Edited by Barney R. Further messed with by me. All errors are mine.

There she was, only this time she was with a different asshole. Then I found someone who made her irrelevant. It was someone from my past.

I knew I was going to have a confrontation when Monday came around. I had walked into the Olive Garden alone on a Saturday evening. She was there with a man I knew, and he was not her current husband.

I was waiting for my sister and her daughters to have a nice birthday dinner for my sister Anne’s oldest Karry. She was 15 during the week, and we had planned this night out for about a month.

The woman that upset me was my ex-wife. Her current husband was the man she cheated on me with. It appears he is in for the same treatment. I got out my cell phone and snapped about six pictures before the happy couple noticed me. She looked at me with the same guilty expression I saw when I confronted her about the end of our less than two year marriage.

My name is Bernard Charles Compton, Bernie to my sister, nieces, mother, (dad passed a few years before) and ex-wife. She is Carol Riggles (former Compton nee Smithers) I am 33, and she is 31. The man she was with is my soon to be soon to be ex-business partner Randy Langston. We own and run SecCorp Inc. a computer security firm.

Randy knows my feelings on screwing around with married women. He saw Carol’s deflated look and turned his head and spotted me. He saw the phone and just seemed to shrink.

As it was supposed to be a happy time for my sister and her family, I just turned my back and sat on one of the benches to wait for Anne, Karry, and her sisters Kathy and Kristen. Anne’s husband left for parts unknown with a ‘sweet young thing’, so I was the male authority figure in the girls’ lives.

Just as I saw Carol headed for me, Anne and the kids walked through the door.

I quickly got up and went to greet them. I got hugs from all three of the girls. Anne sensed my unease, saw Carol, and whispered in my ear. “Don’t let her get to you. She fucked up, not you. It looks like she didn’t learn anything from your divorce.”

“I’m not worried about her, she is here with Randy. I told Randy that he would have to go it alone if I ever saw him with a married woman. I knew he was and is a major skirt chaser, but I thought he would at least care about the business. I won’t mess up this day, but Monday I will either buy his shares, sell him mine, or sell mine on the open market. Our business together is done.” I took a deep breath and relaxed.

“Let me take my four favorite ladies to a wonderful dinner. We don’t need to have distractions. Just enjoy the dinner and the fact that you are the best mother those three girls could have.”

The dinner was wonderful. Karry loved the locket I got her, and laughed when she read the inscription ‘To one of my favorite nieces, of course your sisters are also my favorites’. That earned me a playful punch on the shoulder and a wonderful hug and kiss. When the time comes for their birthdays, the other girls will get a locket of a different precious metal with the same inscription.

I met Carol Smithers when I was fresh out of college and doing some freelance computer security work at the office where she worked, she was a junior personal assistant, and the entire company had been hit with a Trojan Horse. The Trojan was not designed to destroy any data; it just recoded all of their user information and deleted all of their passwords.

I asked for a person from their staff with computer input skills to assist me, and the company assigned Carol. I found the Trojan, and we back traced it to the install date, and the computer where it had been installed into the system from. I concluded that it was deliberate sabotage and the company said it was from a fired former employee.

I restored all of the recoded data, and added a military grade handshake protocol and robust anti-malware/antivirus software. With their problem resolved, and the data restored, the company issued new passwords, and paid me. They also gave me a glowing letter of praise for my fast, efficient work. The word went out that I could solve some troublesome problems.

I not only got paid, but I got a date with Carol. We went out regularly for a couple of months, and I asked Carol for exclusivity. She said not yet, so I stopped asking for dates. I wasn’t angry, but I was confused. She must have double stacking dates, or dating during the week because we were together almost every weekend.

About a month later, Carol called and asked why I hadn’t called. When I explained that if she was not ready to be exclusive, then she was not committed to seeing if our relationship was going anywhere. We did not get back together then.

About this time, my business was doing so much work that I needed an assistant. I interviewed several people, and when I got to Randy he told me how I could expand in a better way and offered to buy into the business for 45% of the business. I agreed. We ended up with five employees and were busy and were very profitable.

Carol called again a few months later, and asked if I was willing to date her again. I said I could see a way to do that, but that I would not ask for an exclusive arrangement. I told her if she could date others than so could I. I added that there would be no sex until she decided that I was the one and only.

Well that went over like a turd in the punch bowl. I heard a click as she hung up. I was disappointed, but not surprised. She was not one to listen to someone pointing out her problems.

She called me a week later and asked me to go to a play with her. She knew I was a sucker for live theatre. We went.

That started our dating again. We dated this time for nearly a year when one Friday after dinner, Carol said she was now exclusive.

