I Don't Mind, It Don't Matter

I owe many thanks to 'slow_n_gentle', an excellent editor and writer extraordinaire in his own right, for his patient tutelege through this, my formative stage; and in particular for the insight and technical guidance he has graciously provided for this story. SNG, you know what else I want to say here. But, on with the story...

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I recall the day I found out, and then confirmed from multiple independent sources, that my wife had never been faithful to me - not when we were dating, the five years we lived together, the six months we were engaged, or the year since our wedding. Apparently, fidelity was a concept she just couldn't understand or didn't agree with.

It was a shame, really. Of the hundred or so women I'd dated over the years before I met Sarah, she was the only one I ever considered marrying. At the time I asked for her hand, I loved her more than anything I'd ever had or ever wanted to have.

I would have even given away my dog, my best friend for twenty years and loved like a brother, to have Sarah for my own. As you will see, it was unfortunate that I didn't. He took to her right away and she seemed to like him, or so I thought at the time.

Sarah was awesome. It wasn't that she was beautiful in the face. She was only really about average in that respect. But, she had everything else a woman, or a man, would kill for.

A true ash blond, she was 5'11" tall, about 150 tight pounds, a figure that checked in at 38Cx24x37, a heart-shaped ass and fine legs she could show off in anything she wore. I was able to get her to lactate even before she got pregnant.

And, she could cook a passable meal, including wild game when I went hunting. I ask you, what man wouldn't like to come home to a woman like that after a hard day's work?

For almost seven years, we had fucked at least once a day and often two or three times, even more on weekends. She really wasn't all that great in the sack, and those stinky pussy farts kind of turned me off when I was sucking her twat; but what the hell, you can't have everything and what I had was enough for me to overlook the little shit.

What I didn't know was that I was getting 'sloppy seconds' almost every time. She must have swamped it out before getting home, because it wasn't fishy smelling in those early days. I bet she got a laugh out of that.

When I first found out about her 'dalliances', I couldn't understand why she would have done what she did. I had told her and showed her how much I loved her every day, treated her well and often, made sure she was satisfied in bed and had all the money she needed or wanted.

As a known and sought-after software designer and engineer, not only did I make a six-figure salary (immense for those days); but I'd sold various pieces of leading-edge software over the past eight years and squirreled more than a few million dollars away in a Swiss account to be forgotten until I was ready to retire around age forty, eight or nine years in the future.

The annual royalties from that software were also going into those foreign accounts. Not having a pre-nup agreement, I would one day be very glad I never told Sarah about those deals and hidden account, and kept no records at home.

As with a woman and 'only her hairdresser knows', only my accountant knew my little secret. I thought I'd just surprise her one day.

After we married, she had insisted on us buying a house before she would consider having a baby. I did that and, to simplify things, put it under my name only.

We were married. She'd get it automatically if I was killed in an accident or something, and it would be paid off in full by the mortgage insurance. I'd covered the bases, so what difference did it make? While she shopped, I signed my old life away.

Then we found that she couldn't conceive due to an internal problem. We got that fixed and had a green light for babymaking. I thought life was good. Given what I now know, I'd been deluding myself. The first clue that all was not right in paradise was a bitter pill to swallow.

Sarah poisoned my dog, Coon, in an undiluted industrial-strength full-body flea bath. She'd worked in kennel and knew what would happen.

He went deaf and blind, and exuded asphalt-like chunks out of his skin until he died of convulsions one night. I dug his grave through snow and frozen winter ground that Christmas.

As I was sweating in the cold wind, I thought back to the war when I'd had to stuff a good friend into a body bag so he could be shipped home to his family. This was no different and it's as HARD as it gets. Turns out, there is something as bad, just in a different way.

She intentionally killed him...the heartless bitch; but my intense love for her let me get past that...for the time being. Clue number two was all too soon forthcoming.

Not long after Coon died, she cut me off for no apparent reason. No sex for weeks and then months. She simply refused. Well, that pissed me off mightily. The two clues had me certain that there was something I wasn't seeing. I began looking into what she might be doing and not telling me about.

