Work Husband

*************

Over the weekend, we stayed home, lounged around and made love. For me, it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I felt great. I didn't give one thought to Dylan.

Minerva seemed happy most of the time, but a few times, she told me she needed to be alone with her thoughts. She would go into the living room with a pen, a pad of paper, her smartphone and her headphones and sit on the couch.

On Sunday morning, I walked by the living room and stopped to look at her. I watched her reading a book and making notes. She closed the book, replaced it on the shelf, turned around and saw me. Her dark expression became bright. She took off her headphones, came over and held me tight. Then she went to the kitchen to start on lunch.

I walked over to where she had replaced the book. It was one of her classics collections, and every book had the same cover. It looked like it came from the Henry James section, but I couldn't be sure.

After dinner, she wanted to talk about Dylan.

"I want you to forget about revenge," she said.

"That's not going to happen."

"Please hear me out. You're a man, and you're probably thinking about doing physical things to punish him, but the kids and I don't want to spend the next few years visiting you in jail."

"Don't worry, I'll plan it carefully."

"That's what professional criminals do, and a lot of them get caught. You're an amateur. And why should you take any risks when my punishment will be worse than anything you could think of?"

"Your punishment?"

"I've been working on it. When it comes to cruelty and viciousness, men aren't in the same league as women. And we can do it without breaking the law. So here's the deal. You let me handle this, and if you don't think what I do is enough, we'll talk again. Meanwhile, you don't lift a finger."

I gave in, because I was sure I'd still get my own revenge. It would just be later rather than sooner. While she was doing her thing, I'd make my plans carefully so there was no chance of anything going wrong.

"What are you going to say to him tomorrow?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Since you're on the team together, he can't steer clear of you, so he'll try to convince you that you misunderstood him. How will you react?"

"What makes you think he'll do that?"

"Because of your dramatic scene at the office."

"I know, but I think he believed me about the food poisoning. I only said a few words to him after I came out of the bathroom. He's smart, but I don't think he can read minds."

"What are you going to say to him at lunch."

"I'm going to try to avoid having lunch with him until I'm sure about my plan, but if I can't avoid eating with him, I'll tell him the truth."

"You'll what?"

"Yes, I'll tell him that while I've been recovering, I've been thinking about him a lot."

"Pretty good. I should feel sorry for the guy, but I don't. I can't wait to hear what you've planned for him. Are you going to call him out in front of the whole office? Are you going to talk to his wife? What if he denies everything?"

She ignored my questions.

"Just be patient."

****************

That night Minerva said she was sure Dylan didn't have a clue that she was on to him, and she would start the next morning.

"I can see clearly now," she began. "You were right that I wasn't using my brain. Like Lorena's conversation with you at the party. I hope you aren't insulted when I tell you that any dunce could have figured it out - anyone but me.

"My revenge is sort of an experiment, and it will take a while. It's like I'm growing a new mum hybrid, but this flower isn't beautiful. It's a flower of evil. I'm going to plant it, water it and nourish it so it will thrive. I won't know exactly what it will look like until it blooms."

"Can you give me a clue as to what you're doing?"

"I'm going to give him just about everything he wants."

"What?"

"It'll be easy. All I have to do is be myself. He's good looking, smart and funny, so it won't be hard. I'll be the same Minerva that I've always been. He'll get back to working on his play.

"Meanwhile, I'll be working on my own play, which is the same as his, but it moves faster. My goal is to condense his seduction. He's probably thinking six months until we're intimate enough, but I'm going for weeks. That's the challenge that I've set for myself."

"I don't understand. It sounds like your plan is the same as his plan."

"It is, except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"I know what he's up to, and he doesn't know that I know."

"What did you mean when you said 'intimate?'"

"I knew you'd pick up on that. I mean it like it sounds. I could say verbally intimate, but I'm going to touch him, too. Only his hands and upper body. As far as my mouth, I may touch his ear when I'm whispering to him, but otherwise only a peck on the cheek. I've already done that, so I can't stop now."

"I don't like it."

