The Furniture Store

I walked around the room going over the speech in my head, how I'd suggest that I had pictures or tape or even go so far as to say that Olivia had confessed. As I mused about the coming confrontation, I began to absentmindedly look around the room. I rummaged through the magazines a little and clicked through some of the TV channels before I decided to poke around a little for clues.

It gradually occurred to me that if they were using the store to cheat there was a very good chance that it would be in this break room and if they were doing it here, then they were almost certainly using the beaten down couch that I found myself staring at.

For a minute or two, I contemplated the couch with a kind of anger and trepidation. It was a faded and pea green in color with a couple of coffee stains and a tear in the fabric on one of the arms; it had clearly seen better days and would probably be more at home in a junk yard or some sort of second hand store. I pulled up a cushion and my heart rate jumped a little when I saw that it had a fold out bed and that there were sheets on it.

I checked quickly to verify that Bruce was still in his office and then yanked open the bed. The sheets were a jumbled mess, full of wrinkles with a couple of slightly darker, yellowed areas right where you'd expect a 'wet spot' from sex. There appeared to be a lipstick stain or two and the bed smelled faintly of perfume.

With the bed open, I could see some debris on the floor under the couch, so, I stuck my right arm into the space at the top of the bed and stretched and strained to reach the uncleaned carpet below, pulling items up one at a time. Eventually, I recovered a pen, 37 cents in change, a crushed coffee cup, an empty tube of KY jelly and a receipt from a restaurant. The receipt was from a Mexican place that Olivia liked to eat at for lunch, and there, at the bottom was her signature, flowing and elegant and incriminating.

Even looking back, I recognize that the receipt was just a flimsy bit of circumstantial evidence, something that might have been explained away very easily with any number of stories or excuses. But somehow finding it lifted the final fog from my mind and the nasty little oddities about her Tuesday meeting schedules and her bruises and lingerie use and the messed up bed all coalesced to form a clear picture about a cheating wife and a shit-head brother-in-law.

Suddenly my plan to intimidate Bruce into confessing seemed like a bad idea. I wanted clear cut evidence about the affair and recognized a confrontation might throw that off, maybe make it impossible to prove. But now, knowing the probable time and the place of their likely infidelity meant that I would almost certainly be able to gather the information-the evidence-that I needed to be sure.

I folded up the bed and sat on the couch, fuming, my heart racing and my teeth clenched. I'd been screwed a couple of times in some business deals and I remember being cheated at cards once, but I had never felt anything remotely resembling this kind of betrayal in my life. I was on the verge of shouting and crying and screaming and putting my fist through the wall simultaneously. But gradually, out of this emotional maelstrom one burning desire began to emerge. The need to get even.

I calmed down a little and started considering my situation, trying to think in as much of a detached, unemotional manner as I could. I thought about the vulnerabilities of Bruce and of my wife and of how I could exploit those weaknesses to provide some modicum of satisfaction for my bruised ego once I had irrefutable proof.

My first fantasy was to beat the shit out of Bruce, but I only saw jail time there. My second thought was to refuse the loan and insist on getting all my outstanding money back immediately. But, I remembered something Bernie had told me once when I considered getting financing from a bank that was particularly aggressive. He'd advised against it saying that If you owe someone money, especially someone who didn't have your interests at heart, he had you by the balls.

I wanted Bruce by the balls.

I glanced to Bruce's office again and saw that he was standing and shaking hands with the supplier. I waved to him and smiled and he waved back, walked the supplier to the door and then hurried back to the break room.

"Hey, Mike, did you forget something? Do you need some more info?"

I shook my head and smiled.

"Listen, Bruce, I've thought this over and I want to say that maybe I gave the wrong impression earlier today. I really hope you understand that I think you're a great businessman and I think you've got a real winner here with this store. But, as I was driving away, I realized that maybe I got across the wrong message when I asked about....well.... about your contingency plans if things didn't go the way you wanted."

He smiled back. "Oh, no, Mike, I get it. Any good businessman would ask the hard questions."

