On the Lam

"You're thinking about him again," Mark said, sliding his arm around her.

"Sorry, can't help myself. Guess I have been married too long," she said as she turned into her lover for a kiss.

"Usually the wife is worried about the husband finding out, not the guy himself. It's a bit of a blow to my ego."

"Just how many married women have you been with mister," she said with mock outrage.

"A few. It's exciting, wicked, forbidden and so sexy, but not really sad. The woman usually isn't lying next to you worrying about her missing husband." Mark did not say that part of his fun was knowing that he was making the husband a cuckold. Taking the husband's woman, and there was nothing that husband could do about it. David had killed part of the fun. The guy just walked out and disappeared. Mark had never met him but had understood the man was under his rich wife's thumb. David may not have cooperated, but still Doris was fine pussy, and while she was only Assistant Department Head at the moment everyone knew she was going to replace the Department Chair during the coming Christmas break. He was due to step down at year-end. That would be good for a non-tenured Assistant Professor who was tapping the fine pussy of the new Chairwoman.

"Sorry," Doris said.

She reached down for his flaccid cock and began to stroke it, "How about I give you my full attention."

____________________________

Liz was stumped. It had all seemed so easy. Get this middle-aged family man in front of the committee and offer him immunity in return for his testimony. Simple and risk-free on their side. If he refuses to talk, he gets held in contempt and that makes good publicity for the Senator. If he lies, he gets prosecuted -- again good publicity for the Senator. But if he tells the truth they get the scandal they want, and the Senator has a hot issue to ride.

Trouble was, no David Landon. She had started looking in the obvious place, his work. But he had simply called in last January 2 and said he was through. No one had seen him since he quit, and more troubling, all his work had been completed before he left. No one had noticed, but apparently he'd planned to leave for some time. So how to find a man who had decided to skip?

The Shamont Bank Labor Day picnic was a big affair, held not on Labor Day but the week before. Employees, family, and friends gathered in the Lamp Lighter picnic grounds for a big day of food and amusements, over five hundred people in all. The Shamont family were the hosts, like medieval Princelings feasting the serfs. Liz had no problem getting an invitation. Lots of pols attend to glad hand. She was but one of the crowd of supplicants at the Shamont family table. The Shamonts included the Boswells, the Landons and several other branches of the extended family.

Liz figured the picnic might be a good place to pick up a line on what had happened to David Landon. His daughters were certainly there. You could not miss the Landon girls in the brief halter tops and Daisy Duke Shorts. They were two hot looking women. They seemed to enjoy turning the guys on, but they were also two responsible young women. They organized all the kids and ran all the games, exhibiting an energy and dedication to purpose that was tiring to watch. Parents could relax and party because the Landon girls were taking care of the kids. Of course, many a young male was happy to help out. Liz had to laugh at the young and some not-so-young men falling over themselves to help take care of the little ones and leer at the Landon twins in the skimpy attire.

Liz wandered the site and tried to glad hand as many people as she could while unobtrusively asking about David Landon. The official story seemed to be that he was away on a trip. But no one seemed to know where. Rumor had it that he'd had a mid-life breakdown and the family had shipped him off for a rest cure.

Eventually, she found herself walking towards a group of tables that were clearly the Shamonts' immediate court. A tall blond man, rather good looking though a bit on the heavy side, was directing the barbecue crew. As she approached, he was looking over to smile and wave at an attractive young woman who was holding her own court among what could have been a group of suitors. Liz had already identified most of the Landons and Boswells by asking around. The blond man was Lawrence Boswell, Jr., and the woman was his wife, Anne. She had something of a reputation as Liz had learned. Boswell seemed to be enjoying himself and seemed unconcerned by the obvious flirting his wife was engaged in.

"Excuse me aren't you Lawrence Boswell?" Liz said on approaching Larry.

"Yes but everyone calls me Larry. Lawrence is my father," Larry replied. "I've wanted to meet you. I am Elizabeth Parker, an Aide to State Senator—"

"Ruis. Yes, I know. I saw you at the Senate hearings on the downtown renewal. It's a project very close to Dad's heart. I think he sees it as his legacy to the region," Larry said.

