True Lies - Redux Ch. 06

Rachel -

Right now my life was in mortal danger and I didn't even know it. I was doing my best to help my husband and if that meant throwing Grayson under a bus. Fine. Anyway, I knew now that what Jim and "his people" had told me was probably much more the truth than not. My new life was nerve wracking in ways I had never expected to ever have to experience. It was nerve wracking reestablishing my intimate relationship with Grayson. It was nerve wracking worrying about Jim and how he could possibly accept and forgive my continued fucking Grayson.

I hated that I was basically being FORCED to do that against my will, now - but I was also fearful at first Grayson just might be tired of me in that role, and therefore probably in the professional role as one of his go-to lawyers. I prayed a lot for guidance and courage. It was nerve wracking all ways. Suddenly I was very much NOT in control of my own life and in possibly terribly consequential ways.

The truth is all kinds of cheaters eventually find themselves in much the same straights. "It's just sex!?!" Then how come so many actual murders happen because of "just sex" in even this day and age in ALL the most modern and sophisticated countries in the world? Elaine had certainly slapped some sense into me by reminding me of the lessons of my Jewish religious AND ethnic heritage regarding sexual morality. Family is crucial. Marriage is a crucial part of family. Children can then be protected, raised, and taught in a stable marriage and even though Jim never embraced Judaism himself as a religion - my children by Jim would still be considered Jewish. And I still believe Jim would make an excellent father - once he left this business, maybe. I think now maybe that's why having children right away was never brought up by Jim. On the other hand my own reasons were basically even more selfish - I was too much "career" oriented and indulging my own hedonism and foolish fantasies, too much into Mammon.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery" was just the most common sense wisdom in the world, actually. It helped keep marriages alive and at least the possibility of having and raising children in a good "alive" marriage. And now I HAD committed adultery and my marriage was in tatters and barely on life support. I was out of choices. All I could do now was follow the lead of all the great Jewess heroines of the past. Do whatever it took to honor G-d, preserve my marriage, and save "my people" - and "my people" wasn't just Jim, and my family, but all my fellow American citizens as my first priorities.

I hope I would have arrived at this belated common sense wisdom even IF Jim had not been such a special man. Despite my blindness in allowing Jim to literally pull the wool over my eyes and become partially diminished to me, he WAS beyond special to me and always would be. This made it both easier to dedicate myself to preserving this marriage, but also much more fearful of the great pain and heartache that would ensue if I failed.

And I damn well might fail. Jim just might leave me and move out again if I was of no use to him in this endeavor because now even Grayson no longer wanted my body. I needed another man to want me, to give my body to him, in order to stay close to Jim, my husband and now my boss. How fucked up was that?

I did have to call Grayson when I was told he was finally back in town. He got back from Iran sometime Tuesday after that terrible for me "cards on the table" Saturday. I finally called him Wednesday about 5PM. I was almost surprised he answered his private cellphone when he saw it was me. He was very short with me at first and it wasn't looking good. After my conversations with Jim and Dr. Ruth, where we brainstormed different scenarios, I finally offered Grayson not just myself but "one of my college girlfriends who is in town visiting me and she was just WILD in college. She'd love to be with us for an evening..." and that was a good enough hook. The "college girlfriend" was actually Elaine.

Elaine was quite the pro and I learned even more watching her and really paying attention, now. But for me, personally, the sex was even more degrading than it had been before. Grayson caught that and loved it. And I knew - well thought - Elaine would report to Jim and tell him every damn thing I did to Grayson, to her, and allowed them both to do to me.

That got me back in with Grayson but it still wasn't the same as before. Grayson seemed tired and under a lot of pressure. I got the impression he kept me around now as merely the easiest thing for him. He didn't bring any other girls or women home, like he couldn't be bothered. Of course I was changed also but tried to keep my own nervousness and unhappiness buried.

Right now I was in Grayson's private jet - a modified "private" Boeing 707 no less, that Grayson bragged John Travolta once owned - and I was on my knees doing him yet again while we were somewhere over the Atlantic on our way to Paris.

What I learned MUCH later was that we were being shadowed by two USAF F-22 Raptors in total stealth mode for most of that trans-Atlantic flight. No transponders active, no active radar and radio transmissions, just reception only.

