The Celebrity Cock Club

"Sir this is 911. Did you send an alert?"

"I did. There are three very large men standing on my porch. Three men I do not know, three men that do not look happy. I haven't answered the door and now they're pounding on it demanding I let them in."

"Sir, we have a car four minutes away. If you fear for your safety, do not open your door."

I thanked them and waited three and a half minutes before I opened the door, making sure the storm door was locked.

"Can I help you?"

"Marc sent us to reason with you. You are going to drop any legal actions you have against him immediately."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we give you a lesson in cooperation."

"Gentlemen, you are trespassing. Please leave immediately."

The biggest one sighed. "Well boys, it looks like the man needs some convincing."

The storm door might as well have been made of Styrofoam the way he yanked it off the hinges. They were about to come in when a voice rang out behind them.

"Police. Stop immediately and turn around with your hands up."

If looks could kill, they wouldn't have had to touch me to get what Marc wanted. The big one looked like he was considering coming in when his buddies talked him out of it.

Pretty soon they were all on the ground with their hands in cuffs. The sergeant took my report and after watching the tapes charged them all with felony trespassing. I found out later felony trespassing has a much steeper penalty. The difference was that regular trespassing was usually a spur of the moment decision, and there was usually no serious criminal intent. If you come on to someone's property specifically to do them harm, it's a whole other category.

It turns out one was a groundskeeper at the stadium, and one was just a friend of the third. He was on the practice squad for the team and got bounced immediately. It seems Marc had promised him a spot on the team if he did him this favor, even though he had no authority to do so. The others were getting a grand apiece. It cost Marc a lot more than that, because he had to foot the lawyer bills. I don't know how much it cost him, but they all plead guilty and got a huge fine which Marc had to pay. He had to go to court for setting it up and even his hero status couldn't save him. His lawyers got it down to a misdemeanor. He had to pay a five thousand dollar fine and do 200 hours of community service. TMZ got a clip of him in an orange vest picking up trash on the highway. It hit YouTube and got six hundred thousand hits in the first week.

Linda was rapidly turning in to the most expensive piece of pussy he'd ever chased. Some of the fans turned against him, and though you didn't see it on television there were signs in the stands when the new season started. It was affecting his play and one group held up a big banner. "Put someone's wife on the goal line! That'll make him focus!"

Of course, stadium security made them take it down, but it was too late. It went viral in three hours and that got three quarters of a million hits the first two days. Marc was going from a franchise player to one that saw little playing time, and one of his sponsors pulled a campaign they had in the works, "just until things settle down," which meant never.

The law of averages caught up with me one night. They came out of nowhere, four of them. I got the shit beat out of me, ending up with two broken fingers from where they had stomped on my hand, a broken leg, a cracked cheekbone, and bruised ribs. These guys knew what they were doing, because this all happened in about ninety seconds. I don't know how much damage they would have done if it hadn't been for a coworker who came out of the office right after me. When he yelled, they showed their professionalism by immediately running away. In ten minutes, I was in an ambulance and in an hour, I was in a room, being held overnight in for monitoring due to the concussion.

My head was pounding and I was going in and out of consciousness. Once I woke and thought I saw Linda sitting there, but drifted off immediately for a short while. When I woke up again, I was alone.

It was seven days before I could return to work. The cops got some images off the security cameras from a couple of businesses across the street, but there was nothing identifiable about any of them. The cop that took my statement gave me some advice.

"If you've pissed anybody off lately, you need to tell me. These guys were pros. They avoided the cameras as much as possible, wore big hats and loose clothing so we got no faces or anything recognizable like tattoos or scars."

I told him my sad story. They told me he laughed when they questioned him and he admitted he didn't like me but had nothing to do with the assault. They didn't believe it for a minute, but they had no evidence.

I had to give up my weekend with the kids. I wasn't up to it physically, and I didn't want them to see me until some of the bruises went away. Linda was horrified at what had happened, but agreed. She even offered to come over and help. I declined politely.

