Hands on the Wheel Ch. 02

"I'll go get Brian. He's got more to tell you." Brian came in, got another beer and held it up to Ivan as a question, but Ivan shook his head. He didn't want to get maudlin. Any more than he already was, that is.

Brian took his cell phone out of his pocket and asked Ivan for his. Ivan hesitated, then handed it to Brian. He fiddled with both phones a bit, then handed Ivan's back. "I was pretty sure how this was going to play out, so a few days ago when Jean left her phone on her desk when she went to the bathroom, I dropped a couple of my tools on it. I checked to make sure they were working while we ate dinner. I just gave you a couple more tools. Now you can track her phone, be man in the middle of her calls, and stream her camera and mic to your phone whether hers is on or off."

Even though he was afraid Vicki's revelations were true, Ivan was unhappy that Brian had done all that without discussing it with him. He thanked Brian perfunctorily, but resolved to delete the apps from his phone when he got home. After a bit of stilted conversation, he said he should get home so Jean wouldn't be too suspicious or unhappy.

But he didn't delete them, he just resolved not to use them. Which he didn't until early one afternoon a couple of weeks later when he saw Jean get back from a morning-long meeting at the PR agency. Just as she sat down she took a call, looked around to see who had noticed her (she didn't see him), then quickly walked back out. He went into an empty conference room, took out his phone, and started tracking her.

Brian's app superimposed a blinking red heart (he'd figure out a way to pay Brian back for that bit of macabre humor) over the map image of Palo Alto; it was easy to pin the current location down to the parking garage next to Golkonda. The heart started moving west to El Camino, then south. Just after it crossed Charleston it moved left into a condo complex on the site of the old Rickey's Hyatt House, wound through a few turns, then apparently pulled into a garage.

He switched to satellite view, which confirmed that her Porsche was inside a unit. He clicked on the unit; the address popped up, then Brian's app took it a step further and identified who lived in the unit: Jack Riley. Ivan didn't know him, but he recognized the name as one of the senior account execs at the PR agency. It looked like that morning's meeting had adjourned to a rump session.

Ivan didn't sit staring at his phone, he just checked it every 15 minutes or so. A little after 4:00 the heart started backtracking to Golkonda, although quite a bit more slowly as the afternoon traffic was building to the inevitable sludgefest. He watched, unseen, as she went to her desk, checked her email, smiled at one and quickly deleted it, then locked everything and left.

Virtually the same scenario played out again a week later. It was pretty clear that Jean felt no guilt about ignoring her wedding vows. When he told Brian about the second trip, he said she usually limited herself to one-night stands, with the occasional repeat performance. Ivan asked him how he knew this, and Brian just shrugged and said it was pretty common knowledge around the company and several of their vendors.

Ivan was finding it more and more difficult to act normal around Jean. As he came to realize that he was one of the few people who didn't know that his wife was community property, his self-esteem continued to shrivel until he couldn't stand to look at himself in the mirror. He decided that if she had one more tryst, he would drop the hammer on their marriage.

In preparation, he moved the wireless webcam he had installed on the porch that covered the mailbox and front door to a shelf in the living room bookcase facing the couch across the room. It was barely visible between two Lladró porcelains her parents gave them on their first anniversary; he confirmed that the image covered the couch with his tablet. After setting Brian's tracking app to sound an alarm whenever Jean's Porsche started or stopped moving, it was a matter of hurry up and wait.

The wait was short. When the start-moving alarm went off three days later, he followed her progress. When she made the same trip down El Camino to Riley's condo, he told Brian he had to leave. He went home and checked to make sure the camera feed was good. Despite Brian's claim that repeat performances were rare, it looked like she was going for a threepeat with Jack Riley.

Even though she had left her cell phone in her purse, the audio was clear enough that he could tell when they were locked in the throes of passionate pussy pounding. He called Jean's cell phone. When it went to voice mail, he hung up and called right back. It went to voice mail again, and again he hung up and called right back. That third call was their signal that she should answer because it was important. She answered on the first ring, sounding a bit breathless.

