The Seer of Popotla

I was stunned. What I was hearing was making this day the worst day I had yet lived. As I stood there, behind her, listening to her arranging her liaison—with another man—for sex, I was sick at heart. Still, I was in control; that was something, damn little, but something. I didn't lose it.

I'd gotten home early from my job at Crowley Software. The boss and company owner, Harris Crowley, had given us all the rest of the day off because of the successful completion of the project. Done in time, under budget, and complimented on our achievement by the client—our biggest client, Statten Industries—had brought a smile to the boss' face. The bonus checks, he'd just handed out, brought smiles to everybody else's face.

I worked as a trouble shooter for special software that made organizational problems go away for many major business concerns. But, occasionally—all too often actually—it was necessary to tweak the software to keep things running smoothly for the companies we did business with. Anyway, that was my job. Travel was always in the works for me; it was part of my job description. Weatherly Inc. was a case of installing new and upgraded software this time around and it promised to save their company millions over the next few years; they were very happy.

But, hearing my wife now, the smile on my face faded. The $5,000 check in my coat pocket meaningless at that moment

"Yes, Emile, noon at the usual place...Yes, $500 for the afternoon, no limits... Yes, you can have my ass as usual...Yes, you're the only one who gets that, not even my husband," she said. They talked for another minute or so, while I stood there all but turned to stone, and she hung up.

She was smiling as she turned in my direction. Now it was her smile that quickly faded.

"Well, that's true isn't it," I said, acting more calmly than I felt. "You never did let me have your ass. I stopped asking for it years ago. I guess if I'd have had a few C-notes I could have had it. Right?"

"Ritchie..." Her speech died as she realized how busted she was.

"What? Nothing too say? I would think that you might want to try and save our marriage," I said. "I mean, I confess I don't know what you could say that would unsay what I just heard, but you could at least have the decency to try." I so loved this woman; could the marriage be saved? Hell, I didn't know.

The supreme irony? It had long been my fantasy to watch her with another man. We'd even talked about it, but that had been in years past. Now, that I was a de facto cuckold, an ignorant one, but one nevertheless; how did I feel about it? Bad, I decided.

"Ritchie..." she tried again but finally sank down into a chair at the dinette table. She wasn't looking at me; she was studying the pattern on the tablecloth.

"How long?" I said.

"Ritchie, we need to talk. I need to explain. I know it looks bad, but it's not as bad as it looks if that makes any sense," she said.

"Not really. You wanna stay married, Diana?" Her head snapped up. I was angry and bitter and acting on impulse. One thing I was going to do and that immediately regardless of anything that might happen later.

"Oh god yes!" she almost screamed.

"Then drop your pants," I said. She looked at me funny.

"Huh?" she said.

"It ain't rocket science, Diana. Sounds like you're kind of an expert at this kind of thing. You're a prostitute, right?" I said. She looked down; she knew the jig was up.

"Yes, sort of a call girl," she said.

"So?" I said. I reached into my back pocket pulled out my wallet and threw a one dollar bill on the table. She looked at it not comprehending.

"Huh?" This was getting to be monotonous.

"So, drop your pants," I said. "I'm paying." She looked at me, then at the dollar bill, concern written all over her. She decided to cooperate; she stood and dropped her pants.

"The panties too," I said. She hesitated.

"Ritichie—what..."

"Just do it Diana—or not. If not I want my money back." She complied. She was standing naked from the waist down in front of me. I dropped my pants and underwear. She stared at me, well at my cock at any rate, all six inches of it. It was stone hard. She might be a public whore, but she would never stop being able to arouse me.

I came to her, bent her over the table, and kicked her legs wide apart; she didn't resist. I knelt behind her and spit on her anus pushing a finger deep inside of her. Her head snapped around when she finally realized what was about to happen.

"Ritchie! Please," she said.

"Please what, Diana? You gonna deny me again? You gonna deny me what you apparently give to everybody else? If you say don't do it, I'll back off, collect the money I paid you, get dressed and just leave; and you can go to your little afternoon party and never see me again." I said. She shook her head and reassumed the position. "Good decision."

