Winning (The Lottery)

Further, I had a bad feeling that a divorce would cost me quite a bit, financially. I didn't know very much about how those things worked, but had heard of a few cases where the woman got herself a good lawyer and absolutely raked the man over the coals. For now, I thought it was cheaper to keep her.

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So that's where I found myself that Monday, sitting in my driveway. Thank goodness for the occasional cash tips I would get from grateful clients. Kristy never did find out about those, and it was the only way I could actually manage to hold everything together and afford the few things for myself that I did. Or, indeed, groceries

.

Snapping out of my reverie and brushing the bread crumbs off my chest, I stepped out of the truck and walked into the house. Odd, I thought, the living room was dark. Lazy as she was, Kristy was generally at least up by then and at least watching TV, if not out in town spending more of my fuckin money. Whatever, I thought. I took off my boots, hung up my work shirt, and started walking back to the master suite when I heard, you guessed it, the sounds that signaled my marriage was well and truly over.

I froze. "Fuck me, Chad, fuck me harder! Fill me up with that big fat cock! Oh God, it feels so good in my ass!"

I heard grunts and groans from who I could only assume was Chad. Wait a minute, wasn't her toxic ex named Chad? How the fuck did he find his way here?

"Oh God, that was so good! I just love feeling your hot nasty spunk in my dirty little asshole."

What the fuck? Like I said earlier, I could take or leave anal sex, but I thought it hurt too much for her. Another lie, it turns out. Though the my ego whispered, maybe it meant his dick was smaller than mine. Not that it mattered anymore. Then I heard something even more chilling.

Chad this time: "So, babe, when are you going to dump the cuck loser so we can finally be together for real?"

"Chad, darling, you know I can't just yet. I'm trying to save up some money so I can get a good lawyer, that way I can clean him out good. Maybe I can even end up owning his business. He's doing well with that. In fact, I think the bastard is holding out on me. He has to be raking it in, he's always working." Dunce clearly had no idea that A: there are a lot of expenses involved in running a business, and B: she was already spending what I did manage to bring home on frivolous shit. Was this what it was really all about? Was I not providing her the life she wanted?

I found out later, although Kristy did break it off with Chad all those years ago, Chad never quite got the memo. I believe the term the kids use these days is "ghosting". Anyway, Chad finally managed to track Kristy down. He came to town and just "happened" to run into Kristy one day while she was shopping for some unnecessary piece of jewelry or other. By then, the shine was wearing off our marriage a little bit, so it didn't take a lot to get her back into bed with him. And he was good at playing on her frustration that I didn't have more money to spend on her.

Back to Chad: "Well, babe, I've been waiting for you for eight long years. I've had to hang out in this bullshit hick town for two years already. I know it'll be worth it in the end, but dammit, you and I both are tired of living on relative scraps when cucky boy has all this money! Isn't there any way we can get that money sooner so we can get the fuck out of this shithole?" Again, I'm not sure what money they thought I had. I had read a paper from a psychologist one time, wherein she described the phenomenon how lazy folks with no means of their own become insanely jealous of those they think do have money. Maybe that applied here.

Kristy responded, "Eight years? Interesting." But she never quite seemed to connect the dots and come up with "stalker".

"But, you know, I have a wicked idea. Let's see if we can get that wonder-cock of yours hard again and you can dump a load in my pussy, and I'll make cuck boy eat it out of me when he gets home. It's probably about time I throw him a little leg anyway just so he doesn't get suspicious. And hey, maybe you could put a little baby in there and we can make him raise it as his own!"

Chad: "As funny as that would be, we can't add children to the equation. The idea is to get his money and make a clean break, remember? Children would only tie you to him for longer than we want."

"You're right as always babe. But come on, give me that hot load so I can feed cucky later!"

I almost lost it right there. How many times had she pulled that stunt on me before? How many times had I come home from work, and she was absolutely raring to go? Now the very thought made me physically ill. I nearly lost my lunch right there, but somehow held it down. One thing I knew for sure...I wouldn't fuck that bitch with a stolen dick. Not anymore. After her last comments, any lingering thought I may have had about salvaging this marriage completely evaporated and my thoughts started to turn to how I could burn the two of them.