They were receiving radar info and further guidance info from an EC-3 AWACS on a "training mission." Ironically this EC-3 was also a modified Boeing 707. We were all at the mercy of some shadowy someone who could order those planes to shoot us down and kill us all at their command. And Jim wasn't even in that decision loop and neither was Elaine. It was now at the "Cowboy Rob" and maybe even a higher level.

Then the lead plane received a terse command, "Initiate - and hold." And 30 seconds later both planes received, "RTB - acknowledge in 10." And our shadows disappeared.

It was just a training mission. Maybe. One plane had activated one of its special Sparrow AAM's and received a good and strong radar lock on our 707. The pilot stated, "showing ready. Showing active. Showing acquired and locked. Ready to release." As part of the cockpit recorder log. This meant that the missile had successfully rotated outside the interior weapons bay of the F-22, became "turned on" electrically active, including activating its own guidance radar, found and locked on the target, us. Meanwhile the radar profile of the F-22 shot way up with the weapons bay doors open. The EC-3 was monitoring that for evaluation and did receive a sudden weak "blip" close to Grayson's 707 track. The F-22's themselves with their Sanders/General Electric AN/ALR94 Electronics Warfare system equipment

indicated the plane was not under any kind of radar surveillance except from the EC-3 about 400 nautical miles away, when all this happened.

The missile did smoothly power down and retract into the enclosed bay at command and the blip disappeared as well from the EC-3 monitors as suddenly as it had first appeared. For a few seconds we were just a button push away from death. But it was just a highly successful training mission, after all.

Sort of like one's mad and estranged husband (or wife) pulling a gun out and cocking it and putting it to your head - just for "training." Maybe that's why Jim told me all this after the fact. Jim was still pretty mad or disappointed in me. Duh. Maybe he just made it up to scare me and re-emphasize how important stopping Grayson was, one way or another. Or maybe it all really happened.

Luckily I did not know any of this at the time as I worked Grayson. Feeding his ego while apparently feasting on his phallic pride in my totally submissive role. Ironically, as I got to acting ever more submissive I was actually gaining more power over Grayson. At least when one considers that "knowledge is power". I was gaining ever more knowledge that Grayson was ever more sloppily dropping around me. This was hubris or karma in action and sans the necessity of any real pagan god or cosmic force. Just human nature, apparently. Power not only corrupts it makes one stupid. He was feeling ever more powerful. And he was also snorting ever more coke and needing my own special ways of stroking his ego ever more frantically.

Strange since on the surface Grayson was very happy and relaxed right now as everything seemed to be going his way. The first leg of our trip to Los Angeles was apparently very successful for him business wise. Whatever his business was. We stayed at the Resort at Pelican Beach in Newport Beach. A definite 5 star hotel but away from the real movers and shakers around downtown LA, Hollywood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills. We stayed in a villa there and it was almost as if Grayson was trying to act incognito. None of his normal business posse was with us, except his personal money man, Edgar something with his ubiquitous laptop.

But now he always had two large security types around. He would often tease them with me, it seemed like, as he would obscenely fondle and partially undress me in front of them while they always attempted to maintain that Secret Service type detachment. His favorite thing seemed to be having me raise my skirt and show off my thong or see through panties, and then have me bump and grind like a stripper, before he inevitably moved the panties aside and then stuck one or more fingers in me until I started squirming and panting for real.

It embarrassed me that it embarrassed them and I tried to be extra friendly with them per Jim's and Dr. Ruth's instructions. But it was all beyond weird and I wasn't ever sure how much they knew about Grayson's business anyway - except they always seemed to accompany him so they must know where he went physically all the time. I was trying to figure out how to get some of that info from them without raising any suspicions at all.

Grayson was on his phone a lot the whole time we were in California, and he was gone most of two days. I was allowed to use the spa facilities or shop or otherwise amuse myself. He would call my cellphone when he was on the way back and I had to make sure I was there when he returned. He did not use me for any legal or business services, just "stress relief" at night. Those sessions were mercifully short now and it was actually pretty easy being just the "total submissive slut" to Grayson's desires for his own fulfillment. I hardly needed bother faking my own orgasms. Apparently Grayson didn't need that kind of feedback for his ego. What he liked was me feeling debased as he used and controlled me. And I didn't have to fake that.

