The Furniture Store

"Come on Liv, if we use a hotel we'd definitely leave a trail and we nearly got caught using either of our houses. There really isn't any option."

Olivia shrugged. "I know, I know, but really, I wish we had another place to play. I just don't like this room and changing last week's dirty sheets before making love isn't particularly inspiring."

Bruce reached and stoked her cheek, smiling. "Well, we could always just run off together."
Olivia laughed in response and Bruce's expression became contemplative, his smile fading some.

"Seriously, though, Liv, do you ever regret marrying Mike? I mean, I love Mindy, and she's a good wife. But sometimes....I don't know....do you think it would have been better if, maybe, you and I had gotten married instead?"

Olivia scooted up in the bed until she was essentially sitting up, her back leaning against the couch, her arms wrapped around her knees which were drawn up to her breasts. She looked thoughtfully at Bruce for a moment before answering.

"Come on Bruce. How many times do we have to go over this? What we have is special. Very special. But, no, I don't think it would have been better if we'd gotten married instead. We'd have been very happy together, of course, but I also love Mike and you love Mindy. If you and I were together it would just be us. Mike is a very monogamous guy and he would never develop a relationship with me if I was married and I don't think Mindy would like it that way all that much either."

She leaned over and kissed Bruce on the cheek, rubbing his chest with her right hand.

"The truth is, Bruce that people like you and I have a greater gift for love. We can love more than one person at a time and we.....we should love more than one person. It's right for us to do that. But, Mindy and Mike aren't like that. Their inclination to limit themselves means that they'd never be able to do what you and I do. They'd never be able to keep their emotions straight and keep everyone satisfied."

Hearing that, my outrage peaked and it was then that I sent my paperweight through the office door.

Because I loved her, and maybe because she was the only woman that had ever loved me, I guess I never realized how arrogant, delusional and self serving my wife was. In her mind, somehow, she'd turned her cheating ways into some sort of a virtue. To her, evidently, it wasn't an act that represented a stab in the back of her lawfully wedded husband, but rather, something that increased the love in the world. Something that she not only had the right to do, but had some sort of a moral imperative to do.

I slept on a couch in my office that night and finalized all the paperwork I needed the next morning.

---()---

When I got home the next evening, Olivia greeted me with her hands on her hips and a sour look on her face.

"Where the hell were you last night? I was worried sick. You didn't call, you didn't text, you gave me no clue whatsoever what the hell...."

I stopped her short with an upraised hand. "I was at work last night. I got drunk and couldn't drive home, so I stayed there...."
She gave me a look of complete puzzlement. "Wait...what? You got drunk? At work?"
I smiled and nodded back to her and she continued.

"Well, at a minimum you could have let me know what was going on. I nearly called the police. And....what the hell were you doing drinking at work?" She was still glaring at me, but she continued to carry a look of extreme puzzlement with her question.

Without answering, I brushed passed her into the living room and flopped on the coach, perched my feet on the coffee table, pulled my briefcase into my lap and opened it up. Olivia, gave an exasperated sigh and followed me into the living room to sit, angrily, in a chair opposite the couch.

"Hey, how about some answers Mike?"

"Hmm?

"What were you doing drinking so much at work? What happened last night? What's going on?"

I continued rummaging through my brief case and pulled a couple of folders out, laying them, one by one on the couch beside me.

"Just a second Liv, I want to get things arranged here a little." I sorted the papers a little more, pulled my feet off the table and leaned forward as I replaced them with the paperwork. I rubbed my hands together, as if anticipating a sumptuous meal, looked to Olivia and smiled.

"OK then, let's get started."

"What? Get started...."

"Yes, well, after last night's experience...."

"Last night? What....what happened last night?" Olivia's aggressive attitude when I'd come home was being rapidly replaced by something more passive. I was starting to sense a little fear.

"Can you at least tell me what you were doing last night?"

"Oh....yeah. I was watching a video."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I was watching a feed I had of you and Bruce fucking on that couch in his break room, and I found it a little disturbing, so I guess I had a little too much to drink. You understand..."