*****

The counseling sessions dragged along as things, like that are wont to do. It was a wash, rinse, repeat cycle that went on for four sessions before even the therapist was sick of it. On the fifth session, she asked us to not interrupt as she had her say. "We're at an impasse here, and frankly I don't think we'll ever get past it. Linda, you refuse to admit what you did was wrong by normal standards and refuse to think it should stop your marriage. Really? You left your husband standing in the middle of a club you had gone to as a prelude to a romantic weekend. You had new lingerie, were very intimate before and during the visit to the club and then, poof, you left to spend the night with another man. You did it completely without warning and used your friends to keep him from stopping you. Tell me, if he had done this to you, left you standing in the middle of a public place surrounded by your so-called friends who were in on the deception, would you be understanding? Judging from your actions and communications here, I highly doubt it. Wait. Don't talk. Think while I talk to your husband."

She turned to me with a look of sadness on her face. "You are never going to take her back, it's plain as the nose on your face. From all interaction with you, that's a given. I understand, I really do, but let me ask you this. Up until the moment she left the club with another man, you loved her. She had been faithful and steadfast for all those years. Your wife says it was a onetime thing, something even she doesn't understand, but it was important enough to jeopardize her marriage to do. She swears it's out of her system and she'll never do anything like that again. Is there anything left inside you willing to try again? I'm going to let your wife speak first. Please don't interrupt. You will get your say afterwards. Agreed?"

She nodded to Linda and we waited a minute as she gathered her thoughts. "You know, you've made a big thing about how little remorse I've shown for my actions. I do have remorse, tremendous remorse. I never once thought it would damage our marriage to the point of divorce. I knew I had hurt you badly and I knew you would have anger, but really? I never thought you would react like you did. I'm terribly sorry my actions have hurt you and I can assure you in the strongest of terms I'll never do anything like that again, especially now that I know the cost of such actions. I'm begging you to please, even if you don't forgive me completely, come home and let me make it right."

She seemed satisfied with her speech and looked at me expectantly. "You can say all you want, Linda, but you knew on some level how badly what you did would hurt us. You knew I was not some passive guy who would just roll over and say, well, it's just this once and she says she'll never do it again. Bullshit. If I had, you'd have lost all respect for me and maybe you wouldn't actively look for it, but if another opportunity like that came along, you'd be off like a shot, knowing I'd forgive. I don't now and would never allow myself to be in a situation like this again to have to forgive. Besides the blatant disrespect you showed, the destruction of the trust in my marriage sealed the deal. Even before I left, if you were gone for more than thirty minutes I'd have wondered if you were off fucking him or someone else. Let me make this as clear as possible for you. We are not going to stay married. I AM divorcing you. You can stall it, use every delaying tactic you can, but eventually the court will get tired of the whole thing and it will happen. Please, don't drag this out any longer."

I looked over at the counselor. "Are we done here?"

She sighed. "Yes. I'll give my report to the court no later than Wednesday, telling them the marriage is irreversibly damaged and recommend they let the divorce proceed."

"No! I'm not giving up. Please, honey, think of the kids."

"I do think of the kids. I think about them every damn day when I don't have them. Tell me, Linda, if the kids were so important to you, how many times did you think of them while he was banging the shit out of you in his mansion? Was the ride worth the cost? For you, probably. For the rest of your family who still had to live in the real world, not so much.

"Face it Linda, you fucked up. Pun intended. See you in court."

I think, there at the end, that the consequences of what she'd done was finally filtering in.

*****

At the end, everyone was just plain tired. Her lawyer was tired. My lawyer was tired. The Judge was exhausted. One of the bailiffs looked like he'd aged five years since it started. After the therapists' report the Judge blocked yet another attempt to stall and declared us divorced. Linda walked out of the court without a word, and my lawyer just grinned when I asked a question.

"Now?"

He gave a feral grin worthy of a rabid mountain lion. "Yeah. Now."