Every little tidbit I picked up I relayed to Jim in my daily phone call to him. It was a perfect cover. He was still my husband and I had mentioned to Grayson I was still "involved" with him. "He won't just go away and I should put up with him for now." He just smirked and dismissed it. He wasn't the least bit concerned.

Jim's already established deep cover was just perfect. One or two phone calls a day was basically just not noticed. Occasionally Jim would call me when he guessed Grayson would be around - like 8PM - and then we would merely "bicker." Half the time Grayson would merely grimace and motion me to take the call elsewhere. Sometimes he would smirk and fondle me or even stick it in me while I was talking to my husband - conversations where I would sigh and roll my eyes while saying "Yes, Jim, I still love you. I just need some time and ...other things in my life right now." And I'd have to smirk and grin back at Grayson and pretend I was enjoying disrespecting my cuckold husband that way. Can you imagine how I felt doing all this? I was worried to death what Jim was REALLY thinking about it all. I feared indifference more than anything else. "Please, just keep being mad at me or even hating me, for now!" I kept praying. I had the feeling I was going to need some therapy for a long time when this was all over - if it ever was. I could only pray both Jim and I would need marriage counseling, as well. That would give me at least a chance.

I did happen to notice some additional "luggage" being loaded onto the plane as we finally boarded for the flight back to DC. They were hard sided large and expensive looking "suit" cases. They could have held anything from guns to electronics components...

We were only going to stay in DC one night and Grayson insisted I stay with him at his place, then we were flying directly the next morning to Paris. His 707 was configured to have that range, easily, with the proper general aviation fuel safety margin.

I had overheard one conversation where Grayson mentioned "SNL" and some brand new "neutristor" something and "OK, the price is right. But I need it yesterday..." SNL - Saturday Night Live?

Like a lot of things it didn't make sense to me but I relayed it to Jim in a conversation when Grayson wasn't around. Sometimes I would whisper "I love you," during these private phone calls. Jim never responded. But he also never admonished me NOT to say that. That was hopeful.

Jim didn't seem enthusiastic about my flying to Paris and it almost seemed like he wanted to pull me out, but he finally grudgingly admitted I was turning up some useful info and should go. I sure hoped we were getting to the end-game. I felt so brittle and close to cracking, and I also thought Jim was that way too, and it scared me. Jim was always just ... unbreakable, in my mind. Even when he was becoming "invisible" to me when I was away from him, he was so steady and so strong - "my husband Jim." That was then, not now, though.

*****************

Jim -

After Rachel left that Saturday afternoon, I tried to go over all those intercepts and possible "hits" from the comms coming out of Tehran, but I just couldn't get my mind to focus. Rachel was pretty much front and center. What the fuck was I going to do with her? Or maybe to her?

Was I being fair and merciful - as Jennifer once pleaded with me to be? Was there a real valid basis to use her as I was planning to - or was it more like just punishment? At least Elaine and most everyone else seemed to think it was worth a shot using Rachel this way.

We were all so used to just using other people to meet our own goals. Yes, protecting the collective USA - it's citizens and principles - was...worthy. But there is a price and there is a cost to every action, every coercion, every bit of ugly blackmail used even on those not-so-innocents somehow or other involved in enterprises that just might injure America. And we all knew this. It just becomes suddenly clearer - much more focused - when it happens to be someone you already knew and loved and never thought it would happen to. I never imagined my own wife involved in something that might end up hurting America - much less destroying a big piece of me and my own peace of mind. Destroying my marriage and faith in the basic goodness of women. If one I truly believed was SO trustworthy that I could put my own relationship with her on autopilot, turned out to be so faithless, mustn't all be suspect?

"You can't cheat an honest man."

"You can't blackmail an innocent woman."

Hmmm. The problem is just "human nature." None of us are perfectly innocent - for very long. In religious terms we're all sinners. In philosophical moral terms we're all failures.

