terminating my residence, but not my lease. Since only my name was on the lease, that meant she wasn't officially a resident. That meant any videos I might make weren't of her in her own residence, and could be used by me in any manner I chose.

It was going to make it easier to get him disbarred, too. Dip-shit hadn't started fucking her before representing her. He started representing her while he was still seducing her and hadn't yet 'sealed the deal'. That meant that he couldn't use the exception that allowed sexual relations with a client if it started prior to representation. (Hey, I checked. It wasn't a slam-dunk, but my attorneys thought they could sell it. My lawyer's were smarter than dip-shit was. It pays to hire the best!)

You know the nicest thing about Alaska? It's not the hiking, fishing or camping, or even the scenery. Well, it is about the scenery, at least part of it. The pipeline construction is over, but there are still a lot of high-paying jobs in Alaska, if you don't mind sustained periods of hard work and being away from social interaction. Oil rigs, pipeline maintenance, fishing boats, long-haul trucking, that kind of thing.

Guys with these kind of jobs hit Anchorage or one of the other cities with money in their pocket and the same live-it-up attitude that you see on movie-westerns when the drovers hit town after the cattle drive. The scenery I'm talking about is the assortment of young lovelies that come to Alaska to work in occupations where they'll meet men with money that don't mind spending some of it.

I'm not talking about hookers, I'm referring to young women who take advantage of their youth and good looks to place themselves in proximity to men that have enough money to party a bit, and don't mind spending some of it with an attractive companion. Some of them are dancers, some strippers, some waitresses and some are working in stores and shops. They like the fact that they meet men who have money to blow and who appreciate having company while they do so. All this means that Alaska, in the larger cities, has almost the same density of attractive females as do Las Vegas and Hollywood, but without the attitude.

That's the source of the scenery I previously mentioned. I spent a lot of time looking at it. Just looking, mind you. I said I had some decided ideas on the place of fidelity in marriage, didn't I? Well, I didn't think that just because my stupid soon-to-be ex-wife had decided to dispense with her obligations that I was entitled to do the same. 'Look but not touch' was to be my policy until I was divorced.

It wasn't a matter of morality, it was a matter of ethics. Morally, I considered that there was no reason why I should remain faithful to ties to a marriage when my 'significant other' had sundered hers. My difficulty was ethical in nature. My ethics required me to stand behind promises that I gave. In business, I always worded statements about obligations as 'As long as that remains your policy, we have a deal'. In other words, 'if you don't go back on the deal at your end, we won't either'. No such conditions had been attached to my promise of fidelity with my wife.

I owed it to my own sense of self-respect to remain faithful, at least in action, until that contract was dissolved. It may not have been how others chose to deal with this problem, but it was how I chose to live my life. We'll revisit the issue of the young lovelies when I'm divorced.

Well, I'm now divorced. Six weeks, four days, six hours and seven minutes divorced. Everything went as planned. Dumb-shit decided to divorce me and replace me with her new 'one true love' and dip-shit egged her on. Of course they asked for everything and I countered with a healthy slice of everything they knew about. Dip-shit got greedy and tried to go for more, and I had to threaten to counter-sue for adultery.

Unlike in many other US states, in Texas, divorce settlements are often weighted heavily against 'cheating spouses'. True, most often the 'victimized' spouse is the wife, but the principal is usually applied without any gender-bias.

I gave her exactly what I proposed, ninety grand. In return for an uncontested divorce, I agreed to her getting the ninety grand in a lump sum settlement. (I think she thought I took out a loan against my retirement.) Since she filed on me, she was responsible for the court costs as well as her legal fees. She thought she was getting almost all of my assets and she ended up getting less than two percent of them. (As I've said, I believe in fidelity, not fiscal stupidity!)

Still, I did one other thing. I put two hundred fifty thousand in a trust account for Aelish, which was to be turned over to her if she were to ever find herself divorced after she remarried. She wouldn't find out about it until that happened, because I didn't want to support her with dip-shit but I wanted to give her a safety net in case the worst happened. (Call me a sucker if you want. I could afford it, and I was a little duplicitous at the end. Not enough to cause agonies of conscience, but enough for some mild regret for what might have been.)

I didn't want her to get away with stealing what was mine, but I felt I owed her something. I had loved her at one time, after all. If she didn't know about the money, dip-shit couldn't get his hands on it. I figured I owed her a bit of kindness and consideration, but he was an entirely different matter!

The day after the divorce was finalized, guess what happened? Gee, surprise, surprise! I was transferred back to Austin and offered a Vice-Presidency. Five hundred thousand a year salary, stock options, a company car (A Mercedes AMG-GT, if you're interested. You know what they say, the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.), the deluxe health and life insurance package, a country-club membership, guaranteed four weeks of vacation every year, my own office on the executive floor, a private secretary, an executive assistant and a personal assistant.

Of course, Mr. Dip and Ms. Dumb tried to get the settlement revised in light of my new salary, but dip-shit was just as bad an attorney as I thought he was. He never noticed that there was a clause in the settlement proposal that precluded any change in terms based on income changes after settlement. Dip-shit was pissed at me, but dumb-shit was pissed at him, he was the lawyer and he was supposed to know what he was doing! (She should have known he wasn't very smart, he hooked up with a married and not very bright woman, didn't he?)

After that attempt failed, somehow the fact that he had a sexual relationship with her while he was representing her came out. (The security footage from the condo was time stamped and, totally by accident, the senior partners in his law firm got copies. I wonder how that happened?) Anyway he got fired, the bar association got notified and he got disbarred. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!

Guess what I did? I bought a house in Anchorage. Well, just outside of Anchorage. Six bedrooms, two with en suite bathrooms, two additional bathrooms, huge living room, big fireplace and a deck out back with a built-in barbecue and a hot-tub, and a three-car garage, on twelve acres that are mostly wooded. It has a little lake on it, fed by a small creek. The place is big enough to entertain guests, but not so big as to be more than one housekeeper can maintain, if she has help from a cleaning crew that comes by weekly.

My housekeeper? That's Lisa, a pretty twenty-one-year-old redhead that came up to vacation in Alaska last summer. One of the young lovelies I spoke about earlier. That's why I got the house with the three-car garage. One space is temporarily for my Benz, one for her F-150 pickup, and one to be shared by our motorcycles. (The reason the Benz is a temporary visitor is that I'm buying a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon for Alaska, and relocating the Benz to Austin. Ice and snow are a bitch in a sports car.)

I bought my fiancee a Harley Fatboy like mine as an engagement present. You see, I live in Alaska, now. I telecommute to Austin most of the time, and make the physical trip to Austin for one week out of every four, where I've got a company-furnished condo. My personal assistant lives in Alaska, like I do, but the rest of my staff work out of Austin.

No, my housekeeper, Lisa, is not my PA. My PA is my housekeeper's sister, Ashley. Twin sister, actually. You know that old joke about 'hot-and-cold running blondes' as opposed to just hot-and-cold running water? I've got hot-and-hotter running redheads at my place. Let's just say they learned to share their toys at a very early age and are content to continue the practice.

They actually flipped a coin to decide which one was going to be my housekeeper and which would be the PA. As far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter which one gets which job. I was going to marry one of them, though. Another decision that was made by a coin-toss. (Ashley won, if you're interested.)

My job is to provide sexual services to the twins. I suppose it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it! (I am going to have to buy another Fatboy. It seems there is at least one thing the twins don't want to share!)