The Bargain

He simply nodded and helped her into the back seat of the obviously heavily armored SUV.

A short drive found them pulling up to the front entrance of The Riggs, one of Washington's premier hotels. The Captain came around and opened her door, helped Molly down, and escorted her into the plush lobby. From there they took an elevator to the fourth floor, and then to a door midway down the hall. The Captain discretely knocked on the door and then turned, walking back down the hallway toward the elevator. The door opened into a sumptuous suite, and there to greet her was her Sam, in uniform. Everything would be all right now.

The General swept her into a tight embrace and a sizzling kiss. When he released her, she leaned back taking in the view of the Brigadier General's Star on each epaulet, his mark of advancement that she hadn't seen before.

"So, I thought you weren't being 'frocked' as a General until next month. What was the occasion for pinning the stars on early?"

As he led her into the suite toward a brocaded silk-covered couch, he said, "I can't get into the specifics of it, but let's just say that some things have happened and I'm going to need to be able to take on more responsibility and need the stars to add heft to my authority."

As they sat down, she kissed him on the cheek, and said, "I'm so happy for you, Sam, I know how hard you've worked for this, and what you've given up."

Looking at her lovingly and stroking her hair, he murmured, "I couldn't have done it without your love and support, honey. I needed to know that you were there, in the background, supporting me, and understanding how vitally the country needs the devotion of guys like you and me."

She smiled and said, "OK, let me tell you about what happened in court today."

Held up his hand, to stop her. "I have lunch ordered, and it will be here in about thirty minutes. Let's have a couple of cocktails and talk about lighter things for a while. I'd like to bring you up to date on what some of our friends in the service are getting up to, and maybe talk about where Patricia's going with her life."

She smiled at him fondly and simply nodded her assent, comfortable, at ease, and secure in his love.

As Sam built the drinks, Molly smiled at his choice: vodka on the rocks. Like the rest of him, every movement, and every choice straightforward, forceful, predicated entirely upon achieving the mission; and vodka on the rocks did that, no extraneous taste, just deliver the weapons package.

He also made her customary scotch on the rocks, and they carried the drinks over to the window, where they stood side-by-side with his arm around her waist, and looked out on the sights of Washington, the engine of government. They casually talked of friends that they had made together in the military establishment, and of the plans that both of them envisioned for their professional lives. Molly slowly relaxed and leaned into Sam's shoulder as they drank, and she felt the tension of the day drain out of her, and her confidence regain its footing. After they had polished off two drinks each, a knock on the door announced the arrival of their lunch and none too soon. Apparently, a disappointment in court whetted one's appetite.

Over a fantastic meal of medium-rare Prime Rib, asparagus with spicy Thai sauce, and Potatoes Lyonnaise with truffle oil, they continued their playful conversation peppered with sexual asides.

Afterward, they retired to the couch with brandy, an unlit Macanudo Cru Royale cigar for him, and a Drambuie liqueur for her; coffee was, of course, a must.

It was then that they began discussing the hearing, and Molly became both tearful and indignant, depending on the stage of the story. Sam merely nodded and made comforting noises, until she came to the part about Philip obtaining a restraining order against Patricia, at which point he smiled. Molly was indignant and asked heatedly, "What's so fucking funny?"

"It's not that it's funny, exactly," he said drawing air through the cigar, "It's that I, as a tactician understand Philip, the lawyer, better than you do."

She simply stared at him with that 'what the fuck are you talking about' expression on her face.

After a sip of brandy, he said, "With his restraining order against Patti, along with his revelation in court that he knew about her playing two guys off against one another, he was firing a shot, letting her know that if she wants a relationship with him, she needs to seriously re-evaluate her position, vis-à-vis her love life."

"Well, it's a drastically shitty thing to do," Molly said with considerable heat.

"I dunno about that", Sam said, "It might be effective, and I've got to admit that I have a certain amount of sympathy with his position on the issue."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Sam? We've been in a polyamorous relationship and love affair for all these years, and now you have an issue with Patti having two boyfriends?"

He eyed her consideringly, and continued, "No Molly, I have no problem with that whatsoever. I do, however, have a problem with her simply fucking around on one of them. No matter how you color it, she's cultivating the guy at MIT seriously and has some cock on the side during her day-to-day life at Yale. You can't see it any other way. It's just dishonest and she's a common cheater."

Molly's mouth opened to rebut him but closed it after she found that she logically couldn't.

Molly looked down into her drink contemplatively, gathered herself, and said, "I haven't been a very good mother, have I?"

Sam Raskin arose, walked over to the bar, and made himself another vodka rocks. He strolled around the room, over to the large window, stood looking out over the view, and then turned.

