The Joe

By allforall Edited by techsan, thankyou, all mistakes by me

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Roger's Story

Maybe I should explain myself. I am Roger Evans, married to Nancy and work at Genius Computer Solutions. Oh, that doesn't help? Then let me throw some detail on your fire and see if that heats your knowledge up.

Three years ago I graduated from Edison Community College with a degree in computer science. I also had MSCE certification. As I had gone to class with the son of one of the founders, I was quickly accepted at Genius Computer Solutions. This is only odd because I am the first white person that was ever employed by them.

They were a cheerful crew of people and I was mostly accepted except for one thing. I am as dull as dishwater, for I have a minimal sense of humor. The actual work of integrating networks and developing data input screens didn't need a sense of humor, but all my coworkers were practical jokers. I never got the point of most of their jokes but I learned that if I wanted to keep my job I should at least pretend to laugh when the other people were laughing.

About eighteen months after I had started there, they hired the second white person. She was Nancy Ames and she was the good-looking sort of woman who would work the receptionist's desk. I took one look at her and started to drool. She was way above the level of any woman that would go out with me, but two months later, as I came in from answering a client problem call, a large oily bastard was pressing her flesh a little too intensely.

I told him, "Hey, this is a place of business. We don't do things like that in public here."

His response was a roundhouse punch a foot in the air over my head. I returned the favor by hitting him in the breadbasket with my toolbox. He sagged to the ground and slept for a minute.

When he came to, I was standing behind his head, ready to stomp the piano lessons out of his skull. He said, "I'm going to sue you for hitting me."

Nancy said, "That might not work so well. See the camera up in the corner. You're on television. Now just stay quiet until the police get here."

He refused to stay. He rolled away from me and headed out the door. I asked Nancy, "shouldn't we stop him?"

"For what? We don't have any cameras watching the reception desk. Let him go. Now what can I do for you, big boy?"

I stood there like a deer in headlights until Nancy said, "I guess I will let you take me to dinner."

That mostly explained the next two month's of our relationship. Every Friday afternoon I would return from service calls and Nancy would tell me where I was taking her. Four weeks into the relationship, Nancy decided that I should spend the night at her apartment.

Give you a hint of how limited I was, I didn't make love to her until we woke up for breakfast Saturday morning. Nancy saw my morning wood, and didn't take no for an answer. Two months after that Nancy, told me that we were getting married next Saturday.

Now don't feel all that sorry for me. I was head over heels in love with Nancy, but as I said at first, I couldn't believe that she could possibly love me back.

Our marriage did change some of the relationship between us. Nancy, while we were courting, kept her sense of humor well-hidden. After the wedding, well, Nancy did like her jokes.

It was good for Nancy that she did work at Genius Computer Solutions. The crew of people around me had a never-ending sense of humor. Stink bombs and whoopee cushions were the tamest jokes you could expect on any given day. My only problem was I didn't have a sense of humor and I almost never got the joke. I did learn that, for day to day survival, I'd better laugh when I understood a joke had happened or I would get a lecture from Nancy that my humor level was running low.

Nancy and I had other problems. Now I was almost a virgin when Nancy and I made it for the first time. I knew next to nothing about how to make love to a woman. I was gentle and I did try new things when Nancy asked me to, but I mostly did not like the things she wanted.

I'm pretty plain with sex, you know, hugging, kissing, then fingering and finally fucking. Nancy likes surprises, oral, and a light BDSM. Honestly, surprise make me limp, oral tastes like vomit, and whenever I want to love somebody, hurting or humiliating them is a turnoff. Now I'm not saying I won't do oral. I understand, if you won't eat your woman, you won't keep your woman.

Most of the other jokes had little to do with me. They played them on each other, the customers, and their own families. The only person they didn't play jokes on was Harold Banes. Mr. Banes owned the company, so nobody could tell him that his lack of a sense of humor was keeping him down.

Anyway one Wednesday evening Nancy didn't come home with me. I came by her receptionist's desk at quitting time and she wasn't there. She did leave a note saying that she would be very late this evening.

