Twenty Two Fucking Years

I ignored all the emails and texts from Charleston except those from my former sons. To be clear, I will always love them as their parent but since I was not their father things definitely could not stay the same. I told them that in a long text message. In essence I told them that I loved them with all my heart and would always be there to help them out in life to the best of my ability. However, they had to come to grips with the fact that their biological father is Thomas Stuart. Perhaps they would like to go out to Kiawah and introduce themselves to his wife and children. I also suggested that they leave their mother at home when they had that visit.

On Saturday morning I connected with a client of mine who had developed a complex of apartments and condos just north of the downtown area. The complex that he created was laid out in a tasteful pattern of quadrangles. The Quads are named for the Presidents and each one contains a mix of one, two and three bedroom apartments and condos with underground parking. The enclosed area or quad is a parklike rectangular of plantings, walking paths, casual seating and a nice pool. The resulting product is a peaceful urban oasis that encourages residents to relax and socialize outdoors while still having all the conveniences of living with a modern city close at hand.

He had just the vacancy I was looking for in the Jefferson Quad. It was a corner three bedroom furnished rental. The owner had died in Florida and the heirs had cleaned out all the personal effects but left the unwanted basic furniture, linens, towels and a lot of kitchen ware. He was afraid I would want it removed but I told him I would look it over and probably keep most of it. I also told him why and he sympathized having gone through a divorce three years previously. I told him I wanted to get in that afternoon and he set an appointment with the building manager and a maintenance man. What Princes! The unit was clean and the furniture OK. They were princes because they pitched in and moved my trailer load of boxes in without asking. The manager refused a tip but I made a friend for life by tipping the Fred the maintenance man a hundred.

It was well worth it because when I asked about getting my T-3 line and cable installed he told me he could get the installer there on Sunday for a like tip. What a deal. My next task before crashing was to return the trailer, and pay one last visit to the house. Once there I took one of my wife's hairbrushes and bagged it. I did the same with combs and brushes from the boys bathroom. There was one bottle of beer left in the fridge and I sipped it as I did a final walk through. There were a couple of pictures of my folks and grandparents on the wall and I took them.

I picked up a pizza at a drive through and relaxed at my new kitchen table by 7 PM with that and a beer. It had been a busy couple of days.

After 'dinner' I toured my new abode. The first floor was all open concept Living Room, Dining and Kitchen. Off to one side was a nice Powder Room, Pantry and the stairs up and down. Down was a spacious Utility, Mechanicals and Storage area and an exit door to the underground parking area in which I had three spaces. I guess they figured on one for each bedroom. The top floor was compactly designed with two small Bedrooms, a Guest Bath, and Master Suite.

The smallest of the bedrooms was already set up with some nice work surfaces with file drawers underneath. By default this became my office and so I carried all my computer equipment, related electronics and business records upstairs and began the process of moving in. Two hours later my bank of 27" monitors was set up with attendant peripherals, CPU's, Routers and WI FI network. All I needed now was a network hookup and that was coming tomorrow. Luckily the tenant before me must have had a home office like mine because there was an abundance of outlets.

By 10 I dug through my boxes and found my camping gear. My sleeping bag would have to do for bedding tonight. On Sunday Fred the Maintenance man came through and I got my T-3 connection and cable boxes activated for a well spent $100 to the tech and another $100 for Fred as he helped sort out my boxes between upper floor, living area and basement storage.

Mid morning I stocked the fridge and liquor cabinet from the nearby Metro Market. By noon I was at my computers. It's time to tell you a little about what I do for a living because it's relevant to the rest of the story. I have made my living ever since college in the field of ethical hacking. For those of you unfamiliar with the field, some individuals and most organizations periodically have someone like myself test the strength of their computer security. My peers and I use the same tools as criminal hackers and attempt to breech the security of networks and individual computer systems. When the breech occurs, and it usually does when I'm the hacker, we identify ourselves to the customer and show them how to plug the hole to prevent an unethical hack. A substantial bonus is collected and we move on to the next opportunity.

While there is some site work, the lions share of the job is done from my home office. The apparent site work is generally pretty plain vanilla. Usually there is a meet and greet at the beginning of the project and another at the end to pose for holy card pictures of me receiving my bonus check. What the client is not aware of is that my first visit to their facilities generally is after hours as part of their cleaning crew to privately tour the data processing center(s). I like to poke around desks and work stations to look for user names and passwords. Give me 30 minutes in any data center office space and I will have System Administrator access to all their computer systems and of course all of their payroll and employee records.

I don't want to brag but I am very good at what I do and make an exceptionally good income. It makes me wonder if that stupid bitch Sheila had ever paid attention to what the fuck I do for a living. I know, I know, just get on with the story.