"Molly, I've been on your side since we were in the fourth grade, I've loved you ever since, and I'll love you until the day we die, but I think you have made some shitty choices and decisions. If I had been Philip Laughlin, and you had brought your daughter to meet your other lover, I'd have killed you in your sleep with no qualms about it when you returned. I love Patti, but, straight up, I could have happily lived my life without meeting her. You could have left her with Philip to be only his, and if you hadn't seen her as an accomplishment to bring to show to me, you probably wouldn't have been in court today. But what is, is, and now we have to deal with the fallout of the situation."

"Oh, god, Sam, you're right. How could I not have realized that Patti was strictly a part of my life with Philip and that what we had was different and separate?"

"Don't know babe, but you screwed the pooch on that one. But, when you showed up the first time with her in tow, the damage was already done, so I never raised my doubts. The only thing you can do at this point is to try to go back and educate her that what she is doing now is cheating and can't be construed any other way."

"I will, Sam, I will, but how do I keep Philip?"

Sam pulled her close to him wrapping her in a comforting embrace, and said quietly, "You don't honey, you need to let him go. He's suffered enough, and you both need to move on."

She pushed back and stared deeply into his eyes, "Are you sure? Are you sure that there's nothing that I can do to keep him, Sam? You know I really love him."

"Honey, the only thing I can equate your position to is in military terms. Where you are is like the United States military in Viet Nam, in Iraq, and Afghanistan; you can't win, you can't lose, and all either of you can do is continue to carve flesh off one another. And that's not the way to be a human being, Molly. You need to show the man some mercy and let him go."

Molly broke down and sobbed as she accepted and regretted all she had done to Philip Laughlin. After several minutes she regained her composure, looked up at Sam's handsome face, and said, "I guess that just leaves you and me, Sammy".

He stared down at her for a long moment, love, understanding, regret, and commitment in his eyes. "It does indeed, love," he said resolutely.

"And now we have something very difficult to talk about honey. It's not anything that I bring up lightly, but you have to understand this to understand everything else I have to tell you. Molly whether you knew it or not, I'm violating military law by having this relationship with you. The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits a service member from having an illicit affair with a married person not his spouse. All these years we've been able to ignore the situation because we essentially kept it low-profile, Philip didn't make an issue of it, and no one had a bone to pick with me service-wise. That's all changed now with your court action."

Molly had pulled back out of his embrace, sensing that more and worse was coming, and she attempted to distance herself from it.

He continued, "Moll, I'm now in a situation where my position and security level demand the utmost discretion on my part, and no possible weaknesses that could be exploited by America's enemies or mine in government; and darlin' you and your marital situation is my weakness, and my exploitation risk. I've got to be realistic about this, honey, I've worked for all these years to reach this point in my career, and I owe it to myself and to my country to put patriotism first. I've also been counseled by the Chief of Staff of the Army that if I am squeaky clean from this point out, it's possible that I could retire a three-star, a Lieutenant General. But he also told me in a roundabout way that me being pulled into your drama wouldn't constitute a finding of 'squeaky clean."

Molly was momentarily speechless but recovered quickly. "But Sam, if I drop all my objections, Philip could obtain his divorce and I'd be a free woman. We could get married, and that would solve everything wouldn't it?"

He only shook his head sadly and stared at her directly. "No darlin', it wouldn't solve anything at all. Regardless of what we did, it would come out that I was married to or involved with a woman with whom I'd had a polyamorous relationship for a couple of decades, and someone would blab to the press. You know the old saying that judges must avoid even the appearance of impropriety whether it actually exists at all. In this case, perception is everything, and my most important client, The White House, needs to be able to see me as clean as a pin, sharp and straight, and completely trustworthy and upstanding. And, above all, I can't be of any interest to the media. I can't uphold those expectations, and you and I continue our relationship as it is."

"What is this Sam, what are you telling me?"

"What I'm saying, Molly, is that we're going to have to curtail the part of our commitment to one another that involves physically meeting or spending any significant time together. We'll still be able to speak on the phone as much as we can, but we can't be seen together at all. If everything goes well, after three years or so, I'll be up for a second star, and at that point, things will change substantially. Major Generals and above generally consider regulations as merely "Suggestions" and at that point, we can judiciously re-establish our relationship and be together from there on out."

She sprang up from the couch, and in amazement nearly shouted, "So you just put me in the closet for a few years, and when the coast is clear, you trot me back out for your own convenience? Is that it?"

In exasperation, Sam replied, "No Molly, that's not it at all, and you know it. I don't expect you to be happy with the way things are, but this isn't a new situation, you know. We talked all this through when we were in high school, and you not only understood where my priorities lay, but you respected me for my convictions. Nothing's changed, you knew what you were getting into at the beginning, and you've seemed to be OK with the arrangement for all these years. Nothing's changed except for your marital situation."