One thought I had was literally burning them. Like torching the house with them in it. While the idea had a certain appeal, it had several obvious flaws. First, fire investigators are really good at finding accelerants. Second, I had no solid alibi for my whereabouts. Third, even though the house was insured, it would only cover actual replacement cost, which I figured was something less than what I still owed on the mortgage. Fourth, insurance didn't pay out in cases of arson anyway.

I briefly considered busting into my bedroom and confronting them, but just as quickly decided discretion was the better part of valor. I had heard enough and needed to consider my next moves. Besides, I suddenly realized I really needed to pee. I thought about using the hallway bathroom, but quickly decided they would hear the flush and wonder why I was home. As much as they didn't want me to catch them, I also figured they didn't need to know I knew. That would give me the element of surprise when I sprung my trap on them. Trouble was, I had no idea what that trap would be.

I did have a wicked idea, though. I slipped into the garage, opened up her little Cadillac that she just had to have, and pissed all over the seats. With luck it would soak into the seats and the carpeting. It was scant justice for the wrongs she was visiting on me, but it made me feel better, at least just a little bit. That done, I slipped back out and got in my truck.

I decided to drive over to my parents. They were surprised to see me: "I thought you were working?"

I told them how I came about having the afternoon off, going home early, and what transpired there. Both were shocked and I could see Dad turning red. Mom simply said I should stay for dinner; she was making her world-famous lasagna. Or at least it should have been, if she'd ever share her recipe!

Over dinner we discussed my options. Mom thought I should divorce the bitch, posthaste. Dad and I pointed out the obvious flaws in that. We pondered the idea of temporarily moving to another, more man-friendly state and divorcing the bitch there, but a quick Internet search revealed the only place in the United States that was even close to fair was American Samoa--and that only because divorce there traditionally consisted of throwing the cheating scumbags into an active volcano.

Mom and Dad did point out that the longer I waited, the more expensive it was going to get. Both in terms of alimony, and how much she would get out of my business.

"But she never put a dime or a drop of sweat into my business! How can her getting anything out of it possibly be justified, especially when adultery is involved? What sane court could possibly justify that?"

"Agreed, but that's how it is these days. Women can take 100,000 miles of strange cock all they want, and that doesn't matter in the eyes of the law. What matters is what they see as an equitable distribution of community property."

Dad and I discussed the relative merits of bumping them both off. "You know, son, I've got a farm and a tractor. Lots of place to bury the bodies, and I've always been curious how humans are as fertilizer."

I said, "The idea has a certain appeal. My luck, though, wild dogs would find the bodies. Besides, if we did that, we're no better than they are. Worse, in fact." We quickly discarded that idea. It was all joking anyway, right? That's our story, and we're sticking to it.

Mom went a different direction: "She seems so sweet. Is there no chance of reconciliation? Maybe with a good strong post-nup to back you up?"

"Hell no!" I shouted. "Once a cheater, always a cheater. I trusted her completely and fully, and she chose to break that in the worst manner possible. That kind of trust never comes back, not fully. I'd always be wondering about what she was up to. That's just no way to live."

"I thought so, and I know it's not ideal, but I was just thinking of a way you might be able to protect what's yours. But no, you're right, I couldn't imagine living that way."

In the end, I decided to see a lawyer and see what my options were. Dad gave me a card for the firm he used to handle his affairs, a firm called Dewey, Phukem, and Howe. "For lawyers, they're actually pretty decent people, never done me wrong," Dad said.

I was dreading the prospect of going back to the cheating cunt when Mom suggested I stay the night. I didn't want to impose, but Dad pointed out I needed to be away for a bit to cool off, lest I do something monumentally stupid.

