Temptation Island

Besides that, I'd also been putting both my marriage and my family second or even third to my career ambitions and my job. At that moment, it hit me exactly how stupid I'd been.

I needed to do something about all of this. The problem was, what the hell could I do? I couldn't tell Jeff not to go to the island. If I did that, I'd have to come up with a reason for him not to go. I'd have to tell him exactly what the island was for and what went on there. Truthfully, Jeff didn't seem to understand what went on there. If he knew, he wouldn't be packing all of his stupid sports equipment. Someone else had probably planned it without telling some of or all of the others what happened on the island.

I didn't think that Jeff would cheat on me, but what if he knew what was going on? I had to admit that I'd neglected and cheated on my husband for months. Would I really be shocked if he found someone else? Jeff was a very attractive man still. I'm pretty sure some of those female engineers who are either divorced or single wouldn't mind having his shoes under their beds even if it was only temporary.

I was determined to give him the best sex we'd ever had that evening. I had to let him know that whatever some bitch thought she'd give him, I'd do even more and even better. It, of course, didn't happen like that. He came to bed, kissed me on my forehead, like I was a fucking pet and then rolled over and tried to go to sleep. When I brought up the fact that we hadn't had sex all week, he pretended that it hadn't crossed his mind.

"I'll make it up to you when I get back, Honey," he said. "But I need to save my strength for the trip."

I was so pissed at him that I just rolled over and went to sleep. Even my dreams were ruined, as I had dream after dream of Jeff cavorting around on that island with some slim, sexy, young, female engineer with big boobs who hadn't born two kids.

In my dream, I also saw him coming home and continuing to look at me with that look that he'd been giving me all week. That look that says, "Well, I like my 2003 Mustang, but those new 2013's are smoking hot, maybe it's time for an upgrade."

When I woke up that morning, I was so pissed that I slapped him on his head while he slept. I was still pissed when I went into work. As I slammed my desk drawer closed far harder than necessary, I saw Ken in his office. As we made eye contact, I knew what he expected. I figured that maybe I could limit it to a blow job. But this would be the last time he ever touched me. Monday, they'd make the announcement and I'd be safe. What would he do after that? Would he rescind his recommendation because I refused to have sex with him? I didn't think so.

I walked into his office and instead of getting that weird little smile on his face he continued to glare at me. "What do you want, Lisa?" he asked.

"I just thought that..." I began.

"Sorry," he said. "Not now; probably not today. I'm just not in the mood."

I closed the door. I was hearing that not in the mood shit too often.

"Ken, what's wrong?" I asked. "I'm just asking as a friend."

"Lisa, I sense a disturbance in the fucking force," he said. "Something weird is going on. Patti told me yesterday that I have to take the kids to her parents' house for the weekend unless I want to watch them myself. She's going away on a business trip." Even as he said it, I felt weird too.

"Maybe she's just trying to get you to pay more attention to her and even things up," I said. "Maybe she just wants you to understand that when you go away on our trips she has to keep everything running. Besides you had your weekend away last weekend, maybe her job needs her to go too."

"Lisa," he said, looking at me as if I was stupid. "Patti doesn't fucking work. She doesn't have a God damned job. How can she need to go away on a business trip when taking care of me and our kids IS her business?"

He was practically yelling by then. "And you know what the worst part of it is?" he asked. I shook my head but my spider sense was already tingling.

"Guess where she's going?" he asked.

"La isla Tentacion...?" I asked.

"You're God damned skippy," he said. His voice broke with emotion. "I don't want my wife going off to Temptation island. There's nothing to do there except eat, sleep and fuck. And I don't think she's going there for the food. I have just fucked this all up. I know that this is only the beginning. Shit, I hate tuna fish."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Lisa, my marriage is not like yours. On the surface, we're happy. But that's mostly for the kids. I've cheated on Lisa a few times. The last time, she told me that if it ever happened again, she'd divorce me and take every fucking penny I had. She told me I'd end up living in a refrigerator box under a freeway overpass, eating tuna straight out of the can. I hate tuna," he started blubbering.