"I know that you're at Jack Riley's, I know what you're doing there, and I know that it's the third time in two weeks. If you want to see me before I leave, you'd better come home now. Tell Jack to hold his own until you get back; y'all can finish later." He hung up before she could reply and watched her progress on his phone; she left less than 10 minutes after he hung up.

When she turned off El Camino, he got a bottle of Sancerre from the storage cooler, poured two glasses, put them on the coffee table, and sat in the armchair across from the couch. Five minutes later she burst in the front door. He was morbidly pleased that she had hurried.

"What do you mean, if I want to see you before you go? Where are you going?"

"Away from you. I've already rented an apartment." He gestured to the couch and glass of wine. "Have a seat, take a drink of your favorite wine." She sat, and drank down half the wine in one gulp.

"I've contacted a lawyer, she's preparing the divorce papers. It should be pretty straightforward. California's a no-fault state, we don't have any children, you insisted on separate financial accounts from the get-go, we rent the apartment, and both cars are leased. We could even do it ourselves, but I wanted the protection of my own attorney. I've specified irreconcilable differences; there's no point in establishing your bona fides as an overachieving slut."

"Oh my God! Is that what this is all about? Grow up, Ivan! Sex doesn't have anything to do with love. This isn't the Fifties, for Christ's sake, it's the Twenty-First century! Sex begins in middle school. It's not so hot for girls, we're supposed to give hand jobs or blow jobs on demand, but most guys won't go down on us. We're lucky if they'll even finger us. Sex-Ed should cover a lot more masturbation techniques for girls, because that's the only way that most of us ever get off.

"High school's a bit better, there's some fucking as well as sucking. If a girl's good looking and strong enough she can even hold out for some pussy eating before she spreads her legs. No, not all guys are willing and some girls never find a guy who will, but things do start evening up a bit." She was in full selling mode, all eye contact and sincerity. Ivan was having difficulty remaining impassive, he'd never heard Jean talk about sex so casually. Or crudely.

"It gets a lot better in college. Plenty of free booze for a girl at parties, dope if she wants it, and all the action she can handle. Lots more guys know how to please a girl, some of them are even good at it. Student health services has plenty of free condoms and will test you to see if you're pregnant or have an STD—they'll give you a certificate if you're clean, something a lot of guys insist on if you want to fuck bareback. Now you can even get a morning-after pill." She's more relaxed now, slugs down the rest of the wine, confident that she's making her points well. It's amazing what an MBA does for a girl.

"Of course, if a girl's stupid enough to go to a party and get shitfaced and pass out—especially at a frat house—she might wake up with a strange dick or two in her or even pulling a train, but after a few guys got Title-Nined and some frats were shut down and a few universities got some really shitty PR, things got a bit better.

"But, for me at least, work was the best. I could take the time to be selective. I could figure out which guys might be worth fucking—you know, might give a shit whether I got off or not. I wasn't just a cum bucket, I was finally getting my own orgasms. Still had to use a condom most of the time, of course, but that was a small price to pay.

"It was also pretty easy to figure out which guys to avoid—the ones who might be into dangerous stuff or be looking for a meaningful relationship." She put air quotes around the last two words.

"Then I had to meet Mr. Traditional Values, when that Kimberly shitstorm hit just as you were getting back from Japan. You and Brian and I got sent on our crusade to Save The Company. We worked our butts off 18, 20 hours a day, never got enough sleep, always catching a red-eye to the next disaster. thirteen straight days of nothing but work and pizza and bad coffee and Red Bull and beer." Then her voice actually softened a bit.

"And each other. Just we three Guardians of the Galaxy against the Bad Guys, nothing but us between Golkonda and bankruptcy. Brian called home every night and talked forever to his wife and kids no matter how late we got back to the hotel. You were always on your goddam laptop trying to save the world. All I had to do was sit around and feel sorry for myself. And get horny.

"I started thinking about seducing you. The few times we saw each other, I did everything but strip and dance naked on your keyboard, but you never even noticed."

