Conclusion 2

For the following few weeks, whilst Early and Susan shared the house and the associated chores, they were courteous and thoughtful to one another even if Early had all types of ugly scenarios pervading his mind and Susan was shitting drawing pins.

Their conversations were stilted and both spent as much time at their offices as could possibly be justified. Susan had told John Strickner that Early had come home on Thursday, two days earlier than planned and knew what had happened between the she and John and that their supposedly rock solid marriage was in limbo.

It soon became common knowledge at both Susan's and Early's workplaces of the illicit liaison and they both discovered just whom their real friends were by the treatment doled out to them by their workmates. Some were genuinely upset that the apparently ideal couple had had their apparently ideal marriage damaged by Susan's betrayal. Some people expressed their disbelief and sorrow about the up to now thought to be impossible occurrence, Susan's infidelity

Some thought that it was hilarious that the two tall poppies had been brought down a notch or two. There were snide remarks and whispering by some people each had previously classed as friends.

Her parents were overwrought and were completely grief stricken that she had gone her chosen route. Although they found her actions indefensible, they loved her and felt for her.

Early's parents had died some years before he had even met Susan and had left him considerable property and investments. He had had the same very good paying job as a trouble-shooter/negotiator/facilitator since finishing his Business Degree and as previously mentioned he had to occasionally travel to unravel someone else's mess for his employer.

He had been giving considerable thought to his divorcing Susan, but he held off, hoping that some piece of magic would enable him to forgive and forget her contemptuous act.

HE PROCEEDED TO FORM HIS GAME PLAN IF THERE WAS WAY OUT.

The basics were:

He would divorce her but the divorce would be as civil and hassle free as possible
They would sell the house and contents and split the proceeds,
They would split their joint bank accounts
She would keep her Beemer and he would keep his Mercedes.
He would pay her half the value of their SUV Explorer.
Each would retain their personal bank accounts and investments.

He was thankful that they had put on hold for another three or four years starting a family as they felt that the time was not yet right to move into that realm.

He was still occasionally, as they say, "between a shit and a shiver", and did not really know what to do, bail out of the marriage or wait and see what happened.

He spent a lot of time in his bed alone wondering if this was her first foray into adultery, and realised the futility of asking her. If she said yes he would be furious and would definitely be rid of her and if she said no it would forever in his mind be inconclusive. The easy lies about her whereabouts when he returned from his trip two days early still rankled.

Crunch Time.

His answer came out of the blue.

He had met Stan Pickett, a co-worker of Susan's, at various office functions and found him to be a really nice guy who he got on well enough with to occasionally meet after work for drinks.

About a month after discovering her betrayal, he met Stan for drinks and as Stan's wife was visiting relatives and he was at a loose end, they went on to a restaurant for dinner.

Early was a moderate drinker, favouring lite beer, but on this occasion he had a few red wines with his meal.

He often jokingly said that he only drank red wine for the good the antioxidants would do his heart. Of course he had no heart problem but he was helping ensure that he never did.

The both got a bit mellow, and the conversation had drifted to Early's dilemma; would he or would he not remain with Susan.

Crunch time came when Stan told him that he felt it important that he told Early that it was an open secret that Susan had been in an ongoing affair with her Secretary Jennifer for at least two years.

This accounted for Jennifer's being missing from the office while Susan was servicing John Strickner.

Putting two and two together, it was a good bet that Jennifer had been with Susan at Strickner's house enjoying both her female lover and her male workmate.

When asked, Stan verified that office gossip was that Strickner had crowed about threesomes, but named no names.

This revelation sent Early over the top, and he threw some money on the table and ran from the restaurant in tears.

To him, this was the lowest card in the pack.

It was horrendous to have been cuckolded by a male, but it was beyond comprehension that a woman could cuckold him.

Although he was well over the limit, he drove home, grabbed a case of clothes and some toiletries, and left the house without a word to his wife who realised then by his demeanour that she had really shit in her own nest big-time.

This was a Friday night and he drove, again illegally, to a motel several blocks away and checked in for a couple of nights to start with.

He stewed over the weekend and although Susan's phone number came up every half hour or so on his cell phones screen, he did not answer her and he sank further and further into depression.

About lunch time on Sunday, he rang his CEO Ralph and told him the nitty gritty, and asked if he could be transferred to a branch in another state as he had suffered humiliation and mental pain over the issue and felt he could not live where he had the remotest chance of running into his lying bisexual lesbian adulterous soon to be ex-wife.

Ralph arranged to meet Early first thing next morning at the motel to discuss Early's request. They chose to meet at the motel as they both were confidant that Susan would be on Early's office doorstep then. She was, but to no avail.

Ralph spent most of the morning talking to Early and they discussed some possibilities and promised to set the wheels in motion within the hour.

Early then made an appointment with a guy he had grown up with who was divorce lawyer and asked him to do whatever he could to divest himself of the slut and their marriage.

Ralph called him on Wednesday morning asking him to come to his office as he had a proposition, which he felt would be of great interest to him.

Early had always remained aloof from the office gossip, listening to but not retaining the shit which generally comes out in the lunch rooms, but he thought to himself that perhaps he may be able to utilise the "system" to just twist the blade a fraction.