I fired up my systems and scheduled a Monday pick up for the DNA testing service. Then for the next two hours I tore into Tom Stuart's public and personal life. Then I did it to the Lee's, both parents and siblings. Next came the Foundation and Stuart Industries.

The computer, iPad and iPhone security on all of the above was absolutely pitiful. Whatever I wanted to read, copy, amend or destroy I could. For the time being I left things untouched. Here is a thumbnail of what I found.

The Stuart and Lee families can trace their lineage back to the Pre Revolutionary War era and according to family lore each are related to the famous generals Robert E Lee and J.E.B. Stuart. This gave them instant creds with the Charleston society mavens but it didn't help much on the economic side. The Lee's had been in local college education but both were now retired and living on small pensions and social security. Sheila's brothers had both married trust fund babies and what their wives lacked in physical beauty they made up for in financial assets. The Stuarts were much better off and had roots in the Port of Charleston. Much of the container business passing through the port was handled by them. They also owned several of the car carriers that came and went with US and German BMW's.

Tom Stuart is Exec VP of the family business and is third in line of succession behind his Father and Grandfather. Last year his 1040 showed a joint income with his wife Mildred of $287,537. Untaxed perks were the Company GulfStream, a country club membership, a beach home in Kiawah and pretty much carte blanc with his frequently audited and very much abused expense account.

Any bright kid can get this kind of information. However, not everyone knows how to effectively hack social media and very few know how to get into deleted email, texts and personal computer files. That's where the really good stuff is. The lesson here is that unless you specifically write over every element of a computer file it exists forever. Even after you have done this, it may still exist in the Cloud, a local server, your ISP's server or the recipient's computer. Because of these facts I was able to read every email and text my wife sent to Stuart and everything he sent back to her from her deleted files.

Initially I only did a random scan from each of the last two decades and what emerged was an incredible pattern of brazen infidelity. Both of them led two completely secret second lives of which their spouses knew nothing. Tom had been married twice, the first for money and the second because he got his secretary pregnant. Neither knew anything about Sheila and his other children.

Sheila's electronic accounts were fairly clean but she did forget the rule about deleted files and they led me to a treasure trove. The biggest haul of incriminating material surprisingly came from the Foundation itself. While perusing their accounts payable I found cell phone accounts for both Sheila and Stuart. All bills were routed through the Foundation's books and since both phone holders thought the phones were secure, neither one ever deleted a thing. I didn't need to get my hands on either of the phones to dump them because someone had conveniently set up a back up to the Cloud. I knew Sheila's password setting system and Stuart used the same one for everything.

Sheila's yielded hours of sex videos that they had recorded to tide them over the dry spells between Foundation meetings. Stuart's phone contained hundreds of Sheila nude studies as well as the video's. It also produced evidence of at least six other playmates in the last five years.

In passing I took a closer look at the Lee family and found out some of the grosser secrets my pure as the driven snow father in law had been hiding. It seems that the principal reason for the families down on the luck finances was linked to two settlements he had to make to hush up two coed pregnancies. Mom and the brothers were relatively clean except for the fact they all knew about the long term affair Sheila was in and said nothing to me about it.

At noon I made myself a sandwich, grabbed two beers and my iPad and went out to relax on the patio. It was my first time out in the Quad and I was impressed by the quality of the plantings and the overall design of the urban oasis. The first beer disappeared with the sandwich and I then fired up my iPad and over the second beer I read Sheila's emails chronologically. As I read them I was interrupted periodically by first the neighbor on my right and later by the lady on my left. Beth and Ethel would later become great friends but today I apologized that I didn't have time to chat because of work but that later I would buy them a drink.

Sheila's emails were tentative to say the least. Until I dropped the hammer on her Friday night she had no knowledge of what the fuck I knew so she tried to get me to respond with lots of questions, demands, pleas, where are you and I love you's just please call me. After Friday night she knew that I knew something about her and Stuart and about the kids but she had no clue as to just what I was going to do. Her emails accordingly slowed to a trickle and her tone became much more pleading for me not to do anything rash. The last contact in the string on Sunday was that she was flying back commercial on Monday but that the boys were staying on in Charleston and were taking a three day intensive orientation at the Citadel. She alleged that 'she could explain everything' and that we would be able to work it all out.

Epilogue

The explosive destruction of four suburban houses on Monday made for banner headlines in the Milwaukee Journal. Luckily no one was killed in the explosion due to the fact that the smell of gas alerted people to get out in time. One of the homeowners did however have to be hospitalized when she had a hysterical reaction after viewing the destruction upon her return from a trip to Charleston. The cause was not suspicious as it was clear that a contractor had damaged the line by digging in an area without calling the required hotline.

Several weeks later the newspaper wrote a follow up piece. They discovered that when the city attempted to locate the operator to charge him, he could not be found. Also, the company that had hired him as a temp had folded. Apparently all the damage claims on the Utilities insurance company by the four homeowners were paid in full and life went on.

