This is just a corrected version of an earlier story. The story is unchanged. Only the homophone error was fixed.
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I know so many people who complain about their jobs, what they do, and who they work with. I hear endless stories of men who chase married women around the office and married women who cheat on their husbands along with the usual garden variety liars, game players, and ladder climbers. The stories always include unreasonable bosses, unpaid overtime, and so many adolescent coworkers than I can't keep them straight. For a long time I found those stories somehow entertaining. It was like hearing a scary story told around the campfire; it wasn't real. It was just a bit of otherworldly nonsense designed to frighten and amuse. That is, until it became very real and the pain struck close to home.
My name is Ben Gregory. I'm 29 and I'm a civil engineer by trade. I do the engineering work on bridges, roadbeds, and such. My wife is Alexandria and goes by Alex. She's a year younger than me, is the office manager at a small law firm, and I adore her. I've never cheated on Alex, I would never cheat on her, and I trust her completely. Our lives aren't terribly exciting, but they're everything we want. I wake in the morning to see her sleeping peacefully beside me and a couple of days each week we manage to get to bed early to talk, snuggle, and make love. If there is a better life, I don't know it.
Here is what might be the best part of my story: somehow, and I honestly don't know how, my wife and I managed to find jobs where we avoid all of that office drama. We both found jobs in great offices with wonderful people who became solid friends. So, our lives are pretty boring, right? How do I know about all that adolescent office insanity? Well, no job is perfect and there are a few rotten apples in every barrel. On top of that, we have neighbors and our neighbors have friends. We also belong to a couple of clubs (gardening, bicycling, etc.) and a gym. It's inevitable that from time to time we cross paths with someone who can't behave themselves.
I honestly believe that most people are good, but it seems that at every party or cookout there is always that one ass that you watch whenever he's talking with your wife. For instance, she has told me never to allow one particular neighbor to get her alone. He backed her into a corner in the kitchen once and she doesn't trust him. So long as she has him under control, and he behaves, then he gets to keep his teeth. Someday, if he goes too far, he loses them. I've made that promise to myself. So you see, I trust my wife, but I take these assholes seriously.
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It was a Friday night. Alex and I were out for an evening of dinner and dancing with friends at one of the better hotels in a neighboring city. We try to go out for a simple dinner every other week and dancing once a month, and sometimes it's just fun to get out of town. I'm an awful dancer, but I do love holding my wife in my arms, moving to the music, and trying with all my concentration not to step on her feet. When we're out with good friends, the type that share our values, it's not uncommon for us to switch partners for a dance or two. I'll dance with a friend's wife and my friend will dance with Alex. It's all perfectly proper.
We were out with two couples: Sean and Debbie O'Malley, and Ned and Janet Davis. Sean is another engineer where I work and Janet handles billing and payroll. I was dancing with Debbie when she nudged me saying, "Don't look, but isn't that Barbara Perkins walking in? And isn't that not her husband David she's with?" How do you not look when someone says, "Don't look..."?
We slowly turned on the dance floor until I could see the object of Debbie's interest and, yes, it was Barbara and that was not her husband. Ordinarily, that wouldn't mean a lot. David could be parking the car. The guy could be her brother or her cousin. Except, I knew from the office that David was out of town on company business; and the way she was looking into his eyes and holding his arm tight to her breast, we quickly ruled out brother or cousin.
We decided to be invisible for now, keep to ourselves, and see what happened. Over the next half hour, what happened was a lot of face sucking at the table with groping and grinding on the dance floor. The mystery man had a boner all night long and Barbara was by no means unaware of his condition. Perhaps the way she kept stroking her hand along his swollen member had something to do with it.
It wasn't long before all six of us had seen enough. We tried to ignore it; but it was literally the elephant in the room, or at least the elephant's trunk. David was our friend and we didn't like what we were seeing. We didn't like it one little bit. After a time, we retreated to a quiet corner of the bar just down the hall from the music where we could talk; and we began to debate what we should or should not do about Barbara and her very friendly companion.
As luck would have it, the bar offered a perfect view of the elevators that led up to the hotel rooms on the upper floors. I honestly don't know what we would have decided if it had ended there, but about an hour after we retreated to the bar we saw Barbara and her very good friend enter the elevator and go up to the seventh floor. The only thing up there were hotel rooms -- make that bed rooms. We all looked at each other. Not a word was said. There was no doubt in anybody's mind. Barbara was cheating on our good friend and we were in the unpleasant position of knowing it.
