The Slut in Room 101

"I'm so mad at her I could kill her!" I snarled angrily, taking another swallow of my beer.

"Hey, Johnny, don't even say things like that," Billy said, which was kind of funny because Billy had a hotter temper than me. Back in high school he was always getting into fights; the littlest thing could set him off.

"But she's cheating on me," I whined. "Best I can tell she's been screwing her doctor friend for a couple of months now. How could she do that to me?"

Billy ordered us another round, and after it got to our table he asked me to tell him what happened. I didn't really want to go into it, but in a strange way it felt good to talk about what happened. Sort of like talking about when you had surgery, I guess. So I started at the beginning.

I always thought Doris and me had a pretty good marriage. Sure we had fights about things every now and then - what couple doesn't? But we always kissed and made up afterwards, and that's all that matters.

Moneywise, we had a pretty good life together. I'd dropped out of college my sophomore year - that academic stuff wasn't for me. But I really didn't need a degree because I'm what you call a natural born salesman. I wound up with a job at one of the two biggest auto dealerships in town, and soon I was earning good money. So Doris and me got engaged in her junior year and married when she was a senior.

The funny thing is that Doris also wound up in sales. After she graduated she went to work for one of the big pharmaceutical companies. Basically that meant she peddled prescription drugs to doctors. Anyway, between the two of us we weren't rich or anything but we were doing okay. No kids yet, but they would come, or so I had thought.

The thing that initially attracted me to Doris was her figure: when I first met her she was lean and tight. Better yet, even after six years of marriage she'd kept herself that way. Part of that was good genes, I guess, but she also turned into a real work-out nut, going to the gym three, four, even five days a week. The good news is that her body was still tight and sexy, not in that pumped-up body-builder way that makes me sorta queasy, but more like that Jillian Michaels woman you see on TV all the time. I really liked that.

But the bad news was that all that exercise really seemed to wear her out. Lately, whenever I wanted to enjoy that hot body in bed at night, all she'd want to do is go to sleep. But, as I'd just found out, there was another reason why she wasn't interested in doing the horizontal mambo with me. That reason was Morris Fisher, one of the doctors she called on regularly.

I stumbled onto the affair between my wife and the good doctor by accident. Even though she's the smart one in our family, Doris is one of those types who's always forgetting things. I can't even count the number of times we've had to hunt for her lost cellphone or go back someplace to retrieve the purse she left behind. So it wasn't unusual to discover that she'd left her notebook computer at home when she went to work this morning. But what was a surprise was the email I spotted in her inbox titled "Yesterday was So Hot!!" You better believe I opened that one in a hurry.

Long story short, it soon became obvious that she and Dr. Fisher had been using email to set up meetings at a motel for several months. Judging from the contents of the other emails I read, it was pretty obvious that they weren't meeting to compare the relative merits of different meds. When I dug into her Sent Mail file and saw some of the things she had said to him, it also became clear that this was a lot more than just a casual fling. The two of them were in the middle of a full-blown romance.

"I never saw it coming," I moaned to Billy pitifully. "What am I gonna do, man?"

"Well if it was my wife I'd give her a fist sandwich right before I kicked her to the curb," Billy said self-righteously.

"Nah, I could never hit Doris," I said. "I'm just gonna have to divorce her ass and get on with my life. But I'd sure like to get back at Dr. Morris Fisher for screwing up my marriage."

As I sat there drinking, an idea popped into my head. I leaned across the table and spoke to Billy in a quiet voice, "Hey, buddy, would you be willing to give me a hand in getting a little payback? I think I know how we could do something that wouldn't come back on us."

Billy got a glint in his eyes. "Tell me what ya got," he said eagerly.

My idea was simple: we'd use Doris's email to lure the good doctor to the motel again, only we'd be the ones waiting, not her. We'd tie him up, take his clothes and leave him there in his underwear. Then we'd phone in a tip to the TV news so they'd be waiting to film him when the police "rescued" him. If that didn't show the world his true colors, nothing would.

"But he'll know we did it," Billy protested.

"I got that covered," I reassured him. "We'll be wearing ski masks and we can use surgical gloves so we don't leave any fingerprints. It'll be perfect."

"Okay, smart guy, but you're forgetting one thing," Billy said. "If he gets an email from your Doris's account, he's going to guess you were the one who sent it."