Mr. Marc was hit the next day with an alienation of affection suit. Shouldn't have signed with the Panthers or bought a house in North Carolina. I was told his rant was epic.

"He can't do that!"

His lawyer sighed. "Unfortunately, he can. It's still very much in force in North Carolina. Before you start, yes, it's archaic, a law that should have been abolished years ago. Most states have. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them. My advice is to settle as quickly as possible and get it behind you. The bad publicity could cost you more than the settlement."

Everyone in his orbit called. His lawyers called; his charities' CEO's called. The team called, even the NFL Commissioner called, all begging me to settle out of court. The offers kept going up and even my lawyer told me I should settle, but I refused. It didn't matter if I didn't get diddly as long as I got to drag him through the mud.

The investigators my lawyer hired had gotten the bouncer and the band leader to admit they were paid to help him secure his targets. Marc tried to get out of appearing in court, but since he had to testify several times, he had no choice. One appearance was on a Friday afternoon and he tried to get out of it by saying he had to fly to another city that day to prepare for a rare Saturday game. The judge was not a football fan. "Take a later flight and be in this courtroom tomorrow." I think he put us on the docket as late as possible just to irritate him.

The man had charm, and his lawyers tried to load the jury with women but my lawyer was smart enough to outmaneuver them several times. They got seven women, but three were over fifty and happily married, one was a lesbian, two were young and single, and the last was a blond who had just recently got divorced. Two of the men were young and single, but the other three were married and middle aged.

At first, he said he never saw her before and they trotted out the walk and ride of shame, so he had to admit she was in his house. Then he denied they had sex, saying he was trying to protect her from an abusive husband. Linda thought if she chronicled her experience in a letter, I would understand her mindset better, and since it was written to me and in my possession, we were able to introduce it into court. Nobody really believed the abusive husband gambit. The final nail in the coffin was Linda on the stand. She told them everything, including how many sex sessions they had. I had no idea; she'd said in her letter it was three or four, but in fact, it was five.

The jury was out less than an hour before coming back with a verdict. Part of the proceedings was full financial disclosure and I think everyone in the courtroom was amazed at how much he was worth. He had been in the NFL for seven years and had amassed a fortune of ninety-six million dollars. I thought my lawyer was going to pass out when they awarded me roughly a third, 30,000,000 dollars. It was the highest award in the history of the state, but in line with what other spouses had gotten. The biggest award previously had been 8.8 million. The laws had been modified recently, but still allowed a settlement of up to one third the defendant's assets. Of course, when that was passed, I doubt anyone thought there would ever be a case with that many millions involved.

There had been a concerted push in the state legislature to get the law abolished, but it didn't make it through committee. Lucky me.

His lawyers blustered and tried to appeal, while secretly telling him to take the deal and get it behind him. They filed notice of intent to appeal but dropped it a month later and accepted the judgement. It seemed there was a loophole in the law that if the defendant's wealth rose during the appeal and he still lost, the settlement would be adjusted accordingly. He was in line for a huge payout from his contract in a couple of months.

The day after I got the award, my lawyer hit him with four more suits for the couples and divorced men and women who had come forward. Of the four, two were divorced, one marriage was still on shaky ground, and the other couple turned out to be swingers and thought it was a hoot he had chosen her, but when the gravy train was about to leave the station, they jumped on board. The divorced wives, Linda included, filed separate suits.

I'd already gotten the big piece of the pie and some of the seductions had happened years ago, and they settled quickly out of court at four million apiece. It still left the sonofabitch with tens of millions.

The saga was not quite over. It seems he had been having an affair with the wife of a teammate and had a one-night stand with another. That was a little fact the investigators discovered and I was more than willing to share. During the next game a couple of players either fell down or blocked in the wrong direction and he got creamed three times, the last putting him out of the game under concussion protocol. There was plausible deniability, but everyone knew his continued play with the Panthers was not a viable option. They traded him to Green Bay where he did well but was not spectacular. His income took a tremendous hit when the Panthers refused to pay out his contract, citing the morals clause. He had to settle for 20% of what he would have made.

