Liars, the Lot of Them!

The next morning he was talking with Doug Jenner in his office which, although functional, wasn't that much to look at, being somewhat basic.

There was a display cabinet with a variety of normal looking devices, smartphones, smoke detectors, chargers, electric power sockets and the like.

After shaking hands they sat down at a round table. "All those devices look normal and inconspicuous," said Doug, "but in reality they are bugging and listening devices. However, I don't think they'll be of any use in your case, but you never know.

"At least at first my company will use your wife's social media presence to find out what she is up to. The amazing thing is, most people who are either sexually cheating on their spouse or who are stealing from their employer or a business partner are too dumb to realize that they are oversharing with the whole, wide world.

"I spoke with Mary this morning and she thinks very highly of you, so I'll be glad to work with you to help you learn what you need to learn. But don't make the mistake of using what I tell you to get revenge on them. I've seen it before, it never, ever goes well for the victim of the cheating if they are tempted to go down the revenge route."

Before they continued he asked a male employee to bring coffees in for them, and had Andy sign a contract.

Over the coffees Doug said: "All I need from you is a photograph of your wife, plus your daughters and their grandparents and details of her social media presence. Plus your social media presence and then I'll have my team make a start on the investigation."

"How long do you think it will take?" asked Andy.

"Oh, not too long, I shouldn't think. Let's give it 48 hours?"

They said their goodbyes and Andy paid his deposit to an efficient and sympathetic girl on the reception desk.

The next two days felt odd for Andy. He was missing his old way of life, he was missing his family, he was missing his job. But he realized that his old way of life had all been based on lies and that none of it had been real.

However, in general he felt pretty good about himself. He hadn't done anything stupid like taking up smoking or drinking himself into oblivion every evening. He had even dipped into the Gideon's Bible that was in the apartment, though he only gave the companion Book of Mormon a cursory glance. After all, the Marriott's were a Mormon family, he realized and he guessed they liked to include the sacred texts of their faith along with the Gideon's Bible.

He was surprised that even before the end of the 48 hour period that Doug Jenner had given him he received a call from one of Doug's staff members. "Mr Masters, Mr Jenner has found out some information about your wife's cheating. Can you visit our offices so he can make a report?"

Later that afternoon Doug made the report to Andy. "Andy, I have to say that your fears and suspicions were correct. Your wife has been involved in a long term affair with William Baxter dating back over the past 15 years."

Andy gulped and let out a sigh. "That news is leaving me feeling confused. On the one hand, I'm devastated, of course, but I also feel relieved?"

Doug nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that. You feel betrayed but you now also have the information and knowledge to move forward with your life."

"How did you find out?"

Doug gave a shrug. "It was remarkably easy. Your wife had a Facebook page when she was Mrs Baxter, but when she married you she put that page to sleep and opened a page under the name Katy Masters.

"However, several years into her marriage to you she reactivated her Mrs Baxter page and it's obvious that from that point forward, she had two separate lives, one as Mrs Masters and one as Mrs Baxter.

"My team were able to use the latest AI technology to run deep searches on her social media presence and yours including Google Calendar, your employer's websites, your in-laws' social media presence, etc and we were able to match what had been happening.

"Do you remember a time when your employer started sending you out on extended business trips, plus some overseas trips?"

Andy gave a start. "Yes, I do, now you mention it. It must have been 14 or 15 years ago?" His face clouded with anger. "Were those business trips faked, to give that slut time with Baxter?"

Doug nodded, with sympathy. "Yes, it looks like that might have been the case. At least with some of the trips."

"And not long after, I started getting major performance bonuses, plus massive share allocations. I'll bet that was to rub it in, huh?"

Doug shook his head. "From what we gathered it was Monk's way to salve his conscience, at the insistence of his wife who wasn't keen on what they were doing to you."

"How did the affair start?" asked Doug.

"Apparently Baxter returned from whatever shithole he'd been working in, taking photographs and doing paintings and he apologized to Katy, and Katy decided that she would have two lives, married to two men, you and Baxter. And her father played a key part in keeping you busy and out of the picture so Katy could spend time with Baxter."

"Did the twins know about this?"

"Yes, they did. However they were, in effect, trained and bribed to make sure they never told you or that you never found out on accident."

