Chapter 1

It'd been a strange day from the very start. Actually, it'd been a pretty damn strange year for me. At the beginning of the year I was saddled with a large house payment and seven nearly maxed credit cards courtesy of my ex. If you've ever heard of a story where a women works to put her husband through school and then, after he obtains his degree and gains some success, he runs off with another woman - then you've heard my story only reversed. If you've heard a story where the husband thinks his wife might be "sleeping her way to the top" - that's my story too.

When I first encountered Amanda she was working nights as a waitress at Bernie's, a restaurant in town. I'd finished my Bachelors degree and was just getting started on my career. I'm not certain exactly what I'd thought I'd seen in her; but later on I found out for sure what she'd seen in me. She was trying to work her way through college and support her six year old daughter at the same time. Dad was not in the picture and not paying any child support. Of course I didn't learn all of this in one night, but I took the time to talk with her each time I stopped at Bernie's.

I guess it's time I face it. She was hot, she was smart, and she was determined. I admired the energy she faced her challenges with. We'd gone out as much as her schedule would permit for over a year and I was pretty smitten by her. Amanda's daughter Stacy had quickly stolen a hunk of my heart as well. Sometimes when I look back on things I swear I'd do things differently - until I remember Stacy; but now I'm getting ahead of myself.

I decided I wanted more of her time; but knew she couldn't afford to give it the way things were. I also was positive that I'd found true love and that things would surely work out. In any case, I proposed, Amanda accepted, and we were married soon after. We certainly had our good times; but even from the first year I found Amanda quite willing to be manipulative now that she felt she had her hooks in me. I was paying all of the bills, and willingly so I might add. I thought if she didn't have to work to pay for her schooling that Stacy and I would see more of her, which was true, but only to a certain extent.

I remember shortly before she graduated with her Bachelors Degree how she informed me that she would be heading straight to graduate school at one of the more expensive university's in our area. I'd hoped we'd actually have a year or two without the rigors of her study schedule, but I knew this was important to her - so I kept my disappointment to myself for the most part. Amanda insisted that we pay for her education without taking out any loans. She persuaded me that although it would crimp our lifestyle quite a bit we'd be better off when she finished without having more loans to pay. So for the next two years I worked my ass off to make ends meet and to meet the extra financial obligations her Masters Degree program required.

It seemed that almost as soon as she graduated and passed her bar exams she landed a job. I knew I should be excited for her, but somehow it seemed just like more of the same to me; in this I wasn't wrong. Amanda worked long hours while assuring me that this would only be necessary for the first year or so and that once she had secured her position in the firm she'd be able to cut back. I loved her and I wanted to believe her - so I did. For the seven years we'd been married I had pretty much been paying the bills and raising her daughter. Stacy was the only real bright spot in the whole picture.

I'd arranged my schedule so that I'd start work early and get off by four in the afternoon. At four thirty I'd arrive at the soccer field in time to catch the last fifteen minutes of her soccer practice. If she had a game, I was the one who cheered her on. Twice a week I took her to her dance class. I remembered just how proud I was of her at her recital; I also remember how upset she was that her mother hadn't made it.

One year passed and then another. It was in Amanda's third year at the firm that I found the invitation to her firm's Christmas party in a stack of bills on the desk in the den. "Well it's about time we get invited" I thought to myself as I looked it over. Then, as I was reading the letter accompanying the invitation, I saw a line that really bothered me a lot: "As we do each year at this time, we are pleased to invite each employee and their spouse or significant other to attend our happy festivities..." They'd invited her before? And me too? Why hadn't she said anything? If I hadn't found the invitation, what would she have said this year?

I decided not to say anything about it and see what she'd do. I hid the invitation and waited. Nothing happened. The day grew closer without a single word. Then, the evening of the party, she called to say she had to work late. I guess I should have known. After all, it's what she'd probably done every year before. Was she ashamed of me? I just didn't know about her anymore.

Stacy was thirteen now, but I really didn't want to leave her alone so I called an older neighbor lady we were close to and asked if she could come and stay with Stacy for the evening. I told her that a bit of an emergency had come up and Helen didn't hesitate to help me out. Instead of being upset with me, Stacy was happy to have a visit from her "Aunt Helen" as she'd taken to calling the kindly woman.

