Wet Encounters Ch. 16

"Where were we?" I asked. "Oh, that's right. After Juanita had managed to strip me of everything I owned - and everything I was ever likely to own - we decided to play something a little less susceptible to chea... sorry, Juanita, manipulation. Juanita was setting up the game of Squatter while I refilled our drinks. I returned to the table to find her in tears. It turned out that, as she had opened the box, she'd seen the panel upon which the name of the game's owner was written. Now, most people usually don't bother filling in this panel but, in this case, the owner's name had been written with a neat, feminine hand. That hand had been her own and the name in the panel was, John James Stewart."

I was looking squarely at James as I said these last words and watched as the colour drained from his darkly tanned face.

I then look across at Liz but she had her head bowed and she was crying as if it would never stop. Strangely, I had no desire to comfort her. Of course, Juanita and I had both already shed our tears. That had happened when she had opened the box to find her son's name proudly emblazoned on the board.

"There were a number of other clues as to the users of the cabin but the tray and the board game were the clinchers.

"The discovery that the two of you have been carrying on your illicit affair since I went down to Australia to bury my mother in January, ripped both our hearts out. In the process of Juanita and me comforting each other, we ended up sharing the double bed." I wasn't about to assuage their guilt by telling them about our earlier adventures.

"We slept together and fucked ourselves stupid for the remaining time we were in the cabin.

"We came up here early this morning with the sole purpose of catching you out. We knew you wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of continuing with your adulterous relationship. And doing it under my roof - with our children in the next room and our staff around - would have made it doubly exciting for you.

"The thing is, Jimmy, that I won't be your cuckold. And Liz, I told you after I'd caught you with your old boyfriend back before we were married, I don't do sloppy seconds. If I thought you were worth hanging onto, I'd do to James what I did to your old boyfriend. But you're not. And neither is he.

"When you leave here today, James, you will be taking Liz with you - assuming she wants to go with you, that is. If that's not what she wants, I'll put her on the next plane heading to Australia. What you won't be taking home with you, though, is Juanita. I have asked Juanita to be my wife and she has agreed to live with me in a de facto relationship until both our divorces have been finalised. As soon..."

"Just hang on there!" James interrupted, leaping to his feet. Once again, he stood over me in an attempt to intimidate me. "I'm not about to just hand over my wife in some sort of tit-for-tat swap. That's... that's... that's ludicrous."

"I'm afraid you are, James," Juanita said. "You chose Liz over me when the pair of you betrayed your vows the first time you fucked her; an event which I suspect happened before you established your love nest. Had it been a one-off fling, as you tried to convince us of earlier this morning, it might have been forgiven. But it wasn't a one-off, casual liaison. It has been an ongoing relationship during which both you and Liz have plotted and schemed and connived so you could conduct your illicit rendezvous at the abandoned mill manager's house.

"So focussed have you been on your dick and her cunt that she has left her children in the care of their nanny for days on end so the pair of you could fuck yourselves stupid. And I have no doubt that you would have done the same thing had the situations been reversed. At least with her under your roof, you won't have to sneak about to get your rocks off.

"Maybe one day, you'll be able to tell me what it was that you saw in her that you didn't see in me. I'll look forward to hearing it. Perhaps Liz might do the same for Matthew. I suspect that it comes down to the fact that Liz is needier than I am and you require someone who needs you more than I do. I hope it works out for you both.

"But, no, James, I won't be returning to Tobari with you. I'll be staying here with Matthew.

"But... but... but," stuttered James.

"Be quiet, Jim, darling," Liz said, her voice a mixture of defeat and relief. "It's what we've been talking about doing, anyway. We just hadn't found the right way to tell Matt and Juanita. It's funny how circumstances often dictate the timing of events.

"I know I have been keeping you at arm's length, Matt. But I've found that having sex with you has been uncomfortable and sometimes painful since Tracey was born. I'm sorry about that. Unfortunately, I just find you are too big. I also suspect that I've kept you at arm's length because I've been feeling guilty about my infidelity. I know how you feel about being betrayed and about sharing a woman who has been with another man. I knew you wouldn't harm me if you found out. I was afraid of what you would do to Jim, though.

"Now that everything is out in the open, I should tell you all that I think I'm pregnant. While it could be yours, Matthew, I suspect it is probably Jim's."

