Served Cold or Hot

Elliott Sieberns put down his glass of Glenmorangie neat on the side table near the comfortable sitting chair in his darkened office.

The lights in the office were off, the curtains were pulled tight against the bright Dallas sunshine of the day. Elliott was alone in his office, alone with his thoughts:

thoughts of anger, sadness, and yes... murder.

Several hours earlier, his life was just about perfect. Now it was in the shitter.

He picked up the contract for the sale of his plumbing supplies manufacturing company to his arch-rival's company for what in reality would be peanuts on the dollar. He thought about signing it, but that meant he'd have to abandon his comfortable chair and go to his desk so the signature would be good; signing something in his lap would make his writing seem weak and half-assed. He put the contract down and picked up the glass of single malt, tilting it to his lips.

Forty-five-year-old Elliott was an aficionado of most distilled spirits. He didn't pour his alcohol into mixed drinks, he drank neat, mostly, on the rocks occasionally. What he drank often depended on his mood. At that moment, his mood was somber. Somber was Scotch, preferably single malt, which meant neat. Only a fucking moron would put ice in a glass of single malt, he thought briefly.

His mind jumped sideways. Nobody would ever accuse Elliott of being a linear thinker. His mind was facile, some would say highly abstract. That was probably how he had turned his fledging company into a multi-million dollar firm in just 17 years.

Elliott didn't follow MMA very closely. Like most people who didn't live under a rock, he knew who Conor McGregor was, along with a few others. He'd seen a few fights, but it wasn't something he followed more than tangentially. Two things he'd learned, however, were that MMA fighters could take pain and had an incredible amount of resolve. Maybe he needed to show more resolve; take more punches, so to speak, and not give in quite so easily.

He took another sip of Scotch, then put down his glass again. He picked up the contract, gave a small growl, then threw it over to his desk.

"Let the games begin," he thought to himself.

"Becky!" he yelled to his admin, whose desk was outside of his office, "Get me that shyster, Lester Wilkins!"

It had been several hours since Elliott's world had collapsed in on him, at least for the moment.

Elliott was seated uncomfortably in a chair across the desk from his arch-rival, Dan Buranski, president of Flowtech International. Flowtech was the biggest competitor of Elliott's firm, Sieberns Manufacturing Inc., for plumbing supplies manufacturing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Sieberns was about three times the size of Flowtech, which Buranski had started about a year after Elliott started his company.

Sieberns and Flowtech seemed to always be locked in epic competition for government contracts, among others. Sieberns got the lion's share of the wins, just as Elliott always seemed to get the lion's share of the wins when the pair attended the same high school and college.

Elliott was wary of taking the meeting, especially on his enemy's turf, but Dan, "Bur" to those who knew him well, insisted that Elliott would want to take this meeting well away from prying eyes. This was the first time Bur had ever used this tack, so Elliott figured he needed to find out what the deal was this time. He told Becky where he was going, and told her to call the police if he didn't come back by noon.

It was a little after 9 AM when Bur laid the contract on the desk in front of Elliott.

"Why would I want your company, Bur?" Elliott asked.

"You need to read that more carefully, my friend," Bur smirked. "I don't want you to buy my company. I will be buying yours."

Elliott perused the contract for about five minutes, getting angrier the more he read. He stopped about three pages in and threw the document down on the desk. He started to rise from his chair when Bur spoke again.

"Sit your ass back down and watch this before you go off half-cocked, you self-righteous bastard," Bur sneered.

He turned a laptop computer toward Elliott and slid it across the desk. The photo up on the screen was of Elliott's wife of 22 years, Traci, lying across an unmade bed with her legs spread, cum leaking from what looked like a freshly-fucked pussy. Elliott's eyes about bugged out of his head. Bur smirked.

"What kind of Photoshop bullshit you trying to pull‽" Elliott screamed.

"No Photoshop. Take a good look at the whole photo, you dickhead," Bur chuckled.

Elliott glared at Bur, then looked back at the photo--hard. Traci's only items of clothing were black seamed stockings and black spiked heels, both of which he'd seen before. Then he noticed the bed sheets, the pillows and the wallpaper behind the bed, all of which he'd also been before. The photo was taken in the bedroom he and Traci shared.

