Biggest and Best

Something in Gay's voice when she spoke about me held an edge of disdain. This bitch evidently did not think too much of me. I had no idea why, unless it involved my being a move-in rather than having grown up here with all of them. I had only met Gay a couple of times in passing at various events. Claire had not said too much to me about her, other than giving me the fact that they had grown up here in town and gone to school together and they had both been cheerleaders in high school.

[Claire] "Yeah ... bye." But by then, the other woman had already broken the connection.

I went to the family room and walked directly over to the book shelves that held Claire's high school yearbook from her senior year. Taking it back to the den, I sat down and thumbed through, looking for references to the names I had heard discussed.

I found Gay first, on the sixth page of individual shots, recognizing her from the few times I had encountered her. The legend identified her as Gay Marshall back then. Turning to the back, I looked up her name in the picture index and found several references. These turned out to be pictures of her with the varsity cheerleader squad. My breath caught when I saw just how gorgeous Claire looked in her cheerleader uniform standing next to Gay in the group shot. I also recognized Mindy's teacher, Carol Newman (Carol Hinson back then) as one of the other varsity cheerleaders.

Like Claire, Gay had been a real babe back then, but the expression on Gay's face in almost every picture showed that she was really full of herself, reflecting vanity and a sort of smugness. One shot showed her receiving a bouquet and a crown at the homecoming football game. The player presenting the bouquet was identified as Tim Harmon.

Now I had the Tim more than likely identified as Gay's husband, who I had seen around town as well. I did not know him personally, but I knew who he was, since his face, though a little older and fuller, looked down from a billboard out on Highway 6, advertising his auto dealership in town. I got the White Pages and looked up his name in the Residential section; I found it listed as 'Harmon, Tim and Gay', followed by the address on the west side of town and the telephone number. Well, that answered my question about how to locate Tim and Gay.

Back in the yearbook, I looked for other pictures of Tim and found football team pictures. In a shot of the offensive backfield players together, I found pictures labeled with the names Harvey Bland and Dwight Newman. I had remembered hearing about Harvey at my wedding reception -- I deal in details, remember. I had also met him and seen him at Chamber of Commerce meetings a couple of times, but had never had the chance to talk to him much. The White Pages got me his address -- also on the west side of town.

Dwight was someone I knew pretty well, along with his wife, Carol. I saw him and Carol regularly as a client couple and I remembered him from our wedding reception. Our families did not socialize, but we ran into each other quite often, since Mindy was a student in Carol's second grade class and Dwight was now the principal of John Bankhead Magruder Elementary School, where Carol taught.

I had always thought that Carol was nice, and she seemed to want to work hard at educating her students. Her parent-teacher conferences with Claire and me were always thorough and with the best interests of Mindy in mind. I would say that it was a good thing that she taught elementary school. As hot as Carol was, it would have been difficult for the boys in junior high or high school to pay attention to the subject matter with her in front of the class.

Dwight seemed to want little to do with me except to have me manage his investments and insurance. I did that as professionally as possible, even though he fought me on most of my recommendations.

When Claire and I attended school functions, there were not many instances where we got to interact with Dwight much, given the large size of the school. But, during the few times when we did, I always got the uneasy feeling that Dwight was looking at Claire with a little more than just the professional interest of an educator. Sometimes, I saw Carol eyeing me with more than just passing interest as well.

When I went up to bed, Claire was already asleep. That was good, as I did not want to have to carry on any kind of conversation with her right then. I was pissed after hearing the phone recordings that revealed what sounded like confirmation to me of her deception. I knew that she would pick up on my anger in a heartbeat if she were awake.

It took me about an hour to get to sleep. Before I drifted off, I vowed that I would get Sonny to help me thwart the plans of my wife, who, by early indications, really was turning out to be a cheating whore.

I skipped my morning run Monday so that I could get out of the house early and avoid talking to Claire; I was still pissed and I did not want her to pick up on it. I left her a note saying that this was a busy week and that I was spending some unusually long hours working on client accounts for the next few days.