"If we hadn't sorted something out beforehand, things would have come to a head when the baby was born anyway; particularly if it had black hair and looked like Jim.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble we've caused to you both but Jim and I fell in love. We couldn't help it. And, once we'd started our affair, it snowballed.

"You're probably right, Juanita. I probably am needy. I know I certainly need someone to show that I'm loved more than Matt does. He's his own man but he doesn't understand that not everyone else is like him. I think you'll be right for each other. Just as I'm sure that Jim and I will be right for each other.

"We can look at the finer detail later," Liz continued, but the big question is, what is going to happen to the children? I know that I've made some unwise choices; leaving them with their nanny while Jim and I were off feeding our lust being one of them. But I promise you, Matthew, that I will never do that again. Not ever.

"I will understand if you were to choose to fight me for their custody but I would dearly love to prove to you that I can be a good mother to them. I would like to take them with me when I move over to Tobari; if that's all right with you? Assuming, of course, that that's what Jim wants."

I agreed to Liz taking the girls with her but attached some stringent conditions to that agreement. The first, of course, was that James acceded to taking them on. He needed to understand that Liz was part of a package. I left him in no doubt that now was the time to voice any doubts he might have. I also explained to him that if I ever found out that he was abusing either Liz or the children in any way, his life would end abruptly.

"If you don't believe me," I told him, "ask Liz to explain what happened to her ex-boyfriend the night I caught them together. That might give you an inkling of what could have happened here, today. But what happened to him was reasonably quick. Should I have reason to take any action against you, James, it will be anything but quick. And it certainly won't be painless."

He agreed that, while I would always be their father, he would raise them as if they were his own. In the spirit of détente, he also agreed that his and Juanita's son, John, would come to live with his mother and me. I specified that the same conditions that I had put on his taking on my children would apply to his son. He would remain the boy's father but I would raise him as if he were my own son.

Sharing the children and things like visitation right didn't create any dramas. We all agreed that it would be an as and when thing and that none of the parents would be denied reasonable access to their children.

It was also agreed that divorce proceedings should be started as soon as was possible. James was a bit hesitant about that part of the negotiations, fearing that Juanita was going to sue him for a large portion of his property. It didn't worry Liz so much. She knew we had nothing to split, anyway.

I was pleased to hear Juanita tell James that he could stick his plantation up his arse. She wanted nothing of his to remind her of the seven years she had put into their marriage. She said that she would rather walk away with nothing than have this whole sordid business dragged through the courts.

"I would rather move into the mill manager's hut and live on tinned fish and rice than spend another night under the same roof with you; you son of a whore." She had remained calm through the whole of the inquisition and most of the following discussions but now she was letting both her husband and his lover have both barrels.

I found it challenging to keep up with her as most of what she said was said in Ecuadorian-accented Spanish. I did catch snippets, however, and it seemed that James' British ancestry came up a few times; although she didn't seem to recognise any difference between England and Scotland. During her tirade, I thought I caught some reference to King Philip of Spain's armada and how they should have blown the British navy out of the water, which might - in some mysterious way - have prevented him from ever being born.

Her next salvo was fired at Liz. During her attack, I heard several references to la puta which, I knew, was Spanish for 'slut'. I got the impression that she was also giving her a back-handed compliment on the way she had reacted to having Juanita's finger inserted into her rectum - el recto - and suggested that she should ask James to fuck her up the arse - la sodomita.

While I might only have been getting snippets, the message was fairly clear. I was certain that, at one point, she extended an invitation to Liz to leave the girls with their nanny and meet her down at the mill manager's cottage for a repeat of this morning's session. That one wasn't difficult to miss as the word for muff-diving is the same in both English and Spanish - cunnilingus.

With her spleen vented, she sat down, which allowed me to once again take the floor.

"Before I say anything else, may I express my gratitude to Juanita for expressing such faith in my ability to provide for her and John's future needs." I looked down at her upturned face and rubbed my hand over her back and shoulder. We exchanged smiles.

"I might only be a plantation manager but I fully intend to have a property of my own in the future. I know that money has never been a driving force in your thinking, Liz, but I hope you know that everything I have done during the few short years we've been married has been directed at providing us - you, me and our two beautiful daughters - with a sustainable future. A future in which we wouldn't have to continually weigh up our wants against our needs. A future in which, taking a three-month leave after each two-year contract, didn't mean having a splurge for the first month followed by me having to find work to keep us going until we returned to New Guinea.

