Fool Me Twice

Lena was even angrier. "How dare you hurt Danny, by parading some other guy you're fucking in his face," snapped Lena.

Kim burst out laughing. "She really is stupid isn't she?" she laughed.

"How am I stupid?" asked Lena.

"Lena, Danny and I don't sleep together anymore," said Kim. "We stopped as soon as you and he started."

"What?" smiled Lena. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

Lena was so happy we thought she was going to take an ad out in the paper. In her mind we were more or less fixed. I still wasn't so sure. She started coming into my room to sleep even when we didn't have sex. And we started having sex almost regularly.

I have to admit that I was torn but the opportunity for me to figure the whole situation out came and in the strangest of circumstances.

During that time I quickly discovered that one of the responsibilities of my new job was to represent the company and even do presentations. There was a big conference coming up and my boss told me that I'd be doing a presentation of our company's new product lines with a brief discussion of our new manufacturing process. At first, I was a little bit intimidated but I realized that this might be another opportunity for advancement for me.

He emailed me a copy of the brochure for the conference and I saw that several important people would be there from not only our industry but from many different types of businesses. Again I realized that it could be a great opportunity for me. I could develop connections that might pay off well into my future and beyond.

As I perused the brochure, my blood suddenly went cold. On the inside, there was a paragraph about one of the presenters. She was a venture capitalist from New York. Her family owned part of several large banks. Her name was Maggie Stephenson and she, for an older woman was incredibly beautiful. What drew me to her wasn't her beauty. It was the last line in the paragraph. The one that said she would be introduced by her fiancé Sebastian Shaw; a former resident of our area who moved on to New York. Shaw is returning to the area for the conference.

I guess they meant it as a sort of local boy does good thing, but to me it was like waving a red flag in front of an already pissed off bull. It couldn't be him, could it? But shit how many guys named Sebastian were there?

My brain went into overdrive. I was hatching schemes and plans even as I wrote my speech. I discarded some of the plans off hand. The one about slicing him into thousands of one inch cubes and feeding him to sharks was immediately thrown out. That one and the one where I chained him to a rocket and blasted him into space were simply impractical.

Making him dig his own grave and then beating the shit out of him with the same shovel seemed satisfying but also gave me too many possibilities to be arrested. In the end, I decided that Sebastian wasn't the person I should be pissed at. After all he hadn't sworn to love and honor me, Lena had. She'd been the one who broke our vows, not some bastard that I'd never met. In fact the only thing that Sebastian had that I wanted was the right to make decisions in Ella's life.

Sebastian was what I wanted to be. Sebastian. even though he'd never seen Ella could come in out of the woodwork and start demanding to see her. Fathers, even dead beat dads, have certain rights that I, though I'd been with her every second of her life, didn't. Lena could get pissed at me and move away taking Ella with her and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

One of my plans was to meet Sebastian at the meeting and get him to sign a paper waiving his parental rights to Ella. I planned on attacking him from several fronts. First I'd explain to him that I'd been paying all of his daughter's expenses since her birth and before and I was thinking about suing him for the money owed, plus he'd have to pay part of her expenses going forward until she was eighteen.

But I'd tell him that on the other hand if he simply signed over his parental rights to a child that he'd never seen anyway to me, I'd pay him every nickel I could scrape up which would probably amount to roughly fifty K. It would be his choice. Since he was about to get married to a pretty wealthy woman, I was sure that he wouldn't want the details of why he left town to surface so maybe I could get him to sign away his rights without giving him all of my money if I just continued paying for Ella.

That little girl was everything to me. The only thing I'd have to do after that would be to get Lena to let me adopt her. Then no one could ever take her away from me. Even if Lena and I couldn't stand each other and she went off with some other guy, I'd have visitation rights.

And speaking of Lena, this would be good for her too. The second part of my plan involved taking Lena to the conference with me and allowing her to find out that Sebastian would be there.

I called my lawyer and had him draw up the papers I'd need, both to threaten the suit against Sebastian and to terminate his parental rights.

