Masquerade

Once again a long story. I understand that short stories can be preferable. This is just how my stories play out. Not much sex so if that's what you are after, there are many good authors that can provide that.

One other thing, if you are the type of reader who says, 'that could never happen' or 'this person would never do that', you may not want to read this story.

If you do read it, I hope you like it. I enjoyed writing it.

Masquerade

Even fifteen minutes ago if someone had told me that my wife Mei was having some type of affair, I would have laughed. At that moment, ever so shortly ago, I had 100% faith in my wife's fidelity. In fact I don't believe I've ever even considered any type of unfaithful scenario..

But, after hearing what I just did suddenly I was feeling brand new emotions. Doubt, mistrust, and anger.

It was truly a coincidence. If I hadn't just happened to see Don Masters at Sea Tac my world would have been blissfully and ignorantly normal.

But that's not what happened.

The Master's lived next door to us in Bellevue when we moved in after we were first married. We bought our house, and soon found out that Don and Caroline Masters were our next door neighbors. They were about ten years older than us and had two grade school aged children.

For the two years they lived next door we became friendly, if not outright friends. They eventually moved to Kirkland and for the most part we lost track of them other than a random Christmas card every year or so.

When I saw him at the luggage carousel I immediately recognized Don and greeted him. We stood for a minute gathering our social equilibrium. Don told me he was coming back from a business trip to California.

I asked about Caroline and the kids and he said all was normal, everyone was doing well, and that the two boys were in high school.

"So," he began, "are you single now?"

"Single?" I asked surprised, "no Mei and I just celebrated our sixth anniversary. Why did you think I was single?"

I saw a strange look pass over him. He stared at me, at a loss for words.

"Don, what!?" I asked, responding to his silence.

"Look," he began, "I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I saw Mei a few months ago in LA. It was a coincidence just like this."

"Okay?" I asked, still confused. "But why would that make you think we weren't together?"

He stared at me with a strange expression on his face. Finally he replied.

"Maybe it's nothing, but," he said, "I saw her at Il Mangiare with her arms around some guy. I was there with clients and they were in the bar."

I knew Mei traveled to Southern California some times, that was where the office of Trans-Pacific Financial was located. Her father's company. She was a Vice President at the Seattle branch. She flew down every month or two.

"Are you sure it was Mei?" I asked, wondering if this was all some mistake.

"Pretty sure it was her, in fact as she walked by we made eye contact and she kind of waved at me. It was definitely Mei."

I thought for a moment.

"Can you describe the guy?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got a good look at him, Asian guy. Tall, actually quite tall. Slim, dressed in a nice suit. He looked professional."

Immediately I knew who it was. David Chan. He worked at Trans Pac too. Chan was her father's golden boy. In fact if things had gone her father's way, he'd be the one Mei was with. Not me.

I thought for a minute about her father, Long Pham. He'd never liked me. Though he never said so, the fact that Mei married me bothered him. That was ironic because Mei's mother seemed to like me.

I continued lost in thought after hearing all this.

"Well anyway," Masters interrupted my thoughts, "there's my bag, better go." And then with a last concerned look on his face he clapped me on the shoulders and told me to take care.

After fighting the normal, terrible, Puget Sound traffic I finally got home a little before seven PM.

I walked in the house and I saw Mei on her phone, headset on, pacing the living room. She gave me a smile and a small wave of her hand and then motioned toward the headset. Solving some type of business woe.

My office was on the main floor near the entry. I was a residential building contractor. I normally built two or three custom homes a year and made reasonably good money. I sat at my desk and for the moment, compartmentalized the information from Don Masters.

I had a large plat map on my desk for a new community I was developing called Samish Meadows. This was most definitely a bigger project than I'd ever tackled before. There were 40 homesites. I've invested all my resources in this and I still needed help on the project.

Surprisingly the financing came from Trans Pac, and Mei's father, Long Pham. I'd hoped that a business relationship would strengthen our personal relationship.

It hadn't.

Eventually Mei got off the phone. She kissed me as I entered the kitchen. She noticed my lack of enthusiasm in responding to her.