I gave a thin, emotionless little smile back to Olivia whose face had gone from puzzlement to distress and then shock, fear and bewilderment. Her mouth was open half way, making little spasmodic movements, barely opening and closing, unable to produce any meaningful sound. Her eyes, wet and getting wetter, were darting back and forth from the papers on the table to the door and to me, as if she expected someone or something to come through the door, sweep up the papers and make everything ok. Finally she spoke.

"I...I don't understand, Mike. What....what are you talking about?"

"Come on Olivia. You can't be that dense. I'm talking about you and about Bruce and about what the two of you did yesterday and every other fucking Tuesday for at least a year." I gestured to the paperwork in front of me. "I'm talking about the end of our marriage."
Olivia let out a sudden gasp and covered her mouth with her hand for a moment. I waited for her to respond.

"Mike.....we can work this out. I think I can get you to understand...."

"Oh, I think I understand Liv." I pulled a DVD out of the briefcase, held it up briefly and then slid it across the table toward her. "I got all kinds of information last night to help me understand. Really, a veritable gold mine of new facts about my loving wife and my friendly brother-in-law."

She looked at the DVD like it was a poisonous snake, physically recoiling slightly, making no effort at all to pick it up.

"Go ahead Liv, that's your copy. I won't tell you how I got it, but I have my own for future reference and to further my education about your philosophy on love and devotion."

She leaned forward and started to stand and, for a moment, looked like she was going to come to me, but I raised my hand and stopped her, and she sat down. She bit her lip for a second and then, looking directly at me, began speaking again, slowly and deliberately, with a sort of false confidence that I suspect was intended to hide the wavering quality to her voice.

"Mike, look, you have to open your mind and think about this. It doesn't make any sense for you to ruin your life, our lives, because we have different values and.....and talents. I love you and...and have always been prepared to make accommodations for our differences and I hope that....."

I interrupted with a derisive snort. Different values and talents? Really? You think cheating on your husband is some sort of a talent? Because, honestly Liv, I'm pretty sure everyone is up to that, seriously...."

"Talent is the wrong word." She took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling for a moment before looking back to me. "Capacity. I think the right word is capacity. I have a great capacity for love and, I can, and have successfully, loved more than one person romantically at a time. Other than outdated conventions about love and relationships, there is no reason that I can't, or shouldn't exercise my....capacity...."

"Please, just stop. Honestly, you're just making me sick with your excuses. I get it....I got it from the tape, that somehow you think you have some sort of special ability that gives you license to cheat and lie and sleep around when you're supposed to be faithful. But, really, it's just a bullshit excuse Liv. Anyone can have a romantic involvement with a couple of people simultaneously. That doesn't make them lovers with a 'greater capacity'. It just makes them cheaters."

With a flash, the apologetic, conciliatory Olivia was gone, replaced by an angry, aggressive, supremely self-confident shrew.

"You call me a cheater?" She spat at me. "Well, fair enough from your point of view, I guess I am. But, again, I've never lost or suppressed my love for you or my love for Bruce, so I've never cheated on my emotions, never compromised my feelings or my actions because of some medieval code that says I have to confine my relationships to one and only one person. So, yeah, maybe I look like a cheater to you, but when I look in the mirror I have no problem with what I see, no qualms about what I've done, none." She was breathing hard and with passion, her face and chest flushed, fire in her eyes, a look that was daring me to challenge her.

So, I did.

"You want to live like that? Some sort of an open relationship with lots of different guys, loving one guy one day and another the next? Be my guest; to each his own. But it's pure unadulterated bullshit to pretend you haven't cheated, haven't been dishonest, because you never once let on to me that you were out fucking Bruce and you know, very well, that I wouldn't have gone along with that. You know it. " She was feeling my fire and she turned her head slightly from me, avoiding my gaze, but I twisted and turned so that my eyes locked on hers and then continued.