The second part was far easier. When I got home that evening, I told Lena about the conference. She was very excited for me when I told her what it could mean. I pretended to leave the brochure on the table as I started the grill. This was the first time we'd ever talked about anything to do with my job so she was excited to be included. I think that she thought that I was trying to pull her more into my life and she liked it.

She looked over the brochure while I played with Ella and tended to the steaks. I watched her face out of the corner of my eye while she read it. When she got to the middle page her eyes suddenly got huge. She glanced over at me and noticed that I was engrossed with Ella.

"Danny, did you read the entire brochure?" she asked.

"Nope I just got it today," I said. "I only brought it home for you."

She looked nervous suddenly. "Why did you bring it home for me Danny? I didn't know anything about it. How would I know that?"

"Lena, what the hell are you talking about?" I asked. "I brought the brochure home because I wanted to ask you to go to it with me. I've never done a speech in front of a big crowd before and I wanted to have someone there with me. Besides in a way, since you won't leave, this affects both of us."

"Damned straight," she said. "I'm never leaving you again. But I'd love to be your escort." She looked like she was getting ready to cry. And then she ran into my arms.

"What's wrong Lena?" I asked.

"This is the first time you've asked me to go out with you in any way since we got back together," she blubbered out. "I mean I know what I did. And I know that what I really want probably won't ever happen, but Danny this is so much more than I ever hoped for. I'll take what we have any day, but this is just..." She buried her face in my chest and started crying.

"Lena you're going to have to find a dress to just knock those people's socks off," I said. That brought her out of it. She started smiling at me.

"We're going to need something to show off my butt and push these little puppies up," she said grabbing her breasts. I just stared at her. "Hey I have to look good. I'll be there for you. Don't worry Danny, they can look but no one gets to touch, except you, of course."

I handed her my credit card and turned back to Ella. With ten days to go before the conference, I decided to keep an eye on her. The very next day I noticed that there was something different about her face. She seemed to be...I don't know more radiant. She was smiling a lot more. And she seemed to want sex more. I realized what was about to happen and knew that I had to prepare for it.

The big question was how she would try to do it. Would Lena simply meet up with Sebastian and try to tell him about Ella and leave me for him outright? Or would she settle for a quick couple of days of fucking him while he was in town, hoping that I wouldn't find out?

I was thinking that she'd probably go for the latter. She had, as she said, been honest the first time and it had nearly destroyed her. So she'd probably try to get him back on the sly. She'd hope that he wanted her back along with Ella, but if he didn't they'd have a couple of days together and arrange to meet occasionally with me none the wiser. The difference was that I was no longer stupid or blinded by love.

Shit, there was no need to get angry or act ignorant about this. This really wasn't an untenable situation. We really might be able to come to a solution that would make us all happy. What if Lena went to New York with Sebastian as his mistress? That way Sebastian could fuck her all he wanted and still marry Miss Money Bags. Lena could leave Ella with me, since Sebastian was not the daddy type. Everyone could have what they want. No one suffered.

I smiled thinking about it. Sure I'd be a little sad losing Lena. The sex with her really was special. And Lena would probably miss being with Ella, too. But we'd each make a sacrifice for the greater good. Life is full of compromises and sacrifices. Shit, look at all of the sacrifices I had to make for my Mustang. I had to sacrifice good gas mileage and pay higher insurance premiums, but it was worth it every time I put my foot on that gas pedal. Besides that, just looking at that car made me smile.

By the end of the week, I was sure that Lena was acting differently. She had all kinds of mood swings and actually seemed manic at times. When I thought back on it, I realized that it was exactly the way she'd acted the last time she left me. Only this time, I was ready. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice; it ain't fucking happening.

By the time that we were only three days away from the conference, I started noticing calls on my caller ID that I didn't recognize. They were local calls judging by the area code so I figured that she was in contact with Sebastian and he was already in town. She started trying to kiss me often and most of the time she did it when we weren't even having sex.

