Chapter 6

"Louis, what is wrong with your eyes?" Francine asked me. Instead of cowering in a wooded lot, awaiting possible death at the hands of two men evidently sent to kill me, I was fucking my wife--missionary style, and with a condom, as usual.

Then I felt my cock expand and felt the satisfying release of sperm into my wife's pussy! It was glorious.

As I rolled away from Francine, I closed my eyes and fought to get my breathing back somewhat to normal. After a few seconds, I opened my eyes and saw clearly, without any distortion.

"Louis, what was that all about--with your eyes?" Francine insisted.

I finally found my voice and said, "Sweetheart, I guess you had me so excited that my eyes got out of whack there for a second. Wow! That was some orgasm! You really excite and thrill me, you know!"

I felt Francine move next to me as she reached for her panties and nightgown instead of wanting to cuddle. This was post-coital bonding--Francine style, as I very clearly remembered.

I simply watched as she dressed for bed and prepared to go to sleep, shaking my head at the realization that this was just as I had remembered married life with Francine. And it had actually been a pretty shitty experience--with an extra shot thrown in by my first Nasiib-stone-regression.

I guess the only reason that I had stayed with Francine before was because of Chelsea and Gracie; along with my own fear of confronting her or her father by trying to divorce the unloving and unfaithful bitch. And now I knew that the only reason she had stayed with me before was because Carstairs had not been available yet; that and her daddy had wanted me under control to keep me quiet about his business illegalities.

As I got up to clean myself in the bathroom, I felt the ever-familiar spent condom on my deflated cock. Wrapping it in a tissue as I pulled it off and flushed it, I shook my head in disgust as I reflected on just how much I had been controlled by Francine and her father in just about every aspect of my life before my acquisition of the Nasiib stone from that guy in Minneapolis.

The Nasiib stone!

The Nasiib stone had evidently done its thing again--after all, it was still on my wrist; and I was here in the 'new now' with no gunmen shooting at me. I just had to make some determination of 'when' I was before saying anything that might arouse suspicion or cause my family to doubt my sanity.

Francine sort of gave me a clue about 'when' I was by what she said next. "Louis, please do not make a lot of noise. It took me forever to get Chelsea to sleep and I don't want your rooting around in the bathroom to wake her."

How romantic! After making love, all Francine cares about is getting to sleep and not waking Chelsea. I noticed right away that she had said nothing about Grace. That could mean that this time frame might be before Grace came along.

That would put me back to just about a year-and-a-half after my marriage to Francine!

"I promise I'll be quiet ... Honey," I said, forcing myself to use a term of endearment that I definitely no longer felt. After all, I had already had two rounds of shitty outcomes with Francine. I did not expect this one to turn out any better--and this one was already appearing as if it could be much longer, if I did not do anything about it; and starting soon. "I just want to check that the alarm is set and get a drink of water."

Francine just mumbled and turned away from me.

After going to the kitchen in our condo to get a drink of water, I checked the calendar on the downstairs computer. It was indeed before Francine had gotten pregnant with Grace--somehow. After all, sex with Francine still involved condoms for me in this reality. So, Francine's getting pregnant a second time would really have to be some kind of fluke.

Yeah, right!

In any event, I also knew that this was the time period just after Steadman Carstairs had finished his MBA up in Cambridge and had come sniffing around Francine on his business tips to the Atlanta area, despite his having already marrying and expecting a baby of his own. That meant that this 'existence' for me just might be a bit more interesting and challenging than the one I had just barely escaped.

I had made a decision that I was not going to let events shape me this time around.

No! It was NOT going to happen the same way as before!

Had I grown a set of balls now that I could see things more clearly? Well, no. But I might have grown at least one.

I had decided that my life this time was definitely going to be different. But I needed to make sure of several things, starting right away!

The very first morning after being 'back, ' I hugged and kissed Chelsea, with a tear in my eye at seeing my little girl again. Then I kissed Francine's cheek as she was preparing for her own departure for work after the nanny got there.