The reporter did ask about the woman who had been hospitalized but was told she had been transferred to a private sanitarium and the HIPPA laws forbad any further disclosures.

I of course had been notified of my wife's hospitalization and hurried to her side. She had been heavily sedated and I sat with her well into the night. I had a few whispered words with her and her bouts of acute hysteria flared up again. This time she was more heavily sedated and I left her side only to shower and get a change of clothes. When she emerged from sedation again the doctors tried alternative psychotropic therapies that also failed. It seemed to me as a non medical person that somehow doses of LSD or some other hallucinogenic substance was somehow being added to the official drug therapy.

Occasionally just the sight of me would cause her to totally flip out and so they reluctantly asked me to stay away. I did however keep close tabs on her thru a private duty nurse that I employed to attend to all of her personal needs. I am also told that when friends, her parents and even her sons visited, she gave no indication of recognizing them and she never uttered anything but gibberish.

The private duty nurses were only on duty during the day shift and so the Sanitarium staff handled her at night. Handled would be the correct terminology because it was discovered that she had become the fuck toy of the third shift staff. This was discovered when she aborted in the second trimester during an episode of rough sex with three nursing aides. After this embarrassing and for the institution, expensive experience, as her medical power of attorney I authorized the tying of her tubes. Now that pregnancy was no longer possible the only occasional problem for the staff was a periodic flare up of STDs.

In another unrelated story a Gulfstream 400 crashed and burned in the Smoky Mountains several months after Sheila's hospitalization. The flight plan called for a course well clear of all hazards but some how the pilot put the aircraft squarely into Mount Mitchell. It was speculated that the bankruptcy of the owner's corporation when an explosion of 1000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer in a container being unloaded at their facility, caused a great deal of family and corporate distress. The rumor that the crash was suicide by it's pilot, Thomas Stuart, who was depressed because of his wife's divorce filing and his own personal bankruptcy was dismissed by his attorney. Any linkage between these corporate troubles and the scandal with the finances of the Jackson and Lee Foundation were similarly denied. Additional speculation that the curtailment of the maintenance budget of the aircraft was because of the bouncing of the mechanics payroll checks did however gain some traction.

The boys and I remain close despite the DNA issues. We agreed that genetics and fatherhood are two different issues. Career wise they are doing just fine. I was able to get them appointments to the Naval Academy and they are now jg's. Tom is flying jets and Robert is in subs. They both married southern belles and I hope they have better luck than I did.

I eventually had my marriage annulled but generously kept the Powers of Attorney for health and property. Sheila had quite a little nest egg that she had inherited when her parents were killed in that tragic car wreck. Luckily the semi that did them in was owned by a solvent company with a lot of insurance. It's a good thing she has that cash because some of those STD drugs are very expensive.

I eventually married one of my Quad neighbors with whom I share similar views on infidelity and retribution. You can't have any of the first and too much of the second. Her name is Sarah Quinn and she is two years younger than me but easily looks at least a decade less. She is also the smartest woman I have ever encountered and operates her own tax and accounting business practice out of her apartment. Our two businesses actually compliment each other and we were able to help each other out on many occasions.

That help soon extended to the bedroom and eventually, since we were already sharing my master suite, we converted my guest bedroom into her office and we consolidated our abodes.

Epilogue 2

On my 65th Birthday and very close to our 22nd anniversary, my wife Sarah and I celebrated by having intercourse on a nude beach on Maui. I do have to admit that to keep up with the vacation pace of sex that my lovely wife 'suggested', I took a serious dose of daily Cialis to keep up the flag. She was still a joy to look at and to make love too. Both of our physiques were pretty good because she made a decent diet and exercise program mandatory in our home. That and some discrete surgical tucks and trims had us consistently mistaken for individuals at least ten years younger.

Despite my happiness at being married to my wonderful wife for the last two decades the occasion was partly shadowed by the passing of Sheila last month. The poor dear had finally completed her twenty two year incarceration for having been unfaithful to me. Usually my wife and I would visit her on her birthday and if she was having a lucid moment, bring her up to date on what family and friends were doing. Her sons continued to be rising stars in the Navy. Both have been selected for the rank of Captain and Tom commands the Air Group on the Reagan and Robert commands an Attack Submarine. Each are still married to their first wives and between them they have five children. Sometimes Sheila has to be restrained when we show her pictures of her offspring and their families. We also try to keep her updated on the Stuarts, Lees and their failures. Until this past year Sheila would get very agitated when we shared information like this and the home has asked me to restrain myself. I then have asked them if they want me to stop paying for her care and they shut up.

Sheila had been wasting away and had basically stopped eating. I authorized a feeding tube until the 22nd anniversary. They then discontinued the feeding except for IV fluids. She died ten days later apparently setting some kind of record for living with her particular strain of AIDs. What a waste.