It all happened back in the days when cell phones weighed thirty pounds and were pretty rare, so I hooked up a high-tech (for the time) voice-activated cassette tape recorder to our home phone line in my basement workshop.

She had no reason to go in there and I hid the only key to that door. I soon found out what I'd been missing and why.

I felt like that proverbial mushroom, kept in the cave and shit upon until ready to pluck and eat.

In one of her recorded telephone conversations, she told a GF she'd only married me because I could make her rich and that she intended to divorce me as soon as we had OUR first million in the joint accounts; which were at the moment very close to reaching her stated goal.

She also intended to get our house. I knew in this 'no-fault' state, the fucking courts would let her have it, and stick me with the mortgage for eighteen years before we split the equity; although she might have to be pregnant to seal that deal.

She stood to get at least 50% of everything I'd been able to build and, depending on her shyster, maybe 70%. I shelled out for a PI.

Yeah I know, why you ask, if it's 'no fault'?

Simple, family court is a 'court of equity', provided that there are no children involved. That means the bad guy doesn't get to walk away with all the bacon. And while I may not end up the winner, I wasn't going to end up the loser.

All the phone messages I recorded at home between her and her GFs and paramours, the videos and still shots that my PI got, and the dozens of conversations and affidavits from (ex)friends and acquaintances filled in the story I'd been ignorant of.

She'd slept with nearly all of my friends, her friends, our friends, and dozens of strangers including druggies with needles - one at a time; and in all-day, all-night orgies. Most of it had been bareback and no BC at all. It was obvious she didn't care who got her pregnant.

There were only a few of my friends she hadn't been able to fuck because they WERE faithful to their wives and/or loyal to me.

It was my good fortune that we'd ceased having sex. She had been refusing me for the past four months; and now I didn't dare risk the various STDs, least of all, the HIV/AIDS that was recently found to be transmitted from men to women and then on to new partners on both sides. I got myself tested and came up clean, thank heavens.

I'd always been a calculated risk-taker, but I remembered the movie, "The Deer Hunter". Russian roulette wasn't my game, especially with the semi-automatic pistol I was married to.

Everything I knew and depended on had been thrown into a shitstorm, and I needed to do some fast damage containment. The morning after I overheard that conversation, I began to make some rapid changes in the way things were arranged.

The Swiss had already been relaxing what used to be the world's best bank security, so I moved my funds from my account there into coded accounts in the Caribbean region that were still invincible.

I also shifted all my local personal holdings and had my paychecks re-directed for direct payment into other numbered Carib accounts that would also be out of her reach.

With my ass-ets covered, my remaining problem was what to do about her. When I discovered the true scope of the situation, the only solution became clear... get rid of her before she had somebody else's kid and tried to foist it on me.

So, that's what I did. I set my lawyer loose, and continued to close off Sarah's access to what I had worked so hard for, for us.

Since the house was in my name only (smart move, huh?), I sold it at near market price to a lady realtor I knew quite well without Sarah knowing. It was still during the boom and I made out pretty well, despite the short-term capital gains taxes.

The deal on the house was that we were to transfer the deed immediately but I would retain possession for six months and one day, so nobody could 'reach back' and get it. When the closing was complete and the money in the hidden accounts, I moved on to the things Sarah might detect.

I reduced all of the joint accounts except for enough to cover Sarah's normal $300 a day ATM withdrawals and one month's worth of bills.

Anonymous automatic transfers were set up to occur on the first of each month from a small foreign account into my LLP account, and from there into our joint house account in that same monthly expense amount. I had to pay the income taxes levied the LLP, but that would be for only a short time.

I also changed my insurance beneficiaries, took her off my health insurance, transferred my 401K and other retirement accounts and vested pension funds out of the reach of her attorney; and had all my personal and our joint mail forwarded to a PO box that my lawyer's paralegal managed for me.