Liz was familiar with the proposed project a substantial redevelopment of the City Center in the old Shamont downtown commercial district. A lot of stores and homes would be displaced by Eminent Domain. The rumor around the Capitol building was that it was a done deal, but one that had divided father and son. Larry junior was against the project, believing it displaced too many small business and families. For this, he was viewed as some kind of weak sister.

Larry had handed Liz the opening she needed by mentioning the project.

"Well, I guess you consulted with your brother-in-law David Landon about the land acquisition issues," Liz said, watching for a response.

Larry frowned, "Dave is not available right now, took a bit of leave from life."

Liz was fed up with the company line. "Look, to be up front about it, the Senator feels that using Eminent Domain to displace so many homes and business has a significant downside. She would like to call some expert witnesses to discuss the issues. In this regard, we tried to reach Mr. Landon, but he seems to have disappeared. Might you be able to tell me how to reach him?"

Larry now looked very uncomfortable, but before he could speak a woman with stunning good looks broke into the conversation.

"My husband has left me—thank you, Larry, but the time for hiding the truth needs to come to an end. We do not know where he is or even if he is still alive," the woman said, who Liz now knew was Doris Landon.

Doris looked like a woman in deep mourning, and Liz's heart went out to her.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Landon, I didn't mean to pry into your personal affairs, but we have been looking to consult with your husband. Forgive me and let me say I see where your daughters get their good looks from."

Liz began to walk away, but Doris grabbed her arm.

"Please, if you find my husband tell him — tell him — I beg him to come home."

Liz felt like a twit, realizing that these people had no idea that the man they saw as a loving husband and father was in actual fact a criminal. How could a man do that to his family, and why? These people had money, he didn't need to steal. She could not help but think that David Landon was a heartless man.

___________________________________________

Annette had returned home to live her middle-class life and to write her latest travel book. Rupert Von Kabchreuth was home from his latest business trip. As usual it had not gone as well as his father-in-law demanded. He was a disappointment to that old crook. However, something had changed. The old man was mellower this time, or as mellow as a man who had been taken and tortured by the Stasi in his youth could be. You had to respect that the man never talked about it and that legend said he had never given out a single name. Count Rupert knew he wasn't in that league -- it took more than courage to play there. It took an iron nerve and a Cracker Jack criminal brain. Rupert knew he would never accomplish what the old man expected, not on his own.

He did sense that something was wrong with his wife. He cared for Annette. They were distant cousins, and the marriage had been arranged, but he would not have married her if he didn't like her. And he believed her affection for him was true and deep.

"What's the problem? You have not been yourself since you returned from America," he said looking across the kitchen table.

"Nothing really, except, do you ever wonder what it would be like to find...Love. I mean as in the romances."

Rupert studiously refused to laugh, "I think you let your naïve American get to you," he said.

They did not hide their affairs from each other. They kept them discreetly hidden from the public, but they had promised each other when they married to be honest and remain friends no matter what. Rupert was the actual aristocrat, but the title brought no money. Annette's Grandfather had the money, but her father was a nameless East German. It wasn't a love match more a like match.

So far, they had kept their promises to each other, but Rupert hated that she slept with other men. This was selfish he knew, because he loved women and was not going to limit himself to just one. But he always felt that Annette was special. She had always been discreet and rather sparing with her sexual favors. As wives go, Rupert considered her to be at the top of the class or even in a class by herself. This American was another matter. He had evidently gone where those before had not.

"Made you think, did he?"

"Not so much think as feel...like maybe there could be something more," she said. Then jumped up, came around the table, and grabbed her husband for a kiss.

"Komm mein Mann. Make me forget him," she said drawing Rupert towards the bedroom.

________________________________________

"This is an exceptional place, how did you find it?" Sheila Morgan said to Liz Parker.

They were having brunch in the Ilium Café in Troy. It was a pleasant informal sort of place with a broad breakfast menu.

"Little things the locals know," Liz said.