Molly Laughlin stared at him for a few seconds and then walked slowly around the room gathering her emotions. She stared out the window at the darkening Washington skyline and thought about her situation as she ignored Sam speaking in the background. After a few minutes, she turned and looked at him.

An uncanny, enormous calm had descended upon her, in which she understood everything and nothing, but in which she had complete clarity.

"I want to go home now."

The General looked at her in exasperation. "Molly don't run away. We need to reach an understanding, please, after all we've meant to one another."

Blank-faced, she simply continued to stare at him. "I'm not running away, Sam, I'm just starting the part of our relationship where we're not together. I'll expect nothing of you, and you can expect nothing of me. We'll see where it goes from there."

Sadly, he said, "Molly you agreed to this type of relationship from the beginning. You knew what you were getting into."

"You're right, Sam," she said decisively, "And I appreciate you reminding me of that. Now, good evening."

She fetched her coat, and before he could help her, she pulled it over her shoulders and fled through the door, hurrying down the hall and into the elevator. As she walked across the lobby, the young captain ran after her. As he reached her, he said breathlessly, "Mrs. Laughlin, let me have the car brought around".

She looked at him as if she didn't know him, for a moment, shook her head as if coming out of a dream and said, "No, thank you Andy, I'll make do on my own". And with that, she walked out of the hotel into the night.

The doorman called up a taxi from the cab rank, and within thirty minutes she was home and sitting in her office, staring blankly at the wall. Ten minutes later, she picked up her phone and dialed a number.

After a moment Bernard Raffin answered his phone and said, "Good evening, Molly, to what do I owe the honor?"

Deliberately, she said, "Bernie, I want you to contact Philip's lawyer, right now, and let him know that I will sign the divorce papers as he proposed them, tomorrow, on two conditions: one, that Philip agrees to drop the restraining order on Patricia; and two, that he calls me tonight for a short conversation. After that conversation, I'll never attempt to contact him again without his express permission."

Raffin burst out, "Molly, I strongly advise against this path. It would be best if we met tomorrow and discussed the ramifications and possibilities."

"NO", she almost shouted, "I want it done and I want it done tonight. I don't feel compelled to discuss my reasoning with you!"

Taken aback, he responded quietly, "Yes, Doctor Loughlin, I'll take care of it." And he hung up.

Thinking that the process might take a while, she began changing her clothes, but, only ten minutes after the conversation with Raffin her phone rang. She checked and noticed that the call was from an unknown number.

She answered hesitantly, "Hello".

It was Philip, "OK, Molly, you wanted to talk."

She snorted, "You changed your phone number."

"Yeah, I had a deranged woman calling me all the time, so I bought a burner. Now that you know this number, I'll have to buy another, I suppose."

She said sadly, "No Philip, that number will be safe for you. I give you my word that, unless you want to talk to me, this will be the last conversation we ever have."

After a moment he said, "OK, as to the message I received, I agree that I'll drop the Restraining Order against Patricia, but I make no guarantee that I'll have a relationship with her as long as she is involved in cheating relationships."

Though he couldn't see her, Molly was nodding, "I understand completely and agree. If I wasn't such a self-centered asshole, I would have stopped it long ago, but I guarantee you that I'll try to stop it now. If I'm unable to do so through persuasion, I suggest we cut off her school funding on the grounds that we refuse to support her bad behavior."

Philip was quiet for a moment. "I appreciate your support but think your moral high ground in the conversation with her will be a little shaky."

"You're probably right, but be that as it may, I'll try my best."

He then said, "The second thing you wanted was a conversation".

"Yes Philip", she said decisively, "I'm sure you'll be glad to know that it'll be a short conversation, but I have a couple of things to say to you. The first is that I have truly loved you all these years, though my actions may not have shown it, and I'll most likely love you until the day I die. I know that doesn't mean shit, since I've killed all your love for me, but I had to say it. The second thing I have to say is that I now understand that agreeing in advance to be locked into a bad bargain doesn't make it any easier to swallow, and I'm sorry that I put you in that situation. If I hadn't been so focused on my own wants, needs, and happiness, I might have been able to see what I was doing; but I didn't and now it's too late."

She paused for a moment and then went on, "It was important for me to tell you these things, and now you won't hear from me again. I'll sign the divorce papers tomorrow morning and request expedited handling. I hope you find happiness, and I'll live with the fucking mess that I've made of all of our lives."

After a moment of silence, he began, "Molly, I'm glad to hear...." when he heard a click, and she was gone.

THE END