"You won't like this part either. Up to now, I haven't told him much about our private life. But I'm going to open up and give him more details. Maybe he'll share some information about him and Lorena, but it doesn't matter. He'll know so much about us that we're going to become closer than ever."

"I don't see that as hurting him much. It seems more like you're encouraging him than anything else."

"It does sound that way, doesn't it?"

She laughed. It was a nasty laugh.

"Yes, my love. Up to now, I haven't encouraged him, but that's changing. Do you still think I'm intelligent?"

"Yes, but I have a million questions I want to ask you."

"I'll answer all of them in good time. But I don't want to talk about this anymore right now. I want to enjoy watching my evil flower grow."

********

When Minerva came home the next day, she was beaming.

"You're looking at the newest vice president of Success Solutions. The boss called me in this morning. It turns out that while I was gone, a problem came up with one of the customers, and he wasn't happy about the way it was handled. He knew I would never have done it that way, and that made him finally realize how valuable I was. I get a big raise and an office with glass walls."

"That's wonderful. Let's celebrate this weekend."

"Next weekend. There's a garden show this weekend with great lectures both days. I'll be exhausted when I come home, so I just want to spend the evening quietly with you."

"How quietly?"

"We can do whatever you want, but you'll have to do all the work. I'll just lie there like a log."

She laughed. We both knew that no matter how tired she was, once I got her going, she was like the Energizer Bunny.

"I forgot to tell you the best part. I told the boss the first thing I wanted to do was give Dylan a raise and put him in charge of the team. At first, he was reluctant because he thought Dylan might not be ready for the responsibility.

"But I persuaded him. I told him we needed Dylan's imagination and skills, and since he would be reporting to me, I would have him on a short leash to keep him from going out of bounds. When I told Dylan about our promotions and that we would be working closer than ever starting next week, you should have seen his face. It was like he died and went to heaven."

"Oh great!"

"Yes, he's going to be a happy camper. Everything's going his way. He's almost as happy as I am."

I started to say something but decided not to.

**********

When she came home from the gardening show on Sunday, Minerva had another surprise for me.

"Guess who I ran into?"

"Dylan, of course."

"No, he wasn't at any of the lectures I attended, but I saw Lorena in the hall during a break. She was friendly, and she asked about you."

"What did you tell her?"

"Not much. You know a lot of marriages aren't what they appear to be. She could be helping him, for all we know. But I will say that while we were talking, she made a favorable impression. She's sharp, not the poor cow she looks like. I feel sorry for her."

"Was she in your mum lectures?"

"I didn't see her. I don't know why she was there. It was a big gardening show with lots of stuff besides the mums."

************

I waited for further news, but all I got the rest of the week was knowing smiles and brush-offs like "So far, so good," "He's happy and I'm happier" and, "We're moving forward."

On Friday, she had to work late with Dylan and his team, and she called me to meet her at our favorite sushi place when she was finished. She got there ahead of me, and I saw her personal sake cup nearly empty as I sat down.

"We're celebrating a great week at the office," she said. "The team meeting went well. We got a lot done, and best of all, I saw the first indication that my efforts with Dylan are getting results. It was something small, and I may have misinterpreted it. I should be able to tell for sure Monday. Meanwhile, we've got work to do."

"Like what."

"I'll tell you when we get home."

With each cup of sake during dinner, her mood improved. I didn't keep up with her because I soon saw we'd leave her car in the lot, and I'd have to drive her home.

She was more sober by the time we got home, but she still didn't say anything. I could tell she was impatient because she rushed upstairs and by the time I got there, her clothes were on the floor and she was naked on the bed.

That night was wild, but it got even wilder Saturday and Sunday. We never left the house. All we did was eat, sleep and make crazy love.

By crazy, I mean she did things she had never done before and got me to do some, too. I liked some of the stuff, but much of it was so bizarre that it almost freaked me out. She soothed me, cajoled me, encouraged me and drove me.

Sunday night she made a delicious dinner. I was exhausted and ravenous. As I ate, I saw her watching me. I wondered if I had enough strength left to perform that night, and she must have read my mind.

