The Round Up Is Over

Before reading this story it would be good to go to the Loving Wives archives and read K.K.'s erotic and rather disturbing story The Round UP.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=64589

This story is my take on what happens in the next competition. As always my thanks go to all who have kindly commented on my previous submissions. Your praise is like applause to a stage performer. We live for it. Flamers, on the other hand, be advised Have Delete Key, Will Press. V_M

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When both members of a couple work hard and then have to fight traffic to get home, the sex they have at night is a lot more about comfort and affection than excitement. That was the pattern Cynthia and I had fallen into and that was the kind we had just finished. We are both pretty hot people on weekends but on the Monday after Thanksgiving last year we just kissed a while, fondled each other until we were ready and then fucked until climax. The elapsed time was probably even less than the "average" 15 minutes. Like I said, it was more about bonding than passion.

She cleaned up with a tissue and rolled over to go to sleep, but I prefer a warm water wash. It was when I was coming back from the bathroom that the phone rang. Now there were only two reasons I could think of for the phone ringing near midnight, a wrong number or a family emergency and being unwilling to risk that it was the latter, I picked up the receiver and answered "Hello?"

On the other end, a business-like voice spoke "Hello is this Mario Vacchi?"

"Yes it is; who's this?"

"My name is Robert Smith and I represent the Omega Sportsman's Club"

Oh shit! My mind went into overdrive. A friend of mine, George Hanson, had had a run-in with this bunch four years before. They'd seduced his wife, Mary, six times over the course of a year in a perverted kind of contest among themselves. Now, against all odds, it looked like they were back and I didn't like that idea one bit.

He went on, "I am sorry for calling so late but I need to set up an appointment to meet with you at your earliest convenience. I have an important matter to discuss with you."

My stomach went cold but I remembered all that George had told me. Like the prospect of being hanged in the morning, it focused my mind wonderfully. I absolutely had to play along. If I didn't meet with the bastard personally, their rules would require that they contact me about it by registered letter and then I'd never have even the slightest chance to figure out how to defend us against them. My chances weren't all that good in any case from what George said. "Where and when did you have in mind?" I queried trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible.

"Would the bar of the Marriott at 5:00 p.m. do?" There was an odd, arrogant chill in his voice that made me want to climb down the phone wires and squeeze the life out of his throat but I agreed. At least it gave me a day to get as ready as I could.

The next morning I went to work, as usual, at my actuarial firm. It isn't an exciting job but my experiences during Desert Storm had given me a deep appreciation for the mundane and the comfortable. Excitement, I firmly believe, is something that should happen to other people. All I wanted was enough money for a boringly normal suburban life, a family eventually and a good retirement. Now my calm little world was about to be seriously upset. Strangely, though, I felt more alert than I had in years. All the training that kept my A-Team alive during the days preceding the first invasion of Iraq seemed to rise up out of some deep recess in my brain and take over my body.

I told my supervisor that I had to leave early and took off at noon. The first requirement for any mission is intelligence. To the infantry, that means a good understanding of the ground so I went over to the bar at the Marriott and saw that it had the usual layout of stools, tables and booths. George had said that "Mr. Smith" was grey-haired and prosperous-looking so I didn't figure him to be perched up on a stool. He'd be in a booth. So far, so good. The parking lot near the restaurant was fairly good sized and at 2:00 in the afternoon, nearly empty. By five, though, the "Happy Hour" crowd would start to arrive. The only way I'd be able to tell what car was "Mr. Smith's" would be to follow him, and that would have to be done without his knowing it. I looked around the entrance to the bar. To my satisfaction there was a fairly large potted plant that, if I moved quickly and "Mr. Smith" wasn't looking over his shoulder, I could hide behind and track him out to his car.

The second part of the intelligence search was just who the bastard really was. He'd bald-faced told George that Smith wasn't his real name and that told me that he had a reason to conceal it. Somehow there must be a way to trace down my enemy through their spokesman. I needed, really needed, his license number to get his name.

