Discovery, Chapter 1
I am a successful trial lawyer. Before me, my father was a successful trial lawyer and my practice was built on top of his. I have five associates working for me, as well as a staff of paralegals and secretaries. I have a primary Private Investigator whose business comes mostly from me. I've had a number of big cases over the years. While my practice is located in a small town, it is the largest town in the area, so we draw from several surrounding counties.
I am nearly 55, medium height. Not slim, maybe a few pounds more than I need, but not overweight. My guess is that I am okay looking, but nowhere near as good looking as my wife, Linda. My pecker is of average length. I'd like to think I am a good lover, or at least an attentive and generous lover who focuses my attention on my partner.
My wife, Linda, is 50. She is very good looking, but not a supermodel. Her look is more like that of the best-looking women at a neighborhood party, but not the Hollywood version of a leading lady. She has shoulder length black hair. She has very nice breasts, wonderfully ample in size and natural. There is a bit of sag, maybe a little less than you'd expect after two kids and the effect of five decades of gravity, but I always viewed the slight sag as evidence that they are fully natural with no artificial additives. Her tits were a big attraction during any fuck, and the jiggle factor for them was very dear to me.
We had met in college and were deeply in love very soon after. We married while I was in law school. Prior to marriage, Dad sat us down and offered us a $50,000 cash gift on the condition that we sign a prenup. The prenup provided that in exchange for the $50,000, that the wife would waive any claim to the value of my interest in the value of the law practice. There was also a small provision that if either party had committed adultery, that party would forfeit their share of any marital assets in excess of $10,000. At the time we barely paid attention to that provision, because adultery was inconceivable because we were so much in love.
I understood where dad was coming from. He didn't mistrust Linda. On the contrary, both he and Mom loved her very much. But Dad had a first marriage. He never talked about it. I heard about it only in whispers from other family members. It had lasted only three years and ended with his wife running off with a close friend of his. The prenup represented the pain that had caused him years before. Linda and I argued we had no need for this agreement. Dad was quick to agree. But he also said that marriage was rollercoaster ride, with wonderful ups and difficult downs, but that we could make it to the end, it would give us great memories. The prenup is just encouragement to stay on, even when the temptation of an easy ride might appear from time to time. The house and the money was too sweet to turn down. We agreed. Later Dad took me aside and told me that this like all contracts was rescindable. He asked that I not rescind, that I just put it aside and forget about it. If I wanted to rescind it, I could, he just said don't do it until the issue raised itself.
After marrying, we had a very nice life. Part of it was because of the wonderful gift from my family. But most of it was because of the love we had for each other. In 30 years of marriage, we had raised a family of two children, one was married, with kids and the other had a serious boyfriend. Both had moved out of state with nice jobs. I was proud to say we were a loving family.
And my sex life was very satisfying, if maybe a bit vanilla. But no complaints were ever made.
Then came those two cases that completely consumed me. Naturally, with the hours I put in, our love life took a nosedive. But last year was a far more successful year than we had ever enjoyed before. My client was an accountant working for a defense company that had a plant outside of our town. In fact, it was our town's largest employer. Anyway, he was charged with embezzling nearly a million dollars. But he had been a set up.
He had discovered some questionable expenditures and brought it to the attention of the boss, and the next thing he knew the FBI showed up and arrested him. But he was no dummy, he had copies of the books saved on thumb drives. As soon as we saw what he had, we started working non-stop, and after a interviewing a dozens of employees we put together a case and filed suit under a Qui Tam writ, a little known way that you can be a private prosecutor if you rat out a company cheating the federal government. Soon the FBI was working with us instead of against us, and in the course of a year, four executives in the company were arrested for fraud, and the feds recovered $5 million dollars that the company had paid out in bribes to at least two Air Force Colonels and five government employees who help them rig the biding process, and some $85 million in overcharges on their projects. Thus, the total recovery was $90 million and under Qui Tam, my client recovered 15% of the amount recovered, or $13.5 million dollars. And the government paid our attorney's fees for assisting our client, totaling some $4 million. Then we sued the company for malicious prosecution, which they settled for another $10 million from which my firm collected another $2.5 million. It made for a good year. The total for our firm $16 million dollars, or a net to me of some $8 million Of course taxes put a bit of a hole in that.
But for all that, we burned an enormous amount of midnight oil on the case. I alone worked, 16 hour days, seven days a week for over a year. But it was not only hard work that went into this case. My marriage was destroyed by this case. This story is about the wife I abandoned to pursue this case.
I didn't notice my problem until the cases were over. I was exhausted and needed a rest, so I looked at some Caribbean Resorts, printed off some marketing for them, brought them home, and showed them to Linda. She wasn't interested. I asked about a trip to Europe. She said she had no interest in traveling. I told her I needed a break to recharge. She encouraged me to go alone. In fact, the more she talked about me going alone, the more excited she was about it. That was a flat no for me, I had no interest in a vacation without her and I told her so. I suggested that maybe we both needed a break to recharge. Still not interested was her response. How about we go visit the kids for a week. She exclaimed she does not want to travel, and she was getting very angry at my persistence.
I had noticed that for some time her housework had slacked off. Now that I was home more it was more obvious. When we first got married, she worked full-time. But once the kids came, she stayed at home and focused on them and housework. She was very good with both. The kids turned out great and the house was always immaculate. After the kids left, she took on a part time job, working weekends at a woman's clothing store, mostly just to get out of the house. But now she was ignoring most of the household needs.
Now that I was home more I tried to help her out with those needs, she responded by doing even less housework. When I tried to discuss this she would get angry and start a fight. I suggested she go to a doctor. She got angry and started to argue. Indeed, everything I said or did seem to make her angry.
Despite my more normal hours at work, and my increased presence at home, our sex life had not recovered. On the rare occasions she would agree to sex, it was less than vanilla, her response was mechanical and without passion. I suggested counseling. She got angry and started to argue.
In the beginning I would argue back, but in time as it became painfully obvious that the arguments were silly, I quit engaging. "Yes, dear" or "okay, dear" was thrown back to just get back to some level of peace. Not peace, really, just the absence of yelling.
Even the kids were reporting that she wasn't even returning their calls.