"You motherfucker!" Elliott yelled. "I'll kill you for touching my wife!"

Bur held his hands up in a sign of surrender as Elliott started around the desk.

"Whoa there, big boy! I didn't do a thing to your precious princess. And as I've been told, everything that was done was done with her consent, participation and appreciation.

"So now, there's the matter of a bunch of photos and videos which could be available for public consumption... unless of course you are willing to be a reasonable businessman and make a deal," Bur said, pointing to the contract.

"Photos and videos? Oh shit." Elliott hissed.

Bur pulled the computer back to his side of the desk, hit a few buttons and turned it back to Elliott. This scene was obviously different from the one in the photo as Traci entered a different bedroom fully clothed, immediately followed by a dark-haired man that Elliott didn't recognize. The pair engaged in some deep kissing before clothes started to hit the floor.

The unknown man appeared to be the same age as Elliott and Traci. Elliott could see the man was ruggedly handsome, and when his pants and underwear came off, Elliott could see he was a good two inches longer and thicker in the dick department. Traci grabbed the man's dick and quickly engulfed it with her mouth, bobbing up and down like a pro until the man's dick proudly stood at attention. Elliott was shocked at how enthusiastic Traci was, as she rarely gave him head, and never with any kind of enthusiasm. Just then, the man grabbed Traci's head with both hands and pushed his dick into her throat before intensely face-fucking her for a few strokes before pulling back, a long string of drool hanging from his dick to Traci's lips.

The man rubbed his hands over Traci's large breasts before tweaking both nipples. She moaned loudly. The unknown man pushed her back on the bed, put his knees between hers and slowly worked his saliva-soaked dick into her glistening pussy.

"Ah... oooh, ungh..." Traci moaned as the large phallus slowly got more depth.

When the two appeared joined at their crotches, Traci's lover started pumping faster, eventually building up to a speedy rhythm. Traci arched her back trying to get his dick deeper inside.

"Ungh, ungh, ungh. Oh, oh, oh," Traci groaned.

"Do you like this big dick, baby? Do you?" he asked.

Traci groaned her approval.

"Say it for me, Baby," he demanded.

"I love this big dick, Baby. I love the way you fuck me, Sugar."

"Sugar?" Elliott thought.

Elliott could see his wife's excitement level rise. It wasn't long before she was shouting incoherently and spasming out her first orgasm. Bur reached over to the computer and stopped the video.

Elliott sat like a man in a coma for a few minutes, his stomach practically twisting.

"Do I at least get the courtesy of taking this home and looking it over before signing?" he asked quietly.

"Sure, you and your attorney can have 24 hours. That's all," Bur said. "Here, you can keep this video. You'll get the rest when you sign the contract."

"How many times? How many videos?" a stunned Elliott asked.

"Enough to fill a small box. Lover-boy says your wife is a helluva fuck, with a great appreciation for a big dick being wielded by a pro. He also says she is a very vocal, expressive slut. They've been going at it two, three times a week for two months so far."

Elliott was having a hard time reconciling the images he had seen with the sexually-conservative woman he had been married to for 22 years, the mother of his 20-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter and a regular volunteer at their church.

"I've got to admit I was surprised it happened as fast as it did," Bur taunted. "Traci was always such a good girl. I was figuring it would take three months or longer, although Lover-Boy said he could get it done in two or less. That bet cost me another $500 in fees."

Elliott's head came up at that and he got a quizzical look on his face.

"You mean you paid some son of a bitch to seduce and fuck my wife?" Elliott spit out. "You sick fuck!

"You couldn't beat me so you went after my wife? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Elliott started to rise from his chair. Bur never moved, sitting in his chair grinning like the cat that ate the mouse.

"Try it and everything goes out in public," he said.

Elliott stopped moving and froze for what felt like eternity to him, but was in fact only about 10 seconds. He took the contract and the video and practically staggered out of the Flowtech offices.

On the way back to his office, Elliott thought about his checkered history with Bur. As teens they went to the same high school, where Elliott was a star academically and athletically and Bur was an also-ran in both cases. Elliott was the school's valedictorian, star quarterback and a starter on the baseball team. Bur played wide receiver on the football team and was a sub on the baseball team.