About 9:30 Clancy Harris, the brother of my supervisor, dropped by my house. He said, "Roger, George asked me to drop off this video at midnight, but I have a date this evening, so could you watch the video and call him after midnight to tell him what you think."

I said, "Sure, Clancy. Hope you have a great date tonight."

I really wanted to go to bed early this evening. I figured Nancy would be home soon so I should get this video out of the way.

Watching the video.

I found an adapter for the tape. The tape was one of those VHS C tapes with only twenty minutes.

The tape began with Nancy, George, William, and Mike. They stood up and introduced themselves. This seemed very lame until they started taking their clothes off. I wondered what the hell was going on here. The next twenty minutes basically showed all the men one after another sticking themselves into my Nancy. They finally ended with a scene showing all of them checking Nancy for airtightness.

I guess you could say I felt sick. It was only 10:02. My marriage was over and my so-called work friends had done the deed to me. Now my next step would puzzle anybody who didn't work at Genius Computer Solutions. I called Mr. Banes and told him what I had seen on the video.

He told me, "My employees are family to me. You get over here with that tape and we will see what we can do about this."

I got over there by 10:50. Mr. Banes had Reverend Holcomb of the Atlanta Baptist Church at his house. I told Mr. Banes that I could go back home and see him later, but Harold said, "If what you told me is true, you will need the help of God to get through this."

We went into a video room. I had brought the adapter so we could play the tape. We started the tape and I tried not to look at the tape. Reverend Holcomb told me, "Son, God helps those who face their fears, but if you won't face those fears, God can't help you."

We all watched until the tape was finished. I was crying considerably, Mr. Banes was looking at his feet with a sick expression on his face, and the Reverend was saying, "I need to get down and beg the Ku Klux Klan to clean those abominations off this earth."

I said, "Reverend, it's too late for violence. I know marriage is supposed to be forever, but I can't take this. I have to get a divorce in the morning."

I thought the Reverend was going to try and change my mind, but he said, "The wives of those men attend my church. It is my job to protect their souls but it would be wrong to keep this truth from them. Harold, may I use your phone to call them?"

Harold said, "Of course you may use the phone, but should we really tell their wives?"

Reverend Holcomb snarled, "If just one of those people had a disease, we would, by law, be required to notify their families. Plus there is the moral aspect to be considered here. They all betrayed their marriage vows. They cannot be forgiven until they atone for what they have done."

Harold said, "But you would be destroying their marriages."

Reverend Holcomb whispered, "No, they have destroyed their marriages. Harold, as part of your responsibility on this, I want you to get any who want legal separation, divorce, or police protection, the earliest possible court hearings. I'm trusting you to get that done."

Harold looked at me. I said, "I won't stay married to her."

Harold said, "Are you sure? Divorce is so final."

I responded, "The only way I could stay married is that this did not happen. Can you think of any way that this did not happen?"

The Reverend walked me over to a roll top desk. He opened the desk and laid a clean towel on the surface of the desk. The Reverend told me, "There can be solace in prayer. I suggest that you pray until you fall asleep or it becomes time to go to the judge. Whatever you end up doing, the prayer will help you feel right about doing."

The Reverend was correct. I prayed until 10:30 AM. Harold took all three of the wives and me to Judge Turtes. Judge Turtes looked at the whole video and asked us if we all wanted to divorce our spouses. We all said yes.

The judge said, "Your divorce won't be immediate, but for now you're are legally separated. I'm authorizing court orders that will protect you from physical threats from your ex-spouses-to-be. Your spouses will be served within two days if they stay in the Atlanta area."

We were told that Georgia allows for no-fault divorce and that we would have to split our property right down the middle. We all were so angry that we told the Judge, "We just want to be rid of them."

Harold had some business friends in Gainesville, Florida. He made some calls and told me, "I think you need to be out of the Atlanta area. My buddies in Gainesville can use your skills for the next couple of months. Normally I would pay you and bill them, but given your action about your wife - well, it's better if you're paid out of state. I checked at work and they haven't come in today. No surprise there, as they signed up for vacation. Do you want to take a chance of meeting your wife by going home and picking up your clothes?"