I didn't let her kiss me because I knew what she was doing. She was doing the same thing that people did before they had their pets put down. The last few days before the doctor either put the dog out of his misery or neutered him, the owner gave the dog extra treats and played with him almost twice as much. It was a guilt reaction.

I knew the next thing she'd try would be that same sorry assed mercy fuck she gave me the night before she walked out on me last time. I wasn't going for it this time. I decided that instead of our awesome and emotional love making, I would pound that bitch like a drum. I'd fuck her like a two dollar whore that gives discounts for frequent use. I was going to ram my dick down her throat and into her stomach. I was going to fuck her ass and do all of the things that Lena and I never did, I was going to fuck her like I did Kim. The difference was that Kim liked it.

The next evening, as I figured, Lena told me we should grill and eat out by the pool. "Pool," echoed Ella. Under her robe Lena was wearing the white swimsuit that she knew drove me crazy.

The robe dropped open and she smiled at me. "See anything you like?" I was horror struck but I held it in.

"I'm going to make tonight really special for you," she said.

"Actually I'm kind of nervous about tomorrow," I told her. All of my plans for mercilessly fucking her dribbled away with my erection. I just wanted this over with. When she came to bed and stood framed in the doorway, with the light behind her, she was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. I think my heart broke again that she could be such a conniving bitch. Actually, to think she was so smart she was kind of stupid. She got three more calls from that local number that day.

If she was as smart as she thought she was, at least she could have deleted the call history. She rubbed one of those silken legs against mine and rolled over next to me.

"Not tonight, Lena," I said.

"Jeezus, you really are nervous aren't you?" she said. "Well tomorrow is going to be..."

"Can we wait until tomorrow to have this talk?" I asked. "I just want to go to sleep." She just rolled over and wrapped her arms around me and started to go to sleep.

"Lena, I'd kind of like to sleep alone tonight, if you don't mind," I told her.

"Why?" she asked. Then she just got up and left the room.

The next day we were both nervous. Luckily, Kim came over to watch Ella for us. I went out for a run and came back and washed my car. Lena supposedly went to get her hair done, but I had no idea where she really went.

I did hear a few tidbits of a conversation between the sisters before I dressed. "Isn't that the famous white swimsuit that drives Danny mad?" asked Kim.

"Yep," said Lena.

"Why is it on the floor?" asked Kim.

"Because I really don't need it anymore," said Lena. "And sis, I might need you to help me out with Danny, depending on what happens today. He's probably not going to like it. But I don't have a choice."

"What are you talking about, Lena?" asked Kim. "You know you guys are just starting to become close again, don't fuck this up."

The conference was supposed to start at one p.m. So we left shortly before that. We went downtown to the convention center and I found myself stopping and smiling when I drove past the place where I'd grabbed Lena and prevented her from being hit by the car.

I ran my hand over my jacket, where I had the papers folded in the inner pocket just to make sure they were still there.

Lena grabbed my hand and smiled at me. "Danny, we need to have a talk," she said.

I glared at her. "Why would you start that shit now?" I snapped.

For the rest of the time that we were in the car she seemed to alternate between being very happy and being very nervous.

I figured that on one hand she was happy about getting to be with Sebastian again and nervous about me catching her and busting her ass.

As we walked around the conference center, her head swiveled in every direction, she was constantly pointing out things like the flowers or the decorations, but I knew what she was really looking for or who she was really looking for.

Our seats were very close to the stage. We were in the third row from the very front. With thousands of people at the conference, they were excellent seats. We sat in our seats at first although I'd have to leave very soon to go up on the stage and deliver my presentation. There was a small room off to the side of the stage where speakers and presenters could relax before or after their turns on stage.

The plan was that Lena would sit here and watch my speech from the audience while I went on stage. I would probably stay on the stage after my speech to participate in the panel discussion and take questions from the audience. Strangely enough neither of us had planned on doing anything after the conference.

