Pierce Freeman was confused. His previous life was already in disarray and the e-mail he had received early in the morning portended to compound the disarray. He had worked for the same company for ten years and had risen to the rank of project manager. In his company, this level was certainly well into middle management, but not yet at the level of the top tier with all of its perks. He made a nice living and felt secure in his work and future, but the e-mail this Thursday morning had told him that his return flight home had been amended and that he was to continue on to the headquarters of the company without a layover. Most people except the top management seldom went to the corporate headquarters and when they did, something was usually very wrong. More than one head had rolled and others had been offered transfers to remote locations. Pierce was unaware of any problem with his work except for one; and that one was also the source of the disarray in his personal life.
Pierce had degrees in product development and management when he started with the company ten years before. Two years later, he met and married an incredibly cute, petite woman named Faith who was four years younger than he was. Faith was completing a two year office management career program at the Community College when they met at a club one night. He was overwhelmed by her smile and cuteness as were many others. Once they started dating, he also found that she had a certain naiveté about her that he found charming along with an innocence that she seemed to wear like a glove. Once they were married, she finished her college work and then stayed at home to take care of her new husband. She retained her freshness for the next four years as they bought their first house and she stayed busy making it their home. During their fifth year together, she got restless because their home was now established and she felt that she had too much alone time and got bored. He recognized this too and didn't worry about her since their sex life had always been and continued to be good.
Coincidentally, Pierce's company was having a difficult time finding office help to fill in for people on vacation or maternity leave and had started an internal program to hire people as regular part-time employees. They were paid regular wages and were guaranteed a minimum of twenty five hours per month with the possibility of more as circumstances required. At Pierce's suggestion, she applied to the program and was accepted. As a result she spent two years in this pool and usually worked two or three days a week at various offices as she was called on. This made her very happy as she was working in many of the different departments and met many of the people in the building. This gave her outside interests, but left her time to keep their home well taken care of. She also became well known throughout the company and several people specifically asked for her when an opening was available. She made several friends, but seldom went out socially with them. She had filled in several times at Pierce's department where he discovered that she was indeed very good at the work she did. That made him very proud on top of the fact that he was deeply in love with his wife.
A little over a year ago, she began filling in when some of the top executives needed a substitute. This was a prime opportunity for those in the temp pool as these paid more and the jobs usually lasted two to three weeks as the regular secretary went on vacation. A couple of the others had been elevated to fulltime on the bigwig row as it was called, when the regular secretary left the company. Once again, Faith's charm and perkiness along with her impeccable job skills were recognized and she was now getting more calls for that work and had to turn down other calls in the regular departments.
During this period, Peirce began to travel regularly as one of his projects was undergoing final testing and evaluation at their test facility five hundred miles away. Fortunately, he could fly there rather than having to drive and was usually there for only two or three days at a time.
One of the people who regularly called for Faith was the Marketing Vice President, named Benjamin Cox, unflatteringly referred to by the cubicle crowd as Ben the Cocksman because of his reputation as a ladies' man. Benjamin Cox was also a thorn in Pierce's side as he frequently ignored the meetings on his project's development. He dismissed it as a nice, but unsellable toy and sent one of his younger guys to the meetings. These people usually saw the potential for the product, but Ben refused to reconsider his assessment. Pierce felt that his product might not see the light of day in spite of its potential and that thought rankled him a lot.
Six months ago, Benjamin's secretary had suddenly resigned and he had asked Faith to convert to become his fulltime secretary. She and Pierce talked about it over a weekend and, even though he was aware of Benjamin's reputation, Pierce agreed because he felt that his marriage was secure. For the first month, Pierce saw nothing to tell him that a problem was developing but then, they began the last stage of testing and he traveled almost every week for three days.
Soon after that, he began noticing a few little things that he was able to easily reconcile. Since he usually got back from a trip at around 2:00, he seldom went into the office but was at home by three. That left him a couple of hours alone before Faith would get home. The first things he noticed were a change in the bras and panties that were in the laundry. The bras were lacier and sexier and the panties tinier. Along with this were new dresses for work. They were professional and presented no problem and he easily dismissed them as her desire to dress up better for work. The next thing he noticed was that she seemed tired the night he got home. Usually, they had sex the night he got home from a trip, but now she frequently seemed to be exhausted and simply went to sleep. The next night she made it up to him and he accepted her explanation that she had a huge proposal or project to finish that day.