"Great, great. I just want to be sure that you know that I really like what you're doing here. Plus, you're family and I have to feel like this wouldn't just be a safe investment, it's just the right thing to do for you as a friend and a member of the family as well as a good businessman. So, I didn't want you to go home without knowing for sure that I plan to push really hard to get this money for you and I can't imagine we won't get it. Now, like I said earlier, I don't have that kind of coin in my personal accounts, so I'm going to have request a withdrawal from the trust fund, but frankly, I'm virtually certain I'll be able to make Bernie bend on this and we'll get the money for you."

Bruce was listening with an expectant grin on his face that grew bigger as I talked. "Oh, man, that sounds great. I'm telling you, this business is right on the edge of taking off, so that loan is as safe with me as it is in the bank. You don't have to worry a bit."

"I'm not worried at all Bruce. Bernie will have to draw up some sort of an agreement, of course, since he'll insist on protecting the trust with collateral and what not. I should be able to get things back for your signature within a few days. Unless you have a problem with it, I'll guess you'll have the cash within a week."

---()---

The next morning I wandered into Bernie's office, shut the door and flopped into a chair. Bernie was talking on the phone, making some notes and held up a single finger to indicate that he'd be able to talk shortly. I fidgeted conspicuously while he finished the conversation and he evidently noticed because he looked at me quizzically when he hung up and asked:

"So, Mike, what's got you so nervous this morning?"

I cleared my throat and leaned forward a little to talk.

"Bernie, I think I'm going to need to access the trust for a fairly large loan."

"Yeah, well that shouldn't be a problem I guess. What...uh....what kind of a loan? And how much?" He woke his computer up with his mouse and clicked a couple of icons to reveal a spread sheet that summarized the trust holdings. I cleared my throat and leaned even closer.

"Look, Bernie, before we start doing the paperwork, the first thing I want from you is absolute confidentiality."

"Of course, I'm always...."

"No, look, I want you to understand that this is...unusual... and there may be a temptation to talk to Seth or someone else here at work or in the family. I don't want anybody other than you and me to understand what, exactly, I'm trying to do here."

He squirmed in his chair and wrinkled his brow and, with some hesitation, began a response.

"Uh, Mike if this is illegal...."

"It's not illegal. Not at all. In fact, I want you to create a document that is the pinnacle of foolproof legality."

He cocked his head and I continued on.

"I want to loan some money. I want you to draw up the loan papers. I want the conditions of the loan to be very clear. I want the loan to be appropriately collateralized by the very business I'm planning on loaning it to and I want the penalties for non-payment to be very, very clearly delineated."

"Sounds like you expect a default. Like you want to trap the guy...."

"More or less."

"So, who are you trying to trap and why?"

I hesitated a minute before responding and then looked him directly in the eye. "I want to trap my brother-in-law Bruce. The why is Olivia."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and opened his mouth a couple of times to reply without actually producing any words. Finally he took a drink from a glass of water on his desk and choked out:

"Are you, uh, sure about this?"

"Very." I replied. "Very."

---()---

Within a week the document was drawn up and I personally brought it to Bruce for him to review and sign. He had his lawyer, a small, mousy guy named Tim Sowers, who also happened to be his cousin, sit down with us to go over the document.

"Ok." Sowers started out. "I looked this over last night and it's pretty much what I'd expect for a business to business loan. But, there are a couple of things I want to point out, here, Bruce, before you sign on, ok?"

Bruce, as always, was flashing his insipid smile, agreeable and clueless as ever. "Sure, let me have the info Tim."

Sowers cleared his throat and looked carefully at Bruce, I thought I detected a hint of contempt from him, almost as if he knew how little Bruce understood of how to run a business.

"OK, first. This loan is for $425,000 to be paid back over 7 years. You've got a fairly standard rate here. The payback will begin immediately at a little over 6 grand a month."
Bruce was nodding.

"Now, the actual amount of money you'll get is only $365,000, since we are consolidating this with your loan from a couple of years ago. Mike is going to get his $60,000 back and you'll be getting the rest. OK?"

"Capisce," replied Bruce smugly, with a slight Italian accent.

