Vicious

I felt stupid complaining. I had a great life. Friends and a wife that loved me. A mission from Miss Kitty that gave me great satisfaction, knowing she would have loved to see the people we, she and I, were helping. I had more than I'd ever had, but I felt somehow like it was slipping away from me.

Does love make everyone stupid?

Dot was off to San Francisco for some charity conference. Something about fund raising, I think. As she became more involved, there seemed to be conferences and training seminars that she had to attend. I missed her when she was gone. Probably what caused my unease. But she made sure that the boys kept me busy while she was gone, with activities and get-togethers. But I missed her.

Phil called me. He does that occasionally. We keep in touch sporadically when something happens in our lives. I still think of him as my first and best friend. But he seemed off, somehow hesitant on this call.

"Ryan, we have to talk." A chill went up my spine. I had a premonition that this wasn't good. I've learned it never is.

Seems Ryan was on a temporary assignment in San Francisco, overseeing a drug test on a new product his company was developing. He'd been out for dinner and dancing with a colleague when he saw Dot at a nightclub. As he happily headed over to greet her, a tall man approached her table, leaned over to kiss Dot and then joined her. Phil stopped, nonplussed. Then he headed back to his table. He and his colleague kept an eye on Dot that evening as she danced with and openly kissed her date. Phil had his colleague follow them into their hotel when they left the club, even going up the elevator with them to see them both go into the same room.

Phil didn't have the name of Dot's companion, but he gave me the information about the hotel and the room number. He told me how sorry he was, but he felt I had to know. In shock, I told him he'd done right, thanked him and hung up.

One thing I learned from being on the road with my father. Things don't get better by ignoring them. The people who ignored things were the marks we hit most often. I had to act now, while things were going on.

I regularly used a private investigation firm to ferret out the facts when I was helping Miss Kitty's marks. I called Dan, my contact there, as late as it was, and laid out what I needed to find out. First, I wanted him to have someone in San Francisco identify the man with Dot and find out how long they'd been together, if possible. Was this something that happened that night, something ongoing, something on this California trip, or what. I need to know. Also, everything they can find out about the asshole who was screwing my wife.

Next, I needed someone to find out, without raising suspicions, everything about this conference. What was Dot doing there, and was this man part of it?

Finally, I want surveillance on my wife, if not 24/7 as close as practicable. Was this man her only indiscretion?

Suddenly, I was once again that 10-year-old thug, who trusted no one. I wanted to react like that bear Miss Kitty had seen me as. I wanted to rip off the face of Dot's lover, if indeed that's what he was. It didn't let my mind go to what I wanted to do to Dot. I think I would explode if I went there now.

Dan got back to me the next day. Dot's lover (yes, that's been confirmed by the other people who travel with Dot's charity, when questioned subtly by Dan's men) was Gene Blanchard, a member of a well-known philanthropist family in our town. His family trust funded several of the charities whose boards and councils Dot served on.

Not surprisingly, Gene, or Asshole as I think of him, was a fan of opera, ballet, art galleries and poetry readings. In fact, he fancied himself a poet and took part in quite a few poetry reading events. Turns out, he squired my wife to all these events, in the company of my friends. My friends! I pictured the bear tearing through them.

I decided to take them all down. I ordered Dan to get all the evidence he could obtain of my wife's infidelity. I also asked him to investigate Asshole and my friends, looking for weak points I could exploit to humiliate them or bankrupt them. Anything that I could use to disrupt their lives.

Dan flat out refused to help me, beyond investigating Dot's and Asshole's association. He wouldn't try to ruin people's lives or even be involved in any investigation with that as a goal. "I'm sorry man, and disappointed. I've always admired you and the good things I've seen you do, without any desire for recognition or even thanks. You're a good man. This is beneath you. I'm sorry that your wife has hurt you, but don't let it ruin you, Ryan. Please." In the end, he gave me the name of another PI, while still pleading with me to not let this destroy the person I was.

I was surprised by Dan. Beyond what was necessary to convey my instructions, we'd never talked. Never anything personal. His depth of feeling shocked me.

Max, the new private detective, was from a whole different type of cloth than Dan. He was more like my father than anyone I'd ever met, even as a child. I wanted to shower after our meeting. But he was what I needed at that moment. Unscrupulous was his nature, matching the viciousness that was mine.

Not worried about legalities, Max managed to get phones tapped, bugs planted in homes and offices, and cameras in asshole's apartment. Don't know how he did it, but it was expensive and worth every penny.

I soon had recordings of all Dot's phone conversations and video of her liaisons with Asshole. I was shocked to hear "our" friends encourage Dot to dump me and move on with the asshole. Apparently, I had never really fit in. I was a damper who made everyone uncomfortable. Asshole was much more the elite human that fit into their crowd.

How had I ever thought that these were my friends? How had I ever been deluded by them or by Dot?

Dot claimed in conversations that she had loved me when we met and when we married, but years into our relationship she was just worn down by my stoicism and unwillingness to embrace normal friendships and human interactions. Stoicism? Unwillingness? I thought that I had really tried, had really connected to these people. But no.

"Thank your husband again for spending the weekend sailing with Ryan." Dot said to one of her friends. "I know it's agony for him and the boys."

Her friend just laughed and replied, "Oh, they make it work. Ryan saved Bob a ton of money he would have had to spend digging out our retaining wall when he volunteered to do it. Some of the boys refer to Lumphead (a nickname for me I hadn't known about) as 'Unpaid Labor.' Josh even got him to carry his clubs as well as his own around the course, claiming a bad back."