I monitored the movements of Claire's car with the device that Sonny had given me. It showed her going to work and her car remaining at the mall where she worked all day. Of course, she could have gone off in the middle of the day for a rendezvous with one of her men friends and I would not have been able to tell without actually staking her out and following her. I figured that, with the assets I already had in place -- thanks to Sonny -- and the information they were helping me to gather, I would soon probably have enough evidence assembled to establish a good case for divorce -- if I chose to go that route.

Why would I not go that route? If she was cheating on me, giving away to some other asshole the pussy which rightly belongs exclusively to me, then I had every right to divorce her whoring ass! And the majority of guys in my situation would do just that! With as much malice and vengeance as they could conjure up and execute!

But, damn! I loved her. Cheater or not, I loved her.

She was the mother of my wonderful children. For the good of the children, if not our own financial well-being, divorce was just not the way I preferred to go. Yeah, yeah, call me a wimp if you must, but I have to be practical as well as emotional here.

Children from broken homes developed too many emotional problems that affected their lives later on.

And one of the single most devastating financial events in a family's life is divorce.

If I could get her to stop all of this nonsense, I was probably going to keep her around; for the sake of the children; for the sake of our finances (those in the public accounts); and for the sake of the years of love and emotional investment we already had in each other. I wasn't going to let her know all of this, though. Maybe I'd let her sweat it a bit once she finally realized that I knew.

If this panned out as it was starting to look like, I would use the evidence to hang over her head like the Sword of Damocles to keep her in line for the rest of our years together. She would be on as short a leash as I could manage for the rest of her miserable life and she would feel the tug on it every day as it tightened figuratively on her lovely neck. I would make her feel my retribution for any hurt and disappointment that she might cause me for many years to come.

I know that might cause her to seek divorce from me on her own if I were to be too harsh. I would have to temper my attitude and actions to offer her just enough hope to try to tough it out.

I putzed around the office so that I could get home later that night in order to validate the story I had given her in the note that morning. I had noticed today that she had not made any attempts to call me just to say, "Hi." This was unusual. We routinely tried to communicate with each other daily. That had not happened today.

Getting in around nine, I gave Claire a perfunctory kiss and begged off supper, having already grabbed a bite in town. She was quieter than usual and did not argue when I said that I had some things to do on the den computer.

Listening to the recordings of the phone conversations, I heard nothing but routine stuff on the recording from the land line at the house. The one from her cell phone was a different story. When she had turned it on after work, and just before heading home, she had gotten a call from Harvey Bland.

[Harvey] "Hey, Good Looking."

[Claire, with what sounded like a bored or irritated tone] "What is it, Harv?"

[Harvey] "I just wanted to say that everything is set for us tomorrow at my house. Joy is taking the kids to her mother's for the afternoon and evening, and she won't be back until late. So, plan to come on over at seven and just walk in the front door. It will be open."

[Claire] "Harv, can't I get you to reconsider all of this? I mean ... what if Wade finds out? And, with the longer periods of daylight now, it will still be light at seven." I notice that Claire did not mention Harv's wife, Joy, or any concern about her finding out.

[Harvey] "Oh, Claire Bear, I would not miss this opportunity to enjoy your sweet pussy again. You are just too good to pass up. Now, no more arguing; it's going to happen again. I just wish that I had a copy of all the video and pictures, like old Tim."

[Claire, after a pause] "All right; I'll be there. But I can't stay long; just long enough for ... well ... And I need your promise of no more pictures or video! I can't have any more of those floating around."

[Harvey, laughing] "Believe me, Claire Bear; you are going to be here long enough for the both of us to enjoy a good romp in the bedroom. Just look at it as good practice for your upcoming nights with Tim and Dwight. And don't forget the fun we are all planning for Friday. Man, oh, man, that's going to be wild! And, if everything works out afterward, I won't need any new video or pictures; our continued adventures will more than make up for that!"

[Claire] "Look, I can't talk anymore. I have to get home. Goodbye, Harv."