I said, "Harold, if I'm that scared of meeting my wife, then I've already been beaten."

Harold said, "Your friends may be there, and given what is going to happen to them, you should be scared of them. Let me make some calls. Maybe the police can go with you to protect in case of violence."

I thought he really wanted to protect Nancy from me, but official witnesses couldn't hurt.

I got home at the same time as the police. There was nobody there, but the place looked like a whirlwind hit it. I found my clothes all scattered but none of the clothes were unduly damaged. I packed all my clothes into my car. I got my personal computer and put that in my trunk. I made a call to my landlord. I told him, "Nancy and I are getting a divorce. Our lease was up about three months ago. I will mail you the last months rent, but from now on you will have to collect rent from Nancy."

I got on I-75 and headed south. I should be in Gainesville by midnight or a little later.

Nancy's version

Roger is an old stick in the mud, but he is my old stick in the mud. I wish he was a better lover, but at least he is gentle. The only real change Roger has to do is get a sense of humor. I like to make practical jokes, lots of practical jokes. The jokes make me alive. But Roger never gets it. If you tell him a joke, he never gets the punch line. If you play a joke on him he never sees the funny aspect. Roger can't laugh at himself.

Well, George, William, Mike and I have come up with a joke that will break his funny bone.

This will hit Roger right in his know-it-all attitude. George, William, Mike and I are going to make a little movie. We will pretend that all three of them are making it with me. We will have George's brother Clancy drop the tape off at midnight. Once Roger views the tape we will come in the house, yell surprise and then get Roger to look at the last two minutes of the tape. That is where we will show him that it is just a joke.

Roger will get mad and start playing jokes on us and he will finally develop a sense of humor.

Well, that was the plan anyway. But we screwed up big time. First Clancy had a late date, so he dropped the tape off early. The second but worst screw up is that we videotaped twenty-three minutes onto twenty minutes of videotape. Our last three minutes were unrecorded.

We went to our house but Roger wasn't there. Nobody knew where to find Roger. The next afternoon told us where Roger had been.

His in-laws greeted George at his door; they told George, "You want to star in porn movies, then you move out to California where they do that stuff all the time. But you stay away from our daughter. The court order for protection will be served on you by tomorrow."

All the other men got the same sort of message. The process server greeted me. She handed me my papers, then cheerily said, "Have a nice day."

I tried thinking maybe this was a joke. Maybe Roger would come home and laugh at me. The papers looked so real. I tried calling George. His wife answered. She gave me hell and then some. This had to be a big joke. The papers were from a Judge Turtes. I decided to look him up in the phone book. There was no private listing for the Judge but his office was listed.

I called the Judge on the next day. I got his clerk, Thomas Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe told me, "Mrs. Evans, that was a notice of divorce. It is real and legal. I must say having seen all of your videotape that you gave your husband a perfect chance at a divorce for adultery, but he proved to be generous. He just wanted out of the marriage. You're astonishingly lucky that he did not resort to violence. That tape would have sold well to a jury as a mitigating circumstance." Mr. Wolfe, having destroyed any hopes I might have had, finally hung up on me.

How can this be happening to me? All I was trying to do was get my husband to admit to a sense of humor. I mean everybody likes jokes, even if they are the butts of the jokes occasionally. Damn!

I called into work. I got my second horror show. Mr. Banes told me, "You may come in for your last paycheck. I can't afford to be associated with the immoral show that you have put on. I suppose you are selling that video to a porn company."

"That video was just a joke. Don't you understand?"

"Let's see, little girl. You had sexual relationships on camera with three different men, finally all three at once. Your sense of humor is horrifying and probably illegal. Here I made extra copies for the wives of the men you seduced. You can have one to remember that once you had the love of a good man and the respect of your coworkers. You have thrown both of them away. I hope that was worth it to you, whatever the excuse you use."

Mr. Banes was as cold and angry as I had ever seen him. Well, if the videotape made them that mad I better look at it myself.

I watched it over and over. It looked like we did it. We didn't but nobody watching this video would believe us. I mean I liked George, William, and Mike; but noway was I going to have sex with any of them.