Mission requirement number two is good equipment. Thank God for modern electronics! I figured that my dictation recorder could sit in my shirt pocket but pictures would require something better than my very ordinary cell phone. I stopped off at the mall and spent enough to get the absolutely top of the line picture phone. The clerk swore that it had the equivalent of a 4X zoom lens. I could only hope that it was enough and that "Mr. Smith" would be parked fairly near the entrance. There was a strong temptation to slip my Bulldog .44 into my belt as well but according to George, that would be both futile and stupidly dangerous so I left it in the safe. God, I hate going into combat unarmed!

When 5:00 pm rolled around, I stealthily entered the bar from the side and saw to my satisfaction that the only man who resembled George's description of "Smith" was, indeed, sitting in a booth. I cranked up the magnification on my picture phone and got a good, clear face shot of him then went back outside, turned my tape recorder to 'voice activated' and walked in the front door. The man I suspected rose up and came to meet me, his hand extended. He looked to be in his mid to late sixties, with silver gray hair. He was very well dressed and he walked with an air of confidence that usually goes with old money. "Good evening, Mr. Vacchi, I'm glad you could make it."

"This is about the Omega Sportsman's Club?" I queried.

He gave me an impatient look and said "Actually Omega is not the real name of the club but we never use the real name in public. This is a very exclusive club and with a very elite membership. The whole purpose of the club is to provide exciting challenges and experiences for our members."

I looked at him emotionless, waiting for him to continue. The silence seemed to need filling so he went on, "We arrange for our members to participate in adventures that are out of the ordinary and not available to the general population. For instance we have arranged hunting trips to go after animals on the endangered species list, like black rhino in Africa and tigers in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, SCUBA diving on Spanish galleons for gold in shark infested waters, or snow skiing on mountains where the members have to be flown in by helicopter. Often our members use the club services to obtain artwork. This is only a partial list of the topics that I can discuss in public. There are many more adventures that are strictly confidential and for members only. Now this brings me to what I came here to talk to you about."

This was beginning to sound like exactly the spiel he'd given George. I wondered if it was a canned speech. If so, that dropped my estimation of his intelligence and might begin to give me an edge. There were no guarantees, of course, but I was beginning to get more hopeful.

Mr. Smith continued, "I specifically came to talk to you about an event we call the Round-Up. The Round-Up is the most popular event among the members. We only do it once every four years and the event lasts for a whole year beginning on New Years day and ending the following December 31st. Round Up is a contest in which the participants spend a year trying to seduce as many different women as they can and the winner is the member with the most conquests."

Yup, same story as before . . . the bastards!

"When we first started Round Up there were very few rules which made for an uneven playing field. In order to make the contest fair we established formal rules twenty years ago. In a nutshell the rules are: 1. Each participant must put up fifty thousand dollars. 2. Expenses for the event come off the top the remaining money is split between the winner and his favorite charity. 3. The rules committee establishes a selection committee made up of members not participating in the Round Up. The job of the selection committee is to select 300 women from all over the country to be the targets for the contest. These women must be between the ages of 25 and 35, be healthy and attractive, have no addictions to drugs or alcohol, be college educated, be employed and must be married and in a stable relationship. 4. The participants must avoid being caught by the women's husbands. 5. The seduction must take place outside of the woman's home. 6. Proof of the conquest must be provided in the form of the woman's panties along with pictorial proof. Most of the participants this year have chosen to digitally record their conquests as the pictorial proof. 7. After each conquest a copy of the pictorial proof and a check for $1000 will be sent to the woman's husband. 8. At the end of the year a check for $5000 will go to any husband whose wife was targeted but would not allow herself to be seduced. 9. To make the Round Up more interesting, more difficult and more dangerous the husbands of the selected women will be told about the Round Up, the rules and that their wife was selected as a potential target. The husband will be told that there is nothing he can do to have his wife removed from the selection list. Now those are the rules. As of last Friday 52 members had paid their entry fees. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

"You're after Cynthia."