"Bad day?" She asked.

All the way home my thoughts had churned. Do I ignore what Masters had said? Do I hire some sort of investigator to get proof? Or, do I just confront her, maybe there was some type of logical explanation.

I sat down on a stool, turned and faced her. I took option 3.

"I ran into Don Masters at Sea Tac," I said and watched her.

She did a good job holding it together but I saw the slight flash of panic on her face. No reply from Mei.

"So is it David Chan?" I asked.

Once again she paused. Finally subdued, she took a deep breath and answered.

"Devin," she said to me, "it's nothing. David has been a family friend for a long time. I love you. You are my husband. Anything with David is unimportant."

I felt my heart beginning to break. I look at Mei. Beautiful, intelligent, fun to be with, and about ninety minutes ago I would have added trustworthy. It was hard to say that now.

"Devin please!" She begged. "It's nothing. I'll break things off with David. Please let's get past all this. It doesn't matter."

"I need to think," I somberly told her, "I'm going to sleep down here tonight," nodding toward my office.

"Devin, no! Please come to bed with me! Please!" She begged

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I met Mei at a party thrown by a friend of a friend. She had recently moved to Seattle from Southern California. I had always been attracted to women of her type. She was of mixed ethnicity. Later she explained her father was Vietnamese and her mother's family were French.

Her father was in the financial business and they were establishing a presence in the Puget Sound area. That's what brought her to Seattle, she was opening a branch here. She complained about the weather, but also noted the beauty of the mountains and the water.

That night I invited her out on my boat for the following day. She accepted. We hit it off and soon began dating regularly. I remember the first time I met her parents.

It was her mother's birthday and her father had requested Mei to fly down to California to help celebrate. We met her father, Long, and her mother Sophia, at The Capital Grille.

I had not been informed that my accompaniment was a surprise. At least to her father. When I introduced myself I was met with a stony look and a limp hand. This greeting set the stage for our relationship moving forward.

He never liked me.

I never understood if he felt I was not good enough for his daughter, or whether it was our differences he didn't care for, or possibly just a general distaste. I never completely knew.

When I asked her about his less than welcoming attitude, Mei just laughed it off.

"That's just my Dad." She smiled and told me, "he gets grouchy sometimes." She explained.

I knew grouchy and that was not what I was getting from Long. I'd put it far closer to hatred.

We eventually got married and though her father paid a lot of the expenses for the wedding, any kindness on his part was 100% focused on Mei. There was no change in his attitude toward me after we were married.

Mei's mother was always polite and treated me nicely, but there was no doubt who the dominant one was within the family. Long ran the show.

Years later when I had the opportunity to buy the acreage that would become Salish Meadows the financing came from Long and Trans Pacific Financial.

Mei had suggested talking to her father about the opportunity and during the months we put the deal together Long was better. We actually had conversations about the project and it felt like there was a greater acceptance of me on his part.

This did not translate into any type of long term bonding between us, but there was a small thaw. I'd grown to accept the nature of our relationship and tried not to let it bother me much.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

That night I slept little. It had nothing to do with the uncomfortable couch. One of the main pillars of our relationship had fractured. Trust. I tried to imagine forgiveness, and somehow I felt I could muster up enough emotion to grant this.

What I didn't think I'd be able to gain back is the trust. I imagined my angst every time she had to travel to California. Would I be wondering if she'd end up in bed with David Chan? Or someone else?

Somehow in my deep swirling thoughts I began to blame her father. I could imagine him trying to engineer the intrusion of Chan into our marriage. One thing that didn't change was my trust in Long. I never trusted him in the first place.

Finally after a long night of tossing and turning I decided not to make a decision just yet. Divorce was certainly a viable option. But I wanted to see if I had the ability to forgive her and trust her again.

For the next few weeks we tried to function as a married couple. We discussed her affair with Chan until finally I said to her one night, "I don't want to talk about that guy anymore."

It was a strained and unnatural few weeks. We made love a few times but absent was the depth of affection we normally had. I wasn't sure if we were making any progress.