"You can relax. We're all done. Thank you for letting me put you through the last couple of days. I know a lot of it wasn't fun for you, but the parts that didn't work were just as important as the good parts.

"I didn't want to tell you before because it might have dampened your enthusiasm, but this was all homework for Dylan. Things have been going so well with him that on Thursday I realized that I was running out of stuff to tell him about us.

"I waited until you fell asleep Thursday night and went to the Internet. That's where I got most of what I tried out on you. I've got more than enough now. I'll start using it tomorrow. We're going to have a working lunch in my new office."

"The one with glass walls."

"That's right. I'll be asking Dylan's advice on a few of the things that didn't work so well for us. He's good, so he won't lose his cool, but he may get uncomfortable because he won't be able to adjust his pants. Anyone walking by the office could see him."

"So that's your plan. You're going to embarrass him."

"The embarrassment isn't important. Like I told you before, I like the suspense of not having any idea what my happy ending will look like. Dylan is a powerful force. He's smart and supremely confident in his looks and his ability to manipulate others. How will this play out? That's part of the excitement."

"For a moment, I thought I knew what you were doing, but now I'm confused again. Are you ever going to explain it to me?"

"I promise, but first the curtain has to come down on our play. I have a feeling the pace of the action is going to increase starting tomorrow."

*************

Whatever she did with Dylan must have gone well because she was walking on air Monday night, and it was the same Tuesday and Wednesday, when she told me that she might be done within the next week or two.

When I got home Thursday, she handed me a glass of wine, took my hand and almost dragged me into the kitchen. As we sat down at the table, she opened her laptop.

"Listen to this," she said and clicked on an audio file.

The first voice was hers.

"Hello, Lorena. Did you listen to the recording when you connected to our phone system?"

"Uh, not really."

"That's all right. I'll tell you what it said. This call is being recorded. For legal reasons, every call I receive, every call coming in to anyone in our office, is recorded and we have the right to use the recording in any way we see fit."

"Oh, yes. I did hear that. I hear it so often that I forget it. But thank you for reminding me."

"How can I help you?"

"I'm calling to thank you, Minerva. You've made me very happy, and I wanted to express my appreciation."

"I'm not sure I understand, Lorena."

"It's what you're doing to, uh, with Dylan."

"What do you mean?"

Minerva's voice sounded guarded.

"I mean, uh, that you've become a, uh, mentor to him. Your work with him is making a real difference in his life, even at home. Please keep on doing what you're doing. I would love to take you to lunch as a small token of my gratitude."

"That's not necessary, Lorena. But I have to tell you that you've made my day. I'm so glad you appreciate my efforts on Dylan's behalf."

There was a pause, and when Lorena spoke again, she sounded even happier.

"Your words and kindness overwhelm me, Minerva. I have a lot more to say to you, but I, uh, can't just now. How about lunch tomorrow at a quiet restaurant, maybe one where you and Dylan have business lunches? What time's good for you?"

"I have a short strategy meeting with Dylan at eleven, but I'll see you at the Café Alabri at twelve-thirty."

"It's a date. Goodbye, Minerva, and thank you again."

"Goodbye."

Minerva sipped her wine, put it down and looked at me. Her smile was huge.

"This is something I didn't expect. I wondered if what I was doing would affect his home life, but I never expected to hear from Lorena. I'm not going to tell her anything, but I'm going to listen closely. She's smart, and she may have figured out what I'm doing."

"Be careful," I said.

**********

"We're going to church this Sunday," said Minerva at dinner the next night. "We've been getting lazy since the kids left."

"All right," I said.

We weren't religious when we married, but we thought it would be good for the children. We feel the church had a lot to do with how they turned out. We liked the people there, too, but when Jack and Louise went to college we started sleeping in on some Sundays, and some Sundays had turned into most Sundays.

"I feel good," she said and laughed. She raised her wine glass and waited until I raised mine.

"To goodness and mercy!"

She bumped her glass with mine and took a long sip as I looked at her. Then she waited until I took a sip.