I worked her back door for some few minutes probing with my fingers and licking her to a state of readiness; her ass did taste great. I was as hard as I'd ever been as I pressed my penis against her sphincter. It spread easily for me; it had clearly had more than its share of usage even if not by me. I pushed in and she grunted from the pressure.

"Please, go easy, Ritchie, okay?" she said. I didn't respond, but I did push in slowly. Soon, though, I was banging her quite properly, and she was responding. I could feel myself ready to cum. I stiffened and unloaded into her. I stayed in her until I literally fell out.

******

She was showering. I waited in the kitchen for her to come back in.

About twenty minutes later she came back dressed and looking pale—worried. But, she'd had time to think about her situation, our situation. I had to admit to being curious about what she could possibly say to me.

"One question before we get into the rest of it," I said. She nodded for me to go on. "Why them your ass and not me, I mean until now?"

"I wanted to give it to you, Ritchie, more than anything; but it's something that I thought might make you suspicious. I didn't used to like the idea; you know that. So, all of a sudden changing my mind? Well, you can see the dilemma I was faced with," she said. "Plus, I still don't like it all that much; it hurts unless the man is very considerate. So..."

"Okay—okay, so, like I said before, how long? I'd appreciate the truth," I said.

"A year, a little more," she said. "Ritchie—do we have a chance?"

"Not sure. You gonna quit?" She looked down. I looked at her.

"You like it don't you?" I said. "You like giving it to other men who pay you to cuckold me?"

"Honestly? I guess I do on some level. Not the cuckolding you part; and I have never allowed any of them to talk about you when we were doing it. I love you and only you. But—the sex—I guess I do. It's exciting, I guess. I mean doing something really naughty like that."

"But now, knowing how you've killed my heart? You gonna quit?" I said. I just couldn't make up my mind if it would make any difference to me if she did say she'd stop, now that I knew. I sure did love her, no doubt about that. But, the staying or the going? it was something that I was going to have to do a lot of thinking about.

"I can't," she said. Okay, that one stunned me. I had expected her to say that she would quit. She had to know that I wouldn't be tolerating anymore of her fucking around behind my back. She couldn't expect me to be okay with it—could she?

"Can't?"

"You'd lose your job." She said.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" I said.

"Ritchie, your boss—he—he—he's the one got me started in this. And, the one you heard me on the phone with just now was Emile Weatherly." She said.

"Weatherly!" It was my turn to literally fall into a chair. Mr. Weatherly was CEO of our largest customer; we'd just completed doing a big contract with him and his, actually his wife's company, she being Annabelle Statten Weatherly: two million dollars worth it meant to us. I'd met Annabelle a number of times; she was a looker, and several years younger than me or my wife; I'd guess maybe thirty-five. She was the granddaughter, and sole heir of the Statten advertising agency's founder Wolf Statten. A player on Madison Avenue in times gone by. Why an old goat like Emile Weatherly would be playing around on her was beyond me. Of course, why she'd even married him was an even bigger mystery, but, whatever.

I guess the rich and famous were never satisfied.

"It was a bit over a year ago. At the Christmas party. You were there. Your boss, Harris Crowley, put it to me. Make a certain client happy, he told me, and you'd be a regional manager by summer. I did it, and you were promoted. It's escalated from there," she said.

I had to think back. I had been promoted. I was now regional manager for public relations. Our software company, one of the most successful in the Midwest, was becoming known internationally. That my wife had been whoring herself out so that I would be promoted made me sick to my stomach.

"You can quit," I said. "I'm done with Cowley Software as of this minute."

"Ritchie! You can't quit. You make $250K annual. You could never get a job like that again, at least not on short notice. We have responsibilities!" she all but screamed.

"Yeah, and chief among them would be to be able to look myself in the mirror every morning and not throw up," I said. "You have any idea how humiliated I feel now, at this moment, knowing what you've been doing behind my back?"

"Ritchie—there was a time when we talked..."

"Yeah, and I was supposed to be a party to any decision about that kind of stuff; I mean if we ever did decide to try anything, Diana. Did you just forget that part?

"Does Weatherly know you're my wife," I said. She looked down; it seemed to be getting to be a habit with her.

"And my other customers, I mean any you've been servicing?" She continued to remain silent.