"But what I can't understand is why the bullshit about the family vacation? What was that all about?"

"That's actually easy to answer. It appears that the wanderlust has struck Billy Baxter, again. He has been commissioned to work in Antarctica for the next four years as an official photographer and artist. Katy didn't like the idea of being separated from her lover for such a long period of time, then she had the amazing idea of having him take your place on the month-long vacation to sort of tide her over, I guess you could say?"

Andy made a sound of disgust. "What the hell? Who does such a thing?"

"Apparently she decided she loved you and Baxter, so worked out a scheme in order to keep the both of you."

"Will I be able to use the information you found in my divorce case?"

"Yes," said Doug. "It's all publicly available so it's not as if we bugged your wife and her paramour, or anything."

"But I wouldn't have had the first clue about how to ferret that information out. Without you. I'd have been totally screwed."

"Which is why I feel a passion about my work," replied Doug. "I've sent a copy of the report to Mary Northern and because it was such an easy case, I don't have to submit another bill to you, so there is that!"

They shook hands and parted.

Katy arrived home to an empty house. All her plans to keep her two husbands as separate but equal in her life had turned to shit. She felt a mixture of emotions, sorrow for Andy, irritation that Bill, her first love, had already flown to New Zealand to start his four year assignment, leaving her to comfort her daughters for the loss of the two father figures in their lives. She was also pissed at her mother's attitude to the whole situation.

Yes, she got that Claire had never really been fully on board with the separate but equal husbands idea, but she was now becoming insufferable with her remarks. Whenever Katy said anything about feeling bad, Claire would say "Really? Then imagine how bad Andy feels, now?" And "none of this is his fault, is it?"

Katy sent Andy a long text message that basically pleaded for him to give her another chance. She claimed that having Bill Baxter in her life as a second husband hadn't really done any harm to Andy and that she hoped that Andy would agree to marriage counseling to help them get back together.

Andy had taken the advice of Mary Northern and booked individual counseling sessions with one of the psychologists on her list of contacts.

He shared the text message with his counselor Pete Watters who whistled and said: "Damn! Not that she's a narcissist, or anything!"

"Andy said: "Do you really think she's a narcissist?"

Pete shrugged before responding. "Oh, I was partially joking when I called her a narcissist. It's not possible to diagnose someone from such a short piece of writing, but in all honesty I do see some narcissistic traits there.

"Thinking she could run two husbands for the best part of the entire marriage and then express shock and surprise and even some hurt when her legal husband decides to nope out of the marriage, that's not a normal reaction from her. A bit screwy, to be honest.

"Eventually, she'd have been found out. Please, tell me how that actually happened?"

Andy told him how he had learned of the betrayal and how long it had gone on for.

He had bi-weekly sessions with Pete for a month, dropping them to weekly for the foreseeable future.

In the meanwhile Mary had filed divorce papers on Katy and also launched a legal action for constructive termination against Marvin Monk and his corporation, GWS. (Which eventually earned Andy $5 million in compensation.)

Andy moved from the hotel apartment to a condo a couple of streets away. He decided to set himself up as a business consultancy service and went online and ordered office furniture and a new desktop computer from Quill.com.

He hadn't really given much thought to actually getting much work in. But to his surprise he quickly found several clients. Or they found him via word of mouth and Linkedin.

He received a threat of a cease and desist letter from the legal department at GWS. He dealt with this by demanding they not contact him but his attorney Mary Northern at Cascade, Northern and Whyort. To his amusement he never heard from them again and neither did Mary in regards to the cease and desist letter. "They just slunk away" said Mary, grinning.

In early January the divorce papers were served on Katy and, to Andy's surprise, Katy and the girls never attempted to get in touch with him. But Mary pointed out that was probably on the advice of her lawyers.

In March the case was before Judge Jennifer Harris, a rather thin, middle aged female Judge who looked somewhat like Judge Judy. Something she played up to sometimes, to be honest. She liked to look at people in her court over her stylish half framed spectacles.

She was speaking to her clerk. She shook her head. "This case is a real damned mess."

"Worse than the normal cases we see?"

"Oh, God, yes. Much worse. The wife was cheating on her husband for 15 years with her ex-husband and the stepdaughters and the grandparents all knew about her cheating."

The clerk let out a low whistle. "Damn! Is the wife defending it?"