In fact, the school's football team had made it to the Texas state finals in its class, but lost when Bur dropped Elliott's perfect pass to him in the opponent's end zone in the game's waning seconds. Elliott took the loss hard but still tried to console Bur after the game. Many of the other players shunned Bur.

Both boys attended the University of Texas at Austin, but did not run into each other often, despite taking many of the same business classes. That's actually where both also met Traci. Bur had asked the well-built blonde for a date in the first month of their freshman year, but she had turned him down. Elliott asked Traci out a couple of months later, and she accepted. The pair became exclusive soon after that, dated for the rest of their college careers and were married a year after graduation.

She probably wouldn't even have remembered Bur except for him being around at many of the same Dallas social functions as her and Elliott. Elliott had told her that Bur headed up a competing firm and that he would prefer she stay clear of him, which she usually managed to do. That's why Bur decided he needed a surrogate to get to Elliott's wife.

Greg Silverman was an assistant vice president at a firm Flowtech did business with on a regular basis. Bur ran into him at the bar at a Dallas golf course, and watched Greg charm virtually all of the women at the bar. Greg was twice divorced, but since he was unattached at the time, Bur knew he had found his man for the seduction of Elliott's wife. Bur agreed to pay Greg a handsome fee for what became his part-time job.

Greg started his seduction by showing up at the church where the Sieberns attended, quickly volunteering for one of the committees for which Traci had volunteered. The two became friendly and Traci never even gave it a second thought when Greg soon started meeting her for coffee and lunches. A stay-at-home mother, Traci considered herself to be a faithful wife who was just enjoying the company of a male friend.

Wildly in love with what he considered his best friend, Elliott never for a minute questioned Traci's comings and goings. She never told her husband about the coffees and lunches with Greg, and when she started going out to dinner with him she told her husband she was out with friends. She knew she was playing fast and loose with her explanation to her husband, although she knew she was technically playing within the rules.

The pair wound up back at Greg's apartment after the second dinner date. Traci knew she shouldn't have gone back to his apartment, but after a few glasses of wine at dinner, she was feeling good, and for his part, Greg was looking good, she thought.

Two hours later, the pair was lying in bed together cuddling and giggling after what Traci considered the best sex she ever had. Surprisingly, to her, she didn't feel guilty for that the two had just done.

She knew then that she would do this again.

The two did it again two to three times a week for the next two months. Each time they paired, Traci felt more connected to Greg.

*****

Lester Wilkins returned Elliott's call within five minutes. By then, Elliott had watched the whole video, which included a second session and afterglow. Apparently Traci did not know her lover was recording the sessions, and was very expressive of her feelings toward Greg both during and after the sex. If he had any doubts about where his marriage was going after the first photo and video, he didn't after the second.

"Hey, Hack, I need you to prepare divorce papers for me as quickly as possible," he said after the pair exchanged familiar greetings. "Make sure Traci gets everything she's entitled to, but not a penny more."

After a noticeable pause, Wilkins replied, "Seriously, El? This isn't a joke, 'cause it's not funny."

After an equally long pause on his end, Elliott said, "Seriously. She's been cheating on me for a couple of months, and I'm pretty sure she even loves the guy. It's a long story, Hack. I tell you about it someday soon."

"I'm sorry, Elliott. Really," Wilkins said.

Elliott got home at his usual time of 5:30. By the smells coming from the kitchen, he could tell Traci was cooking dinner. He then heard her talking to their daughter, Judith. Elliott had to hand it to his wife; she was as cool as a cucumber, as she apparently had since she started cheating. She looked beautiful and composed as he walked up to her and gave her a peck on the lips. He tried to be discreet as he sniffed about her, trying to determine if she'd had sex earlier in the day. Now that he knew what to look for, it was easy to tell that she smelled strongly of soap, probably meaning that she had showered after having sex earlier that afternoon.

Elliott waited until Judith went to her room after eating supper before he told Traci that the two needed to talk. For the first time since this whole thing had gotten started, Traci's face showed some trepidation, he thought.

"Do you love him, Traci? How long has this been going on?" Elliott said barely above a whisper.

Traci looked up, down and all around the family room, everywhere but directly at her husband.