"God damn it!" I said. "How they must have been laughing at me behind my back. And you helped them do it, probably joined in with them. Humiliated doesn't even begin to cover it. Fuck!"

"No!" she said. "Maybe they did, I don't know, but not me and not around me." I just stared at her. "None of them ever talked about you; your name almost never came up."

"Again, are you going to stop it or not!" I said.

"I can't, Ritchie!" I looked at her. I must have had on a sad face. I know I felt sad. Job gone. Wife almost certainly gone. At least we didn't have kids, I thought.

"I don't know what to tell you, Diana. I am not good with this, not good at all. Call it ego or whatever you want, but I can't deal with this. You don't stop..."

"Richard, I know you're upset, but it's not as bad as you think. It's not the end of the world. We can get by this. I—we—can include you. You know like in our fantasies in the old days. Who cares what these people think so long as they pay us," she said.

"Pay you, Diana, not me? That promotion you got me? Fuck it. Money's ain't what drives me, Diana. I gotta go. I gotta go. You best think about what you're doing or we are over, probably are anyway," I said. "Yes, you better think about it real hard."

"Richard, we'll talk tonight okay? I know I can make you see my side here. I'm sorry I've hurt you. It is the last thing I ever wanted to do. But, we'll talk and I will make it right by you. I'll get Crowley to make it right by you too; I can do that. Okay?" she said; her voice had taken on a begging tone. I shook my head slowly, sadly.

"I gotta go." I turned, grabbed my coat and went out. I could feel her gaze on my back as I closed the door behind me. I had to think. My heart was hurt seriously bad. I was giddy with fear and a sense of loss and betrayal; and hell, who knew what else. She actually thought that she could make me see it her way—fat chance.

And what kind of a wimp was I anyway? I should've just chucked her ass to the curb and saved myself a ton of grief, not to mention self-respect. I needed to know more. Fifteen years invested. She was thirty-nine; I was forty-five. We were just getting to the serious part of our lives, and now this shit!

Diana was no military genius, but she wasn't that stupid—was she? Stupid enough to think I'd go along with her little part time job. Or, maybe I was the stupid one.

******

I knew that there were some things I needed to do immediately whatever else I finally decided. I wasn't going to be caught with my pants down—no pun intended—if it did finally come to a divorce which looked very likely at that moment.

I had to get my act together. I went immediately to the bank and sequestered the near hundred grand, that we'd managed to save, of "my" money, into a numbered offshore account; the Cayman's were a good for that sort of thing, and it was easy if one knew how, and I did. I left the checking account untouched for my whore of a wife; there was only a couple of grand in it, and it wasn't worth the trouble to mess with. Anyway, I almost didn't give a damn anymore—almost. Though not completely decided, I made the decision to ensure that I cut my loses, just in case, once I had made up my mind what to do.

In the next few days I'd kill all of the cards, cancel or change my various insurances, and generally get set for the likely outcome. It wasn't quite inevitable yet, but close.

I didn't go into the office. I was afraid that if I did that I would kill the mother fucker that I had worked for all of these years. I had long fancied myself his best asset, but maybe I had just been kidding myself; maybe his best asset had been my wife! When I didn't show up for work, they'd all figure out, soon enough, that I was gone for good.

I knew too, that as much as she was charging to fuck these guys, Diana probably had a bunch stashed, but who knew for sure. She'd never worked an honest day in her life. For sure she'd have to keep fucking for her bread if I left. Tough shit, I said to myself. I surprised myself at how quickly I seemed to be hardening my feelings toward her.

It was Wednesday and still early. I wondered if she would keep her appointment with Weatherly that afternoon. And if so, where would she would meet him? She'd said something about a hotel. I knew he was married. Annabelle was sixtyish as was her husband, and, Annabelle had the money, and the company, Statten Advertising, was hers; her granddad had left it to her, her mom and dad having been killed in a plane crash when she was seven. If I'd had to guess, she wouldn't be all that thrilled that he was playing around. Oh, how I wanted to sink his ship. Then it hit me. Ron Hodges! My best bud. I pulled my cell. If she was going to meet him, even after our little talk, I wanted to make it memorable for them.

He picked it up on the second ring. "Hey buddy, I need you, and I mean now...El Serape'?...Good. In fifteen," I hung up.