So, she had been fucking Harvey. Here was what amounted to an audio confession of her adultery! I was so pissed I could not see straight for a few seconds! Even though it was after nine-thirty, I decided to call Sonny.

"Sonny," I started in as soon as he answered, "It's Wade. Man, I need your help big time!"

"Hey, you got it, My Man. What's the deal? You getting what you need with your spousal unit's attempts to disrespect you and cheat around?"

"Yeah; thanks for the assets. I've already got her dead to rights in all of this business captured on audio. But I want to put an end to her meets with the assholes that she's cheating on me with." I told him about the planned get-togethers she had on tap for the next night with Harvey, then Wednesday with Tim and Gay, and then again Thursday with Dwight. "I need some help in shutting down those meetings; preferably before they can happen."

I was greeted by a moment of silence on the other end. Then, "You still love her; don't you?"

His quick assessment only surprised me a little bit. I sighed and said, "Yeah. God damn it, Sonny; she's the mother of my children and the only woman I ever imagined spending my life with. Once this episode is dealt with, she and I are going to have a major sit-down and she's going to find out just how close she came to my throwing her under the bus."

"I can arrange for that to happen; literally, I mean," said Sonny.

"NO!" I shouted.

"Hey, I'm just pulling your chain," said Sonny with a short laugh. "We'll get this all sorted out without messing up one hair on her pretty little head. I can't say the same for these guys she's been dealing with. Look, you tell me what you need, and I'll pull out all the stops to get it done."

We talked about the planned upcoming activities and I asked Sonny to try to keep Claire's involvement out of the public eye with whatever he had planned for the Three Amigos ... the Three Assholes ... and Gay, too, I guess.

"Hey, I got an idea on just how to do that. But I need you to stay out of this, Wade. If you try to put your hand in, you could get burned. And you are too valuable to me as a friend and as an asset to our business for anything to happen to you. You hear?" Sonny was very serious in his tone and the emphasis he was putting into his words.

"Okay, Sonny. I won't get in the way. I promise." I was telling him the truth; just not all of it. I was planning to follow Claire so that I could be close by in case anything were to go wrong tomorrow.

I hung up with Sonny and put the computer to sleep. I couldn't help but be tense with all of this going on. I knew that I would have to come up with a cover story for Claire when I got upstairs to bed. When it came to wanting to have sex with her tonight, I did want to ... but, then again, I didn't. If she was giving it away to those other assholes, and maybe playing a game of Lickety-Split with Gay, I really did not want to touch her skanky ass right now. I figured that I had better pull out the old 'too tired from everything today' excuse.

She seemed only slightly disappointed at my lack of interest in sex, but she was quiet after my putting her off. I figured that her conscience was probably bothering her. Either that, or it wasn't bothering her at all and she was trying to get her own story straight as to how she was planning to lie to me so that she could get out of the house for the next three nights; and then again on Friday. Yep, that's just what she did.

"Wade; I have Majestic Parties that will probably go late every night all this week starting tomorrow night. I'm sorry I did not tell you earlier. But, now that I know that you are tied up with work in the evenings as well, I don't feel so bad about not being here for you.

"Mom has agreed to keep Mindy and Paul at her house overnight for Tuesday through Friday and get them to school on Wednesday through Friday mornings. Then she said she would let them stay with her for the weekend."

Claire then looked at me with a sly smile. "That way we can make up for not being able to enjoy each other's ...uh ... company all week. We can stay in bed together all weekend long, if you want to." She had one of her sexiest smiles on.

So, there it was; her cover story; pretend Majestic Jewelry get-togethers going late every night. And, with my supposed late work schedule and with her mom, Nan, watching the kids, she was going to be free to act. It might be a hoot for me to demand to see her Majestic Jewelry sales invoices later to back up all these sales parties. I'll just bet she'd shit gold bricks if I did that.

I said, as reasonably as I could, "Okay, Sweetie. Just remember that I'll hold you to your promise of all weekend in bed." With that, I kissed her and rolled over, facing away from her. She sighed and rolled to face away as well.