"Do you want to have dinner after my speech?" I asked her. She looked stricken. "I didn't think so," I said.

"Danny, we may be doing something um...we may have other plans afterward," she said nervously.

I nodded sadly as she tried to adjust my tie. "I'll bet you're having second thoughts about not having sex last night aren't you?" she whispered.

"Not at all," I said. "It probably wouldn't have been any better than last time."

"What the fuck does that mean?" she snapped. Her voice was louder than it should have been and a few people not only heard her but turned to look at her.

I started walking towards the stage and saw a man go into the ready room on the side of the stage. Lena looked as if she was struck by lightning. She tried to cover it up but I'd seen her reaction. I just shook my head and headed for the stage.

"I don't get a kiss for luck?" she asked.

"People make their own luck," I said. "Besides you should probably be saving your kisses for someone else."

"Danny, what the...?" she looked at me with the most puzzled expression on her face. I just ignored her and walked towards the stage.

Maggie Stephenson was the last presenter of the afternoon session. She was two speakers after me. That was great for my plans. After what I'd seen, I knew who Sebastian was. He'd probably be on the stage when I was or shortly thereafter. My plan was to sit down onstage after my speech and wait for him to go into the ready room while the man after me spoke.

When Sebastian went into the ready room, I'd confront him then and arrange for him to sign the papers and give him a check or cash if necessary. I also realized that deep down in my heart I was really hoping that Lena wouldn't take the bait. If she could somehow just stay away from the bastard, maybe in time we might even...

But no, obviously this Sebastian guy was like catnip to her. She just couldn't resist him. Maybe she did love me as much as she claimed, but there were just some things that we can't live without. I have my Mustang, maybe Sebastian was hers.

I waited while the speaker before me did her presentation. She was extolling the value of a series of seminars designed to help outside sales professionals increase their sales. We'd all heard that shit two million times. It seemed like a scam to me. They gave you a pep talk and some grooming tips. You felt better about yourself, which boosted your confidence and in turn you went out and tried much harder to make sales. As a result, you sold more. You could do the same thing on your own.

The applause was polite when she finished and then the M/C or moderator introduced my company and then me. My PowerPoint presentation was pre-loaded in their projector. I used a laser pointer to move through it. I did far better than I thought I would. I wasn't nervous at all. I made several jokes that the audience liked and stopped several times to answer questions about our products or the advantages of our new manufacturing process. I was answering so many questions that the moderator reminded the audience that there were other presenters and there would be time for questions during the panel discussion. I looked out and saw that my boss and the CEO of our company were in the audience and giving me the thumbs up sign.

Part of the reason that I was so glib and so relaxed was that I really didn't give a fuck about the speech. It no longer mattered to me. The whole time that I was on stage I was watching Lena watching that Sebastian bastard. I got done and got a rousing round of applause just in time to see her get up and follow the bastard into the ready room. "So much for our future together," I thought angrily.

I saw red immediately and got up to follow her. Last time I went along with their shit. This time I wasn't going to take this crap lying down.

I stepped down from the stage and headed calmly to the ready room. It took me a few moments to make my way from the stage and across the room which should give them a chance to get started.

I yanked the open and closed it behind me. The room was far bigger than I thought it was and the lights were dim.

"Look Sebastian," I shouted. "Fuck you and fuck her. You can keep the whore for as long as you want. I'm done with her. If you sign these papers, not only will I not sue you. I'll pay you sixty thousand dollars."

My eyes finally found them in the darkness, two bodies, positioned one on top of the other in the far corner. I was so shocked that at first I didn't realize what was going on. All I saw and heard was Lena grunting and breathing hard. She turned towards me and her eyes got as big as saucers. Mine got even bigger as I realized what was going on.

"No Danny, No," she said. "I can explain all of this." At that second I heard a sound coming from farther back in the room but I was still in shock from what was going on with Lena. I heard Sebastian continuing to moan under her.

"Lena, what are you doing?" I asked still in shock as an object dropped from her hand.