"Maybe," I conceded, "but even if he does I don't think he'll say anything. If he does he'll have to admit to having an affair, and I'll bet his wife wouldn't be too pleased about that."

Billy looked at me shrewdly. "You could be right," he said. "Besides, he might suspect you but he couldn't prove nothing."

"Especially if I delete the email from Doris's computer after I send it," I said triumphantly.

"Let's do it," Billy said. "I hate fucking cheaters. That damn doc owes you for screwing with your wife!"

"Okay, here's how we do it," I told him. "Tonight I'll email him from Doris's computer and set up a meeting at their regular motel right after lunch. Tomorrow morning, you go book a room. When he shows up, instead of Doris, we'll grab him."

"And then we cut off his dick, right?" Billy asked eagerly.

"No, no, no," I said hastily. "We want to take the high road on this thing. We'll gag him, strip him down, tie him to a chair and leave him. I'll make an anonymous call to the police about a disturbance in Room 101; then you call your buddy at the TV station and tell him you heard that the police are investigating something big at the motel. It'll be all over the news - he'll be the laughing stock of the town. If he keeps his mouth shut, it will still be pretty embarrassing for him 'cause everybody will know he wasn't making a house call. And if he tells them why he went to the motel in the first place, everybody will know about his affair with Doris, and then I'll kick her to the curb!"

"Sounds perfect," Billy chimed in eagerly. "I can't wait!"

"Just remember one thing, Billy," I added, "when you rent that room, don't use your credit card."

"Why not?" Billy asked.

I tried not to roll my eyes. "Because you don't really want the police to know you were the one who rented the room where the doc was grabbed," I said impatiently.

"Oh, right," Billy said.

Mentally I shook my head. Billy was a great guy but he wouldn't be winning the Nobel Prize any time soon.

That evening when I got home I acted like nothing was wrong. I even hinted to Doris that I was interested in a little hanky-panky in bed after dinner, but she quickly nixed that idea, just like I'd expected. I didn't know whether Fisher was wearing her out or if she was so hung up on him that she didn't want me to touch her. Either way, I'd be dumping the cheating bitch as soon as I'd had my revenge on her lover.

After she'd gone to bed, I found her rolling suitcase, the one she used to wheel around all her drug samples and shit for the doctors. Sure enough, her laptop was inside. When I fired it up I found that her email was password-protected, but I'd anticipated that. Because she was so forgetful, Doris kept her passwords written down on a sheet of paper tucked in her billfold. I pulled it out, keyed in her password and bingo - I was in.

I quickly started typing up my little invite to Doctor Love, and I was pretty sure I knew how to word it so he wouldn't be able to resist. But I only got halfway through before I came to a screeching halt. We had a big problem: Billy was going to rent a motel room tomorrow, but I needed to know right now which room to tell the good doctor. "Way to go, dumbass!" I cursed myself. "No Nobel Prize for you either this year!"

Quickly I called Billy. When he came on the line, I asked, "Can you talk?"

"Sure I can," he replied. "Can't you hear me?"

"No, no!" I almost shouted. "I mean, can you talk without Phyllis hearing you?"

"Oh," he said. "She's not here; you can go ahead."

When I explained my dilemma, Billy said, "That's no problem. Just make an anonymous call to the Doc tomorrow and tell him which room."

"Yeah, that'll work," I said sarcastically. "Don't you think he might be a tad suspicious if some man calls to tell him where to meet my wife for a little fuck-and-suck?"

"Oh, right," Billy said, and I stifled my groan.

Then the answer hit me. "I got it!" I said eagerly. "When you go to the motel tomorrow, rent a room for two days. Then I'll email him tomorrow night and tell the Doc the meeting is set for the next day and which room to go to."

"Okay," Billy said, "but what are we gonna do with the room tomorrow?"

"We're not going to do anything with it," I said, trying to contain my impatience.

"Well, that seems kind of a waste to me," Billy said. "Besides, I don't think my credit card can afford two days."

"No credit cards, Billy!" I yelped, and then clapped my hand over my mouth because I didn't want to wake Doris. In a quieter voice I said, "Look, I'll spot you the money if you're short, Billy, but use cash, not your credit card. Don't forget: pay in cash."