Tim looked at him again and sighed quietly.

"OK, then. The loan is collateralized. It's tied to your business as well as a property over by Keokuk. Is that the duck hunt?"

"Uh, yeah." Bruce motioned to Bernie as he spoke to Sowers. "They...uh...want to make sure that Mike's trust is, uh, protected in case the business really tanked." He grimaced briefly and then added quickly "But that's not going to happen. The business is in great shape. I think so, Bernie Black seems to think so." He nodded to me and smiled, "and Mike definitely thinks so. Right Mike?"

"Oh, yeah." I answered as enthusiastically as possible. "Bruce showed me the books and I think he's got a winner here. " I smiled. "But, well, I don't know if you're familiar with Bernie or not, but he's very, very conservative and always considers the worst case scenario. He wants to be absolutely sure that the trust is protected, so it's important to him that if, for some impossible reason, the business collapses there will be something else to reimburse that trust with."

Sowers frowned and then looked intently at Bruce.

"You understand that if you default, you could very well lose the business to the trust? Maybe even the duck hunting land? That's been in the family for a while."

"Sure." Bruce was speaking earnestly, maybe trying to convey to Sowers that he understood the warning and was taking it very seriously. "I understand the, uh, ramifications. You bet. But, honestly, I'm very confident in the business and I think it's a lot safer to take this loan than to try and run the business without it."

"You understand that in as little as 3 months of insufficient payment the penalties start to kick in? Right?"

"Sure, I understand." He smiled at me like we had some sort of secret together, like he figured that I'd never really allow Bernie to enforce the penalties for anything but the most egregious violation. I just smiled back.

---()---

At home, Olivia was overjoyed. She kept going on and on about how well Bruce's business was going to do now that he had enough money to fix the main problems. Somehow I managed to avoid blurting out what I was dying to say, namely that the main problem was Bruce himself and no amount of money would fix that.

But, for the next couple of weeks, keeping my mouth shut concerning Bruce's business acumen was about the easiest thing I had to do when I was around Olivia. I needed more information before I'd be able to end my marriage the way I wanted and that would take a little time, so I knew I'd have to have to control my emotions, which ranged, on a daily basis, from melancholy to rage to disgust when I considered her affair. Eating dinner with her without blowing up became a challenge and having sex had become something to avoid altogether, if possible, and when I had no 'out' I was forced to rely on the memory of a rather sordid sexual encounter years before.

When I was 18, my friends and I took a road trip to San Diego for spring break. One night, we ended up in Tijuana, blowing off some steam. We drank and watched some pretty explicit and frankly gut turning, sex shows and, ultimately ended up with some whores. Somehow I got paired off with a gal in her early 30s, who had evidently been through a fairly hard life. She wasn't particularly attractive, and probably worse than I remember given my judgment for aesthetic beauty had undoubtedly been compromised by a fairly high blood alcohol level. Even 3 sheets to the wind, though, I had some pretty serious misgivings about taking her to bed and I started making some excuses to try and get out of it. But, my buddies gave me a very hard time, questioning my manhood, my sexual orientation, the whole nine yards.

Feeling like I had no choice, I plastered on a fake smile, took a couple of more drinks in rapid succession, grit my teeth and followed her into a dank, unkempt private room above the bar to get down to business. Now, to get the deed done, so to speak, I found I had to pretend she wasn't even there, like she was just some sort of a sex device. I ended up using her like a piece of meat, and fucked her and got off, right through the noise from the bar and the claustrophobic room, the filthy sheets and the funky smell she gave off.

So for the next couple of weeks, the few times I had sex with Olivia, she became that whore in my mind again. I closed my eyes and held my emotional nose and pounded her like I'd pounded that poor Mexican woman so many years before. Nothing gentle, no attachments, just a biological function no more profound than taking a shit. Once I got started, it became almost too easy to fuck her as hard and fast as I could. I was borderline brutal in my technique and I'd guess it might have even seemed a little like a rape if Olivia hadn't been humping back.