"Yes, I feel good in both senses of the word. I'm finished with Dylan."

"You're showing him mercy?" I asked.

"Yes I am," she said. "Today, I told him I was recommending him for an opening with a team that's selling a different product. It's more a sideways move than a promotion. He was so relieved he nearly fainted. But that's not the whole story."

"You told Lorena everything you were doing, which you really haven't told me yet, and she asked you to stop. And you agreed."

"All true, but that's not the whole story."

"When do I get the whole story? Remember, you promised me if I wasn't satisfied—"

"I think you'll be more than satisfied," she said, interrupting me. "As long as you keep refilling my glass, I'll tell you everything right now, but I'm going to condense it because our lunch lasted three hours. I had to cancel two appointments because they weren't as important as Lorena and me."

I poured out another glass for each of us as she began.

"Lorena is an amazing woman. She showed me their wedding photos, and you would never believe it was the same woman. She was super model good looking with a great body. She had a great career going as an actuary, but she was glad to give it up to be home with her children. They are eight and ten.

"The first time she found out Dylan was a cheater, she was devastated. He didn't know that she hired an expensive lawyer and set out to destroy him. What saved him was the fact that he was a good father, and she didn't want their children to grow up in a split family. So she decided to wait for the kids to leave home before ripping him apart.

"The stress made her pay a price. He was a great lover, but when she had sex with him, she was disgusted with herself. She thinks that she started overeating to make herself less desirable to him. It worked. He had two other affairs that she knows of, and all three followed the same pattern.

"They were all happily married women he worked with at his old job, and all took a long time to consummate. All of them had husbands who objected, but all three wives were strong, successful, independent women who eventually forced their husbands to accept their having sex with Dylan. The women were good looking, but she's sure what really gets Dylan off is the challenge of bedding women everyone thinks are unassailable and humiliating their husbands. You were right about him.

"He rotated the three women at work whenever he wanted sex, so he didn't bother her, and he never put his cheating ahead of the kids. She devoted herself to her children and wallowed in self-pity. Until the party, she wondered why he had left his old job for a job that required the family to relocate here. It was more pay, but not a lot more.

"When you spoke to her at the party, she realized that he needed more challenges, at work and extra-curricular. I was to be the next conquest, and you were the next cuckold. He hadn't broken you yet, so he had to keep you and Lorena from talking to each other. That's why he never left her alone.

"She did think of warning you, but she could tell you already knew what he was up to, and she figured I was already under his spell.

"She can read Dylan like a book, so she thought he was succeeding with me until he acted nervous when he came home one day. It was actually the day before I thought I saw something.

"As Dylan slowly came apart, she wondered what was happening. Then he cracked -- not at work but at home. He approached her for sex, but she pushed him away. He was a bundle of nerves that night, and the next night, he was desperate.

"He begged her, but she wouldn't agree. He promised to give her anything she wanted. She still refused but asked him to tell her what was going on. He said he'd tell her everything if she'd take pity on him. All she said was she'd hear him out.

"He didn't hold anything back. He told her I was smart, beautiful and desirable. He had to have me. Everything had been going according to plan, and he knew I was ready. I had been telling him all my sexual frustrations, and he was dying to give me what I'd been missing.

"Everything I told him showed how much I wanted him, and he couldn't understand why I wasn't going the next step and telling him I was ready for sex.

"He told her that one time I told him about how you couldn't understand something that I wanted you to do while we were making love -- I think it was one of those exotic crossway positions that I saw online -- and he told me what you had to do to make it work. After he explained it, I told him I wished he could come over and teach you how to do it.

"That was a trigger he had been waiting for, and he had his response ready. He asked me what I thought you'd do if I said something like that to you. The idea was to move the conversation to our relationship and what you'd have trouble accepting. From there it would go to what I could do to get you to go along with what I wanted.

"Of course, he wouldn't say any of that. I would do all the talking. He'd just say a word here or there to keep me going until I realized I wanted sex with him and would work on you until you accepted my decision.