It was Sunday of Labor Day weekend. The Senator had gone home to the Bronx to press the flesh as the saying goes. Liz was off duty when she ran into her old school friend Sheila, who was touring Colleges with her daughter Paula. Mother and daughter had visited a number of schools while coming up the Hudson Valley. In Troy, they'd looked at Liz's alma mater Russell Sage, an all girl's school, and Rensselaer Polytech, a big well-endowed school. Paula was only a high school sophomore, but the trend was to start looking and planning early.

"I still can't believe how big you've gotten," Liz said to Paula.

"Well, maybe you can convince my mom as a big girl that I don't need a chaperone every minute."

"That is exactly why you do need your Mom looking out for you," Sheila said and hugged her daughter affectionately.

"Oh, look, isn't that the English Professor who gave the talk yesterday?" Paula said.

Liz had been sitting with her back to the door. But now she turned to see Doris Landon enter with a tall good looking black man. He had his arm around her waist and as the two took a corner table they discretely kissed. It was a brief kiss but it had an aspect of long familiarity about it.

"Yes I believe it is, now what was her name—"Sheila said.

"Doris Langdon, Mrs., and that is not her husband," Liz said unable to keep the disapproval out of her voice.

"Don't judge, Elizabeth, we can't know all the facts. You need to get over Edward some time," Sheila said.

"Who's Edward?" Paula asked.

"Just your average snake that wears pants," Liz said.

Sheila laughed and told her daughter she was too young to hear that tale.

It was in fact not all that much of a story, though it hurt like hell, that's for sure, even all these years later. Edward Ryan was the best looking guy in his graduating class at SUNY Albany. They were going to get married after their first year in law school. That is, until Liz had a class unexpectedly canceled one afternoon. As in every bad story, she returned to the apartment they shared to find Ed in their bed with another woman.

The story only got worse from there. She ran out crying. She had no place to go so she ran to her friend Sheila's. Sheila and her husband and their two children had a matchbox sized house in Kingston. They were a good decade older than Liz. He was a teacher, as was Sheila until she decided to return to school and get her law degree. They lived modestly, but they had a couch she could sleep on.

Two weeks went by, and she decided that she had to forgive Edward. He had made a mistake. She called him and asked to meet at a grungy little bar called the Elbow Room near the law school. When he arrived, Edward appeared contrite, but when she tried to patch things up—

"I've something...oh this is hard..." he said.

"What?"

"Well, it's like this—I'm in love."

"You bastard. Are you breaking our engagement?"

"I guess so—"

"You either know or you don't."

"Please don't be angry, I can't help how I feel."

"I suppose you want the ring back."

"Well..."

"Here take it," she said, throwing the little diamond ring at him. I'll come by on the weekend to get my stuff."

"Don't bother -- Nancy and I are going to California next week."

"But what about school?"

"I'm quitting -- it's not what I want any more."

"I co-signed your school loans. If you drop out, they'll come due. How are you going to pay them?"

"I'm not. We are going to live off the grid. Nancy says you don't know what life is like until you get back to basics."

"Listen you idiot, if you don't pay those loans they will come looking for me."

"I can't help that. I have to be going," he said, and walked out on her.

After that law school became a struggle. She ended up very deep in debt, although she worked full time all through school. She was still trying to dig her way out, but she had learned a lesson: MOST MEN SUCK.

"That looks like a very hot relationship," Sheila said referring to Mrs. Landon and her paramour.

"I wonder how long it's been going on," Liz said.

"I would guess a while. They don't act like it's a new thing."

"Her husband left her," Liz said.

"Well, he seems to have been replaced," Sheila said.

"But she says she wants her husband back."

"Could well be -- can't see that relationship working," Sheila mused.

"Maybe she wants both," Paula said with a smirk.

"Watch it young lady. All you are doing is leaning me towards an all girl's school," Sheila said, but you could tell she was not serious.

The bottom line was Liz might have to reevaluate the whole David Landon story.