I said I wasn’t. I left. I lied. I had been exclusive, but like a little boy who had his favorite toy broken, I was still pouting. She had not turned down any dates with me and there were only a couple of weekends that we did not go out Friday and Saturday.

She called again a couple of weeks later. This time she started out with a surprisingly funny sounding, “Hey Asshole, are you over your little fit?” Then she giggled.

“Yeah, I guess I am. Shall we start as onlys?”

“Works for me.”

We dated for another six months when I asked her to marry me. She said yes. Then she went into planzilla mode. We set a date for six months out and started with a family only wedding.

Carol did not get along well with my family. My mother took me aside and told me to keep a close watch on her, as she was checking out other men when we were all at a restaurant for dinner. I, being of unsound mind and basic stupidity, ignored her. I did take one piece of her advice. I had my business lawyer draw up prenup to protect my business. It also prescribed penalties for adultery or abuse.

We continued planning, and as the wedding date approached, the guest list got longer. She must have invited her entire high school and all of their second cousins. I invited my family.

I informed Carol that while it was her day, I would not be paying for 300 people at our reception, so she needed to find the money somewhere, or call the reception off and we would have a family celebration like we had originally planned. She got the money somewhere. The reception was so big we had to have a second seating for dinner.

The reception was one hell of a party and we left late. After we left to start our honeymoon, the cops were called to break up a brawl between some of Carol’s family and some of her cousins.

When I called mom the next day, my mother told me she hadn’t had that much fun in ages. She added that Carol’s mom would have a shiner for at least two weeks and one of her cousins was suffering a concussion. Three others were also sporting bruises. At least ten people got ‘show cause’ tickets for drunk and disorderly.

We went to Jacksonville Florida for our honeymoon. We had a room on the Atlantic side of the beachfront hotel. We spent time on the beach, and also went to St. Augustine and saw some of the other sights.

When we returned to start our wedded bliss, I had a small backlog of customers asking for some of our services. I had become the salesman for the company. I was almost as skilled as Randy at computer security, but he was a true geek, and had very poor people skills. The catch-up overtime was less than a week.

Carol found a job keeping the books for a local hardware store. She also helped at the cash register covering lunches and breaks. It paid over minimum wage, but was hourly not salaried.

The business was rolling along well. My marriage, not as well. We had been married for a little more than a year when Carol started working late two or three times a week. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but her paychecks showed no overtime, and were the same size every week.

I decided that I would not put up with it, and confronted her. She didn’t deny anything, in fact she acted like she was pleased that I found out about her cheating. She asked for a divorce, and told me she only wanted her clothes and jewelry.

I agreed, and less than 18 months after I got married I was unmarried.

About six months after the divorce I saw an announcement in the local paper. ‘Ms. Carol Smithers was wed to Robert Riggles in a small civil ceremony over the past weekend. Mr. Riggles is owner of Riggles Hardware, and a widower for the past four years. It is the second wedding for both.’ Somehow I was not surprised. I thought that she had been messing around with her boss.

Well, I continued to work, and began to spend more time with my sister and her daughters. I also did a lot of ass kissing making up to my mother. She still loved me even when I was brain dead.

As the Bayer Children’s Aspirin commercial said, “Mothers are like that, yeah they are.”

I moved on, but did not jump back in the dating pool. I was put off of getting into that scene because of what Carol had done to me. I realized that I was hurt more by the lying than by her cheating and divorce.

After the dinner, I went back to my house, and decided to have the family over for a cookout Sunday after they all went to church. I called everybody early Saturday and set it up. I have a large yard, and being a gadget freak, have the latest in a charcoal smoker and a restaurant grade stove and oven. Because I was single again, I did not use them much. Cooking for just yourself is not a lot of fun.

When it came to getting invites accepted I have an advantage, I have an indoor pool and a very large back yard. Anne’s girls loved both and could swim as if they lived in the water, so they were always on my side for parties at my house.

After I got everyone on the same page for the barbeque, I went and got some charcoal, hickory chips, and a 14 pound brisket. I added salad fixings, pickles, olives, a couple of different sauces, and ice cream and fruit for deserts. My mother was going to make her scalloped potatoes. Anne was going to make a three-bean casserole. We would, like we always did, split up the left over’s, so everyone (except the host) left with more than they brought.

After the prep, and getting the smoker going, I sat down to relax. About then the calls started. The first one was Randy, trying to say that nothing was going on between him and Carol. I told him that what I saw made that a lie “so you either buy me out, I buy you out, or I am selling my share of the company”. I told him give me a price on Monday, and then get the hell out of my sight.

The next call was Carol. She asked if I was going to tell Robert. I told her no, but if I did not see a divorce notice in the paper in the next week I would tell him. I said even with you and him cheating on me he didn’t deserve to be cheated on.