The firm Christmas party turned out to be a formal affair at one of the nicer hotels in town. The letter accompanying the invitation had included details about the menu and the entertainment for the evening. They were going all out. I dressed in my nicest suit and headed out the door with the invitation in my pocket.

When I reached the hotel I asked where the party for Michberg, Laughton, and Connell was being held and they directed me to the Omega Ball Room. I entered the room and spent the next two hours observing and being careful to stay out of Amanda's sight. There was my Amanda, my wife, acting as if she was a single woman with no spouse. Seeing the woman I'd longed to be close to and tried to make a life with acting as if I didn't even exist left me in sheer agony. She danced with any man that asked and I often saw wandering hands which she did absolutely nothing to discourage. About ten thirty I saw her leave the dance floor and make her way to the exit followed by two men. Progress was slow as she moved through the crowd of people and every few minutes or so it seemed that another man had joined her entourage. I was near an exit on the other side of the room so I ducked out and made my way through the hallways as quickly as I could. I reached the door just as she was coming through and barely avoided having her spot me.

I followed her and the nine men as they headed to the elevator. I ducked inside just before the door closed keeping my back to her so she wouldn't see my face. My caution was probably wasted. I heard noises of kissing accompanied by her giggles and the laughter and comments of the other men in the elevator. When I risked a glance over my shoulder I was shocked to find her standing there in just her thong happily being pawed by the men standing nearest to her.

They had pressed the button for the sixth floor and I stayed in the elevator facing towards the corner until they had all gotten out. I followed at the back of the group as they made their way down the hall to room six hundred and nineteen. One of the men produced a key card and opened the door. He held it wide as everyone walked in. When he saw me standing there I expected him to tell me to get lost; instead he said "Come on in pal. The more the merrier!"

I stepped into the room and watched as the man closed the door. He turned to me once again and said "We've got dibs on her first. You'll get your turn, but right now I need you to listen for the door in case anyone else wants in on the action."

"Okay," I said numbly.

"She's really something isn't she? Every Christmas she bangs just about every man in the firm. Says it's her Christmas gift to us. Fortunately for us she doesn't really make us wait a whole year. Our little slut Amanda will let us bang her anytime and any way we want!" he told me with evident excitement.

He wasn't kidding! She took on all comers. It was just like a porno flick. There she was in the center of the bed sitting on some guys cock as she faced the foot of the bed. Another dick was fucking in and out of her asshole. She was sucking a third and giving hand jobs to two others.

"Always knew you could multi-task Mandy Baby!" the guy she was blowing said to uproarious laughter.

The bitch! "I'm working late dear. Not tonight dear, I've had a hard day. No you can't fuck me in the ass! Only a whore takes it back there. How could you think so little of me?" All the lies she'd fed me! Me her husband! The one who'd bent over backwards to make things work for her! For me nothing, while other schmucks could do anything they wanted to her anytime they wanted. She was a bitch to me and a slut for them.

To make matters worse she was taking them bareback while she'd always insisted that I wear a condom. "We wouldn't want to risk having another little one right now honey" was the line she'd always used on me. It was only later that I heard her tell one of the men fucking her pussy "Go ahead and fill me up with your cum, I had my tubes tied years ago. If I haven't gotten pregnant with all the fucking I've done since I never will."

I figured I'd seen enough and wasn't enjoying this eye opening experience very much at all. Better to find out what I could and then make my exit instead of getting violent in a room full of lawyers. "She's quite the slut isn't she?" I asked the man next to me.

"Yup! Mandy's our little deal closer. If the deal isn't making progress, just let Mandy grease the way. Of course most of the grease she uses gets put in her tight little asshole!" he laughed.

So that was how she'd been "securing her position in the firm." Well at least now I knew what her position was; usually on all fours with every orifice chocked full of cock. The bitch had seen me as nothing more than her meal ticket and live-in babysitter. I got to work my ass off while all of the other men around her got to get their rocks off!

I was mad! I was also so numbed by the shock of it all that I'm afraid I was quite stupid. The smartest thing I could have done would have been to run down to the twenty four hour drug store on the corner and buy a couple of disposable cameras before heading back to the room and catching the slut in action on film. Unfortunately, that's not what I did. I left the room before she saw me alright; but I didn't come back with a camera.

