Chapter 2: We Meet Again

"Bess?" I said quietly--cautious but almost certain despite the twenty years since I saw her last that the woman standing in my office was her. The eyes and the playful pout gave her away.

"Hi Joe," she said--her voice deeper and raspier than I remembered.

"I expected someone named Mrs. Bethesda Hidalgo."

"Changed my name legally a couple years after I split. The first name I invented, but the last I married to acquire and divorced soon after. I thought it suited me and seemed good for hiding."

"So you're not here to give the kid an alibi?"

"God no. I hope he rots in prison and his fellow prisoners give him a taste of his own medicine. I'm here because you're defending him. You finally submerged to my level. Can I hang my coat and sit?"

"I'm sorry. I'll buzz Clara. Can I have her get you anything?"

"No thanks," replied Bess, removing her expensive sable coat and handing it to Clara when she darted in.

"Thanks Clara. Hold my calls." She rushed out--her hands unable to resist stroking the rich smoothness.

Under the coat, the satiny dress draped perfectly over Bess's figure--a haut couture fitting--a one of a kind dress. From face to feet, she looked svelte. All baby fat gone--it was as if her skin sucked into her skeletal and muscular form though her breasts and butt still stood out voluptuously. The process worked beautifully.

"Wow, you look amazing," I said.

"You like?" she asked--pirouetting to reveal perfection.

"Who wouldn't?" I said. "Please sit."

During the sitting process she jangled. Her body and face took my awareness until that sound made me notice her wrists and neck and even her ankle when she crossed her legs held valuable gems--mostly diamonds but some emeralds as well strung on gold.

"It's been difficult. Many have tried," said Bess quietly conspiratorial. "But I've kept that last first experience virginal."

I swallowed. "I'm married," I said. "And I have two boys."

"Joe ... Maybe you've been too busy to notice. Lisa's like your mother only smarter and greedier. She's found a richer guy, and she plans to take the kids."

"What are you talking about?" I grumbled. "How would you know?"

"You're my obsession, Joe. Think about it. Every year no matter where you move--whether to college or graduate school or back home to become a prosecutor and then working for the DA here in New York City before getting into the prestigious Scheister and Goniff, or Schultz and Gould law office and knocking at a partnership and marrying and conceiving kids during law school and struggling in your little apartment in Baltimore and then New York City and leaving your Greenwich Village apartment and moving to Northern New Jersey and leaving New Jersey and getting a nice apartment on the Upper East Side big enough for wife and kids--every year you get my birthday card."

"Why the distance?"

"I waited until you fucked up. Not that you didn't. But your fuck ups were goal oriented--always involving ambition. Leaving your wife alone and unloved to cuckold you. Letting your boys down. Your little family can't trust you even though you've never really strayed. Okay, a couple times you fucked blondes that probably reminded you of me, but neither time did it last more than a week and you realized they weren't me.

"And your ambitious path never involved brown nosing. No, Joe, you stayed on a righteous path. You worked the toughest cases--rape and mayhem directed towards women—and even if the cases hung by a thread you still managed most of the time to get the fuckers. That's why the headhunters brought you to New York. The best and the brightest, that's you.

"But success and some not so subtle nudging on your wife's part put you here. You even managed to volunteer for pro bono work for awhile and avoided the assault towards women cases. But now you've been offered the carrot. Your bosses want you to prove your backbone. They've given you the big case--the son of their richest client. And if you win you're in right?"

I nodded sadly. The opportunity killed me. My stomach felt a guilty burn--something I managed to avoid before despite an inordinate amount of coffee poured down my gullet daily. And if my reason for taking the low road to achieve success planned to leave me what's the point?

"How did you keep track of me? How do you know about my wife?" I asked.

"At first I just called your house and got your new address from your dad. He didn't want me in your life and agreed not to tell you I called. When I got richer I hired a private investigator a month before each birthday to get the latest information. When I moved to the city..."