I was shocked. I remembered the way that Jeff had spent a lot of his time staring at Patti when we'd had Patti and Ken over for dinner. Patti was younger than I am and she was probably prettier. Even after her two kids she had a better body. Ken had said that she didn't like sex. I realized now that it was probably because Ken had cheated on her and also because he sucked in bed.

"Oh Fuck!" I said. "I wonder if it's a coincidence?"

"What?" he asked.

"Jeff is going away this weekend too," I said. "And guess where he's going?"

We both looked at each other as if we'd been struck by lightning. "She left at 7 this morning," he said.

"Jeff doesn't leave until 9," I said. "If I hurry, I can meet him at the airport and stop him."

"Go," he said.

I grabbed my purse and ran out of the office. I quickly pushed the button for the elevator and waited for almost five fucking minutes before one of the interns pointed out the sign that said out of service. I quickly dashed into the stairwell and down the stairs. By the time I got down the first three flights, I had to stop for a breather. But as soon as my heart stopped slamming against my ribs, I walked down the other four flights.

Then I dashed over to my waiting Volvo station wagon. For the first time in the ten years that I'd had the car, it refused to start. The car was safe in the parking structure so I flagged down a cab and headed for the airport.

My trip through the airport reminded me of all of those Hertz commercials that OJ Simpson did when I was a kid. Of course, that was before he murdered his wife and lost all of his endorsements and got out of shape. As I ran through the airport dodging one person after another, I zigged and zagged with the best of them. "Take that, OJ," I thought.

Just before I got to the departure area, I spotted an older man who was leaning down to tie his shoe. There was no time to stop, they were closing the door, so I leaped OJ-like over him.

"OJ," I thought quietly to myself.

"No Jay," screamed reality loudly. Just as I cleared the old man he straightened up. My trailing foot hooked his shoulder and I flailed awkwardly in mid-air.

"Oh Shiiiiiiiiiiit!" I screamed as the ground came up. I landed on my chin so hard that it knocked me out.

I came to, in the airport's small cramped medical room. I had cracked a couple of teeth from the force of my jaw slamming shut. I also had a huge bruise on my chin and a small cut that had required three stitches to close it.

I got up and wondered why my skirt was around my waist. As I stood up a security guard came into the room and looked at me sheepishly.

"She's awake," he yelled. "Sorry about that. We had to search you."

Another man, this one wearing a suit, looked at me strangely. "The man you accosted is suing you," he said.

"I didn't accost anyone," I said. "The old idiot stopped right in front of me. It was either, try to leap over him, or plow into him." He smiled and shook his head. The next thing I knew, they had taken me to another room where I was lying down on a couch while an older woman with glasses examined me and asked me questions.

"So let's think about this," she said.

"You decided in the middle of a busy airport to try to leap over a full grown man..." she paused and adjusted her glasses. "What exactly was your reasoning?"

"I was thinking about those old Hertz commercials with OJ," I said.

"So, you an over forty, out of shape, white woman, imagined that you were a young, agile, athletic black man with homicidal tendencies?" she asked.

"No, I was just in a hurry," I said. "I was trying to catch my husband so I visualized myself as OJ and..."

"So you wanted to kill your husband?" she asked. "Is this because they're allowing knives on planes again?"

"No, I just needed to stop him from going off with the boss's wife," I said.

"You wanted to kill your husband and his lover," she asked. She seemed to be writing it all down.

"I don't want to kill anyone," I said. "And she isn't his lover. We've just been working a lot and the two of them are probably feeling neglected."

"You're psychic, now?" she asked.

"No, I'm not fucking psychic," I shouted. "I just didn't want him to get on that fucking plane and make the biggest mistake of his God damned life."

"Subject is easily agitated," she said writing it down. "Subject uses foul language and..."

I got up and left her writing. As I got outside of the office, they took down my name and information. They gave me a few sheets of paper and as I looked at them I noticed that one of them was a summons to appear in court. The old goofball that I tried to leap over really was suing me. He wanted a million dollars. The strange part was that he hadn't even been scratched. Another piece of paper was a bill for the psychiatric exam.

I went to the information desk and found out that there was another plane leaving in fifteen minutes. I couldn't believe that I had to pay twice the amount that the company had paid to fly us down there only a week previous. The woman at the desk told me that booking a last minute fare was always more expensive.