I went in to the office as usual and immediately tried to access the network and the server. I had to get one of the IT guys to help me log on first thing, since it had been several 'years' now, and I could not remember my network password. Once that was reset, I got down to the dirty business of making backup copies of the evidence I had begun to gather on Thompson's illegal and unethical business practices, lo, those 'many years' ago--meaning now. Naturally, there were not nearly as many files as I had accumulated before--but I was convinced that there were enough.

During lunch, I took the DVD-R with the off-line copies of my electronic evidence against Thompson and once again opened a new account at a different bank from the one that Francine and I had been using. I got a safe deposit box for the DVD-R evidence. I moved a few hundred dollars into a new account at this bank and began to plan my campaign for financial independence from Francine.

But, independence from Francine, simply because of the situation that I had let myself become trapped into, meant that independence from J. Carter Thompson must come first and foremost. Thus, I had established my little 'insurance' portfolio against Thompson before setting up anything else with respect to my attempts at changing the direction--and, hopefully, the very much different outcomes--of my sham of a marriage and life.

I had become, in the other time line--well, time 'lines' now--quite adept at understanding how to multiply investments many times over through appropriate selection and timing in buying 'call' options in stocks associated with volatile commodities and making many times over what normal investments would yield. The risks were very much higher than simply dealing with the usual stocks or mutual funds in the normal scheme of investments. But the payoff was much higher; and it definitely WOULD be much higher for me, with my awareness of coming events and their effects on commodities prices.

I had just never had the balls to do this previously. Now I felt quite a bit more confident in pulling off this risky venture. And it was exhilarating, when I thought about it. Just imagine--Louis 'No-Risk' Chandler now playing in the big leagues, financially!

Thus, the second thing I did that first morning 'back' was to initiate contact over the phone to establish an account with a new, young, energetic, and 'hungry' broker at a local investment firm. After making sure that he understood my intentions with respect to investing in the commodities market, he and I came to an agreement about just how much of a contingency fund I would need to establish with his firm.

During lunch, I went to my new broker's offices and signed the appropriate paperwork to establish my account. I confirmed the transfer of the appropriate amount of contingency funds, and met his supervisor--who was salivating at his anticipation of making his cut from all the money that I intended to make with his young associate's help.

The third thing that I did that day was make a plan concerning Alicia.

Somehow, I needed to ensure that Alicia would not die too early in this lifetime. Even if she still hated me because of my situation with her sister--and how it had come about--I still cared for Alicia very much.

Okay, I may as well admit that I still truly loved Alicia. I guess I still held out hope that there might be something for the two of us. If only...

First of all, Alicia had to learn about the threat that her own body posed to her in the form of genetically-related cervical cancer down the line. Additionally, since, in this time line, she was still just a sophomore at Scott, she had not yet been set up by her family to marry Asshole Frank Deal--that would not come about until her senior year. I had to make sure that Alicia was not condemned to an abusive situation, even if I could not work out something for her and me.

In any event, I could not sit idly by and let disaster fall on Alicia; the only girl--I now realized--that I had ever truly loved in my life. I had to try something!

"What the hell do you want, you little shit?"

I had plopped down with my coffee directly across from Alicia and her books and laptop at the table on the patio of the student coffee bar on campus. I had checked on her schedule in a roundabout way the week before so that I would be able to catch her without the pressure of classes so that I could speak with her.

"Alicia," I began, "I am not here to fight with you."

"Well, I don't have anything to say to you; and I definitely have no desire to be around you at all. So," she started gathering her things, "if you are not going to leave, then I will."

"Sit still and listen to me for a moment," I said, using an irritated tone and a raised voice that I had never used before with anyone; much less, this girl with whom I was still emotionally attached. "I need for you to hear me out. It is literally a matter of life and death!"

Alicia paused and sat back, crossing her arms and giving me a nod to continue, even though she carried a look combining skepticism and disdain.