"How long has he known? How much does he know?" she thought in her panic.

"Ummm... it's only been a few times, maybe a month," Traci lied. "I'm sorry. It was a mistake. It was only sex. I don't love him. I only love you."

Elliott glared at his wife. She had hit the superfecta of lies about her affair. The love he had for his wife when the day started continued to ebb lower.

"We'll talk again when you want to tell me the truth," Elliott glowered at his wife before stalking off to sleep in the room that housed their son until he went to college two years previously.

Elliott didn't sleep worth at damn that night. Not only had his wife been cheating on him for some time, she lied directly to him, trying to figure out exactly what her husband knew so she wouldn't have to admit everything to him. Elliott woke up early and went to work early, for the first time ever, leaving home without giving Traci a good-bye kiss and an "I love you." She noted exactly that when she awoke and found her husband already gone to work.

Bur was expecting to see Elliott show up at 9 AM with a sealed contract, so he was surprised when his secretary said Elliott was on the phone.

"What's up, cuckold?" Bur chuckled when he answered the phone. "I've got a box of porn videos starring your missus waiting to be traded for the keys to your kingdom. Get your ass over here, big boy!"

"Not going to happen, you pussy, now or ever. You want my business? You're going to have to take it from my cold, dead fingers. You want to blackmail me, fuckhead? Have at it!"

"Wait, you're not going to give up Sieberns?" he questioned with a quivering voice. "You think I'm kidding about releasing those video files? You've got customers, family, friends and thousands of others who are going to see what a slut your beautiful wife is."

"Well, fuckhead, that's actually her problem, not mine. She won't be my wife too much longer, and I won't have to worry about what everybody thinks of her," Elliott replied.

"What about your two precious children? How are you going to explain this to them?"

Bur didn't seem quite as sure of himself today as he did yesterday. Elliott figured that's because he never figured Elliott was man enough to face the embarrassment that was sure to come his way. For his part, Elliott was figuring that the embarrassment was Traci's.

"What about Sieberns' customers? They surely won't be happy with this?"

"Not going to affect Sieberns' customers at all if the soon-to-be ex-wife of the former owner is the slut of all time. Be good for a quick laugh for the sales guys before they get down to actual selling, I suppose," Elliott noted.

"Wh-what do you mean former owner?" Bur asked.

"Did I forget to mention that I sold the business yesterday?" Elliott said in a sing-song voice. "Only got half of what it's worth, but what the heck. Now Joe Gagliardi owes me a huge favor."

"You sold Sieberns to Joe Gagliardi? The Joe Gagliardi? 'Papa Joe Gagliardi'?"

"Yes, yes and yes," Elliott answered. "Gotta run. Got to start making retirement plans."

"Listen, douchebag. I was not kidding. Those files will be all over the Internet and in people's inboxes by the end of the day," Bur yelled.

"Wa-wa-wa," Elliott said and hung up.

"God that was fun!" he said to the collection of people who were in his office listening to his end of the conversation.

It wasn't four hours later that Elliott got the first phone call, predictably from Traci. Seems that somebody hacked her Facebook account and put up links to several videos starring her and Greg Silverman. Then there were emails sent to her entire contact list. To say she was livid would have been the understatement of the year.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" she screamed at Elliott. "I took my Facebook page down, but apparently you also sent out emails to everyone I knew, you stupid vengeful prick! I'm going to kill you, you bastard!"

She went on in this vein for about five more minutes. Elliott had put the phone down on the desk and just let her rant. When she finally stopped to take a breath, Elliott picked his phone back up and calmly told her he didn't have anything to do with it.

"In fact, that is the first time I've seen most of those videos. I damn near threw up thinking you would do that shit with another man behind my back, you fucking whore.

"But I do know who did do it, and so does your lover-boy. Why don't you ask him?" I shouted back into the phone.

"What does Greg have to do with this, you prick? Why..."

The line went dead. Elliott presumed she was calling her lover, so he kept his phone in his hand. Ninety seconds later, he knew who was calling again.

"Hello again, whore," Elliott answered unemotionally. "Don't tell me, he's not answering."

"H-h-how did you know? Have you done something to him?" she gasped.