I slept on the plane and my chin started to hurt as the pain killers wore off. I figured that Jeff's plane had left at least an hour before mine did. I'd probably also have to wait for the boat to ferry me to the island. The boats ran every two hours. If I was lucky, I could meet Jeff at the dock. If I was unlucky, he'd have a two hour head start. I doubted that Jeff and Patti would simply get off of the boat and start fucking, so I still had a good chance of stopping things before they started, even if I missed the boat.

I missed the boat. I also had to pay an incredible amount just to get onto the ferry because I wasn't on their list. The ferry was free for registered guests but since I didn't have a reservation, they felt free to screw me over the fare.

Once we got to the island, I looked around. I hoped that maybe I'd spot Jeff, but it didn't happen. Just when I got ready to curse my nearly biblical run of bad luck, I heard a familiar laugh. It actually made me feel bad because it had been a while since I'd heard him laughing.

I looked around and spotted him. I was shocked. Jeff wasn't sitting at a table with Patti at all; it was far worse. My husband was sitting at a table with a tall blonde woman with an incredible body. She kept looking into his eyes and nodding her head. She also kept reaching out to pat his hand. After a few moments, they got up from the table and walked out. They were walking away from the hotel's main building and back towards the bungalows. It was bad enough to find him here, but seeing where he was going was awful. At least in the main building, people had to be somewhat discrete. The bungalows were there for doing things in a place where everyone was so busy doing their own thing that they didn't care what anyone else did.

I hid behind shrubbery and trees as I followed them. The bitch was leading my husband back towards some den of iniquity. The further we walked, the angrier I got, until finally they went into one of the more secluded bungalows. They'd been in there for less than five minutes when something even less expected happened.

Another woman, this one so young that she looked like a college student, knocked on the door and went inside. She, like the first woman, had blonde hair. I never knew that my husband had a thing for blonds. There was something else that bothered me. When they' opened the door to let the second woman in, I'd noticed that Jeff's luggage was in the room. Since the woman he'd gone into the room with was the one with the key card, it only meant that they were sharing the room. The younger blond made me think that my husband was about to become the meat in some kind of blond sandwich.

There was no way I'd stand for it. I got up and ran quickly towards the door. I heard giggling and laughing from inside of the room and it got worse as I got closer.

I knocked on the door as hard as I could and tried the knob. It turned easily. I threw the door open as hard as I could and noticed the four of them sitting at a table. There were no beds in the room. It was some kind of private conference suite. Jeff and the woman he'd had lunch with were on one side of the table. The younger blond woman who was chewing gum was in the front and off to the right side there was a middle aged brunette.

Jeff looked up at me. He seemed really sad. My heart hurt just looking at him and I realized that I'd made a mistake. All three of them were fully dressed. There were papers on the table in front of them.

"Go on," said the first woman to Jeff. "You can do this."

"Hi Lisa," said Jeff. His voice was all choked up and I thought I saw tears running down his cheeks.

"Jeff, Honey, uhm... what's going on here?" I asked. "I was worried. It looks like you're doing some kind of record keeping or going over some kind of plan, but do you know what usually goes on at this resort?"

"We were just getting the papers ready for YOU, Lisa," he said. Each word sounded as if it had been torn from the depths of his soul.

"What papers?" I asked. None of this was making sense.

"I guess that's my cue," said the younger blond. She flipped her curly blond tresses back and picked up a stack of papers from the table.

"Lisa Bennett?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. She turned to Jeff.

"Is that her?" she asked. He nodded. She handed me the papers.

"You've been served," she said. "Damn that was easy. I can't believe you guys paid me all of this money and brought me out here to this beautiful island for less than five minutes work." She cracked the gum she was chewing a couple of times and then left the bungalow.

I stood there in shock holding the stack of papers and then looked through them. At first I thought it was some kind of joke but when I looked at the table, I could see that neither Jeff nor the blond woman at the table, were laughing.

"Jeff, I don't want a divorce," I said. "You have to let me explain. What grounds do we need a divorce for? I admit that I've neglected you and the kids but it was..."

