Chapter 2

Everything came together for Jim. The assault charges were dropped. The domestic abuse charge was dropped when Riley detailed what had happened and how Joanna was injured. Jim went on the attack against the Tinkers. They retaliated by sending him a tape of Joanna being naughty (very slutish) one night at Harrison's residence. It involved three men, but still you could tell she wasn't entirely lucid.

Tinker also sent one tape of Joanna and Peter doing things that only a husband and wife should be doing. The younger man, Peter was urging Joanna on tape to leave Jim to continue and repeat her past actions with him.

The warning was explicit about what he was going to do to Riley if she (Riley) wasn't made to cooperate by her mother and become involved to some extent. The language was such that it held a threat which was pointed out by Jim's lawyer to the Tinker's attorney. That took care of them.

I wasn't told exactly what Peter intended for Riley, because Jim and Joanna kept the facts from me. However, I knew she had to be involved in some way. At sometime in the future I knew I would learn everything.

There was no innocence left for Joanna to cling to and she was finally realizing that she was about to lose Jim. Arguing and hurting, he used words that she never expected to hear from him. The worst of it was she knew they were true. We all knew that she never meant for things to go as far as they did. At first she was just out for a good time and the thrills that went with it. When Jim balked at the swinging scene, she resented it and later at the urging of the Tinkers, went on looking for her own pleasure and excitement.

Personally, I would have bailed and left her to her own devices. Jim loved his wife, I guess as much as I loved Riley. It was three months later when Jim approached me about the virtual program I had mentioned. "Bert, Joanna swears up hill and down she will remain faithful from now on if I will give her another chance.

"God knows I want to give her that chance, but I can't go through something like this again. I have told her about this virtual program. It isn't what she will experience, of course, but that if she did do it, I would take her back and we could get back to where we were years ago. I convinced her it was like a long dream and she wouldn't be physically leaving the room where this was conducted. Can you set it up?"

"I'll call Sheldon. If he can do it, you will have to be involved in the scenarios that are built into the virtual time Joanna lives. Riley should help in this too. It might be a good idea if both of you were in at the final scene. Riley needs to trust her mother as much as you do."

"Good. I have Joanna's promise that she will do anything I ask."

I was there with Joanna when she was told what Jim would like her to do to regain his love. "Dear, I want so much to trust you. Bert has a doctor and scientist friend who has developed a program that should satisfy what I need to fully trust you again. I wouldn't ask you, if I didn't love you so much."

It took two weeks of consultation of Sheldon explaining to Jim and Riley before Sheldon said he had a virtual life scenario programmed that Joanna would be living. He asked that Jim and Riley experience the last five minutes of real time, which would be the last day of Joanna's existence in virtual time. It would put them both into living the last day with Joanna wherever and whenever, the same as she was living. It was decided that this could be effective with using only four hours of real time. More than that shouldn't be necessary.

Riley? I trusted her, but sometimes I wondered. I caught her looking at me at different times like she was about to say something. During the time when scenarios were being programmed into the virtual system, Riley made suggestions that were downright torturous to her mother and these had to be toned down.

Joanna asked many questions, "How long is the program?"

"In actual time it is only four hours long and I have it set up for this Saturday afternoon. I was so sure you would agree that I have made dinner reservations for seven-thirty in the evening and we can go dancing at the club before we come home and resume our normal life."

"There must be more to it than that? I figured you would send me away like to rehab or something."

"Actually when the program starts it will be like living in the future for the next eight months for you. Some of your experiences will be unpleasant, but all could be true to life with the consequences that happen in your lifestyle of the future."

"You say it only takes four hours? Jim I could do months just to have your forgiveness and you take me back into your arms."

"That won't be necessary. I will want you to get dressed up, for as I say, I'm taking you out to dinner immediately after."

"Jim, I know you love me or you wouldn't be giving me the chance to be forgiven."

"One other thing, Bert and Riley will be going to dinner with us when you finish this. Riley has some news she wants to share with us."

Joanna gladly signed the paperwork which was little more than a disclaimer that Sheldon and his assistants would be absolved if anything went awry. When it came time to hook Joanna up, it was simple. She had been asked to make sure she had gone to the bathroom--for after all this was a four-hour long procedure.

Two nodes were stuck to each temple. Tiny wires attached to the nodes went to a computer where Sheldon sat. Then there were the usual ones clipped to her person to monitor her vital signs. She didn't even have to remove the cocktail dress she was wearing.

"I'm nervous Jim."

"I know Joanna, but it is the fear of the unknown. At first you are going to have some pleasant and exciting experiences. Enjoy yourself."