Chapter 3

Tuesday, I could hardly think about work at all. I had risen and left the house early, like I had on Monday, skipping my run this time. Grace, my Administrative Assistant, must have thought I was on heavy medication or something, as dopey as I was acting -- and probably looking.

I know that I had told Sonny that I would not do anything personally. But my mind was in turmoil with all sorts of ideas about what my wife was doing -- hell, had been doing -- with these guys she had known for twice as long as she had known me. I had to try to see the proof of my wife's evident infidelity for myself.

I drove to the Sheffield subdivision just outside of the downtown area, where Harvey and Joy Bland had their house -- the location for tonight's scheduled cheating rendezvous. It was not a new subdivision, but there was a new section being developed. There were several houses still under construction -- some just being framed and some almost completed, but being finished inside and landscaped -- just a half block from the Bland house.

I parked just inside the new section -- behind a construction dumpster -- at about quarter to seven, leaving a clear view up the street to the house scheduled for tonight's rendezvous. I hoped that Claire would go straight to the Bland house and not drive this deep into the subdivision to the point at which she might spot my presence.

I noticed several contractor vehicles in the area, despite its being late in the day. There must have been a big push for completion of the work by the developers.

Looking down the street, at the front of the Bland house, five houses down from me on the left, I could see the garage with its door open. The two-car garage only had one car in it. I assumed that this was Harvey's car and that Joy had already left with the kids for the evening.

I drew a deep breath as I saw Claire's Toyota Camry pull into the street and park in the Bland's driveway. She sat there for maybe a whole minute with her head down before exiting the car and walking up toward the front porch.

Halfway up the walk, I hit the speed dial on my cell phone. I saw her pause as I heard the sound of the call going through in my ear. She reached in her purse and pulled her cell phone out. Her face registered surprise as she saw the caller ID, showing that I was the one calling her. Pressing a finger to the face of the phone and holding it to her ear I saw her answer my call.

"Hello? Wade?" she answered tentatively.

"Hi, Honey. How's it going with the Majestic party? Are the ladies drooling over the catalogue listings and the sample items?" I asked.

"Oh ... unh ... we are just now getting to the refreshments, Honey. We haven't started the presentation yet," she lied. "Are you going to be very late tonight?"

I bit off my bitter response and took a quick cleansing breath. "Yeah; it looks like it might be around ten or eleven. What about you?"

"It will probably be around eleven for me, like most of the times when we throw these parties. You know the ladies like to talk for a bit after the sales presentations are complete and while the orders are all being logged," she said.

"I just hope that the regional sales lady does not schedule this many parties this close together again. I will probably need that time I promised you this weekend just to catch up on my rest as well as catching up on our 'us' time." She had told me all of her lies just as smoothly and as naturally as if nothing sordid could ever be going on.

I was quiet for long enough for her to get concerned enough to say something else. "Honey, is everything all right? You are coming across as if something were bothering you."

I answered, "Sweetie, I'm just distracted by all the things that are keeping us apart right now. Just in case I haven't said it to you enough times lately, I want you to know that, whatever happens, I love you very much."

She paused for a second and then said, "I ... I love you, too, Honey; very much." She paused again and said, "Wade, I ...," then she paused again.

I waited. Then I said, "Yes?"

"Just ... I love you and I always will. I gotta go. Jill wants me to help out back." With that, she broke the connection. I watched from down the street as she looked at her phone for a second or two before dropping it back in her purse.

She visibly sighed and turned back toward the house of Asshole Harvey Bland and climbed the two steps leading to the front porch. She paused again before reaching for the door handle. I remember Good Ole Harvey telling her to walk right on in. It looked now like he had not left the door open as he had said he would. Claire tried the handle for a few seconds and then pressed the doorbell when the door would not open for her.

By this time, I was ready to hop out of my 4Runner and dash over there and grab her by her hair to drag her away and demand of her just what the hell she was thinking in all of this. I wanted her to explain it all to me and tell me why she was lying, cheating, and tearing my heart out.