What do you do at a time like that? If I were David, I would damn sure want to know, but would he? We briefly toyed with the idea that he already knew, but David is no swinger. Opinions at the table were divided. The men wanted to tell David. The wives said, "Stay out of it. It's none of our business."
Husbands do have a knack for saying the wrong thing at the most unfortunate times and I am no exception. I said to my wife, "So, if I were stepping out on you with some bimbo, you wouldn't want your friends to tell you?" All I did was ask the question, but it was a frosty drive home that night.
I'm guessing that I wasn't the only husband who had a discussion with his loving wife that night. In the interest of self-preservation, I avoided the subject Saturday. Sunday afternoon I got together with Sean and Ned and by then there was only one topic of conversation: What to do about David? The thing is we all like David. He's a great guy. He's the sort of guy who will drop what he's doing to lend you a hand, listen when you're thinking through a technical problem, and give you the shirt off your back if you need it. We thought we liked Barbara, too, but that was changing fast.
There is always somebody who thinks faster than me, or maybe a lot of people think faster than me; but I was still surprised when Sean brought out his cell phone and showed us a series of photographs and videos that he'd taken without any of us noticing. They started with Barbara sucking face at the table and then dancing with her good friend and his prominent erection. Sean then showed us a video of Barbara making nice with the guy's boner under the table and the last had the two lovers walking arm-in-arm into the elevator.
Ned got right to the point. "Sean, that's a divorce you're holding there. You know that, right?"
"Yeah, so what do I do with it?"
"Ben said it Friday night. If you were David, would you want to know?"
"Damn right I would! First, I'd want you to get my guns out of the house; but after that I'd want to know."
I looked at both my friends and we were all thinking the same thing: we cannot stand by and watch her cuckold our good friend. We had to know, and we would figure out how to bring our wives into it once we were sure. Sean, Ned and I decided that this was a job best left to professionals. I told you I have great friends and we were willing to spend some money to help one of our own.
I contacted a private investigator named Harvey Mattison and we met with him Monday afternoon. Harvey was all business. He listened to our story, watched the videos, asked pointed questions, and thought before he offered any opinions. The first opinion was expected: "This is going to cost you." We knew. "This David must be a good friend, or do you have other reasons for doing this?" We assured him this was only friendship and we would be happy to be proven wrong. In fact, we wanted to be wrong. Hell, we weren't wrong, and we knew it. Harvey knew it, too.
"There are two ways of doing this. The first is totally legal and will probably cost you the most. The second is faster and may produce evidence you can't use in a divorce case, but if we get lucky it may not cost you as much. Plus, it's more reliable. Either way, I may get you unambiguous evidence of adultery, but it's doubtful you can use any of it in court. This is a no-fault state, anyway, and I'll be bending the law a little."
Well, we liked the guy, but we weren't rich! "Let's hear the second option first."
"I'll give you a GPS tracking device that you put under the bumper of her car. Can you do that?"
We all nodded. It was easy enough. She kept her car in their garage, but one of us could go over to borrow something and tag it easily enough.
"Tagging her car isn't exactly legal, but it means we won't have to spend as many hours watching and following her. We'll know when she's on the move and follow her more easily."
We were all nodding like fools, looking at each other, and writing mental checks from our accounts.
"Do you have any idea when she'll try this again?"
We did. David was in a rough phase of his latest project. The build was behind schedule, so he met with the management of the build and did his own inspections over the weekends while the construction crew worked all out during the week. He was due to leave town again this coming Friday morning and he wouldn't be home until Sunday.
"I'll tell two of my team members to be ready for Friday night. You get this device firmly attached to the chassis of her car. Then we'll plan on following her wherever she goes." Harvey chose to use a team that could pose as a couple so they could move about the hotel freely without drawing attention. Clearly, he had done this before.
"What happens if the asshole drives?"
"He probably will, but she'll meet him someplace first. My people are good. They won't lose them. And if there's a chance to tag his car in the process, I'll just charge you for another tracker. With any luck, it's one night's work. If we need a second night, then tagging his car will make it easier and cheaper the second time. We probably won't get anything too intimate, but we can at least get them coming and going from the hotel room. If they behave the way you describe, her actions won't pass the husband test and we can get that much."