As always, my parents were right. I called home and made up a lame excuse about having an emergency plumbing call that was likely to take me well into the wee hours. "It looks like it's going to be late enough I'll probably just crash at my parents' tonight. Anyway, I gotta go, the lady of the house is already giving me the stink eye." I hung up. That last statement was actually mostly true--the lady of the house being Mom, and she was in fact giving a real stink eye toward my phone. I briefly wondered if Kristy even noticed I didn't give her my usual "I love you" before ending the call. Not that I cared anymore.

We sat up a bit longer, Dad and I shared a couple beers, and we talked a bit more about my options and what I might do going forward. We discussed a few ideas that I would question my lawyer about.

The next few days passed by as usual. I worked, went home when necessary, but generally tried to come up with any pretext to stay over with my parents. Wouldn't you know it, Dad had injured his leg somehow and they needed my help around the farm. I couldn't tell if Kristy was upset or not about that. Maybe it gave her the chance to fuck Chad some more in what used to be my marital bed. My only concern was that she not get suspicious, but odds were good the self-centered bitch wouldn't have noticed anyway.

I did call the lawyers when I had a break Tuesday morning. One of their divorce attorneys had an opening Thursday morning. I had a job scheduled then, but Mick agreed he would fit it in between his jobs. Good man, I was going to have to pay him back.

Thursday morning came and I found myself sitting across an impossibly large oak desk from one Natalia DeVine. She took one look at me, and I could tell she wasn't impressed. Given how I was dressed, she probably figured I couldn't afford her. She did have the best reputation in the firm, though, and was probably savvy enough to realize appearances weren't everything. Truth was, she was probably right, I probably couldn't afford her fee, especially if Kristy did what we expected and fought the divorce.

I gave her the story and was not surprised when she laid out exactly how financially fucked I was going to be. The surprise came when I learned that, practically speaking, I would probably be forced to sell my business or otherwise liquidate it. Even worse was a new scheme the courts had cooked up. Seems more than a few business owners had managed to sell off their businesses for a song--on paper. Enough complaints came back that it was decided the court had sole discretion to decide what a business was worth, and they were almost uniformly excessively generous in their valuations.

There was a famous local case, a really nasty divorce where a local restaurateur had honestly tried to sell his restaurant for what he could get, but could only manage to get $500,000. His wife, who by all accounts never met a cock she didn't like, preferably multiple, had a real shark of a lawyer who pulled out some bullshit about how that restaurant had done really well 20 years ago and therefore it was worth a lot more. The court agreed and set the valuation at closer to $2 million. Half of that left the man still owing half a million out of pocket, money he didn't have. They found the poor bastard six months later, seems he thought it a good idea to do a load test of his ceiling, using his own body weight. Scant justice, seeing as the bitch never saw "her" money, but more to the point, the precedent had been set.

I asked my lawyer the obvious question: "At no point in our marriage has Kristy so much as contributed a drop of sweat or a single dime toward my business. Every bit of my business was built up by Mick and I. Doesn't that matter?"

"Not a bit," Natalia replied. "The legal theory is, by staying home and taking care of the house, she's allowing you to do your job without having to worry about taking care of domestic chores."

"Huh, that's funny, because she has never done a lick of that either. In fact, as far as I can determine, her job consists of spending as much of my money as she possibly can on high-end clothing and jewelry."

"Still doesn't matter to the court. In truth, they have so many divorce cases on their docket they just figure split everything and give the non-revenue earning spouse--usually the wife--alimony so she can maintain the standard of living she's accustomed to."

That one brought my brain to a screeching halt. Accustomed to? I assume, if you're willing to throw away a marriage by fucking around, you're also willing to give up what you're accustomed to. Besides, what does that term even mean? As Chris Rock once said, when you go to a restaurant, you're accustomed to eating. When you leave, you ain't eating any more. They don't owe you a steak!

My lawyer continued: "The one mitigating factor when it comes to your business is, the court may decide that, as a partnership, that each partner is due half. So Mick would get half, and then Kristy would only be able to claim half of your half."

"Okay. How about this, what if we re-write the business where Mick is the sole proprietor and I'm solely his employee?" I knew Mick would play a straight bat with me, once this unpleasantness was cleaned up we'd go back to being full and equal partners. Worth a shot, I thought.