"So you chose to lie by omission. By the greatest fucking omission of truth that I've ever personally experienced. You made me, and practically everyone else, think we were a pair, a bonded pair exclusive to each other. But you went out and started....or continued.....fucking Bruce, hiding your cheap little furniture store trysts as best you could. You told a lie....lived a lie... and no matter what the hell kind of oddball marital philosophy you have, that makes you a cheater."

By now angry tears were running down her cheeks and her mouth was clenched tight, more angry than sad, slowly shaking her head in disagreement with what I'd said, but apparently without the words to back up her feelings. I continued to stare at her, waiting for a response, but when nothing came, I broke the standoff by sliding the paperwork closer to her.

"Read it. Get a lawyer. It's fair."

Finally she spoke.

"And if I don't want a divorce?"

"Then you're out of luck Liv, because you're getting one." I paused a moment and, with a poorly concealed smirk, added, "But, hey, it's not like you're going to be alone."

I moved out that night, leaving for an apartment closer to work and all too quickly reverted to what I'd been before Olivia. A worker, a business man, a loner without the time or inclination to engage in social activities. The hours I spent at work became hellacious, and more than a few people commented on it. But I knew if I sat at home I would simply obsess about Olivia, endlessly playing her affair through my mind, wondering if she was thinking of me or if she was fucking Bruce at any given moment. I really had no choice but to throw myself into work as hard as I possibly could and try get past my marriage as quickly as possible.

My normal inclination in any sort of a contest is to do anything necessary to win and I suppose most people who knew me in the business world would have expected a long, drawn out, aggressive negotiation to reach a settlement. But that would mean delay and interaction and pain and I was willing to pay to get out quickly and cleanly. I offered Olivia a large lump sum in lieu of ongoing support with a threat to withdraw the offer if she didn't acquiesce to a quick divorce.

Deep down, I guess I wanted her to object, to insist that we could work out the marriage somehow, decline the offer and fight for the marriage. I wanted whatever slim chance she thought our marriage had of survival to be more important to her than the money.

It turns out it wasn't.

With some half-hearted objections, she agreed to the terms and, 60 days later, my marriage was over.

---()---

A couple of months after the divorce was finalized Bruce, predictably, started coming up short on his payments. He'd gotten the appropriate warnings and a nasty letter from Bernie letting him know we'd start taking the money any way we could get it. He called and emailed with excuses and promises, virtually begging for more time to pay. I instructed Bernie to play hardball, though, and we made it clear that we would exercise our rights and begin to extract collateral as soon as legally practical. On the eve of a 'workout' session Bruce begged to meet with me personally and I agreed. At that point, I knew he was as desperate as he was going to get and that he'd do anything or take money from anyone in order to stave off the wolves.

I wanted the money to come from Olivia. I looked forward to the meeting.

We met at my office, after hours. Almost all the secretaries had gone home, but my personal assistant, Sherry, lingered on in the outer office, ready to prepare paperwork if necessary. Bruce was nervous, more nervous than I'd ever seen him, giving me a sweat slicked hand to shake as he tentatively entered my office. Lurking behind him, almost shyly, was Olivia and I had a little trouble catching my breath when I saw her.

Olivia sat nearer to me than to Bruce and was wearing one of my favorite outfits, full makeup and flashing her incandescent smile, and there was little question in my mind that she was there to try and bolster Bruce's chances by appealing to my former emotional ties.

I suddenly felt a nearly overwhelming impulse to rush over to her, take her in my arms and kiss her but, understanding the danger of what I was feeling, suppressed the urge ruthlessly, painting my face with a scowl and grunting out some greeting in a reluctant recognition of her presence.

Truthfully, I was more than a little surprised that she had come at all. I'd anticipated this meeting for a long, long time and had carefully scripted in my mind how it would go, but I didn't figure Olivia would be there and worried that her attendance would somehow interfere with my plan to bind her to her lover's failures. I thought about objecting, maybe insisting that she wait outside, but finally decided her presence might actually make the outcome more satisfying.

Bruce started in by trying to charm me. After shaking my hand he smiled as much as possible and started with some small talk about how he wanted to try and make things right, wanted me to be happy and how he hoped I knew how much he respected me and that he was so sorry about how things had worked out. I was incredulous that he apparently wanted to resume a friendship of sorts, that he seemed to think we could all be buddy-buddy again.