One night she came home with a more somber look on her face. The tension in our home, which had been high anyway, was worse tonight. Finally she told me what was going on.

"I have to go to California next week. I'll be gone four days," she told me, eyes cast downward not making contact with me.

I sat there for a moment absorbing and processing this news.

"Will Chan be there?" I asked calmly. I watched her.

Still not looking at me, she gave me a barely perceptible nod, confirming his presence.

The strain in our household the few days leading up to her trip if possible increased. She would beg my forgiveness and I would rarely answer. It was becoming unsustainable.

It was a quiet morning the day she left. She insisted on Uber'ing to the airport. I was relieved. I wanted to avoid another hour of uncomfortable conversation in the car.

Partway through her trip I decided that we could not go on like this. After replaying all my options, sadly I realized, divorce was the only solution. My trust in her was completely fractured.

Through a bit of networking I found a divorce lawyer. I wasn't after some blood thirsty shark. I was just looking for a quiet and fair split. And actually with the prenuptial her father insisted upon, there would be little doubt about the division of assets.

She returned that Thursday night and I had the certificate of dissolution of marriage documents on the dining room table. I told her we needed to file with the circuit court at the county courthouse.

She begged and wept and pledged her love to me. I wasn't heartless and there were times I held her and apologized.

"Devin please," she said, tears on her cheeks, "let's not decide anything immediately. Let's try for a bit. I think we can get over all this."

The following day I received a call. A phone call I'd never expected to get.

It was her father, Long Pham.

"My daughter Mei is unhappy." He stated. "You need to let things go." He continued. "I need you to forget about any divorce. Make Mei happy."

"Long, I mean Mr Pham," I began, "this is a problem between Mei and I. I appreciate your concern, but this is something we need to work out together. I hope you understand?"

"Concern!" He nearly shouted into the phone, "I have no concern for you. I just need daughter happy and wife happy. For some reason that I do not know, she wants to stay married. I expect you to accept this."

And with not so much as a goodbye, the conversation had ended. It was obvious Long was used to getting his way.

We had two or three more tearful discussions, but in the end the trust issue was one I could not see myself getting over. After we had that final conversation she retreated to her room and I thought I heard a long hushed phone conversation.

I was pretty sure I knew who she was talking to.

By the weekend we were addressing the practical matters of our failed marriage. Who would live where and who was getting what piece of furniture. Gone was the loving attitude that just weeks ago symbolized our marriage.

No, I was seeing a new side of Mei. And it seemed an awful lot like her father.

Two weeks later and I was in a small condo in Renton, Mei kept the house. I was involved with my development. Once this came together I was poised to make a lot of money. At least this was one positive thing going on in my life I thought.

That morning I received a call from the office of Maple Wood Road and Paving, the contractor that was putting in the roadways at Samish Meadows.

"We need our next installment," the accounts receivable clerk told me. Huh, I thought. There was supposed to be an automatic payment. Why hadn't the payment transferred over to them?

I told them there must be a slight mistake. Not to worry, I'd take care of it. I called the finance company and asked them to expedite the payment to Maple Wood. There was a pause, and I was put on hold. When the representative came back on line she referred me to a phone number in California.

At this point I wasn't worried. More annoyed with the runaround.

I called the California number for Trans Pacific. I asked about the scheduled funding for my project. Once again, I was put on hold. And then several minutes later a new voice came on the phone.

"David Chan, how may I help you?"

Chan? For a minute I froze not replying to him.

"Hello?" He questioned.

"Yes, this is Devin Baxter," I began. "I have a scheduled transfer on my loan that didn't get administered. I'd like that expedited for vendor payments."

"Devin," he began, "we'd met a few times."Yes, let me bring your file up."

I heard the clacking of his keyboard as he searched the files. Finally he came back on the line.

"Okay," he slowly said as if he was reading the document. "Have you talked to Long, Mr Pham about this lately?"

I told him I hadn't and I asked why. He told me that the loan had been suspended but there was no specifics given. Just that Long Pham, my ex-father in law, had stopped the funding of the project.

