I'll Dance at Your Wedding

Obviously, another of my Aunt's arranged marriages for money and influence rather than love. I hope that the poor cuckold husband insisted on a good prenup like I had. I made a mental note to have Rube check on the pertinent financial details and if the poor bastard was still married to her in a few years to have him work out some sort of legal escape plan for the poor sap.

Frightened of hearing any more sordid family gossip that I'd prefer to remain ignorant about, I made my way back to the main reception area and after a tedious wedding ceremony, I watched my slut of a niece become shackled to her unsuspecting prey.

By now I needed a drink, and accepted every glass of champagne that my wife was obligingly eager to pump into me. I did not, however, actually drink fromanyof those glasses, which I noticed were all being filled by a particularly swarmy looking waiter behind the bar and my drinks seemed to be poured from an apparently very special bottle under the counter!

I'd pretend to sip and then quickly duck outside into the sole remaining tent outside, a remote one behind the back of the church and well away from any casual wandering guests in the light rain downpour, and I then would quickly pour the contents into a champagne fountain that I had previously emptied, but was soon filling up with this new rather suspicious mixture. After six or ten refills the fountain now had enough liquid to spout away merrily and nothing seemed at all to be out of place. Rube was certain that this was part of the plan to drug me, and he let me know that our counter-plan was going perfectly!

Feigning some unsteadiness, I let my wife know that I was feeling a touch dizzy and would be finding someplace quiet to sit and rest for a while. She was unusually understanding and helped me find a quiet unused room off in a corner to sit, or rather appear to quickly pass out. I played unconscious and let her and her lover giggle and smirk at me for awhile and then listened to them kiss passionately before they left me, laughing. I gave the lovers a good five minutes to wander well off in private before I snuck out of the room myself and proceeded to make myself entirely secreted well out of sight, out onto the wet garden grounds so that Rube and his folks could complete the rest of their assignments.

In good weather, there was no place better for holding an outdoor wedding celebration. I'd been here many times before and always managed to enjoy myself. This was the first time, however, that I had seen both the church and the synagogue hosting weddings at the same time. Today, most of the church folks had moved their stuff inside from the tents, but the other wedding party at the synagogue had decided to not let the light rain otherwise dampen their spirits and they were keeping most of their activities still out in the gardens.

It was here, standing as the mother of the bride, that I once again saw my old lover Linda, looking damp but as radiant as she could be. I made a quick phone call to Rube to make a slight alteration of my plans for the afternoon and he assured me everything else was going exactly as anticipated. In fact, my wife and her lover had now slipped away from the reception to this private and sole remaining unused tent and were helping themselves to the recycled drugged champagne fountain that I had so thoughtfully provided for them. If this plan hadn't worked, Rube had an 'insider' waiter of his own that he could have used to drug the happy adulterers, but my simpler way had worked. They had now unwittingly drugged themselves with their own concoction!

This had been part of their plan all along, according to the cell phone conversation we had recorded earlier. Their crooked PI's would drug me at the reception and then the couple would find a private spot in one of the tents for some quick canoodling alone. Since there was only one tent left remaining outside for this reception, this certainly narrowed down their list of options. The rain, and a well-tipped waiter (a member of Rube's staff), would insure ensure that they had privacy for their tryst. The excitement of having finally trapping me had increased their ardor beyond the limits of patience and their otherwise extremely careful planning. Hopefully, Rube was getting some good video recordings from inside that tent, but it wasn't essential to our plan.

I found an unopened bottle of champagne and I scooted over to the other wedding reception to pay my respects to my long lost love.

"You didn't dance at my wedding." I told her with just a hint of disappointment when I appeared at her side.

"Certainly not! I was a respectable married woman at that time and it would have been poor form to ravish the obviously unhappy groom right there on the dance floor in front of the bride, not to mention the poor innocent flower girls. Why did you marry that bitch anyway? Did you knock her up and were now feeling honorable?"

"Stupid family politics ... but she'd taken the precaution of having her old boyfriend knock her up right before the wedding. It was certainly a time-saver. I noticed that you didn't invite me to yours either."

"Hell, I didn't really want to be atthatwedding either, but unfortunately I was already knocked up myself and I sort of liked the father and he was wanting to stand up and do the right thing for me and our daughter. It could have been worse."

"Well, in that case, shall we dance together at your daughter's wedding?"

"I thought you'd never ask!"

We danced every dance, fast and slow. Their synagogue was 'Reform' and they allowed mixed dancing for this reception. Not that it would have mattered, we'd have danced together anyway ... no one could have stopped us.

We took one last dance together after the happy bride and groom made their departure and would have kept on dancing even when the DJ packed up his gear and they turned the lights out on us later that evening. My cell phone had been vibrating nearly non-stop for the last half hour, but I didn't care. Rube could wait ... being with her was far more important.

"I'd offer to continue this dance back at my humble abode and even be eager to assist you in removing all of your wet clothing, but alas, for at least the next few weeks I am obliged to continue to act as a happily married man... or at least a dutifully married one anyway. That dance will soon be all over but the music will begin to play once again, soon afterwards and with far merrier tune. Will you take that long dance together with me then?" I asked her with all of the sincerity in my heart.