This was the last conversation Joanna and Jim could have, for the clock hit noon and Sheldon switched the virtual program on. Joanna started an eight month journey into the virtual world. We had a script to follow that Sheldon had printed out so we knew where Joanna was and what she was experiencing at that particular time in the virtual.

Although Joanna's face wasn't as expressive as usual, we could see some of what she was feeling as Sheldon manipulated the different scenarios. We saw Joanna have her first orgasm when she started cheating on Jim.

We could tell when she slept at night and when she awoke in the morning. Sometimes it was hard to tell what she was feeling. I had to remind myself that each hour of real time was a two month-long experience for Joanna in virtual time.

In the third hour, Harrison had dropped her as a class-act call girl and had her out walking the streets. We saw the look of fear as she had to approach her first John. At this point we figured she had got beyond ever having an orgasm as she worked. Being a prostitute was just a job to her now.

We saw the shame on Joanna's face when she was arrested the first time and the pain she felt when she was raped. Sheldon said, "This is where it is going to get rough on her. She has just been abducted. When she awakes in her new quarters in Mexico and realizes what has happened, this is the part I am a little worried about."

Apparently Joanna weathered the transition from streetwalker to crib whore. A look of despair had settled on her countenance and we all felt what our subject was feeling. Now she lived with a total blank look. Jim was becoming agitated and suggested that the virtual program be terminated. "That is what you want, Jim? How about you Riley?" Sheldon wanted all to be in agreement.

As the time neared the end of the fourth hour, Sheldon asked one of his assistants to start hooking Jim and Riley up to the virtual machine. "This is just in case Joanna becomes overwhelmed and we need Jim and Riley to join her. At that point we don't have to let the whole scenario run out as programmed and we can stop it at any time. I want to be ready for any eventualities."

"Yes, as soon as possible. She has borne enough." Father and daughter both agreed.

"Okay Jim and Riley, I'll jump ahead to the last day. So here you go to join her. There is no danger. In five minutes our time, I'll have you all back here."

It was the longest five minutes of my life. How was my wife going to survive twenty-four hours in Mexico in a bar and whorehouse? How much would the experience change her?

It did change Riley a whole lot. When all three subjects were unhooked on returning to real time, Joanna and Jim clung to each other like they never wanted to ever be apart. But Riley ... there was a look of distaste when she first looked at me. "Bert, I can't talk to you now. How could you be a part of this?" She turned and walked away from me.

We didn't go out for dinner that evening. Joanna just wanted to be held by Jim, so they went home. Knowing that she had rebuilt the trust by what she had just been through and that Jim had totally forgiven her, she wanted to start rebuilding her life as soon as possible.

"Do you want to go to dinner now?" I asked Riley.

"No, I don't think so, not with you anyway."

Riley was turned away from me, not meeting my eyes. I stared at her back. It looked like I had saved Jim and Joanna's marriage to the detriment of my own. I was about to become a new father too. That was what Riley was going to tell her mother at the dinner tonight. Life sucks.

I started to leave, then I thought back to four months ago when I walked away. "Riley, I guess you had a bad experience and you are transferring it to me. I'm going home. Do you want to ride with me?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Maybe you can help me get over what I saw. Mother, well, I'll tell you about it when we get home. My god, how can one human being treat another like mother was being treated? Maybe this was a virtual odyssey, but it didn't feel anything but real and Mom had almost four months of this." Again Riley turned from me.

A few days later I brought up the subject of the virtual realty program again. "I think Riley you missed the point of your mother going through this. She endured this to prove how much she wanted to return to your father's arms. She endured and I think you will find her happy. Remember also, you were in on setting up those scenarios for your mother. Yes, I found this vehicle to get your mother and father back together, but that is all. You and your father did the rest. I am happy with the end result and you should be too."

"But Bert, you didn't see what I saw. Let me tell you about it. When I first saw Mom she was being fucked by a man. A peasant I guess you could call him.

"He was dirty, just out of a field. He came into the bar and plunked down two pesos. Mom was sitting in a room off the bar. Right in front of everyone, she pulled her shift up and bent over a table. The man just walked up and stuck his prick into her. He screwed her for less than five minutes and got his rocks off. He never even spoke to her." Tears were running down Riley's face as she told me what she saw.

"Daddy was negotiating to buy Mother from the bar owner when another man came in and paid his two pesos. I was watching mother, she had wiped herself on a towel and that is the only cleaning up she did. She saw the man approaching so she bent over the table again in the same position. The same thing happened as before. By this time Dad had paid for Mom and we approached her. She looked at us with no recognition whatever. Dad said, 'Come Joanna, I'm here to take you home.'