SCENE 1
His name was Carl. Carl Montefiore. He was a tall, angular guy--good-looking, I guess--with a smug look. Even if he hadn't been fucking my wife I would probably have wanted to kick the shit out of him.
But at the moment his look wasn't smug--it was stunned. When I came into his office he thought he was meeting a prospective client for his software firm, not coming face-to-face with a cuckolded husband. He stood to greet me with an affable smile, and I could see he didn't even remember my face, though we had met several times.
"Good morning, Mr. ... Regan, is it? Nice to meet you--please have a seat." His handshake was firm and confident, the mark of an accomplished salesman.
I sat; looked at him coldly for a few moments; then spoke.
"Actually it's not Regan, Carl--it's Proctor. David Proctor--as in, husband of Lauren? Lauren Proctor from your Human Resources Department, the one you've been banging for a couple of months now?"
His face got very tight and he just looked at me, not saying anything. I pulled a bunch of photographs out of an envelope and dropped them in front of him.
"That's you and her at the Best Western Kenwood Inn, on Montgomery Road. Room 128, right around the back. You guys seem to like the same room every time."
More silence. "Who pays for the room, Carl--you or my charming wife?" I knew the answer, but I wanted to see what he'd say.
"I pay," he said, finally, his eyes looking past me to the far wall. "I have an ... an arrangement with the manager there--we do their bookkeeping and reservation software."
More silence. I was in no hurry. I was angry, of course--fucking furious. But I'd been that way for nearly five weeks, so I was in no rush.
"Okay," he said finally. "So you know--what do you want?" He looked older all of a sudden, like the energy had gone out of him. "What do you want from me?"
"Outside in my car, Carl, is a big manila envelope addressed to your wife's office. I'm going to be dropping by the FedEx office as soon as I leave here, unless I get a great deal of cooperation from you during this visit."
His face turned pale but he managed not to jump out of his chair. I admired his composure, in a funny kind of way.
"I don't ... it would be pretty bad if Emily found out about this."
He looked at me. "What do you want me to do?"
I passed a sheet of paper over to him. "Read this over. Then call my wife, right now, and have this conversation with her. You can change the wording, change whatever fucking pet name you use with her, whatever--make it sound natural, like she'd expect you to sound. But set it up just the way I've written it."
He read it through carefully, then looked up. "I don't know if Laur... if she's going to go for this."
I laughed. "Carl, I've heard the audio of a half-dozen of your little get-togethers with my wife. You guys have been doing things a lot kinkier than that."
He actually blushed when I said I'd heard them together. He thought some more, frowning. Then he said, "and if I do this? What then?"
I shrugged. "Then you're rid of me. And whatever you and Lauren do, after today, I don't give a shit."
"And that FedEx envelope for my wife?"
I shrugged again. "I'll throw it away."
"You give me your word on that, Mr. Proctor?"
I leaned forward. "You're hardly in a position to bargain, Carl. But yeah--you've got my word."
He read my script once more; then he looked back at me, and when I didn't move a muscle he sighed and picked up the phone.
SCENE 2
Me and Lauren? Mostly the same old story--no need to draw it out. We met when she was in college and I had my first job. It was a blind date--she was a good friend of my cousin Marie, who thought we'd really hit it off, and we did.
Our courtship was utterly typical, but that doesn't mean it wasn't terrific. I loved Lauren by about the fifth date, and she seemed to feel the same way about me. The sex was a little vanilla at first, a little careful, but we really opened up to one another and it got better and better. We were married after about 14 months, with Marie as her maid of honor and my brother Bobby my best man.
We had Tina almost right away, an unplanned but wonderful event. She's a tennis star, a great student, and a talented artist--a fantastic, energetic, lovable girl, and I adore her. Lauren and I always used to say we only had one but we got the very best kid around.
I would have said Lauren and I had a great marriage and a great life; in fact I did say it, all the time, whenever anybody asked how things were going. She was sometimes a little bit of a flirt with our friends, at parties, but she always reassured me afterwards--in fact our love-making was never better than after we'd been out with other people and she'd confirmed for herself how attractive she was to men.
There was never any doubt in my mind about Lauren's devotion to me, not once in 19 years. No tell-tale signs, no vague looks or sudden rushing home for a shower, no late nights at work, no hickeys or scratches on her body. Nothing. We didn't have more sex, or less. We didn't have better sex, or worse. I would never have known.