Not surprisingly, Olivia noticed the change and ended up mentioning it, complaining that she wanted to have at least some gentle romantic sex when we went to bed; but on the whole it seemed like she didn't mind getting pounded and considered it a general upgrade over the sex we'd been having to that point.

I guess in another life, she'd have made a good living off of American tourists in Tijuana.

---()---

Getting incontrovertible evidence of the affair turned out to be about as easy as I thought it would. Bruce was using some of the money to do a little remodeling of the store itself and there were quite a few workers wandering around during the day, fixing things up. I guessed, correctly, that no one would notice an electrician who had $500 of my cash in his back pocket slip a camera and recording device in one of the can lights over the break room couch on a Monday morning, a month or so after Bruce got the money, and remove it again two days later.

Now I had a pretty good idea of what Bruce and Olivia were doing, so I assumed I was prepared for what I'd be seeing from the camera. I figured I'd sit in my office at work with a drink and some chips and take it in as dispassionately as possible, like watching a movie.

Well, it turns out that seeing your wife fuck another guy is far worse than just understanding that it's happening. Much, much worse. By the end of the tape, I'd downed enough scotch that I there was no way I could drive home, had trashed my desk, thrown up twice and hurled a paperweight through my office door.

The details are pretty much what you'd expect. I skipped to early afternoon on Tuesday and started watching there at a fast speed until I saw the figure of a woman in a blue dress with a large tote bag, abruptly enter the room, take fresh sheets out of the bag and unfold the couch. I immediately slowed the recording to normal speed and saw, with a sense of grim confirmation that the woman was, indeed, Olivia.

After she changed the sheets, she opened the bag up again and pulled out a bottle of wine and two glasses. She pulled off her blue dress, folded it neatly and placed it on the bag and then waited, in high thigh stockings, French cut panties and a very sheer bra, reading a novel while seated on the side of the bed. It seemed strangely surreal, reminding me a little of an odd exhibition of performance art I'd once seen in New York, in which a barely dressed young woman read strange, new age poetry to an audience that cared more about her boobs than her poems.

When Bruce finally entered the room, Olivia put her book down, smiled and stood up to give him a hug. She then pushed him away slightly, chastising him for making her wait for him to come. He retorted that her problem was that she could never wait to come and they both giggled at what seemed to be an old joke between the two of them.

They kissed for a few minutes and then Olivia reached for his belt, undid his pants and pulled them down around his ankles along with his underwear. He stepped out and she stroked him a couple of times, looking up and smiling at him for a minute before she took it into her mouth. She went at it with a fair amount of enthusiasm for a few minutes while he slowly rocked into her, holding the back of her head with his hands. Suddenly he stopped humping and pushed her head away and she smiled at him, pulled her panties off and lay back on the bed with her legs opened invitingly and obscenely. He knelt down and returned the favor for a few minutes before he stood, pulled his shirt off and mounted her. I was a little surprised that neither of them finished the other orally because, when I was with Olivia, that was a must. But I got the feeling this was their routine, as they'd gone about the changes wordlessly, each anticipating what the next step would be.

The fucking wasn't any more interesting than the oral sex. He pounded her hard, using a steady, metronomic rhythm that I'd have considered boring if I wasn't feeling outrage. Somewhere around the 10 minute mark, Bruce had an orgasm and I got the sense that Olivia came at the same time by the way she suddenly extended her legs and rolled back her head. They lay, quietly, with Bruce still inside her for a few moments until he rolled off onto his side and they began to kiss for a while.

By the time they finally finished, I was so hurt and enraged that I was breathing harder than they were. I knew the images I'd seen had been burned into my consciousness as an indelible scar that could never be erased and as such, never afford any sort of forgiveness for either of the two cheaters. I was glad I had a plan to end, rather than to save, my marriage.

I leaned forward to turn off the video when I noticed that they began some pillow talk. Olivia was laying on her side, with her head up, supported by her right hand over her crooked right elbow, while she traced lazy patterns on Bruce's chest as he lay supine. They were looking at each other, murmuring softly, smiling contentedly. Olivia started to complain lightly about having to use the furniture store as a love nest. Bruce rolled to his side and responded.