Mr. Smith looked at me and said, "Yes, your wife has been selected. The only thing you can do is tell her about Round Up and hope that she resists all attempts to seduce her. In that case you will know you have a faithful wife and you will get $5000 as a bonus. Other than that there is nothing you can do about this. Anything these women do will be their own choice so the law can't help you and you don't want to try to expose us to the press because you can't really prove that we exist and the whole thing will make you look pretty dull and embarrass your wife and it will not stop us. I know you are angry right now but don't direct it at me. I am just the messenger. I am not part of the selection committee and I am definitely not a participant."

"Selection Committee?" I wanted to keep him talking. Why, I don't know. Maybe I thought that having enough of his voice on tape would be useful but it didn't seem to matter. Apparently, he was fond of the sound of his own voice.

"Our selection committee," he went on "spends the three years between Round Ups gathering information and making those choices. We start by buying subscription lists from the ten most popular women's magazines among women in the 25 to 35 year old age group. Then we mail out thousands of surveys to these women to gather the information we need."

I stared at his eyes, unblinking.

"We will send out a survey that claims to represent a particular magazine and say that they want to find out who reads their magazine. They ask about age, marital status, education, career, and income bracket. To the women who respond to this survey we will send others. One survey about successful marriages asks questions about the women's marriages to determine which women have good marriages with questions like: How long have you been married? Have you ever separated for any length of time? Have either you or your spouse ever been unfaithful? Another survey addresses Health and Beauty. In this we ask questions about body condition, height, weight, overall appearance, exercise habits and so on. Then there is another survey on fidelity. We ask if the women have ever had an affair, ever thought about having an affair, and what kind of things a man could say to her that would make her interested in him. Information is gathered over a long period of time and a profile is built for each of the women respondents."

I waited.

Mr. Smith continued his explanation of the selection process, "After the survey results are in we usually have over 1000 profiles. The committee then reviews each of the profiles and sets aside what they think are the most interesting 500 for further screening. Members of the selection committee then go out and get photographs of these women and finally telephone interviews are done with the women. Actually the phone interviews are just another survey. We just want to get a voice sample to go along with the photograph. With these final two pieces we go to work to select our 300 finalists."

Everything he had said corresponded to what George had told me. They wanted to make it more dangerous by telling me? I'd see just how dangerous I could make it, without getting sent to jail for second degree homicide, of course.

Mr. Smith rose from his chair and said, "Well good luck young man. And remember, if your wife

is

seduced, it will be purely consensual and you have no recourse against the club or any of its members." As he turned to walk away he looked back and said, "By the way, like Omega, Bob Smith is a pseudonym."

I waited, tense as a drumhead for him to exit the door then ran to follow. Paying absolutely no attention to anything around him, "Bob Smith" strolled out to the parking lot. That gave me the chance I needed. I popped out the door, dodged behind the bush and waited, picture phone at the ready. When "Mr. Smith" climbed into a well-detailed Lexus, I murmured a fervent prayer and then resolved to light a hundred candles at the cathedral when the license plate came into clear view. The 4X magnification was all that was needed. Even if it turned out to be a rental, you can't rent a car in this state without showing your driver's license and somehow he didn't look the sort to carry a phony. I now had my required Intel. What I needed next was reinforcements.

As I drove home, I fantasized about distant relatives in New Jersey. Surely with a family as big mine there must be someone there named Guido or Vinnie who could be relied upon to break "Mr. Smith's" fingers one joint at a time until he started to talk. Unfortunately, my direct ancestors had spent four generations staying away from "them" and I really had no desire to kiss anyone's ring or to owe favors to anyone as brutal as the Mob. I just wanted to work 8-5, play golf Saturday morning, attend early Mass on Sunday and spend the afternoon playing other kinds of games with Cynthia. Eventually, I hoped to find myself playing catch with some little Mario, Jr., Michael Antonio or helping some little Gina or Sophia bake cookies. Damn the Omega Sportsman's Club!