He went to his computer and using Microsoft Publisher, he addressed an envelope to Jennifer at the office with the return address as that of a local clinic, which dealt with venereal diseases.

He placed a blank piece of paper inside that envelope, posted it at lunchtime and waited until the company mailroom processed the incoming mail next day.

The envelope's return address raised an immense amount of interest within the company immediately and it was noted that Susan, Jennifer, John Strickner and another senior partner promptly left the building urgently for reasons unknown. Although Jennifer consequently denied her "problem" to Strickner, Susan and the other player, she could not convince them she was not pox ridden. The joke around the office became that Jennifer had visited the "Pox Docs".

The Proposition.

Early's company was a multinational company with offices throughout the world, and their Australian branch was in trouble. Ralph asked him to go out there and spend as long as it took to clean out the rabble and rebuild.

As Early had the ability and reputation as being when necessary a coolly efficient Hatchet Man, he agreed and asked if he could postpone flying out to Melbourne until his divorce proceedings were in motion, estimated to take about a month.

Melbourne, whilst not being Australia's biggest (Sydney) or capital (Canberra) city, is the finance capital of the nation.

He settled his affairs and when he was assured that the divorce process was bullet proof, he flew out to Australia to start a new life.

He did not know whether his rehabilitation of the organisation would take days, weeks or months so lived in a hotel nearby to his office and within days discovered that the business was wrought with as many forms of mismanagement, dishonesty and corruption as you can find in a very large dictionary, so soon realised that he was in for the long haul.

Living in a hotel was not his scene, as he was fond of cooking and did not mind doing his own washing and housework as had been the case before he married Susan so he took a one-year lease on an apartment in an inner city Heritage listed converted warehouse.

He found this to be perfect for him.

As his office was only minutes from the apartment, he deduced that he did not need a car, making unnecessary the buying a car and paying for its maintenance and garaging. If he wanted to go anywhere for a drive, he deduced that you could hire a lot of Avis cars for what he would have spent over 12 months if he had bought a car and had it sitting idle most of the time incurring the considerable expense.

Whilst his apartment was amongst a myriad of ethnic restaurants from all possible nations, he did enjoy cooking many of his own meals, mainly evening dinners, being sometimes daring and mostly successful.

He soon got into the habit of catching a tram to take him to a shopping mall about 30 minutes away, to buy his weeks groceries.

Melbourne is that only city in Australia, which has a tram system, with the exception of 12-kilometre tram between Adelaide city and the seaside suburb of Glenelg in South Australia.

Within weeks, he became a creature of habit by catching a nearby tram mid morning on Saturdays, then spending an enjoyable time choosing his purchases scrupulously to cater for his appetite and whims.

It was big part of his week.

Turning The Corner.

About six weeks into his Melbourne sojourn, as he was rounding a supermarket aisle corner, his trolley collided with the trolley being steered by what he branded was a stupid woman, who obviously was completely in the wrong; not having been looking where she was going.

They both bristled and looked daggers at each other until both realised that their confrontation was not the end of the world.

They exchange pleasantries and within being half way up their respective next aisles, had forgotten the incident.

Her thoughts were that he was a chauvinist pig, and his thoughts were that she was a typical female vehicle controller.

It was also a big part of her week.

We know that Early was quite a presentable late twenties male, and I better tell you that she was a very nicely stacked late twenties female, who, whilst not an Elle McPherson or Kylie Minogue, was very easy on the eye, but did not herself realise that she was in fact such a very curvy sexy looking chick.

After making his purchases and having a coffee and scroll for brunch, he caught the tram home and surprise surprise, the errant female trolley jockey was also on the same tram. They nodded to each other.

Upon reaching the city, they disembarked at the same stop and both headed in the same direction towards the conglomeration of converted warehouse/apartments.

In fact, they lived in adjacent buildings, and as she reached her street door first and let herself in with her keycard, he just smiled and thought "what a sexy bitch".

He was going through the staff identifying the wheat from the chaff, leaving the wheat in place and culling the chaff, when he decided that he should seek the assistance of a headhunter to replace the said chaff.

He sought advice through surreptitiously listening in on conversations at his favourite nearby bar, and hearing the name of a recruitment agency several times, he rang and made an appointment the next day in the hope of securing some good people who had been trained in the area in which he was involved.

As arranged he presented himself in three days time to the "headhunters"office on the 15th floor of a nearby impressive building.

At the precise time of his appointment the receptionist ushered him into a luxurious office, obviously that of a senior person and be blowed if the occupant of the desk was not his errant trolley jockey. Her name was Jill Stuart.

Each had trouble controlling their mirth, and when they had settled down, became business-like and he explained his position and his needs and they formatted a listing of what was required.

It was obvious that they had clicked, and when he asked her to accompany him for dinner that evening she agreed, in such an apparently reluctant manner that he did not realise that her pussy was tingling. When they had completed their dealings, he had to scruntch his way out of her office such was his boner.

At 6.55pm that evening he walked the 50 metres from his apartment to her door, pressed the speaker button and heard her say that she would be straight down.

She looked beautiful. She was not wearing anything daring, but her whole outfit absolutely suited her and brought out her features. He was rapt.