When I asked if he was in, Chan told me that he was in Asia for the week and not expected back until a week from Monday. I quickly and quietly disengaged. Something close to panic was spreading across my chest. Would that asshole really do this to me?

I sat and thought. I had invested everything I had in acreage that was to be Samish Meadows. Nearly $400,000. My loan from Trans Pac for the balance was secured by the land. I needed the Trans Pac funding to develop the land and turn it into cash flow. With the loan suspended I could not move forward.

I called Mei three times before she finally returned my call.

"Mei," I began, "your father had pulled the funding for the Samish Meadows project. I can't move forward without it. I need your help!" I told her trying to tamp down the desperation and the panic.

She listened and didn't say much. Finally she said she'd speak to her father but currently he was out of the country. I tried to convey a sense of urgency about the matter. She seemed dispassionate about my situation. As if she didn't care. This was the same woman who begged me not to divorce her just a few weeks ago.

I got off and re-studied the original loan documents. I still had a deeded financial interest in a portion of the property. But that equity wasn't liquid. Mei's father had the entire development under his control.

I considered talking to another lender, but as I read through the agreement Trans Pac had the majority shares and could tie things up as long as they wanted. I was a single individual with extremely limited assets. How could I fight against a large global financial institution with unlimited resources?

After multiple calls to Mei, begging her to have her father call me, finally, Friday afternoon I received a call from Long Pham.

"Mr. Baxter, this is Long Pham, how can I help you?" He began. The formality of his greeting had me on edge immediately.

I calmly talked through the situation with the Samish Meadows development. The agreed upon plan for payments, and the need to keep the project moving to stay on schedule.

After I laid out the logic behind my request there was a pause. Finally he replied.

"We are putting a hold on all residential investments for now. This, and several other projects we will wait on until later in the year, reevaluate then." He informed me.

Even though he and I had never been near what you may call close, I'd been married to his daughter! I was being treated as dispassionately as a common stranger.

I quickly began to review the numbers on Samish Meadows, finally asking what would be the problem with keeping the loan available.

"As I explained," an edge to his voice, "we are suspending these loans for the immediate future. Unfortunately I have another meeting I need to attend. Good day." He said and the phone disconnected.

I tried to continue to appeal through Mei, but after a while she quit answering my calls too.

I considered legal action, but then I thought of the practical nature of my current financial situation. I was concerned about coming up with rent money at the end of the month. I certainly did not have the money for a lawyer.

I was truly fucked. Fucked by Mei's father, and my own misplaced trust in him. And trust, I reflected, if Mei hadn't violated my trust and we had stayed married, I had no doubt that my residential project would not have been suspended.

I am not going to go into great depth about the next two months. Just suffice it to say I reached bottom.

I turned to alcohol to numb the pain of my professional and financial failures. Not to mention the failure of my marriage. Despite her infidelity I still had feelings for Mei. She, on the other hand, seemed to be able to compartmentalize any emotion toward me.

That's a skill I'm sure she learned from her father.

I tried to find construction employment to be able to at least keep from being evicted from my small apartment. My erratic mental state combined with the overindulgence in alcohol precluded any work opportunities.

I was on the edge. I had tapped out loans from any friends or relatives. My one asset, my share of the Samish Meadows land was completely under the control of Trans Pac. And Long Pham.

I was facing eviction in the next week. I'd sold my truck and any other personal belongings that had even the smallest value. My boat had been sold when I first put funds together on the development. My mind went to dark places as I contemplated my future.

And then, out of the blue, that night I received a strange email. It was from someone calling themself L.Kanakis. He owned a business called SSI.

I read through the rather long email as I sipped the last of my cheap whiskey.

SSI was the parent company of some type of health club, an elite spa on a Greek Island called Santos in the Aegean Sea. From what I gathered, they catered to the wealthy. They offered exercise, yoga, pilates, and nutritional guidance featuring healthy food. In addition there were lifestyle classes on longevity, psychology, and a number of personal improvement classes.