After several hours of watching, Mike called. He was the only one of us who had children. He said, "What kind of husband do you have?"

I answered, "I guess the jealous kind, why?"

"No, that ain't jealous. A jealous man doesn't go talk to my preacher and spend the night praying to make the right decision. You said he needed a sense of humor. Well, this is the sickest joke to be played on me."

"I hate to burst your bubble but we played the joke."

"I know. I know. But it's a damn sick joke all the same. Reason I called, my wife won't let me in the house unless I and the bitch - sorry about the word - I was with get tested and we both test clean."

"What?"

"Look, I don't know if you've seen the video but it really looks like we got inside you."

"I know that. I don't understand what happened to the last part of the video. You remember where we told Roger, 'it was all a joke; now see if you can come up with a joke yourself.'"

"Hell, that tape stops right in the middle of your airtightness scene. Did we make a mistake there?"

"You think? Hell, the whole thing was a mistake."

"Hell of a note to find that out now. But that is the other thing. My church wants me to apologize and atone for what I have done wrong, and they don't believe that we were just making a joke. Before my wife will take me back, I'm must confess in front of the congregation and apologize to my wife and your husband. That is a problem because we can't find your husband. It's like he vanished off the face of the earth."

I hung up at that. Roger may have been dull but he made me feel safe. Now I was alone and exposed to the world, and it was my fault. Well, I better pull my head out of my ass. I won't agree to the divorce.

I called a lawyer. Her first question to me was, "Mrs. Evans do you have enough money to fight this?"

"Don't you want to hear all the facts first?"

She said, "Mrs. Evans, the way the law now works is ... the parties are assumed to agree to the divorce unless one of the parties protests the divorce. Now you told me that your husband thinks you committed adultery and you have no property to split. Did I hear you correctly?"

I answered, "My husband saw a videotape of me playing a joke on him and took it the wrong way. I have lost my job and don't have very much money."

She interrupted me, "Mrs. Evans, can you get to my office at 11:45?"

"Yes, I'll be there. I can bring the tape if you want to see it."

She questioned, "What sort of tape is it? We have a VHS tape player here. Will that play it?"

"Yes, it's a VHS. I'll be there at 11:45."

I got there on time. She looked at the tape, put it in the player, and turned the player and the TV on. She ate her lunch while watching. At the end she said, "How did he make this tape?"

I said, "No, we made the tape. It was supposed to be a joke. You know, to teach my husband a lesson."

The lawyer looked at me like I was a moron. She said, "Did you want a divorce then, and now you've changed your mind?"

"No, I didn't want a divorce. This was to teach Roger a lesson. He needed to get a sense of humor."

She said, "Let me get this straight. You fucked and sucked three men on camera to teach your husband a sense of humor."

"I didn't fuck or suck anybody. This was a joke."

She spoke, "Looking at the tape, I can't believe you. If you want to avoid a divorce from your husband, you're going to have to beg him to take you back. Unless he's a screaming idiot, I don't see any way to get him back. All he has to do is show this video in Superior Court, and any judge there will run to grant the divorce."

"But can't the video be disproved?"

She answered, "How? Look here, Mrs. Evans, the video is admissible in court. You made it and had it sent to your husband. That is what you told me, isn't it?"

"Yes, that is what I told you. I really don't have any hope, do I?"

She tried to calm me, "Look, your marriage is probably done for. Try to stay on a polite basis with your former husband-to-be. You really don't want to fight this out in court. If you do, that tape will be known all over Atlanta, and if it were a slow news day, it would be known nationwide."

That last statement got to me. Well, since I'm fired from my company, I better find a cheap place to live. I wonder if I can go home to my parents. How would I explain my problem with Roger? It would be like him to ignore them until one of them tried to blame Roger for what happened. My father doesn't like black people. I would be lucky if he did not tie me to a tree and beat the sin out of me. No, I can't go home again.

My phone stated ringing. When I answered, it was my sister, Elaine. Elaine said, "Roger called and said you guys have separated and you had lost your job."