Then she began to answer his usual call at 10:00 with music in the background. She said that it was girl's night out and he accepted that. One day she said that her phone was acting up and for him not to call because she was taking it in for service after work and it wouldn't be back until the next day. By now, Pierce was beginning to get nervous. When he got home from a trip, he took more time to look around and see if he could find anything. There wasn't any sign that he could find at home.
Three weeks ago, he had found something. She had forgotten her cell phone and it was sitting on the kitchen counter. He looked at the call history and saw frequent calls to and from a phone number that he didn't recognize. He looked in her directory and sure enough, it was Ben's cell phone. He checked her calendar which she kept on her phone and saw a pattern for at least two months. On the days when he was out of town, there would be a capital B on that date. About half of them had a star next to it. Some days had a no B, but had a frown and a note "B wife in town." That was a surprise because no one had ever said that Benjamin was married. Once a month there was a BP and he realized that she was in her period at that time. Between her and Pierce, that meant that he got a wonderful blow job when she was in her period.
When he cleared all signs of his search, he poured himself a stiff drink and sat down to face reality. His wife was fucking Benjamin Cox at least two times a week and had been for at least six weeks. His heart felt like it was going to burst and his blood pressure was raging. He was fully prepared to meet her with accusations and anger when she got home.
At 5:00, she texted him that she was working late and would meet him for dinner at their favorite restaurant at 7:00. That cooled him of since he couldn't yell at her at a restaurant. It also got him thinking and he realized that he was angry with her, but that he could get over that. He really didn't want to divorce her or lose her as he would be devastated at that. He decided to look into counselors and try to find a way to work this out some way. The only thing that he was sure of was that he wanted her to stop seeing Benjamin and for her to find another job away from him. If she was willing to do that, he felt that they had a chance.
He checked his work e-mal and saw a post from earlier in the week that Benjamin would be out of town until the following day, so he relaxed a little more when he realized that she was probably really working late and not out with him before he met her for dinner. He decided to postpone his confrontation with her for a couple of weeks so he could get his head on straighter.
As he waited for the plane three weeks later, all of this went through his mind. He intended to have the confrontation tonight when she got home but now, he was summoned to the main office and he wasn't sure when he would be home. He boarded the plane and immediately ordered a drink. He felt both lousy and worried. He also barely realized when they were landing in his home town, Dallas. The deplaning passengers left quickly and the new ones boarded just as quickly. He was still inside his head when he became aware of someone standing next to the aisle seat by him.
"Hi Pierce, you look like a man who wants to be alone, but who really needs to talk to someone."
He looked up and made a weak smile. "Hi Dawn. If it was anyone else, I would say take another seat; but I will make an exception for you."
"Oh, that makes me feel special. Once we get in the air, I want to hear the whole thing. I think about you every time I think about putting a bomb in my husband's car. And that is about thirty times a day."
"I told you that you would not look good in a prison jumpsuit. Just run him off the road some night."
She laughed her lilting laugh. "You make me feel good. I hope that I do the same to you. As often as we have flown together, I feel sort of alone when you aren't on the plane."
"You have made me feel the same. It has been a tough couple of months and I am not sure how I would have survived without your support."
"Listen to us. Maybe when we get through all of this, we should be lovers."
"Don't tease a wounded deer."
"Who said I was teasing? Now what happened this trip or today. Get it out of your system."
"I intended to go home and confront her tonight like I told you. I was psyched up and ready to do it. This morning, I got an e-mail that said my flight had been changed and I am to go to our corporate headquarters. They didn't say why but when people at my level get called in, it usually isn't to get a pat on the back. So I have been shot down about dealing with Faith and now I don't even know if I will have a job when I go home."
"Has something gone south on your project or have you been a bad boy?"