The rest of the whole mess is damn painful for me to recount, not that this wasn't! To make a long story short - it's damn hard to win out in divorce court when your bitch of a wife has fucked every legal dick in the county! I had no credible evidence and she must have known the jig was up somehow. The bitch actually filed for divorce two days later!

I ended up with a shit load of bills to show for the seven years I'd been faithfully supporting her and some other man's kid. I offered to pay child support in the hopes that I'd still get to have time with the girl I considered my daughter. Sometimes the boneheads who run the courts can be pretty damn stupid. They gave me no custody rights or visitation privileges since I wasn't Stacy's biological father. I was given a few minutes to say good bye to the only meaningful bright spot in the last seven years of my existence and it just about ripped me apart when the bitch took Stacy away. I at least avoided alimony payments since Amanda clearly didn't need me for support and I'd been able to prove that I had in fact paid her way through school and pretty much been the sole provider throughout our marriage.

It's hard to believe that all of that happened last Christmas. I must say I hadn't enjoyed my little "Christmas Surprise" as the bitch had put it and that was putting a serious damper on my spirits this December as well; but, as I've been told that some wise person somewhere probably said at sometime, "once you hit bottom things can only go up from there."

The divorce was over and done with faster than I would have believed possible. Three weeks after I had the final papers in my hand I stopped in at a gas station, fueled up my car, and went inside to grab a soda. The fella in front of me asked the clerk if it was too late to buy a lottery ticket before the night's drawing. It was Saturday so the clerk looked at the time listed on the machine's LCD display before answering. There were still a few minutes left so she sold him his tickets. I don't know why I did it, it was really just on a whim, but as the she rang up my drink I asked for three dollars worth of lottery tickets. I dropped my change in my left pocket, stuffed my tickets in my billfold, picked up my drink and walked out.

Once I had put the tickets in my pocket I pretty much forgot about them for a few days until Thursday when I overheard one of my co-workers talking about the unclaimed lottery jackpot. I still wasn't paying close attention until another person said they'd heard the winning ticket had been sold at a local gas stop. That gained a bit more of my attention. Then another guy named the gas station that had sold the ticket. "Hey," I thought to myself "that's where I bought my ticket."

I left the break room in such a hurry I left my coffee cup on the table. On my way back to my office I remember thinking "it's just a coincidence; there's no way I'd ever win." I'm no power computer user by any stretch but I do alright and know my way around the Internet okay. It didn't take long to find the website for the Lottery and call up the winning numbers. I pulled the ticket out of my wallet and checked the three separate sets of numbers I'd purchased. The first was wrong and so was the second; but as I checked the third I realized that they all matched! I actually had the winning ticket from the March 2nd, 2002 drawing!

I'd bought the ticket on a whim without even knowing how much the jackpot would be worth if I'd won. Now I found out that I'd won fifty seven million dollars! Of course it'd probably amount to significantly less after taxes but it'd be more than enough for me I knew! Now, how should I do this?

I managed to keep my voice normal as I arranged with my boss to take the next few days off of work. I called my buddy Cliff, the only lawyer I still thought of as a friend and asked for his silence and his help. The state lottery headquarters for Arizona is in Phoenix. I was living in Tucson and Cliff calls Flagstaff home. He agreed to meet me in Phoenix for brunch and we'd talk more there. I asked him if he knew of a good tax specialist in Phoenix that might be able to join us and he said he'd take care of it. Cliff asked me to meet him at the Einstein Brothers Café at the street level in the Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown.

The next morning I left my house early in the morning and drove the two hours to Phoenix. I was waiting at the café that fine Friday morning at nine just as Cliff had asked. He came out of the hotel a few minutes later. "Hey Brad it's really good to see you!" Cliff said as he gave me a hug.

Cliff and I went way back. I'd known him since I was in grade school and we'd stayed in touch ever since though somewhat sporadically when he moved to Flagstaff just after passing his bar exams. "It's good to see you too Cliff. How'd you get here so quickly though?"

"I cheated. You called at two so Pam and I used this as an excuse to enjoy an extended weekend here at the Hyatt. She's probably already out spending whatever it is I'm going to earn on your business!" Cliff joked.