Dot laughed appreciatively. "Well, thank them for me anyway. It gives Gene and I time to really enjoy each other. I really need it, now that I've been able to convince Lumpy that a hand job is all he can expect. I get so horny that I have to get Gene to sneak away at lunch for a quicky or two!"

"Why don't you just call it quits and marry Gene? Why all the subterfuge?" Her friend asked the question that I was wondering.

"You've been to our house. The fantastic antiques that Miss Kitty and her family accumulated. They're priceless! I can't give that up. Lumphead doesn't appreciate those things; I don't even think he notices. Gene's been having replicates made for me and we've been switching them out and moving the originals to his storage space. When I've gotten all the good pieces, then I can move out. Until then, I'm exercising my arm muscles with the hand jobs I give Ryan. Better than a gym!"

I stopped listening. I probably would never learn when I lost Dot's love or if I had ever really had it. I was surprised at her mercenary nature. Her paramour was wealthier than even my trust fund made me, although not as much as I would have expected. While Dot didn't know about my wealth, I'm betting that she didn't know how bad investments had diminished Asshole's wealth. Yet, knowing she was marrying a wealthy man, she couldn't resist robbing me of Miss Kitty's prize possessions.

That broke me. Knowing I was just a mark for Dot killed any feeling I had for her. Now, all I had left was viciousness.

I told Dot one day that our insurance agent was worried about some of the antiques that were specifically insured by their policies. He was going to have to send out an appraiser soon to reevaluate the pieces. Dot blanched but recovered, saying "Really, we have valuable antiques? I never knew."

I wasn't at all surprised when I was served divorce papers the following week. Dot had decided to get out while the going was good. I didn't fight the divorce at all. Dot wanted things quickly settled and was reasonable in her demands, once she found out that the house, contents and all, were part of a trust and not owned by me. Most of the investment income I had inherited was also protected, so Dot got out with a few hundred thousand. Everything else was mine or protected by the trust.

Once I was free, I could be myself. Vicious.

As soon as the divorce was final, Dot became Mrs. Asshole in a big society wedding, to which all her friends went. It was the event of the year.

While off on their honeymoon, videos of my wife and Asshole, in compromising positions in hotel rooms and his office began showing up on the internet, mysteriously posted. Surprisingly, not a few videos were also posted showing Asshole and other women. He was an equal opportunity type of guy. In one video, he was fucking a 50-year-old woman on his janitorial staff! In others, he was screwing the college interns that work in his office. Interns of both sexes.

He worked for his family's company, but that didn't protect him. It was assumed that one of his enemies had made and posted the videos. I was never even suspected. He was fired from his position and while he still received money from the trust yearly, most of his income that funded his and now Dot's lavish lifestyle, came from the overly generous salary that his family's company paid him. Dot returned from her honeymoon to find that her husband had serious cash flow problems. Her thousands from our divorce were quickly used up just covering the overhead their lifestyle incurred.

My "friends"? No one in the entire group ever tried to contact me once Dot filed for divorce. Of course, having tapped into their phone conversations, I wasn't surprised. I had no friends. Other than Phil, that is. And Dan, who called me at least once a week, was concerned for me. That touched me more than I can say. He reminded me of Miss Kitty, making me think she would maybe not have approved of my actions.

However, my "friends" or rather Dot's friends. I had planned to work at bankrupting them and ruining their lives with any embarrassing thing I could find on them or their families. Turns out there was plenty, but Dan and Miss Kitty had an effect on me, and I couldn't do it.

In the end, I arranged for Max to have some very high class and expensive gigolos seduce the wives while their husbands were off on an adventure. The husbands were also seduced while on that adventure, but Max had to ensure that the prostitutes he hired for them had STDs that they hadn't yet started treatment for. I was surprised Max could supply them, but he said you'd be surprised at how many pimps kept girls working even after finding them infected.

My final act in this tragedy was decided on when I found out that Asshole had mortgaged his family home to cover his continuing lifestyle. Apparently, Dot threated to leave him over the embarrassment of him screwing anything that walked (one joke in town was that his dogs looked nervous!), so he was lavishing gifts on her and making sure that her life was a continuing party.

After finding out that the loan was callable, I arranged to buy it, with the trust. I had all my ducks in a row.

Dot and her friends looked up, shocked as I approached their table. "Hello," I smile at them. I looked at the friends. "I bring greetings from, " and here I listed off all the prostitutes and gigolos Max had provided for them. They all turned whiter than the sheets at a KKK rally. "They've asked me to inform you that you should be tested for STDs, since they all had several. In fact, the Department of Health will be calling to let you know that you've probably been infected."

I turned to Asshole, my grin becoming even bigger. "And this gentleman next to me is from my attorney. He's here to deliver the paperwork to you calling in the loan you took out on your property. I've bought the loan, and I'm calling it."

I gestured towards the police officers who approached. "Dot, these gentlemen are here for you and Asshole, I mean your husband. It seems some property was stolen from me and located in a storage space owned now by you two. Very valuable property. But you'll probably only have to serve 3 years or so in prison. So, the loss of your house shouldn't concern you too much. The state will take good care of you."

I walked away as the officers were putting on the cuffs and reading the newlyweds their rights. I felt pretty good for someone who had lost his wife and friends. I was headed out tomorrow to the West Coast to visit with Phil. He's engaged and wants me to be his best man. And his bride has a sister he wants me to meet.

Dan reminds me of Miss Kitty, and her desire for me to make an effort. I've decided, fuck Dot and her friends. I'm going to let Phil, Dan, and Miss Kitty direct me forward.