"During one of Francine's OB/GYN appointments, she learned that she may have a genetic predisposition to certain types of cancers," I told her. I had to lie a tiny bit about its coming from Francine; although I was pretty certain that Alicia would not make an attempt to verify my claim by checking with her sister. Alicia and Francine had basically written each other off after that terrible night when Alicia had caught her sister naked in bed with Alicia's supposed boyfriend--me. "I simply wanted to pass this on to you so that you could mention it to your primary care physician or your gynecologist the next time that you have an appointment. That's all. Will you please do this for me?"

"Why should I do anything for you, you sonofabitch?" Alicia spat at me.

"You shouldn't, I guess," I acknowledged, surprising her a bit. "But, at least, do it for yourself. I kinda get the impression from just about everyone I meet that he or she does not want to die anytime too early in life. May I assume that is true for you as well?"

Alicia looked away from me, but did not say anything. Well, at least I had tried. "I'll be going now," I said to her. "Just remember always, despite what has happened with your sister and all, I still love you."

Alicia did not acknowledge my comment with anything more than a glare. But, it did seem that some of the hard edge was coming off that glare as I stood to leave.

It took a couple of weeks after my 'return' to get to the fourth thing on my list. Well, I guess it was a combination of four A and four B, since it involved the same appointment that I had made as soon as I had contacted Alicia about getting a cancer screening.

I hired a PI!

"Let me get this straight," Leon Atwater, the private investigator, asked me. "You want me to watch your wife to see if she is cheating on you. And you want me to build a file on this Deal guy. You think she is cheating on you with him?"

"No, no," I answered. "I think she is cheating, but with someone else; a fellow named Steadman Carstairs. I have other reasons for asking you to build a dossier on Frank Deal."

"You know it's a-gonna cost ya a bit; right?" he asked as he lifted his eyebrows a bit.

"I understand," I responded. "But this is important to me. Both investigations are important to me in the long run."

Yep! I was checking on Francine's activities, especially when she was not with me. That included when she was traveling on business or whenever she went 'out with the girls from work' or for any other activities that did not include me.

But, I was also trying to get a clearer picture of Frank Deal. In that manner, maybe--just maybe--I could keep Alicia from being tied to that asshole. I did NOT want the woman I still loved--and I don't mean my 'loving' wife--married to an abusive bastard!

It only took a couple of months to get the reports back from the PI. NO! I could not afford the cost of their time for the whole period. They only charged for the time they actually spent when they were not waiting for something to develop with Carstairs and Deal. And the whole period had involved a considerable amount of waiting between events.

Yes, as it turned out, Francine was spending quite a bit of extra time in the company of Steadman Carstairs whenever he was in town. And it appeared that he had been to town at least three times over the past six weeks. And, in those times when he was here, he evidently had spent 'intimate' time with Francine; I had been at home watching Chelsea on those evenings after the nanny had left.

This simply pissed me off on a basic level!

I mean; sure, Francine and I, for all intents and purposes, just existed together as a married couple. Nevertheless, Carstairs had no business interfering in my marriage. After all, regardless of how I felt about Francine, I still had Chelsea to consider. And I knew that my daughter's welfare was best served by being raised in an environment of an intact family--with both her Mommy and her Daddy--and that was me; her REAL Daddy, regardless of who had inseminated Francine with her.

Therefore, I had to shut 'Stud Man' Carstairs down somehow. It still rankled my memory of my 'other' existence in which I had heard Francine refer to her lover by that stupid nickname.

The PI had been really thorough in checking out Carstairs, as the correspondent in the affair with Francine. After all, Leon Atwater was charging me for enough information to build an air-tight case for a countersuit against my wife for adultery, if it came to her trying to divorce me. In doing that, Leon needed to give me details about the guy she was screwing. After all, I would probably be launching an alienation of affection suit against the sonofabitch as part of my countersuit.