I wasn't buying. Without cracking a hint of a smile, I stared him down and with as little emotion as possible stopped his little speech.
"Bruce, please, cut the shit. Your apologies are meaningless to me, ok?"

He rocked back in his chair, taking on an expression as though I had struck him and then he pressed his lips together, took a deep, worried breath through his nose and nodded his head in acquiescence before beginning again.

"OK, sorry Mike. Let's get to business." He looked at me as though it was my meeting, like he thought I should proceed, but I just spread my hands out in an expectant gesture, and waited for him to state his case.

He licked his lips nervously and ran a trembling hand through his hair before starting to ramble about how he had every intention to pay the money back but the he was a little short 'at the moment'. He described how Bernie was playing hardball and expressed his doubts that I knew how much pressure he was putting on him to pay. Then he went on to talk about how the business was on the verge of recovery and that with just 'a little time' he'd be able to get his head fully above water. Finally, he finished by trying to make the case that I'd be better off financially if I gave him more time.

I leaned back in my chair, slowly, carefully studying Bruce's nervous smile, the thin film of sweat that was appearing on his forehead and the poorly controlled tremor that his right hand was exhibiting as it rested on the table between us.

"Bruce, if you were anything other than a blatant bull-shitter, I think I might consider giving you an extension."

His eyes opened wide in surprise and distress and he leaned forward, getting ready to protest when I stopped him with an upraised hand.

"Come on Bruce, you must know it's nearly impossible to trust a man who didn't think anything of fucking his married sister-in-law. You must know that asking for a financial favor from the husband of that same woman is laughably ridiculous."

Bruce fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair while Olivia cleared her throat nervously and interjected with a plaintive voice.

"Mike, please, you can't punish Bruce because..."

"I can do whatever the hell I want, Olivia." I snapped, giving her a look of unmitigated hostility. "And, just why are you here anyway?"

"I thought that I might be able to prevail on you for....old times' sake. I still care for you and I thought that..."

I interrupted her abruptly and loudly. "You thought wrong. Frankly, your presence is just serving to remind me how Bruce here figuratively screwed me by literally screwing you. So, do yourself and Bruce a favor and sit back and try and look pretty and keep the comments to an absolute minimum."

Tears were appearing in her eyes and her chin started to wrinkle, but she did as I'd insisted and leaned back in her chair quietly. I turned back to Bruce.

"OK Bruce, so this is the way it's going to be. You're going to pay back on time, on a strict schedule or I'll start going through a 'workout process' to get what I can out of the collateral assets."

Bruce was shaking his head aggressively. "Come on Mike. You can't take my business from me. You can't..."

"I can and I will if you don't pay, Bruce. My advice is to get the money. Look to your family. Find a bank. Sell something. I don't care. Just get the money or I'll take what I can."

"But....but....you know the banks aren't loaning to me or I would have gone to them in the first place. And my family....they can't help. They don't have that kind of dough..."

I looked Bruce squarely in the eye. "Don't give me any shit about your family not having any money, I know they do."

"No....no, they don't. They would help if they could, but they just can't."

"What about her?" I jerked my thumb over to Olivia. "Have you asked her for money?"

Bruce sat back. "Liv? Liv doesn't have..."

I laughed. "Sure she does. I cut her a check for a hundred and fifty grand. She's got plenty of money. Don't you Olivia?"
I looked to Olivia with a smirk and Bruce looked to her with a question on his face. As I suspected, he wasn't aware of the lump sum payout. She suddenly looked nervous, maybe a little nauseous.

"Well, yes, I do but....but I need that money...."

I laughed again. "Whoa there Liv. I remember how 'safe' you thought it was to give money to Bruce when you talked me into helping in the first place. Why hesitate now? I mean, come on, don't you have confidence in Bruce here to turn his business around? Aren't you here to help convince me he's good for the money? If you think it's a good investment for me, why not for you?" I was giving her an expectant, malevolent grin.