He actually had noticed her, but was good at pretending not to. Jean was exotically beautiful and sexy; the times they were confined in close quarters under emotional and stressful conditions, he couldn't miss the sexual tension. But he knew it was vital that they maintain focus on finding and fixing the problem. Besides, it never occurred to him that a woman like Jean would come on to a drone like him; he figured she was just acting out some frustrations and he happened to be in the middle of the road. Along with yellow lines and roadkill.

"Then you figured out what was going on, spotted the sabotage, nailed the Bad Guy, and wound up Captain Golkonda. But you weren't happy being the only superhero, you had to insist that Brian and I deserved as much credit as you did. That's bullshit and you know it; you knew it then, Brian knew it, I knew it, hell even Jeremy knew it.

"Jesus, Ivan, why'd you have to be so thoughtful, so caring, such a goddamn Boy Scout? I think that night at the awards banquet is when I decided to fall in love with you.

"When you took my suggestion that we get something to drink after work, I was delighted! I figured we'd go to a bar and do a few tequila shooters, then head out to your place or mine and fuck like bunnies. But no, we walked to Starbucks! We sat for two hours and drank our lattes and talked about music and philosophy and sailing. And Harry fucking Potter!

"We walked back to the parking garage and I just knew we were headed for bed somewhere. By the time we got to my car my nipples were so hard they hurt and my panties were sticking to me." She was talking faster, twisting her rings and looking everywhere except at him.

"But you just shook my hand—shook my fucking hand, Ivan!—and said you hoped we could do this again sometime. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake the shit out of you. I wanted to throw you down on the concrete, rip your cock out of your pants and hump it like a pogo stick.

"But I smiled like a good girl and said I hoped so too. Then I ran a red light and two stop signs on the way home and wore out all my batteries. Jesus!" She stopped, out of breath, shook her head, then tried to regain some control.

"So we did it again—had coffee at Starbucks, I mean—but this time you actually held my hand when we walked back to the parking garage. First base hell, we weren't even in the bleachers yet. We were back in Middle School, except you weren't trying to get me to give you a blow job, you were trying to work up the nerve to kiss me goodnight.

"We didn't have sex on our first date, we didn't have sex on our tenth date, we didn't have sex until the night you asked me to marry you and I said yes. Then I drove home like a maniac and stripped my way to the bedroom. I took off my thong and swabbed out my pussy with it and stuffed it in your mouth. Then I popped out my tits and stuffed your hand in my crotch. Remember?"

Remember? God, how could he forget! They had sex three times that night, again in the middle of the night, and twice more the next morning. He'd had sex with a few girls before; only one was a long-term relationship, most of the rest were casual hookups—except for Fumiko.

Fumiko. For the first time in...what? Two years? Three? ...he was lost in memories of their night together. He could still remember what she looked like, what she sounded like, what her breasts felt like—he could even remember her scent, her taste. He shook his head to clear the thoughts of her, of what he had forgotten about and lost.

"Of course I remember, Jean. Who could forget a night like that? I just didn't realize that I'd have to share with your boyfriends."

"Oh come on, they weren't boyfriends. I tried to be monogamous, Ivan, I really did, but it was difficult once the wedding afterglow wore off. I almost made it through the first year. I tried, I still loved you, but I got...I don't know, not bored, exactly...restless? Tired of the same old same old.

"Sex is like food: Even steak and lobster gets old if that's all you ever eat. Coq au vin isn't better, it's just different; so's spaghetti carbonara. People who eat the same thing day after day, year after year, either can't afford anything else or don't have any curiosity. But I am curious, and I can afford something else.

"I want to try lots of something else: Camarones Mole, catfish and hush puppies, real kim chi, spicy-sweet curries, jellied octopus with sea urchin, maybe even a smörgåsbord or two." She smiled as she said the last one.

"So yeah, I started having sex with others again. Mostly men, a couple of women. One threesome. I wasn't looking for a relationship, usually one-night stands, never more than a couple of times with anyone—" She saw him take a breath to disagree. "Well, okay, a couple of exceptions, but that's because the sex was so damn good, not because I had any feelings for them."

She saw his eyes narrow when she said the sex was so damn good. "No, not better than you, Ivan, just...different. That's what it's all about: variety. It just isn't natural, it isn't...it isn't realistic...shit, it isn't even right to expect everyone to be satisfied with the same routine forever and ever."