In sociological-psychological terms we're all caught in Catch-22 moral dilemma's all the time - with no easy and clear perfectly correct resolutions. Many different human society mythologies have supernatural entities making use of this unfortunate reality - with a Devil, or Demon, or Satan or mischievous pagan god using merely sweet words and lies to get what THEY wanted from various poor human victims. All us in this "business" become very good at it. Hell, it's not that hard, is it? Many "players" both men and women, get very good at it as perfect amateurs.

There's greed and lust and pride; insecurity, fear and doubt and uncertainty; promises of wealth and status and power, or love or merely ecstatic sexual experiences - all to play around with. Manipulate. Coerce. Trick.

Way back in basic we all read "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis, as almost a joke. But not quite. It was quite serious in real life applications, after all. Combine with "Games People Play" by Eric Berne and "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom. And that's all the basics. Actually, all the basics are in the Bible but that's a much harder read to distill the essence clearly of what Berne called human transactional analysis.

I just never expected my own very smart, very informed in a 4000+ years old mature faith based moral system, emotionally strong and undamaged, and secure in her own beauty - MY WIFE! - to fall and fail as she did. It shook my foundational core beliefs. It made me reevaluate so much about myself and my certainties.

And it makes me doubt and double think and reevaluate every decision and every action I now take.

This is inherently a nasty business, especially at the humint level. I guess my own fantasy was always that I could do a little bit of the necessary nasty stuff, keep it at some minimum - and not become a nasty person myself. Rachel did me the favor of killing THAT particular illusion.

It was in this mood that Jennifer came and got me.

"Dr. Ruth's free now and you're next."

"I know it was an order but I don't feel like talking to her right now. I'll see her in the morning before facing Rachel. How are you feeling, Jenn? Care to buy me a drink? I'd rather talk to you. Just talk, maybe?"

"Yeah, let's get out of here and go to your apartment. I'm a little homeless, right now - can't go back to that address Grayson's people know about and don't really have another place of my own, yet."

We took a cab from that FBI building to my apartment I already decided I'd hang onto for a while. It was a quiet ride.

After we got settled, with some drinks and just ordering a pizza for dinner and snacking, I guess we just looked at one another.

And then both laughed. "Well, at least we're both still alive. I guess that counts as SOME kind of victory right now," Jennifer said.

"Somehow I don't feel like we're winning much. We could always just squash Grayson like a bug, but I'd like to get a feeling of a little more results in really stopping the whole Iranian Nuclear Weapons program. We need some kind of sting. If we just kill Grayson they'll soon find someone else to use. And who knows what information timebombs Grayson's got lying around somewhere to be activated upon his untimely death?"

"But screw it for right now. How are you Jenn? Really?"

Jennifer looked at me closely.

"You don't have a clue asshole. You're a fucking man. You're a GOOD man and I love you more than a little, but you'll never, EVER, know what it's like being a woman. We're the ones always penetrated. Men are the ones doing the penetrating. I had to let Grayson do that for the last week. If you want a glimmer of a clue - go ahead and volunteer to be a "bottom" to a nice homosexual sadistic rapist for a week or two. Then get back to me and we'll talk!"

I was a tad shocked. Not what I expected and what I really wanted to talk about was ME! And MY PAIN!

"Well, maybe when this is all over I'll just do that. Then we can talk."

Jennifer smiled a little more warmly.

"No, you won't, sweetie. I don't want you to do that and it wouldn't be the same anyway. It just might break you. Hell, I AM a woman and we're literally BORN to it. It's just fucking "Mother Nature" - evolution. The absolute Queen of practical jokers. We're the only ones that get pregnant and dear old Mother Nature doesn't care a whit if that's by "love" or merely by "lust" or even by quite forceful and painful rape. And in every case the baby comes with huge difficulty and pain for every woman. Only the degree of difficulty and pain might vary - all the way from pretty damn bad - to deadly. Makes no diff if it was "undying love" or casual cruel rape that caused the pregnancy. And to top it off, the vast majority of men ARE bigger and stronger than the vast majority of women to reinforce how little Mother Nature cares. Quite the comedienne, eh? And the only thing more hysterical are all the modern feminists. What a friggin' joke THAT whole crowd is. The ONLY good thing that ever happened for women is just a few memes - religions - like Judaism and Christianity, that really PREACH love, respect, and care for all us poor women - born for trouble and travail."