He agreed and we hung up, but I was beginning to get a bad feeling about the whole thing. Nevertheless, Billy did what I told him and called me back the next day with the room number. "It was no problem, Johnny. The desk clerk hardly even looked at me, and I paid in cash like we discussed. And get this: we got room 101. It's right on the end, so it should be extra quiet down there."

"Sounds great, buddy," I told him. "You done good. I'll send out that email tonight, and you get that other stuff we discussed."

"What other stuff, Johnny?"

I heaved a deep sigh, but managed to keep my temper. "The duct tape and your camera," I reminded him. "I'll bring the surgical gloves and the ski masks for us to wear."

"Oh, right," he said.

As I hung up the phone, I swore under my breath. "If he says 'oh, right' one more time, I swear I'm gonna scream."

Doris went to bed early again, so I was able to send my message to Doctor Fisher without a problem. In the email I promised the guy some hot sex like he'd never had before if he'd just show up at Room 101 at the motel tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. "I'm gonna knock your socks off," I wrote, and that line had me chuckling all night.

When the big day arrived, things didn't seem quite so humorous to me. I began to wonder if I was about to do something really stupid. But when I remembered all those lovey-dovey emails between the two cheaters, my anger flared up again. Dr. Fisher deserved all the humiliation he was about to get, and so did Doris, for that matter. I was the faithful husband who'd been wronged; they'd earned what was coming to them.

About mid-morning I gave Billy a call on his cellphone to make sure everything was set. He was supposed to come over to the dealership at 12:30 and pretend to be a customer so I could take him for a test drive. That was our cover story and I wanted to make sure everything was still okay.

"Where are you, Billy? Are you at home?" I asked him.

"Naw, I spent the night in the motel room," he said blithely.

"What!" I shouted. "Why did you do that?"

"Well, it seemed like a shame to let it sit idle. Besides, Phyllis and me had a fight and I needed to get out of the house."

Once again, all I could do was shake my head. Billy's wife was a pretty little nurse who worked at the hospital. Doris knew her because they both worked out at the same gym. From what I could tell, Phyllis seemed like a good woman, but she and Billy always seemed to be fighting about something. Still, I didn't like the idea of him leaving all kinds of evidence around that motel room. I watched CSI and I knew what those investigators could find.

"Billy," I said sternly, "I thought we agreed we didn't want to leave any traces in the room."

"Oh, right," Billy said, and I bit my tongue so I wouldn't scream.

"Listen, Billy, clean up your mess in there, wipe off every surface you touched and then head on over to the dealership. Remember, you need to get here at 12:30 sharp."

Despite my misgivings, Billy arrived at the showroom at 12:30 on the dot. I signed out for a demonstrator and we high-tailed it to the motel. When we got there, I handed Billy a pair of surgical gloves and pulled on my own. Then we went into the room. It was a mess like I'd expected. At first I worried that Fisher might show up early, but when did a doctor ever keep an appointment on time? Anyway, with the two of us working together we got things cleaned up as best we could before the Doc showed.

Billy and I closed all the blinds and curtains in the room, and then I turned off every light. The last thing I did was to fix the little flip security latch so the door stayed propped open a little. Then we pulled on our ski masks and stepped back around the corner. It was real dark except for the light leaking under the door.

As we waited in silence, Billy startled me when he leaned up to whisper in my ear, "It sure is spooky in here."

It took all my strength not to strangle him. "Be quiet, Billy" I hissed. "He could be outside right now."

"Oh, right."

Before I could respond, we heard footsteps coming down the hallway. I shushed Billy and then pointed at the camera in his hand. He nodded, and I hoped that meant he remembered what he was supposed to do. I peeked around the corner.

Just then the door swung open and a man walked into the room. "Hey, Doris, where are you, sexy lady?" he called playfully. I nudged Billy to get ready. "Here I am," I said in a whispery voice, and when he turned in our direction, Billy fired off his camera. The flash caught the doctor full in the face, and he yelped as the intense light blinded him. I waited till he stopped rubbing his eyes, and when he lowered his hands I decked him.

I'm a pretty good-sized guy and I've been in a few fights so I knew how to handle myself. I guess I put a little extra into that sucker punch because the Doc dropped to the carpet like a stone.

I started dancing around, waving my aching fist. "Damn that hurt," I moaned. Fortunately, Billy was all business. He made sure the motel room door was closed and locked, then came back and checked on lover boy. He whistled. "You really caught him, Johnny," he said admiringly. "He's out like a light."