She came back with, “It was the first time, and you seeing us ruined the plans.”

“That doesn’t matter, the plan was to cheat, that didn’t change. I would bet $10,000 that you will try to meet again, and if you do meet you will complete the plans. I just do not understand why you insist on getting married. If you want to fuck around, there are plenty of assholes who will.”

I ended the call and went to bed.

The Sunday party was a blast, and the girls; Karry, Kathy, and Kristen wore themselves out swimming. The party didn’t break up until after 8:00. A great time was had by all. Mom asked me if she could stay over, she wanted to talk to me. I made up the guest room. Mom stayed often enough that I had her keep sleepwear at my house.

We cleaned up, I made sure the smoker was out, and showered. Mom showered, got into her pajamas and we sat in the den and she talked, “Anne told me about Carol and Randy. I know how you feel about cheaters. I also know that you are not part of any group outside of work and your extended family. You go to work, come home and that’s it. You need to have someone in your life. You are still young, don’t let that cheating bitch destroy your desire. Now, I’m tired, it was a great party and the girls wore me out just watching them. Good night my darling son, you are a good man. Get back out there, there are good women out there. I love you.”

Then she kissed my cheek and went to bed.

I sat there in the dark and thought about what mom had said. She made a lot of good points. I decided that I would see about the dating scene. I was never a drinker, so the bar scene was not my bag, but I did like to dance and there were a couple of country dance halls in town. I decided to check them out.

I also made a decision about the company. I knew Randy couldn’t make a go of it by himself, so I would offer him a 30 day period where we would look for buyers and both of us would be out of the ownership part of the business. I thought that I would recommend to the buyers that they keep Randy as the programmer/debugger, as in my opinion he was and is the best I had ever seen at that. As I said before, his people skills sucked.

Several hours later, I went to bed for a solid three hours of sleep.

The Monday meeting with Randy went surprisingly well. He even told me that because I had ruined their plans he thought about what would have happened if I had been her husband.

He agreed to the thirty day plan and added that we should get someone to come in and place a value on the business.

I called around and found a company in Lansing Michigan that did those kinds of evaluations. They charged a flat fee and expenses and said someone would be at our offices before the end of the week.

When I got home that night, mom was still there. She wanted to know what I had been thinking about until three in the morning.

I explained my plans and what I had done so far.

She then surprised me by asking; “Why don’t you help me sell my house, and convert that large room over your garage into an apartment for me. I love it out here, it’s quiet, the air out here is clean, and I like being around you.”

I thought about it for a couple of minutes, and told her, “That’s a great idea, mom, you know I like having you around, and you liking it out here has made me very happy. I am also going to take you advice from Sunday. I am going to go to Conway’s Dance Emporium (a country dance hall-bar) and start getting back into life.”

That got me a kiss, and a request to take a day off work to help her move some of her stuff here. She would use the guest room until the garage apartment was done.

The Friday paper came and in the legal section was a notice of a filing of a petition of divorce for Riggles v. Riggles. She actually believed my ultimatum.

Randy and I sold out for more a lot more money than we believed the company would be worth. Before we sold, we did put an addendum to the sales agreement that the buyers needed to retain our employees or give them all their accrued leave pay and an additional two year’s salary.

Randy stayed and put his money in a safe place. I put mine into a trust that invested in blue chips companies.

Mom moved in, I moved on, and became a regular at Conway’s. I was popular, because I seldom sat out a dance, never asked a lady that was there with a guy for a dance, and never turned down a dance if a lady asked me. The only problems I had was when I danced with a lady, and some drunk tried to cut in. I solved most of those problems by telling the drunk I would be glad to dance with him but that I insisted on leading. That worked almost every time and got several drunks laughed out of the place.

I had been going there about six months, when I saw a familiar face. I saw the ‘Girl from High School’ and I had treated her badly. I had been dating her for a couple of months and suddenly told her that I was done with her. I didn’t give her a reason, just that we were done.

Sue McCarthy was a wonderful girl, and what I did to her was wrong. Even all these years later I feel bad about it.

She saw me at almost the same time as I saw he and she made a beeline for me. I was not prepared for the wonderful smile she was wearing. She greeted me with a giggling, “How you doing asshole, break any hearts today?” Then she grabbed me and laid a kiss on me that caused my toes to curl so hard they didn’t uncurl until ten minutes after the kiss was over. The applause from the peanut gallery was loud and enthusiastic.

Then she led me over to the table where a couple of ladies were sitting. She continued bursting my ego by introducing me as “This is the bastard that dumped me back in high school.” Then she laughingly added, “I think I’ll punish him by making him dance with me the rest of the night.”