(You might want to read the first three installments of this saga.)
Life comes at you in bunches, as the saying goes. I often wondered what that saying really meant?
Maybe it was a different way of saying that when it rains, it pours.
Whatever it really meant, my own assessment was that shit happens. You can't plan, you can't predict, sometimes things just happen.
Why Kelly Ann Peters, now Kelly Ann Jackson, got pregnant wasn't the issue. I think she wanted to carry my baby while all the time people assumed it was her husband's seed that took hold of her body and began growing. He was such a bastard, that James B. Jackson, and while Kelly Ann was stuck in her relationship it didn't mean she had to like it.
Oh, the cars and the house and the money was great, but the fact that James was using her as a trophy wife, that he constantly degraded her, humiliated her, you name it, negated all those worldly perks. She had confided in me that she'd leave the bastard if she could, but the papers she had signed said she's walk away with nothing. For Kelly Ann, that wasn't an option.
I actually think she enjoyed being blackmailed by me. She didn't put up a fight when I threatened her exposure --- the incriminating photos were quite compromising --- and deep down I think she actually had a special place for me despite all the horrific things I'd made her do before her wedding.
It isn't often the soon to be bride gives someone not soon to be her husband a blow job in a back room at the church just minutes before the organist kicked in with a little "Here Comes the Bride."
It had been a few weeks since the day at the mall parking lot where Kelly Ann worked wonderful mouth music on me. We couldn't chance a meeting or phone calls. I knew that when she wanted to see me, talk to me, or visa versa we'd connect. We just couldn't be at all obvious about it.
In the meantime I followed up on some job leads and spent my evenings online with America's Army.
The phone call from a Miss Clancy of the JBE Company startled me from a fitful sleep.
"Yes, we'd like to interview you for a position here...would noon be alright? Yes, an appointment has opened up, and today would be great."
Of course I'd be there. I was tired of working odds and ends to pick up cash, and the idea of a real job excited me. I dressed for the occasion, a nice grey suit, red tie (for power) and a dose of confidence went with me to the warehouse on Delaware Avenue. Not the best place in the city, but Miss Clancy explained the shipping company was having its best year and it needed a financial analyst to help the company ensure costs were in alignment with revenues.
Parking in the visitor's lot, I made my way around to the front of the building and stated my business to the guard. He gave me a temporary badge and directed me to the appropriate office. "Good luck, sir," were the last words he said to me. Despite my confidence, I knew a little luck wouldn't hurt, so I thanked him and was on my way.
Inside the director's suite of offices I was greeted by the aforementioned Miss Clancy, a nice looking girl of about 20 or 21. She wore a nice pencil skirt and blouse combination that more than highlighted her physical appearance. A good looking brunette, yet it was her smile which bedazzled me. The girl's smile was infectious, and made me feel right at home.
Paging through People I wondered if the stars on the pages were really as crazy as they were made out to be. Was Brittany a druggie? Was Lindsay a drunk? Was Paris a little bit of that and more?
Hearing the door open, I turned only to be shocked. It was Kelly Ann.
We looked at each other and both of us nearly gasp. "What are you doing here," she asked.
"What are you doing here," was my reply.
Miss Clancy merely said, "Oh, you two, uh, know each other."
Kelly Ann said something about us going to school together, but Miss Clancy's smile seemed to know a little more than that. Still, I was relieved when she excused herself to get us coffee.
"I'm here for a job interview," was my matter of fact statement.
Kelly Ann looked bewildered. "At Mr. Jackson's company?"
Oh my god, what was going on? It was too coincidental that Kelly Ann arrived at a meeting with her father-in-law at precisely the same time as I arrived for a job interview. My mom didn't raise a stupid boy, this was a set up.
"Don't say anything, Kelly Ann, don't admit to anything." I didn't have a chance to say anything else, as the office door opened and a stern James B. Jackson Sr. ordered us inside.
"Hold all calls," he demanded of Miss Clancy, who had reappeared. "We don't want to be disturbed."
The last think I remembered thinking was that secretary knew a lot more than she gave on, she had a disgusted, all-knowing look.
Jackson strode to his desk, told us to sit down, and then alternated stares between the two of us. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
I said something about not knowing what he was talking about, and Kelly Ann stammered something about wanting to come back later after the interview.
"Young lady, you will sit right there, and you should be happy I haven't called James Junior into the room. Your husband would be very, very surprised, and I bet unbelievably angry, if he sat in this room right now."
:"I don't know what you are talking about, dad," quietly, almost in a whisper, said the girl.
The blood rose to Mr. Jackson's face. He began tapping his fingers on the large Oak desk. He continued to alternate looks between Kelly Ann and me as if waiting for one of us to confess.
"Let me help refresh your memory, Kelly Ann. You, my dear, are a slut. I have seen you in action, not only in my son's bedroom, but I have also seen your wantonness in the mall parking lot with this young man. You two should have been more discrete. My goodness, you were doing it in the car. It was so easy for my men to witness you in the act of fellating him. But that didn't satisfy your desires. You exited that car, went into the stairwell, and let him, er, take you from behind....I'm not stupid, I know what I am talking about."
Jackson glared at Kelly Ann, but didn't ignore me, saying something about getting to be in a moment.
"You are a married lady with a child on the way, my grandchild, and you are running around with this, uh, sub-human bastard. I just wanted to have you admit to this before I throw your ass out of the Jackson household."
Kelly Ann began crying, denying all while each of us knew the goods had been found. We were busted, our gooses cooked.
"When James hears about this you will be out on your ass, with nothing. You signed the agreement, you willingly agreed to the pre-nuptial, and now your whoring ass will be out in the gutter where you belong."
"But my child, your grandson..."
"Do you really think I believe that what is in your belly is my son's child?"
"But..."
"Shut up. You have used your mouth too much already, In more ways than one, as the photos show. You are just a slut looking for a meal ticket. If my boy didn't love you you'd have been out of here already. And you," he said, pointing a menacing finger at me, "would be in the hospital. But don't worry, the afternoon is young."
Quietness enveloped the room as the three of us stared at each other, each waiting for the next shoe to drop.
"I am making you an offer, it's a one-time, no negotiation offer," said the man. "First, you will never see this boy again unless I have given you expressed permission beforehand. Second, you will perform at my whim, sexually, when I desire. And I think that will be a couple times a week."
Kelly Ann groaned and then said no. "I'm not a whore."
"Listen up, Kelly Ann, let me finish. If you do one and two, then I am willing to treat your baby as my grandson, whosever baby it is, and establish a $100,000 college trust fund. I will keep my knowledge of your actions away from my son. I will ensure you are treated well, fairly, and if at the end of the pre-nup you leave him I won't be a problem. But for the term of that agreement with my son you and I will have a side agreement.
"Yes, I guess you could say you will be a whore, but you will be well compensated and your baby will be well taken care of. Nothing will change from your current status, only you and I will have our own little side agreement. There are worse things in life. Oh, and your, uh, little friend here will be free to go and won't be making any extended trips to a hospital ward on my part."
The wheels turned in Kelly Ann's head. Despite the fact she hated her husband, that she wanted nothing more than to be rid of him, there was the fact that financially she was set for life if she stayed with him. Many marriages failed, and as long as she stayed together her future and her baby's future were guaranteed.
Besides, Mr. Jackson was an attractive, powerful man.
She may have wanted to spit in his face, turn down the offer and walk out the door, but she didn't. She sat there, sobbing, begging, getting nowhere. After a bit she sat back and let out a large breath of air.
She then simply agreed to his demands. Signed some legal looking official papers right in front of me.