The wait was interminable, but I survived it until the second day after the sixth month; then I kicked her to the curb. I suggested, and then insisted, that she visit her parents for a week to consider her recent odd behavior and the state of our marriage.

Two hours after she left, the last of my things were being carried out to a big reddish-orange moving van of national repute.

A second much smaller van was being loaded with Sarah's things; and the new owner was standing by to get her keys and do the final inspection. Our agreement included that she was to do the post-move cleaning.

Everything finished up on schedule and in a satisfactory manner. I was ready to go. The last thing loaded was my car, just as my cab was pulling up to the curb to take me to the airport for my flight to freedom and heaven.

The smaller van left, following a map I'd given the driver for the sixty-mile drive to her parents' run-down shack in the very rural country to the east.

The big semi-truck went out next to take my belongings to my new condo overlooking the shore of the western ocean, over two thousand miles away. I figured that would put enough distance between us.

On a pay phone call to one of my loyal friends after I had settled into my new digs, I learned Sarah was supremely pissed that I'd sold the house and had gone 'walkabout'; but was soon distracted when she found out she was pregnant a little less than a month after I'd sent her to her parents. I used to like that old song, "No, no, no, it ain't me babe". Now I love it.

I also heard that shortly after that, she'd spread her lies around and I'd been shunned 'in-abstensia' by all of the people of our small town as a derelict husband and deserter in her time of need. There had even been an article in our little newspaper accusing me of the same, "Local Man Deserts Loving Pregnant Wife". I had become a 'persona non grata'.

I couldn't have hung around anyway, knowing I'd be seen as the wimp cuckold husband, or worse.

If I'd stayed, I would have had to brave the gloating and whispers behind my back. The word would have gotten around in this small town. Here paramours had strength and anonymity in numbers.

If I left, their best action was to maintain silence and that anonymity. I left, but I had also placed a large and somewhat risky bet on the final outcome.

So before I left, I'd signed all the necessary papers for the divorce. My lawyer assured me that I wouldn't need to return for the final divorce hearing, and I didn't.

At the hearing, her attorney brought up the "fact" she was pregnant with MY baby and deserved child support, alimony and at least 75% of the co-mingled assets.

My lawyer calmly replied that I just wanted out and that he was authorized to give her 100% of all existing assets, and that any other requests were out of the question.

When he gave a copy of the PI reports, affidavits, and phone conversations to her attorney, 'off the record', all other demands were dropped even more quickly than they had been raised. Her lawdog thought they could go back after the other stuff after the baby was born.

What they hadn't known was that the new DNA tests had recently been accepted by the federal appeals courts as prima fascia evidence of paternity, or the lack thereof.

My lawyer laughed when he called to tell me she'd jumped on my offer and immediately signed the final decree. She found out after it was all over but the crying that she'd signed me away for the thousand dollars left in the joint checking account. I'd stopped the automatic transfers.

She didn't even have enough money to pay her lawyer, and the lien he tried to put on the house now owned by the realtor was declared unenforceable because the transaction was beyond the statute of limitations on the 'reach back' law.

The little family LLP my lawyer had set up in my new home state for me and my siblings allowed me to put my new condo, utilities, phone, and local checking account 'undercover' so the speak.

With my pay checks and other income going to various overseas accounts, my whereabouts couldn't be traced. Even if she could find me, she'd never get her hands on the bulk of the true wealth I'd amassed.

Whatever money I needed to maintain my new lifestyle, I transferred from the overseas paycheck account to the local one under the LLP, with its unlimited credit card. It's true the richer you are, the fewer taxes you pay.

Working from home no more than 32 hours a week, except for the occasional business trip, I spent the rest of my time concentrating on little ol' me.

I got a gym membership that I actually used every other day; I swam, I ran, biked, hiked, sailed and traveled. I had a blast, and dated two nights a week if I found someone interesting to ask out.

Just before Sarah's illegitimate baby was born, my attorney said I should have a lab in my new home town send a sample of my DNA back to him via registered mail in case she tried anything foolish. Sure enough, he was right.