Ron was a detective on the force. If anybody could find the butthead that was planning on doing my wife he could.

I waved him over as he entered the little Mexican bistro.

"Hey compadre," he said. "What's the big emergency?"

The waiter showed up and took our orders: tea for him, a Lite for me.

"I need your help, Ron. Turns out I never knew my wife," I said. I gave him the rundown over the next twenty minutes.

"Jesus, Ritchie, I can't believe it. But yeah, I think I can help you. If they do meet we'll nail 'em. Hang loose for a minute," he said. He pulled his cell and started talking to somebody very fast. He hung up.

"Relax," he said. "it shouldn't be long unless your perp is using an assumed name."

I nodded and tried to suck the last dregs of yellow Pepsi out of the bottle of Lite. I waved at Jeanine for another. A waiter passed by with a pitcher of iced tea and refilled Ron's glass.

His cell went off maybe thirty minutes later. "The Towers?" he said to whoever it was that called him. "Okay, get me pictures and audio too if you can...Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's short notice. Perps don't send me their schedules ahead of time," he said, hanging up.

"The Lincoln Towers. Only five minutes from here. Want me to have them busted?" He was almost drooling hoping he could make a bust. Ron didn't like overpaid CEOs or their kind. He'd been screwed over in his now long dead marriage by just such an asshole himself; the divorce had been messy.

I nodded. "Yeah, go after them. Make sure missus Weatherly gets a record of the action. Maybe we can make the little twerp pay and cost my former employer his best and biggest client in the bargain. Wouldn't hurt if Diana got a conviction out of this too, I said, hopefully. Well, I was becoming ever more pissed the longer I thought of her in that room with Weatherly.

******

She looked in the mirror and studied the face that reflected back at her. She had to shake it off. Emile Weatherly could cost her husband his job. True, Richard had made noises about quitting. She could understand that. He was hurt and angry, and she had hurt him. But, when it finally came to making that decision for real, she knew he'd hang in there at least for the near term. He'd get over it; she'd be making damn sure of that. He had to; they couldn't make it financially otherwise. She'd have to figure out a way to include him in her activities. He'd always said he wanted to do that kind of stuff, to watch. It'd been a long time since either of them had mentioned it, that was true, but maybe now was the time.

The money she was making on the side didn't come to a fifth of what Ritchie made; and she'd spent much of what she'd made—well, dresses in the kinds of stores she shopped in didn't come cheap. Then too, the house was paid for, but not the beach house or the cabin. The land on the big island was almost paid for; they'd planned to put a bungalow on it as soon as it was. No, he couldn't quit. His job was needed; his paycheck was needed.

"Her" big job was going to be to get him to deal with what his boss, and herself of course, had done to him—but also for him, she reasoned. Yes, she allowed, it was going to be humiliating for him to be around men he knew had had her, and that now would know he knew, but what was a little bit of bent ego when it came to the opportunities that were there for him. All he had to do was look the other way once in awhile, or even join in, while she plied her wares and made a few high rollers happy.

She couldn't keep it up forever, she knew; she was thirty-nine now. When she finally did stop, she and her Ritchie could live the life of Riley off of what they had achieved: he by his business acumen and her by her sexual skills. For the first time that morning she smiled at the image in the mirror; she knew how to get her Ritchie onboard. He was going to be one happy fella when he got home that night.

She finished freshening up for her date and headed out. Emile would be waiting.

******

The balding man was seated at the hotel bar when he saw his afternoon entertainment arrive. Damn that Crowley did know how to take care of a customer, he thought.

"Diana, how the heck are you?" he said.

"Good, Emile," she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

"Let's have a drink before we head on up," he said. She smiled and took a seat beside him at the bar.

The conversation was light and touched on nothing whatsoever that was meaningful. About fifteen minutes into the little get together, a man two tables away, who had been surreptitiously clicking photographs of the two, smiled; three of the photos were of the man sliding a white envelope over the bartop to the woman, who looked inside of it and counted whatever the contents were; she closed the envelope, and put it in her purse. The man with the camera smiled once again; two utter idiots, he thought.

Weatherly downed his drink and offered his date his arm. She took it and they adjourned to the elevators.