"Darling, I will dance with you forever and for the rest of my life."

I could not take the risk of kissing her and possibly be photographed — but our eyes knew what the other's heart was saying. With that, I took my leave of her and met an impatient Rube to supervise the final act of this sordid drama.

The divorce, under grounds of marital misbehavior and 100% on my terms was a mere formality now, and was swiftly concluded. The pickle plant was safe - and forever mine alone now.

The rather candid photos of my wife and her lover, my cousin, taken inside of the tent and also later that evening of the two of them drugged at the same hotel room that had originally been intended for me, were more than enough to cook their goose to the charge of adultery. They were a bit confused to wake up the next morning to find that they'd drunk too much themselves, but this didn't discourage them from engaging in a creative variety of very consentual sex acts, along with some other unfortunately incriminating pillow talk that our hidden camera and microphone recorded rather clearly.

The family law judge was more than completely satisfied and swiftly uphold my interpretation of our prenup. I keptallof the family property, including our oversized mansion that I had no use for, and she just barely kept her clothes and her Mercedes automobile. No alimony! As a parting gift, the judge accepted my DNA evidence concerning Helena's irregular patrimony, giving her sole custody of her daughter and granting me sole full custody over Orson, with no child support or maintenance by either party. Normally not one in a hundred husbands and fathers would have escaped family court with such a favorable ruling, but Rube had presented his evidence well and the wrinkled old battleaxe of a judge had been thoroughly appalled by Livonia's misdeeds, for which she (along with my cousin and half of her own family) were already waiting for trial on numerous state and federal felonies. Those Interstate Commerce laws can be a bitch, if you break them. Not to mention conspiracy and racketeering!

Stunned by my coup, and badly distracted by her other growing legal problems, she agreed almost without a fight.

It was gravy on the steak to find that my hidden office cameras identified a senior partner of her PI agency conducting an illegal break-in of my office door and clearly placing foreign files into my desk drawers and illegally obtained money into my safe. Faced with multiple state and federal felony counts of their own, her slimy hirelings couldn't turn on the unhappy couple and her father fast enough. My soon to be ex-wife eventually pleaded to a reduced state felony sentence for fraud and tossed the rest of the blame upon her lover, who fared less favorably in court. To avoid federal jail time, she had to end up testifying against her own family and she was smart enough to know some particularly interesting dates and names and enough events to result in the shutdown her own family business a few years later. When she gets out of state prison in about another fifteen years, she'll move to federal witness protection because we're all certain that some unhappy family members will be looking for paybacks.

Some of her family tried to take her side and played hardball with me for awhile, but we were ready for them. We documented each and every breach of contract carefully and when we had thought we had our case picture perfect I engaged an independent court appointed arbitrator, as was my contractual right, and smiled gleefully while he sorted the mess out ... and all entirely to our favor. Faced with huge financial penalties (and sudden government interests in their finances), her family relented and we worked out an amenable parting of ways with a slightly less oppressive golden handshake goodbye. I could have gotten more in court, but their business was falling apart and already their family money was starting to vanish into various rat holes, so I settled fast and took what I could get before the fed boys claimed everything else!

I didn't need them anymore anyway – Piper Pickles was more than big enough now to get economical transportation of raw materials and final products at high volume preferential pricing. If anything, we saved a little bit of extra money (and a lot of aggravation) once we placed these new contracts for supplies and services out to competitive bid!

I made sure Rube was paid in full for every minute of his time and effort, despite his complaints that he was just performing a public service. He eventually cashed my check ... and it was worth every single penny!

If I hadn't been so stubborn and rather passive-aggressive, I could have rid myself of my ex years ago, but I had to admit that the timing now had been absolutely perfect, especially now that Linda was back again by my side!

Aunt Millicent was mortified at the skill with which I outmaneuvered my ex-wife and her family, and more than a bit disturbed to meet my new wife Linda, especially after we both took great pains to call her 'Aunt Millie' all evening long when we invited her over to our new and much smaller home for dinner. We sold the old mansion for a bundle and we don't play that 'keeping up with the Joneses' social game anymore!

I realized fairly quickly that Aunt Millie's apparent furor against me was nearly entirely a sham. She passed on recently and when her will was read out, with the entire horde of Pipers all present, it was announced to their great dismay that I had been designated as her sole heir and beneficiary! She had indeed owned the controlling majority of family stock and now every single share of it had been passed on to me! She wrote in a private letter to me that I was given afterwards that she had quietly admired and respected me for many years for being the only member of the family that had ever had the balls to stand up to her and become a success on my own, instead of leeching from the family fortune.

My family was horrified and aghast with dismay! I made it clear right from the very start that the days of idleness sponging from the family trust fund were ancient history. Nearly everyone in my family has now sued me but Aunt Millicent's lawyers are emphatic that her will is rock solid and they'll never see another dime. It's a shame - some of my family will now actually have to get jobs and go to work!

The pickle plant prospers (try saying that five times rapidly). Linda couldn't be a better wife and hostess, and it goes without saying that we happily share a bedroom every single night and never avoid each other in the house!

We shall dance together happily for the rest of our lives.