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

I arrived at the party late, but it was just in time.

Author’s note: This is a flash story that kept me awake one night.

I am Gregory (Greg) Wilson, 28, and I am a control systems design engineer for a family owned machine tool manufacturing company. The company, Mathews Machine Tool, is a leading edge producer of CNC Machines for the plastics industry. I am not one of the higher ups, although I am considered an executive.

I was and am a very good designer and I have dual degrees in Electrical Engineering – Control Systems, and Computer Programming. I also have five current patents for circuits and programs.

I also have a very strange hobby; I am a performance comic pick pocket. I make a few dollars on most weekends by showing my skills at banquets, birthday parties and occasionally at a local dinner club.

My wife Nancy is the executive secretary to William Mathews III, a Senior Vice president, and an all-around waste of space. The only reason for his employment is he is the oldest son of William II.

I met Nancy McDermott when I applied for an engineering position at the company over three years ago. She was a general secretary to all of the executives. I didn’t get the job at that time, but I did get a date.

Nancy and I started dating, and after we had been going out for three months I was offered a position at Mathews. It wasn’t the original position but was actually a better one. I would be the director of their design department.

My patents were licensed to Mathews for a very nice amount of money, but my lawyer, a sneaky bastard if there was one, slipped and non-exclusive clause in the license agreement so I had ‘Go To Hell’ money and could and did license the patents to other companies.

I was ethical, to an extent, I never shopped or licensed to Mathews competition.

Because we had been dating before I was hired, the non-frat of contract specifically excluded Nancy. We dated for a little over a year when I asked her to marry me and she said yes.

I insisted on a prenup that excluded all monies from my patents from marriage assets. Those monies went into a separate account that only I had access to.

The wedding took place about six months later. It became an office party. All of the executives were there. William III (not Bill) tried to get me to name him as my best man, but I explained that I didn’t like him, and did not respect him, so I would have my best friend from college stand up with me.

I knew I was treading on thin ice, but my licensing agreements had another sneaky clause in them. If I was fired without cause, or left for compelling reasons, the licenses reverted back to me. I also made sure that William II knew about my turn down, my opinion of his son, and the clause.

Nancy got a promotion to WMIII’s executive secretary just before our first anniversary. The wheels started to come off of our marriage shortly after our second anniversary. I notice Nancy was starting to get disrespectful, argumentative, and a cold fish in the marriage bed. She was denying me sex about two out of three times I tried to initiate love making. I just knew she had something or someone on the side, but not who. I had no real proof, but I knew. I never brought it up to Nancy because of her attitude.