"I believe that you've fallen on your feet, though, with James, and you will have attained that goal before me. I really hope you appreciate what you've got and that you can prove to be more loyal to him than you were to me.

"I'll talk to my lawyer, Jim, but I think we should be able to structure an agreement in which Juanita foregoes any claim against you or your estate, present and future, and Liz does the same concerning me and my estate, such as it is. Or such as it might become.

"I think that, under the circumstances, any talk of alimony can be waived, with such a waiver to be duly noted in our agreement. As far as the children go, I'm happy to contribute to my children's upkeep if you agree to contribute to John's. Education is going to be something we'll have to look at in the future. They'll all probably end up having to go to school in Australia once they reach their high school years, but their primary years can be catered for locally. They've recently opened a school over on Araka Plantation to cater for the kids of the people working there and for children of the locals working on the plantation. I believe that, for a relatively small fee, they'd be open to taking on our kids."

With the tears and the angst out of the way, I suggested that Liz grab a couple of suitcases and start packing clothes for herself and the girls for a few days while I shaved, showered and changed into clean work clothes. I still had to go over to compound to check on the damage and conduct the usual Saturday morning ration issue. I also wanted to give Juanita and James time alone so they could either talk or so Juanita could kill him.

"Just one question, Jim," I said as I was leaving the room. "Can she cook?"

"Juanita is an excellent cook," he answered. "Why do you ask?

"Oh, no reason, really. She just seemed a bit stove-shy while we were marooned down in the cabin."

I left them to it.

"Don't you touch me, you slimy pedazo de mierda - piece of shit!" I heard as I pulled the door closed behind me. Obviously, James had attempted to reach over to console Juanita.

By the time I returned home after checking on my labourers and issuing them their rations, William had prepared sandwiches for lunch. Only Sarah, Tracey and I seemed to have an appetite.

With lunch out of the way - and while the other adults were sipping on their tea - I pulled Rebecca and William together in the kitchen and explained what was happening. It's a funny thing but, whether they be house servants or servers in a café or restaurant, these people are invisible. I found that incredible. They were key members of the household. They saw everything that went on. I figured that if you kept them out of the loop, they would return to their village at the end of each day with their own interpretation of events to relay to their friends and families.

Having asked them whether they wanted to stay on under a new Missus or leave, they both opted to stay. In Rebecca's case, however, I requested that she go over to Tobari with the girls and stay with them until they settled in. She agreed that that would be the best thing for the children and went to pack her small swag of personal effects.

I explained the outcome of the discussions I had had with the staff to the others when I returned to the table. James agreed to allow John's nanny to return with us if she agreed to do so. None of us wanted to create any more trauma for our children than was necessary.

The hardest part of the whole exercise - for me, at least - was trying to explain to my daughters that they and Mummy were going to stay with Uncle James for a while. They accepted it much better than I thought they would. It was only many years later that Sarah told me that they thought they were only going to stay with Uncle James for a few days; a bit of a holiday. They had no idea that it was going to be a forever thing. It ripped my guts out to hear that.

James set off in the lead mounted on the tractor he had driven over to my place only a few short days ago. Who would have known that when he headed back home, it would be to start a new life with a new family?

After loading Rebecca and her gear and my family's suitcases into the load tray of my truck, I settled the girls into the back seat. Liz then started to climb up into the front passenger seat, just as she would usually have done. I reached over and grabbed her arm. It was the first time I had touched her since arriving home just after sunrise that morning.

"Passengers in the back," I said to her. "Let's start this journey off on the right foot. My wife rides shotgun in my truck. And that's a position you threw away when you took up with good old Jimbo."

I ignored the tears that sprang to life in her eyes and steered her towards the rear door.

After getting her settled in beside the girls, I closed the door. I then helped Juanita to climb up into the navigator's seat.

"Are we all set?" I asked, attempting to disguise my sadness by putting on a fake - a very fake - smile.

"Yes, Daddy," the two girls replied in unison. I heard nothing from Liz.

"Yes, Mister Matthew," replied Juanita; or was it Noan?

*****