____________________________________________________ Agnes Landon was at the end of a hard day. As the head nurse at the medical center, her job had become chiefly administrative. But these times of tight budgets and endless bureaucracy made hers a difficult job. Nevertheless, what was bothering her was the worry and anger she felt about her son, David Landon, Jr. She had always been exceedingly close to her son. He had always been the best of boys. Honest, loyal, and loving were just some of his good points. He had some bad points as well, he was stubborn and a wee bit lazy. But what had always troubled his mother most was the almost profound sadness he displayed. As a child for days on end he never smiled, and he was ever so quiet. A good day for her was when she could make him smile and just maybe hear his laugh. Those were very few and very far between.

Doris Boswell was a dream come true. She had brains, looks, and money. More important still, she was one of those people that always wore a smile and worked hard to see that everyone else did as well. When he was with Doris, his mother knew that David, Jr. was happy too. The icing on the cake was that Doris's mother was Margret Boswell, who was Agnes's BFF. As children Angie and Meg had sworn a sacred oath to be friends forever. Both families were thrilled that the kids had found each other. Agnes however always knew that it was Doris who had married David. He was a passive man but a bit of a romantic, a stubborn impractical dreamer who would have thrown his life away looking for what you can never find in this life.

Agnes knew her son and where he had gotten his silly notions of how life should be. As a young girl, she too had been a romantic. She had married David, Sr. as a young nursing student only seventeen years old. Her friend Meg married Larry Boswell a year later. David and Larry had met Angie and Meg on a double date arranged by friends. They were setting up the rich Shamont girl, Meg, with the equally well-to-do Boswell boy, Larry. Both girls had believed in love at first sight, and their romantic beliefs lasted just a few years into the respective marriages. The honeymoons were over when the women found out their husbands were cheaters.

Dave and Larry had become good buddies due to their wives' friendship. It was only natural that they should take a few male bonding trips together. When Meg came to Agnes with proof that the only fishing that took place on the fishing trips was trolling for female companions, poor Angie was devastated.

Meg was a Shamont, and there was a lot of money and prestige on the line. Besides, as a good Catholic girl divorce was not an option you chose if it could be avoided. Angie's situation was far worse. She was never the sophisticate Meg was, and she hadn't been using birth control. Little David was a year old, and she had just found out she was pregnant again when Meg dropped the news about David Senior's infidelity.

From her own point of view, Angie had no choice but to stick it out in the marriage. Staying is what you did for the sake of the kids. At that time, there was only little Dave, who had become the center of his mother's life. After all, David, Sr. was not a bad man, he was a loving husband most of the time and a good father. He just strayed a bit. Angie would get past it, but the romance had died, replaced by bitterness and hurt.

Dr. Suparmanputra was tall for an Indonesian, new to the hospital, and apparently unattached. Like most doctors who flirt with nurses, he was not out for a meaningful relationship, just a bit of fun. Angie was a surgical nurse at the time, busting her butt to make the family budget work and trying to deal with her husband's infidelity. Doctor Soup, as he was known to the nurses, was attentive and generous to the tall blond nurse with the very American figure. Had things been different at home Angie would not have succumbed to his advances. But she needed a bit of help in the form of a man's shoulder to cry on. She needed to feel that she was desirable. She needed her self-respect back.

As things worked out for the Landon and the Boswell couples, an accommodation was reached where the spouses played within limits. As time went on things mutated to where the wives played more than the husbands. Perhaps the women had more opportunities. It seemed somehow more acceptable for the ladies to have discreet romantic affairs than for two married men to chase every skirt. Eventually, decrease in the aging male libido caught up with the husbands. These were not the marriages that Agnes and Margaret dreamed of as girls, but dreams are one thing and reality another. Agnes had compromised so a son held close to her heart could grow up in a good home and obtain a good life with a loving wife. Everything had been fine, until the holidays last year.

Doris was a young woman, only thirty-eight. She was at that dangerous age where women begin to doubt their own appeal to the opposite sex. David had been an adequate husband. As a father, he was caring and attentive. He clearly loved his daughters and was devoted to them. He helped and supported his wife in her career, and unlike most men did not begrudge the woman her greater success. On the other hand, Agnes didn't delude herself that David was anything but dull. As a man, he was a lawyer, and the profession seemed to define him. He didn't race cars, engage in sports, or collect anything. Worst of all, as he aged he appeared to have become even more somber.