The brunette's head snapped up then as if she was a robot and someone had just hit her power switch.

"So you admit to neglecting your husband and children?" she asked. "So who took care of the children?"

"Well, they weren't actually neglected," I said. "Jeff is their father. He took care of them. It's just that I wasn't much help, but all of that is over and done with. In a few more weeks, maybe a couple of months, tops, I'll have adjusted to..." I stopped. Suddenly I realized that everyone in the room was staring at me.

"You see, I've been concentrating a lot on my career, so Jeff had to step up," I said.

"Define step up," said the woman.

"Well, that's why kids need two parents," I said. "Shit, according to Hillary, it takes a village to..." I'd been trying to make them laugh, but none of them seemed to have a sense of humor.

"While I'm going through this busy time, Jeff just had to do a little bit more, but he can handle it," I said, still smiling. "He's super dad."

"Define Jeff doing a little more," she asked.

"Well, he wakes them up and makes their breakfast," I said. "He takes them to school and makes or buys their lunches. He picks them up from school and gives them a snack and helps them with their homework and plays with them. He uhm...does the cooking and most of the cleaning. He takes them to their lessons and school events and..."

"So what exactly are you doing?" she asked.

"Uhm...I'm being their uhm...mom," I said. She just looked at me and shook her head.

"Even if I hadn't seen the video, after hearing that, I'd have had to give Mr. Bennett temporary custody based on what you just said," she told me. "You need to get yourself together and make a choice lady. I'll see you in court. Mr. Bennett, please expect several home visits during the process. We'll need to investigate the children's living environment. I'll be in touch." Then she picked up her briefcase and walked out of the room too.

"Jeff," I whined. "I'm sorry. I admitted it. I neglected you and kids. But that's not grounds for a divorce. That's grounds for us to sit down and talk about our problems."

"I'm not divorcing you for that," he said. "I'm divorcing you for cheating on me with your boss and those other men." He pushed a button on a remote and a video started playing. I was disgusted just watching myself.

"Please Jeff. Let me explain," I said.

The blond woman stood up and held her hand up. "Mrs. Bennett, it would be better for all concerned, if you were to retain legal counsel before making any statements. The papers you've been presented with explain our position fully. I think my client is being generous all things considered. I should tell you though, that his offer for the irreconcilable differences divorce is only good for five days. After that, he'll file on the grounds of adultery, which is still legal in this state. I should also tell you that, as you've seen, he has ample evidence to back that up and that if that evidence gets into the court records, you'll have a very difficult time in the career that you threw your family away for."

"I didn't throw my family away," I said quietly. "Everything I did was..."

"Lisa, I make enough money that you never really had to work," said Jeff slowly. "Even if you stayed a secretary for the rest of your life, every penny you brought home was gravy. So pretty much everything you did was for yourself." As he continued, his words got louder and stronger.

"How the hell did I benefit from you fucking Ken?" he asked. "And the kids...did their mother never having time to play with them because she was fucking four men other than their father, really do a lot for them?"

"But you don't understand," I said. "I...I..."

"Get a lawyer," he said. Then he and the blond woman packed up the rest of the papers and started to leave.

"Jeff, we have to talk about this," I whined.

"We will," he said. "Get a lawyer."

Jeff and the blond woman left the bungalow and headed back towards the docks. I ran after them. "Jeff, we're already here," I said. "Why don't we stay and talk. We'll work everything out. This will be like a second honeymoon..."

"We went to Hawaii for our second honeymoon, four years ago," he said. "Besides, I have to get home. I need to see my kids and start trying to put my life back together."

"We'll let the kids stay with your parents for the weekend, like we planned," I said. "That way we can work this all out."

"We can't work anything out until you get a lawyer," he said. "You have other things to worry about. You need to find a place to stay. You need to arrange to come by and pick up your things and you probably need to go by your job and..." The blond woman cut him off then.

It was almost as if he'd said something she didn't want him to say. "Is that it?" I asked. "Is that my big chance. If I quit my job, you'll take me back?" The porters were loading Jeff's suitcases on the boat. They pushed me off of the boat because I hadn't paid a fare and then the boat pulled away from the dock.