The Green Bay trade was a one-year contract, and when it was up, they refused to pay what he wanted and he ended up with Denver with another one-year deal for four million dollars. He played his best, and after the contract was up some teams were interested enough to offer him contracts, but at a much-reduced salary. He finally signed with Cincinnati; a two-year deal worth 2.5 million. It had strict morals clauses in it including forfeiture of everything he'd earned to date if he was caught in any compromising conditions. While his play was solid, it wasn't on par with his heyday and they didn't offer another contract when the current one expired. He was 34 now, beat up and with recurring injuries, so he retired, doing radio play by play for two years with the Bengals. After that, no one wanted him.

Bastard still had a fortune of close to fifty mil, about a third or less of what he could have had if it hadn't been for the lawsuits and the bad publicity. The last anyone heard of him he'd bought two car dealerships in California and was back to his old ways. One husband took it really personally and Marc walks with a pronounced limp. I doubt he's learned anything. I saw a photo of him in a sports magazine, a kind of 'where are they now; piece and showed him at the opening of a third dealership. He had a pretty good spare tire going and he'd shaved his head when male pattern baldness set in. Still, all those millions and his glory days would probably still pull the ladies in. I thought about forwarding the article to Linda.

Linda got half of everything we had accumulated and got to keep the house until the last child was eighteen. Then she could buy it or we'd sell it and split the profits. She also got child support based on my old salary. They were still my kids, so if they needed anything extra, they got it. I did buy her a new SUV because hers was shot and she hadn't gotten her payout yet. My kids needed reliable and safe transportation. I often wondered if the fact that I got all those millions just because she got fucked and she had no access to any of it preyed on her mind.

Linda wasn't exactly destitute. She eventually got the settlement from her lover, and since Nanette and Eric had come up with the app based on my idea while we were still married, she got half my cut. It was very popular for years, especially when they added an option that allowed you to speak as it was slammed down. Go to hell, kiss my ass and never fucking call me again were the most popular. Those cost five apiece. Her cut was roughly $30,000 a year for about three years before it fell out of favor and the payouts were a lot less. I didn't need to, but I put my share in a college fund for the kids, telling them when they were bigger that every time they heard it their college fund got larger.

I figured it out once as closely as I could. Between the settlements, the loss of his lucrative contract and endorsements, his smaller payouts, and the shortening of his career, Marc probably lost about 110 to a 170 million, making Linda one of the most expensive fucks in history. Everybody has to be famous for something, I guess.

Dee got divorced less than a year after we did. Janey and her husband lasted another eighteen months before going separate ways. The one where the wife was already cheating got their divorce before mine was final. As far as I know the rest survived as couples. I really didn't know or care. I never spoke to them again after that last morning.

Six years had gone by and every once in a while, I would wake up and reach for Linda, usually after I'd had a dream about how we were before the "incident." I haven't remarried, I'm still a little shy around women, but I did start dating. I was surprised at the number of women who wanted a deeper relationship until I realized they meant with my money. It made me extremely wary.

Both kids are big into soccer now. My son does it for friends and fun mostly, but my daughter is very serious about it and she has a good bit of talent. Her BFF is a little better than she is, and I got to know her and her mother because of all the sleepovers. Her Mom was a cute little blond with a slender figure and great legs. She was small on top, something that had never mattered much to me, and her firm little breasts fit her frame perfectly.

Scarlett was skittish and had little confidence because of the head job her psycho ex had done on her. I found out from her daughter that money was tight because her ex had disappeared and stopped paying child support. Without telling her, I had him located and he got arrested for delinquent child support. He had a good job and the judge ordered him to catch up all arrears within two years or go to jail. It amounted to double the payments every month, and they started breathing easier. I never told her it was me who had found him.