"Yes. Which should be fun. Or not."

The depositions that Andy had filed were impressive and depressing. He wrote that he had always wanted to be a father and thought he had attained fatherhood with Cassandra and Emily, but had learned that he never had, in reality. That he now knew the reason why his soon-to-be ex-wife and her twins had never allowed him to adopt them. Now he was at an age that he would probably be unable to father children of his own. Another thing his cheating wife had stolen from him.

At ten AM on Wednesday morning the case was opened.

"Your honor, my name is Mary Northern Esq, I am representing my client Mr Andrew Masters in his divorce case against his wife, Katy Masters. The grounds we are citing is the long and egregious affair that Katy Masters had with her ex-husband, William Baxter. We have evidence that Mrs Masters cheated on her husband for 15 years. I would like to call my first witness, Douglas Jenner."

Doug was sworn in. "My name is Doug Jenner, I am the principal of Jenner Investigations. I was employed by Mr Andrew Masters to investigate his wife's possible infidelity."

"What did you find out, Mr Jenner?"

"I discovered that Mrs Masters had been having an affair for the past 15 years, cheating on her husband with her first husband. My detectives learned that Mr Masters' employer and father-in-law, Marvin Monk, had assisted his daughter in having sexual assignations with her ex-husband by arranging fake business trips to give her a clear coast.

"The evidence that we amassed is now part of the deposition for the divorce."

"Thank you, Mr Jenner."

Paul Foster esq, the lawyer for Katy stood up. He looked greasy and Andy noticed a look of distaste on the face of the Judge. He suppressed a smile and thought "That can't be good for Katy!"

"Your honor" he said, in an imperious tone "I am demanding that this so-called evidence be rejected by this court as it is all private information, obviously illegally obtained by this... snooper."

Judge Harris fixed him with a piercing stare. "You have evidence, proof of your allegation, Mr Foster?"

"Not as such, but how else could he have obtained this alleged evidence?"

"Objection, your honor" interjected Mary. "Either Mr Foster believes the evidence is false, which he has implied, or he believes it is all true, but was obtained illegally. Both of his thoughts on this matter cannot be true at the same time, surely?"

"I agree, Ms Northern. Mr Jenner, how did you obtain this information?"

"Your honor, my staff and I used only publicly available sources. Facebook accounts, Twitter, Linkedin and other social media accounts and platforms, plus the publicly facing portions of the website of Mr Masters' employer, GWS. Also, we found a publicly available blog by William "Billy" Baxter which contained information about the ongoing relationship with not only Mrs Masters but also her twin daughters and his former in-laws. We also examined publicly available online calendars, too."

The judge said: "Why didn't you use any bugging devices on them, Mr Jenner?"

He shrugged before speaking. "Well, apart from the legality of that idea, I feel it wouldn't have been necessary. The reason being was that like many people who are sexual cheaters or who are committing business fraud, they aren't the sharpest knives in the knife box and seem almost compelled to overshare their wrongful, illicit and illegal acts."

Foster said in a waspish tone: "If that's true, why wasn't her husband aware of that?"

"He just wasn't looking, he didn't expect to have to look, really. I have seen it before in similar situations"

Foster was an idiot, realized Andy. By acting how he had, trying to challenge the evidence amassed by Doug Jenner and his team, he had inadvertently admitted that, yes, Katy was a cheating bitch. And then insulted Andy for not being aware she was a cheating bitch. What an idiot Foster was!

Judge Harris allowed Doug to sit back down. She then turned to Foster. "Mr Foster, do you have any rebuttal evidence to disprove the evidence that has been presented by Mr Masters' team?"

Foster seemed stumped by the question. "Not as such, your honor. All I can say on behalf of Mrs Masters is that she loves her husband and wants him to withdraw his divorce action."

"Well, why not have Mrs Masters speak for herself?"

Katy took the stand and it was pitiful. She really loved Andy, she was sorry about the family cruise, that was largely a misunderstanding (Andy had snorted at that) and the only bad thing she had ever done was to love two men, Billy and Andy and want to keep them in her life, two husbands separate, but equal.

Foster had encouraged Katy to speak. Privately he thought that she was an idiot, but he was being paid a considerable sum to represent the silly bitch, so would do so to the best of his ability.