For the first time she broke eye contact. No longer the confident sales professional, she wasn't sure she had a product to sell, at least not to him. "But it never had anything to do with love. Nothing at all. It was just sex, an endorphin rush, like a good workout or winning a jackpot or getting an unexpected promotion."

She stopped, let out a long breath, sank back in the couch cushions. She had run out of script. Her presentation was over, the last bullet-point slide had faded from her vision. "I never stopped loving you, Ivan. I still love you. Can't you see that?"

No, he couldn't see that, but he didn't know how to explain it. Oh, he knew what he wanted to ask, what he wanted to say, but how do you communicate with someone whose weltanschauung is so different, whose vocabulary uses the same words but they have entirely different meanings?

"If you loved me, Jean, why didn't you tell me there was a problem, instead of just spreading your legs? When you got tired of the menu, why didn't you warn your server that because the selections were so limited you were going someplace else? If you loved me, how could you just toss our marriage in the garbage?"

Like a lawyer, she was listening not to understand, but to craft her reply. "I didn't toss anything, Ivan—"

He cut her off, tired of her food analogy. "We aren't talking about food, we're talking about a marriage. We're talking about betrayal. Did you have your fingers crossed when you vowed to be faithful? How could you stand before the altar and lie to your brother, to our family and friends who came to the wedding...to God?" Despite his intent to remain calm, he got louder.

"How could you look in your father's eyes and say 'Amen' when he served you communion in your pure white wedding gown, even though you had no intention of joining with me to become one flesh?" He knew she would dismiss the accusations as the narrow-minded views typical of overweening religiosity, one of her favorite pejoratives.

Her eyes briefly flashed in anger. "I didn't lie to anyone, Ivan. I wasn't intending to break those vows when we were married, I really thought I loved you enough to accept your notion of faithfulness. But that just isn't who I am. Sex isn't about love, it's about satisfying a need, about experiencing the high from a rush of endorphins, about avoiding the boredom that poisons a marriage."

They could have gone on repeating themselves for hours without reaching the other because they simply didn't have a common understanding of what marriage means, of what love means, of what respect means. What to him was a series of betrayals, of transgressions that doomed a marriage, to her were natural, enriching experiences that strengthened a marriage.

He gave up and moved to her more odious betrayal. "So you were true to your wedding vows for almost a year. I can't think of the words that express how that display of loyalty impresses me. So, you've otherwise been completely honest with me? You've never lied to me?"

She looked puzzled. "Honest with you? About what? Of course I've been honest. I've never lied to you." His smirk moved her to qualify the statement. "Well, except for a few times about where I'd been—"

"Even when you agreed that we should start a family? When you made a big deal of getting rid of your birth control pills? But somehow you just couldn't get pregnant. Doctors couldn't find anything wrong with either one of us, so we just kept trying and kept being disappointed."

She broke eye contact, a bad sales technique. "The doctor told us that wasn't anyone's fault. He said there could be a lot of reasons and we should just keep trying. I know you want children, Ivan; so do I. We just have to keep trying."

"Then I'm sure you'll be delighted to learn that we can stop trying, because you're pregnant now, Jean. You've been having unprotected sex with your certified-safe Friends With Benefits and avoiding pregnancy by taking morning-after pills. But two months ago I replaced your Plan B tablets." I tossed two positive test strips in front of her.

She paled, then got angry. "I don't believe you. How could you test my urine? And I don't even keep the pills here."

"Ah, but you're ecologically conscious and don't always flush when you pee. You know, like that wonderful drought-conscious wine, Pinot Poudoux. I just had to let the strip soak longer. And remember that courier shipment from India that was opened and resealed by Customs a couple of months ago?" Her eyes grew wider.

"I came home for lunch that day and found the package by the front door. Apparently when Customs resealed the package they covered up the notice that a signature was required. Nobody was home, so the courier just dropped it off.

"I was curious what you might be getting from Guajarat Biosciences Ltd., so I googled it. I got even more curious when I saw that it was an Indian pharmaceutical company. I was quite pleased that I managed to open the package and reseal it without a trace