"You could. But the courts aren't stupid. Most likely, you'd have to continue in that arrangement for at least two years, to show that you weren't doing that just to avoid paying out. Even then, a good lawyer could likely claim Kristy was due a payout for the years you did own the business."

"So, essentially, I'm faced with either paying Kristy out at some arbitrary value set by a court not necessarily friendly to me. Worse, my business would end up getting destroyed, and my best friend would end up as collateral damage. Or, I could stick out my farce of a marriage for a few more years, in the hope of saving my business and not having to fork over as much money, but that's not even guaranteed. Is that about right?"

"That's about the sum of it, yes. Everyone has different ideas of what 'fair' means, and this is what the courts have determined."

I was pissed. How the fuck does it work that she fucks around on me, schemes with her lover to clean me out as much as possible, and she gets rewarded? My Irish stubbornness kicked in; I simply refused to contemplate the idea that those two would get rewarded for bad behavior.

I thanked Natalia and let her know I'd get back to her after I had some time to think. Besides, I had to get to my job that afternoon. Natalia reminded me that it wasn't going to get any better if I waited; it was simply a matter of getting fucked or getting really fucked. She also gave me the fairly standard warning of not being stupid and not knocking Kristy up. She did also let me know that, while this initial consultation was free, if I wished to continue, I would have to leave a retainer. Even a quick phone call with a simple question, taking ten seconds of her time, was a billable hour.

Dammit, where was I going to get the money to leave a retainer? Did I even want to leave one? I called Dad to ask his advice and he told me I would be smart to go ahead and leave a retainer. He also let me know that, financially, I was on my own on this one--they were strapped themselves.

I called Mick and he said much the same thing, get that retainer in. He was the one who had the idea to "borrow" it from our business. "Bluey, I'm not 100% sure if this is fully legal, but if you can resolve this in the next few months we can probably bury it. If not, well maybe it'll help show the business isn't doing that well and we wouldn't be out so much. Maybe we could even sort of justify it as protecting the business."

So it was that I used the business credit card to leave a hefty retainer for Natalia. It's been said that clients get exactly what they pay for from legal representation, and I could only hope that proved to be the case for me.

I spent the next few weeks in a fog. What could I do? I thought again about making Kristy and Chad disappear, but I knew I would be suspect number 1, 1A, B, III, and D. Even if the authorities could never prove anything, the allegations would dog me for the rest of my life. Simply hoping she would just suffer a random heart attack seemed a long shot, at best. Maybe I could arrange that. Nah, medical examiners these days are really sharp and would be suspicious of an otherwise healthy 30-year-old woman suddenly developing a bad ticker. Hell, I'd have a better chance at winning the lottery than beating that rap.

Wait, didn't I buy a lottery ticket a couple weeks ago? Maybe I should check that. I had half an eye on the TV, halfway zoned out, when a segment on the news caught my attention. "...local news, the winner of the $12 million Lotto America jackpot from earlier this month has yet to come forward. Lottery officials say the ticket was bought at the Valero convenience store near the town of South Northlake Hills. Officials say the claimant has 180 days to come forward or the winnings are forfeited forever."

I retrieved my ticket and checked the numbers from the winning drawing. And there it was...all the numbers matched! I had $12 million in my hand! Well, not $12 million. After taxes, and taking the lump sum payout, the true number was going to be somewhere closer to $5 million. Still nothing to sneeze at. Maybe I could push through a quick divorce, pay the bitch whatever, and then cash the ticket. Surely, she couldn't claim what was paid out after the divorce, right?

Natalia quickly set me straight on that. "It doesn't matter when you claim it. What matters is when you purchased it. And, no matter how you slice it, you clearly bought it while still married. She would be entitled to her half, on top of everything else."

"But it was my money that bought it. Doesn't that mean something?"

"Unfortunately, no. Any money you have while married is considered community property, therefore the ticket purchased was with community money, therefore the ticket is community property. Look, I know you hate the idea of paying your wife anything, and this will just enrich her all the more, but at least this way you still walk away with something."