Eventually Mary stood up and eyed Katy. "Well, Mrs Masters, the idea of having two husbands in your life must have been very good for you. A real ego boost. But not so good for your lawful husband. You, your daughters and your parents turned Andy into a family cuckold, didn't you?"

"I don't like the word cuckold," replied Katy, a slight whine in her voice. "Besides which, taken in that context, Billy was a cuckold, too!"

Mary shook her head. "No. A cuckold is a man whose wife cheats on him. Bill knew about Andy, didn't he?"

Katy nodded. "Yes, he did. What difference does that make?"

"Andy was your cuckold. But because Bill knew, he wasn't a cuckold, he is your wittol. A wittol is a man who knows and condones his wife's infidelity.

"And Bill and Andy were never separate and equal in your life, were they?"

"They were! They still would be, if Andy would drop this divorce action."

"The reason why there was no equity and fairness in your relationships with Andy and Billy is because Billy knew all about Andy. But Andy knew nothing at all about Billy's role in your life, did he?"

"No, but that was because I knew Andy would never agree to Bill being in my life. He wouldn't have understood!" She began dabbing at her eyes with a tissue that she was clutching in her hand.

Mary sucked air in before speaking again. "So, you knew he'd ask for a divorce if he had been aware of your affair? That's almost as if you felt he should have demanded a divorce, given the circumstances?"

"But I love him! The girls love him!"

She broke down and the Judge took the opportunity to break for lunch.

After lunch Foster questioned Katy. "What's your ideal outcome, Mrs Masters?"

"For Andy to forgive me, to get over the hurt I inadvertently caused him and to enter into counseling as a couple and individual counseling. Maybe family therapy, too?"

"Your honor," said Foster, now addressing the judge, "it's our counter proposal that Mr Masters drops the divorce action and goes into therapy to help him adjust to the reality of his marriage, with his wife loving both himself and Mr Baxter."

"Is that what you want Mrs Masters?" queried the judge. She sounded highly dubious.

"Yes, your honor! I'd like for Andy to get therapy, maybe hypnotherapy, to help him come to terms with being my husband whilst Billy is my other husband. Ordered by the court."

The judge's voice sounded incredulous. "So, what you are telling me is that you want my court to force your husband to have hypnotherapy to turn him into your willing, compliant cuckold?"

Foster saw the direction the judge was taking and interjected "I wouldn't put it quite in those terms, your honor."

She favored him with a somewhat bleak smile. "Well, that's wonderful for you, Mr Foster. But it's my court, my terms. If you two geniuses think that I am going to force Mr Masters into having behavioral modification therapy to turn him into a compliant cuckold, you need to re-think that appalling notion. I'll not countenance that. And I doubt that any board certified or licensed therapist would acquiesce to such a vile proposal in the first place."

She shook her head. "I'm going to deny the motion."

Katy said: "But your honor, the therapy would really help Andy come to terms with his role in my life. As Billy will be away for four years I thought that would be more than enough time for Andy to learn that everything will be OK. To come to terms with the situation."

"No!" said the judge, firmly. "That's not going to fly. I'm coming closer to being able to make my judgment. Mrs Northern, I see that there is a prenuptial agreement in place, in which the house, which is owned by the company, remains with Mrs Masters and that Mrs Masters, due to an infidelity clause, keeps only 15% of the marital assets."

"That's correct, your honor."

Foster intervened. "But your honor, I would point out that the infidelity clause only relates to Mr Masters, not Mrs Masters? Therefore, without counseling and if the divorce proceeds as it looks like it is, the infidelity clause of the prenuptial agreement is void. And we demand 80% of the assets, including the $10 million that Mr Masters made when he sold his shares in the company."

The judge had stopped being merely irritated and was now becoming angry. "That's BS, Mr Foster! The infidelity clause covers both the husband and wife. I have rarely heard such self-serving nonsense in my court! Mrs Masters indulged in long-term cheating on her husband, basically poisoned the minds of his stepdaughters against him, whilst she was getting the best of both worlds, whilst her husband got the shaft. I've heard enough of this narcissistic nonsense from Mrs Masters. My ruling is that the divorce is granted and that the prenuptial agreement is still fully in force. And she gets none of the proceeds of the sale of the shares. Absolutely none!"