We both went in and ordered a simple breakfast of bagels, cream cheese, and orange juice. There didn't seem to be too many listening ears nearby; but I decided I would wait for a more private setting to explain why I'd asked him to come. Instead I asked him to tell me how his kids were doing and enjoyed the stories he regaled me with concerning their exploits.

After we'd finished our bagels, Cliff led me into the hotel and up to the suite he and Pam were staying in. He ordered up some coffee from room service and then sat on the couch while I stole the comfortable chair. "So Brad, what do you need my help with?"

Cliff already knew that Amanda and I were divorced along with a few of the painful details. His practice in Flagstaff was far enough away from her antics in Tucson that he'd not known about any of it until after I did. When I told him I possessed the winning lottery ticket, Cliff congratulated me and said he could probably guess at least part of what I needed him for. He was right. I wanted to find some way of remaining somewhat anonymous but lottery winnings in Arizona are public record for large jackpots.

Cliff sat there thinking about if for a few minutes and then came up with an idea that while not completely fool proof should do a pretty good job of protecting my anonymity. He said we had a window of one hundred and eighty days from the time of the drawing to work things out. His plan was that I would legally change my name prior to claiming my winnings. He told me that since I was no longer married, had never filed bankruptcy, and had no outstanding court judgments against me I wouldn't need to publish any notifications. Before changing my name I would first need to sell the house and then quit my job; good thing I had six months!

Changing names was a little weird for me to even contemplate at first. I'd been Brad Crawford as long I'd been alive. I was the only child of Jim and Eliza Crawford and they had both died in a car accident during my second year in college. My mother had been an only child and my dad's brother had died before I was born. From the stories I'd heard, my Uncle Phil was a cop who died after being shot while on duty. My grandparents were no longer among the living either. I was engrossed in this line of thought for a few minutes and Cliff just sat quietly with me as I pondered things.

"You know Cliff - this whole idea of changing names gets you thinking about breaking ties with family and friends," I said as I looked in his direction. "Now that I'm pondering it, I realize that except for you, I've pretty much already done that in a way. I don't have any living family left and I'd been pouring so much of myself into raising Stacy and dealing with Amanda that I haven't developed any other close friendships. Even the people I work with are people I'm pretty detached from."

"Brad it doesn't matter what name you go by, you'll always be my friend," Cliff said reassuringly.

"I appreciate that very much Cliff."

I started thinking about a scene from the movie Men In Black. The one where Will Smith is sitting on a park bench in deep thought as he is faced with the choice of severing ties with everyone he knows. The whole thought just made me burst out laughing and Cliff wanted to know what the joke was. When I shared my train of thought with him he started laughing to.

"I'm going to do it Cliff. In a way I probably should've done it even if I hadn't won this money. I really could use a fresh start. Right now I can't even walk down the street and see another man passing me by without wondering if Amanda hasn't whored herself out for him as well."

So that was what I did. When my dad died I'd inherited a large block of stock in the company he'd worked for. I sold it to use for working capital. I spent a few days packing up the things I intended to keep, which didn't turn out to be a whole lot, and then hired two movers to pack up the rest of it which I donated to a local charity. I walked through the house with a realtor and asked them to make a complete list of things that could be done quickly that would make the house more attractive to a buyer. The list was short: clean the carpets and paint the bedrooms. I guess all of my diligence at taking care of the place had paid off.

I really wanted the house to sell fast, so in addition to the bedrooms I had the painters do all the rooms. I also had the garage floor and the concrete drive re-sealed. I had a small crew from the local nursery come out to trim the trees and bushes and add a few flowering plants here and there. The exterior of the house was in very good shape already so there wasn't much to do there; but I thought that having the yard look its best might make things move along a bit faster.

After the painters had finished I had the carpets cleaned. With the place in such nice shape, the realtor was happy to list it and wanted to ask for top dollar. I told him that my goal was to move the place quickly and listed it for thirty percent below the appraisal. That would leave me with enough cash after paying off the house, the credit cards, and the realty fees to last until the name change was complete and the lottery winnings were available to me. The realtor was resistant to this at first, probably since their commissions are paid on a percentage basis, so I told him I'd pay twice his normal fee if the sale of the house closed within three weeks. If it took longer than that I would only pay the normal commission fees. Needless to say, the house sold very quickly.