When she filed a court motion to change the divorce settlement in her favor, my attorney went to war on my behalf, and straight at her jugular.

First, he called her doctor to the stand to testify that the baby was not a "preemie" and that conception had occurred while we were happily married, to everyone's knowledge. Nine months is nine months, and everybody in town could count that high.

My lawyer asked the good doctor if my blood type was compatible with the baby's, ie. could I be the father based on blood type alone. The doctor's answer was, "Definitly no, it is medically impossible for him to be the father of this child."

Next, my barrister produced my DNA sample with its iron-clad evidence trail and motioned for one of the new paternity tests to settle the issue in a manner that could not be appealed. The judge reviewed the matter and case law, and ordered the DNA test to cover his own ass in what was looking to get ugly.

The case was continued until the results were in. They proved conclusively that it wasn't my baby, thus revealing her dirty little secret to the world, or at least that little corner of it.

Finally, my man submitted the evidence that had not been entered into the court record at the final divorce hearing. The PI reports, notarized affidavits, and calls legally recorded by me in my own home were entered as publicly-available court records. Over her attorney's objections, everything was deemed admissible.

Unlike the initial case which was all hush hush, this time it was all laid out in open court to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was a conniving slut wife who had constantly cheated on her loving and faithful husband, and was only trying to bilk him out of his money.

My guy called her to the stand and got her to admit that she had no idea of which of hundreds of men she had fucked in those orgies while we were married was the father of the poor baby who would have to live in the shadow of her shame.

Now, everybody knew that she'd hoodwinked them all. Small town folks don't cotton to being lied to and led to shun the good guy as they had done me, especially in a domestic mess like this.

The whole town was embarrassed and couldn't do a damn thing about it. Having already 'tarred and feathered me and run me out of town on a rail', they couldn't just 'take it back'. Nobody knew where where the guy in the now-white hat was.

They couldn't apologize, or fix it, or do anything else to assuage their own guilt and shame. And they were mad as hornets about being made fools of. There was nowhere she could run or hide, afford to go, or any way to get there.

Sarah not only got a good dressing down by the judge for trying to use the court in her attempted fraud, he told her that he'd throw her in jail if she ever showed up in his courtroom again for so much as a parking ticket.

She was ordered to pay all of the attorney fees for sides, plus court costs and the doctor's fee to testify against her. I paid my attorney and the doc anyway. My good buddy the lawyer also made some noises in the direction of the newspaper.

The next day, the headline read, "Local Man Exonerated in Cheating Wife Case", with a complete transcript of the trial in a double column underneath the picture of her and a collage of named pictures of my old friends. My attorney mailed me a copy of it. I paid the whole bar's tab that night.

The owner asked me for the paper, so I gave it to him, not knowing he was going to frame the whole article until I saw it hanging on the wall of the pub. I wasn't too sure what I thought about that, but what the hell?

The article continued on an inside page to describe all she'd done to me and that she'd done it all for money, even poisoning my dog.

Let me say that intentionally poisoning a man's best dog is an unimpeachable reason for homicide in many rural areas. The cops don't just look away. They don't look at all.

The marriage, the pregnancy, everything, was all a sham, a joke played on me and the entire town.

Apparently the word spread like wildfire. Some of the old boys, and even more so their wives, were talking about rope and light poles. They were NOT happy. The funniest thing was, the name of that little town is Lynchburg. Odd, but true.

Overnight, I became some kind of local hero in my new town, at least to the single women. That was a pleasant change.

I'm just a regular, faithful guy who pulled himself out of a mushroom 'shit pit'; and has a sixty-foot sloop he can sail to Tahiti for the season. I don't know, I guess girls like that.

Believe me, I'll take my time picking a "keeper" for that trip, one that won't be tempted by those big Samoan boys along the way.

The corn-fed home boys are tough enough...but some of those Samoans are HUGE, and it ain't fat! They're enough to give an itty-bitty 6'4", 210 pound guy like me the shivering willeys. I'd hate to see one of them mad - especially at me.