Chapter 3

I certainly did not think that this was Academy Award material. On the other hand, I certainly appreciated it as a sort of documentary. It did elicit some mixed feelings in me. After all, I had spent nearly 1/3 of my life with Annie, raised four children, and faced numerous trials with her standing (or so I thought at the time) at my side, my partner. Now, I had cinematic proof of her infidelity. NO, make that " ... of her sexual philandering". Her faithlessness had been evident years before, when I realized that I could not believe anything she said to me. Beyond all that, for reasons both carnal (Annie still looked hot!) as well as emotional (she was the mother of my children, after all), the video got my heart pounding. (as well as my hard ... now, that's funny!)

I ejected the DVD, placed it into the gunsafe (wouldn't do to have my sons find their mother starring in a video of that sort), and, securing it, went on to other projects.

Along the way, I called my daughter, inviting her to bring her daughter over for dinner. Sandy's daughter Miranda, my first grandchild, was simply the cutest grandchild in the Western Hemisphere, in my own humble and thoroughly biased opinion. Marie and I cooked some spaghetti, and we all ate in the back yard. Once we were done, and Miranda was running around the back yard playing with the dogs, Sandy showed me something on her phone.

"Hey dad, look at what Mom texted me", she said, showing me the following:

"WIFE:
Wash
Iron
Fuck
Etcetera"

Sandy continued, "She said that it's pretty much on the money. I think it's a hoot"

I paused, measuring my words. "Honey," I began, "You know your Mom doesn't ... iron, right?"

The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully enough, as there are always chores needed to keep my home as I wanted it. Once I finished the yard work, I wanted to go shooting, so I unlimbered the reloading press, and set up my favorite .45 plinking load. I cranked out a hundred or so rounds, losing myself in the rhythm of operating a progressive reloading press. The attention to detail, the satisfying "clink" of finished rounds dropping into the bin, took me away from everything for a while. I called my buddy and arranged to meet him at the range.

I went back to work Sunday evening, and passed an uneventful night of Fighting Disease And Saving Lives In The Big City. Since I'm usually not quite ready to sleep once I get home in the morning, I fired up the computer and began to read my e-mail. Again, no surprise, one was from Annie. Again, moved to "Annie's Bullshit" folder. Nothing else of interest was in my inbox (how did the word get out about my tiny tool? I sure enough got enough e-mail offers to remedy my [ahem] shortcomings!), so I turned the computer off, got undressed, and went to sleep.

This pattern repeated for the next several days, typical of my week on/week off schedule. Come home, empty lunch pail, read e-mail, move e-mail from Annie to Annie Bullshit Folder, slumber. A couple of times, I played the DVD and masturbated to the hot coupling therein. I flirted with the other nurses at work, spoke with my girlfriend on the phone on the way to and from work, did dishes and packed my lunch each evening while waiting for the coffee to perk, and generally made my way through my days.

Nearly ten days after I had received the DVD, I received an e-mail from Annie that I opened. Surprisingly, there was no bluster. Unsurprisingly, she did not tell me when she would meet the other 3 pre-negotiation parameters. No reply required, it seemed to me.

One morning, I came out of work and found an envelope beneath the wiper of my truck. The note on the outside was in a familiar hand, so I took it with me as I left for home. Curious, I opened it once I got home, spilling out several pages of notepaper. The pages were a painfully detailed account of how her life had turned to shit, and all her woes and travails, all of it my doing. I skimmed it, more for vicarious pleasure at her misery than for information. On the last page, however, I stopped short, and re-read with an eye for detail.

"Bob, I haven't heard from you since I mailed you that DVD. I hope you're happy with it. You don't know what it took to get Lance to get together with me one last time, but I had to humiliate myself. It was awful, and I'll never debase myself like that ever again."

(" ... only until I get my hands on you", I thought) "I know the second of your demands is me and you on video, and I'm ready to make that concession to you. Please let me know when you want me at your house for that part of it."

That was unexpected. While I had considered how Annie's tryst with me might develop, I really had no solid plans. Of course, there were several considerations of pain inflicted, and humiliation videotaped that had occurred to me. Yet, I had not developed a program for this encounter featuring the attention to detail that it deserved. Pulling out a legal pad, I began to make some notes.

I realized that this sort of encounter would deserve a deliberate, methodical approach. I was in no hurry: Annie was the one facing the deadlines of both the end of her sofa-owning-friends-list, and the beginning of the school year, with its attendant Friend of the Court child custody issues. After all, camping out at friends' houses might work for the summer days of parenting, but the school year demanded both a settled home and access to a Saint Helens school district bus stop. I spent several days making notes, revising and reviewing them, and tweaking my plan until I was satisfied with it.

Of course, in the interim Annie had been sending me a parade of increasingly impatient e-mails. After a week or so of planning, I opened one up. Refreshingly (so to speak), it revealed that she was still the same red head the divorce had established her to be.

"I don't know what you want from me. I did that sick video thing, I agreed to submit to your perversions, and now you don't even have the courtesy to respond to me. I've catered to your twisted little power play. Let's get this thing over with."

Some questions deserve answers. I composed a reply to her e-mail, proofread it, and hit "send".

"Annie: You ought to know what I want from you, it was all spelled out for you. There are three other prerequisites yet to be met, and you have agreed to the first of these three. Be here Friday evening after next at 6:00, don't bring a change of clothes, and expect to be home Sunday night. Don't make any plans for this weekend. I've done all the planning you require. By the way, because of your graceful acquiescence, I have decided to add a few new elements to your video visit to me. You do recall, after all, that I have an interest in bondage and discipline, do you not? You may decide to withdraw from our arrangement, but understand that, should you back out, no discussion of my bailing you out of your sinking boat will occur and you will not receive any help from me. Of course, at any point you may feel free to get help from another source and tell me to go away. I will not force you to do anything you do not freely choose to do. On the other hand, if you continue to remain homeless, you can expect Friend of the Court to discover this fact. I invite you to consider what their recommendation to Judge O'Hara might look like in that case. You might be both homeless, and court-ordered to pay me child support if I get full custody."