While Cynthia fixed dinner I sat in the den and checked out my discretionary funds. The balance told me that I could afford at least one meeting with the best legal minds in the city. I swallowed deeply, kissed a new set of titanium clubs good-bye and dialed.

"Law offices of Smyth-Jefferson/McAllister, Darla speaking. How may I direct your call?"

"Uh, hello Darla, my name is Mario Vacchi and I'm afraid that I have a problem with an organization calling themselves the Omega Sportsman's Club. I need some advice."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "Hold on, Mr. Vacchi. I need to transfer your call."

A Mozart minuet played in the background for a few minutes and then another voice with a Lowland burr came on line. "Misterrr Vacchi?"

For some reason an image of an angry Bullmastiff with its teeth bared and an ugly growl in its throat popped into my head. "Angus McAllisterrr, here. Darrrla tells me ye're havin' a prrroblem with the Omega Sporrrtsman's Club? Is that no corrrect?"

Holy Mother of God, it was one of the senior partners! Smyth-Jefferson and McAllister had joined together just out of law school and within five years had built up a reputation that most firms take a generation to acquire. Their depth of research, Olympian courtroom manner and cut-throat negotiations had given them an aura of invincibility that was, quite frankly, well deserved. Over the last several decades, anyone who fell within their sights was doing well just to settle out of court and keep the shirt on their backs. All I had wanted was an hour or so with a junior partner. I'd never expected anything like this.

"Uh, yes sir!" My voice cracked and squeaked in a way it hadn't since the eighth grade. Nervous? Me? Make that terrified! "I was hoping that I could spend an hour with one of your junior members and get a few ideas about what I might be able to do . . .?" For some reason I trailed off into what must have seemed a whimper to the large-sounding man on the other end of the line.

"No, Mr. Vacchi, ye're no going t' talk to a junior parrrtner. Mr. Smyth-Jefferrrson and I ha' heard too many storrries about those blackguards t' turn ya overrr to an underrrling, nae matter how skilled he or she may be. Wha' can ya tell me aboot wha' ha' happened so far and wha' have ya been able ta do, if anythin'?"

"I got a picture of the 'Mr. Smith', who seems to be their mouthpiece, while he was briefing me on the probable end of my marriage." I stammered, "I also got a recording of his spiel and his license plate. I didn't really have time to do much else. I haven't told my wife anything either."

"A picture and a license plate? Mr. Vacchi, ye're a rrresourceful lad. That's more in one evenin' than the entire state attairrrney general's office has been able t' get in the last ten years. All we ha' haird is rumor and none o' it guid. Ya dinna want t' know about how many divorces and suicides can be traced t' those bastards but no one knows who they are. Would it be possible for you an' perhaps your lady t' come up to the office around nine a.m. t'morrow?"

I agreed to the hour and for the first time since that miserable late night phone call began to think I might just be able to fight back, after all. Purely consensual? No, not when I don't consent, it isn't. Now, all there was left to do . . . was to tell Cynthia.

I agonized about that. One thing George was adamant about was should any guy find his wife in the cross-hairs of the Omegans, his best chance was not to tell her. A normally faithful woman can easily fend off the blandishments of the occasional man but many, like Mary, find it flattering and exciting to be among 300 women selected from thousands in America. She thought that since she truly loved George, a little fling couldn't really hurt him, so long as he didn't know about it. Also, it would definitely give her ego a boost. The slippery slope was all downhill from there. What I suspected, though, was that George's error lay in what he didn't tell her. So, using my recording to make sure that I had all the details right I sat down to dinner. We were done with the minestrone and halfway through the salmon with fennel when I mentally girded up my loins, took a deep breath and began.

"Honey, you know the Hanson's, George and Mary?"

"Sure, they're such a sweet couple. They always hold hands and she seems to get a little nervous when he's out of sight." The look I got indicated that I was being infantile. Tough!

"Did she ever talk to you about something called the Omega Sportsman's Club?"

"Yes." Now there was just a bit of a chill in the air. "How did you know and what makes you ask?"