"Keep it down," I hissed, "and don't use my name!"

"Sorry, Johnny," Billy said.

"Come on," I commanded, "help me get his clothes off."

We took off our ski masks and then started trying to strip the doctor. You'd be amazed how difficult it is to undress a limp body, but after a lot of tugging and pulling we got the Doc down to his blue-striped boxers. Neither of us wanted to touch his privates so we stopped there. Then we manhandled him into the desk chair and duct-taped him to it. Even though he seemed to be out cold, I wasn't taking any chances on him waking up and yelling, so I taped his mouth as well.

"Okay," I said, "we're done here. Let's drop his clothes in the dumpster in the parking lot and then get back to the dealership."

"Sure you don't want to cut off the bastard's pecker?" Billy asked, pulling a wicked-looking folding knife out of his pocket.

"Put that away, Billy," I said hastily. "We talked about that. All we want to do is humiliate him, not maim him."

"Gotcha," Billy said, and put his knife away, to my relief. We gathered up the rest of the doctor's clothes and headed for the door. As we were leaving, I used the metal safety latch to keep the door from closing.

"Why'd you do that?" Billy asked.

"So the police and the news crew can get into the room easily," I told him.

"Oh, right," Billy said.

I sighed and we headed out the rear door of the motel. On the way back to the dealership, I tossed the doc's clothes, the gloves and the ski masks in a dumpster. When we got back, Billy climbed in his pick-up truck to leave. I leaned in his window to make sure he remembered what to do next. "I'm going to make an anonymous call to 9-1-1 and report a disturbance at the motel. As soon as you get home, call your buddy at the station. Tell him you just saw the police pull into the motel and it looked like something big was going down."

He nodded, and I could only hope he'd get it right.

The "test drive" I'd taken with Billy ran only slightly longer than usual, and nobody said anything about it. I heaved a mental sigh of relief. It looked like we'd gotten away with it.

The rest of the afternoon seemed to drag on forever, but finally the day ended and I jumped in my car to head to the bar to meet up with Billy. I was so keyed up I felt almost high. The thought of seeing the good doc being marched out of a sleazy motel in his boxers on the ten o'clock news had me almost salivating. The only thing better would be seeing Doris's face while she watched with me!

Billy, of course, was already at a table and he had a beer waiting for me. "Well," I demanded eagerly, "did you call your buddy at the station like we discussed?"

'Yup," he said, and took a long pull from his bottle.

"Did the news crew get the Doc on tape coming out of the motel?"

"Sure did."

"Well, what did your friend say? How did Fisher look?"

Billy just shook his head. "You couldn't really tell because of the body bag."

"Body bag! What body bag?"

"The body bag the Doc was in." I stared at him in dismay. "He was dead, Johnny," Billy said. "They had to carry him out in a bag."

"How is that possible, Billy? He was fine when we left him, except maybe for that lump on his jaw."

"Someone musta come in the room after we left and done him, Johnny. When my buddy called me back to thank me for the tip, he said a maid found the Doc with his throat cut clean as a whistle - there was blood everywhere. It'll be the lead story on the news tonight."

Up till now, the only time in my life I'd ever felt woozy was when I took a real hard lick playing football back in high school. But I felt like I might faint now. This had to be the worst thing that could possibly have happened. I took a big swallow of my beer to try to calm myself and stared at Billy.

"Do the police know who did it?" I asked.

"Nah," Billy said calmly. "My buddy said nobody seen or heard nothing."

"Listen, Billy, this is bad, real bad. If this comes back on us, we're in real trouble."

"Why?" he asked. "We didn't kill him."

"You know that and I know that, but the police don't know it," I said in exasperation. "If they find out we were the ones who tied him up, it's for damn sure they're gonna try to pin the murder on us."

"Oh, right."

I wanted to reach across the table and strangle him, but I knew this was no time to lose control. "Listen, Billy, we've got to keep absolutely quiet about this. You can't talk to anyone, not Phyllis, not your buddy at the TV news, not anybody. If you do, we could wind up going to prison, understand?"

"Sure, Johnny, sure."

"Our best hope is that the police find whoever killed him right away. Once they make an arrest, the heat will be off us."

"Don't worry, Johnny, I'll keep my lip zipped," he said, making that stupid hand and mouth gesture we learned in the fifth grade.