Pawn's Gambit

Evelyn was stunned at the turn of events and was trying to explain that was nonsense and her father was a good man who would never do something liked that. It was obvious that she believed it, but then again we all want to believe the best about our parents.

The lines had all lit up with callers both castigating and praising Leila. One said what can you expect from a whore. She's obviously trying to make money out of it. Some wanted to ask questions of Evelyn and some suggested that the authorities, whomever they may be, get involved. The Talk Show Host was no fool. This had turned from a small low interest story into an emotional maelstrom with listeners adding their own take on what was real and what wasn't.

The furore was at its height when a well-modulated voice came on the air. "My name is Rita, I don't want to give my surname out on the air." She sounded shaky but determined. But I have left it with your producer so I can be contacted." She took a shuddering breath. "Anthony Miller sexually assaulted me too!" And the lines went wild.

Over on WTAX a listener called in to discuss what was happening on WMAY. Next minute the lines got busy with pros and cons on each side. A while later a woman called in. She spoke in a small frightened voice. "I'm a married woman with children she cried and I had hoped to put this behind me but I was also molested by Mr Miller!" She broke and sobbed on air. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I promised. I promised I wouldn't say anything. But I can't live with it. I was young and needed help and he made me do things to him. I couldn't say no. I didn't know how." She switched off. There was a long silence before the Host was able to say anything. It sounded like he was crying.

I called Vickie, an old school friend working for the local paper and doing the news for two of the regional radio stations. I asked if she had heard what was going on at WMAY and WTAX? She had. I told her In was worried because my wife worked for MRE and on the New Horizons Home project. I asked her for her opinion. She wasn't sure but she would be chasing this down. She said if it was true it would be the biggest abuse case to hit Springfield in two generations.

By lunchtime the story went quiet on the airwaves. None of the radio presenters wanted to stick their necks out with an opinion. Social media and Twitter in particular however, went wild. Initially it was a fifty, fifty split for and against, but within a few hours it had turned into a rabid witch hunt and woe befall anybody who sided with Miller. Hundreds then thousands of women got onto platforms to tell their stories of abuse from various sources. Some were detailed, others were little more than a 'me too' acknowledgement. Some were so graphic that they were X-rated. Within hours it was impossible to discern the truth from the bullshit. It had gone viral and was crossing not only states but whole continents.

I switched off with a giant pounding headache. I reached for the Tylenol. The afternoon was early and the children were still at school. The stress and emotion of the day had left me sweaty and feeling grubby. I stripped off my clothes in the laundry, padded naked to the shower and collapsed under the jet of warm water. I sat down and cried like I hadn't cried since my mom died. In fact I cried harder. Losing my mom was a stab to the heart but this was a knife to my soul. I had crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

The saying by Nietzsche that 'he who fights monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster himself' described me precisely. Miller had done me wrong but I had unleashed a fire storm that I had already lost control of. All I could do now is hold on and pray.

I picked up Dean and Katie and went home to prepare a chicken stir fry with noodles and a small oriental salad on the side. We waited for Jean but nothing. I tried calling her but her phone was off. Eventually we ate and I put a plate of food away for Jean in the microwave and a small bowl of salad in the fridge.

Dean Katie and I sat down to play a board game called Forbidden Island and still no Jean. By ten, the kids were in their bedrooms and I was alone in the living room when she arrived. She looked like she had just gone through the wringer. Her eyeshadow had run. Her hair was a mess and she had the aura of a woman whose world had just come crashing down.

"Have you heard..." She took a shuddering breath. "Have you heard all the vile things they're saying about Tony?" She groaned collapsing on a chair. I handed her a large cognac which she gratefully accepted downing half in a single swig.

"I have, seems like your boss is a sexual predator I told her in a flat unemotional voice. "Where there's smoke there's invariably fire."

"Nooo, Adam. He's a good man. He'd never do something like that!"

Time to start phase two...

"Jean?" She looked up from her cognac" You obviously didn't know the man very well. It's not like you know me." I turned the screws. "You and I have no secrets. We're man and wife so you know what I'm capable of just as much as I know you!" I held her eyes. "You might know Miller as your boss but who knows what he's really like!"

I watched conflicting thoughts and emotions play across her face. "No, no he's a good man. He'd never do anything like that. I'd know."

I gave her my helplessly confused look. "But how Jean? How would you know?" It's your boss, a work colleague. He could be harbouring a million secrets! I haven't interacted with him much, but I've always found an underhand look to him. He's the kind of man you don't leave alone with your wife or your daughters!"

She gasped.

"Has he... You know... Has he ever tried anything with you?" She went white and I pretended not to notice.

"No, no, never! How can you even ask that?" She tried to glower at me but ended up looking mostly dismayed.

"Because you're a good looking woman Jean and if what they say about him is true then he must be quite immoral!"

She broke into a tears and looked deeply into her cognac glass but there were no answers to be found there either. She finished it and headed wearily upstairs. She said hello sand goodnight to Dean and Katie and then I heard the shower start. I finished my cognac and headed to bed. By the time she came out of the shower I pretended to be half asleep. She went downstairs in a dressing gown. I climbed out of bed and walked to the landing. She was talking to someone. Probably Evelyn by the sound of it. She repeatedly said 'nightmare'.

Then she asked. "But why? Why would more than one woman say she was assaulted?" Finally she said she that she didn't think this would blow over easily.

How right she was.

She made a second call. "Hi Tony" I heard her say. I caught snippets as she proceeded to tell him it would all be resolved and it was all some kind of big misunderstanding. I struggled to hear as she had moved into the kitchen but I caught her last words. "I love you too."

I heard the microwave ping and she spent some time by herself probably eating. By the time she came to bed I was already asleep.

On Saturday, I woke up first and made breakfast then took Dean and Katie to sport practice. I returned home while on the phone to Vickie. She said that another woman had come forward making it four so far. She also informed me that her sources in the mayor's office said that the whole project was now considered toxic and were distancing themselves from it. This was soon followed by a number of Civic Associations cutting loose. By mid-morning the office of the Attorney General issued a statement that they would be investigating this case fully.

When I got home she was gone. The SGX was closed so there wasn't much to do. I spoke to George about business and my Dad about the state of my marriage. He agreed that it was irrevocably broken. He said he felt sorry for Dean and Katie but like the rest of the kids in the US they would learn to cope.

I called Jean. "Where are you?"

"Evelyn and I are with the company lawyers to try fight these vile claims!"

"Are you sure you should be involved in this?" I colored my voice with concern. "The spill over could be significant and you don't want to be caught in it!" She fought me on it just like I knew she would but all their lawyering helped nothing.

On Saturday afternoon and Sunday which was their busiest open house show days, MRE had less than twenty percent of their previous foot traffic. By Monday morning the phones were ringing off the wall with cancelations and withdraws of sales mandates. They placed the opening of the New Horizons Home on ice until it all the negative publicity came to an end.

That Monday, another woman came forward in an unusual way. This one was married to a wealthy business owner and well known in the community.

She actually took out a quarter page advert in the local paper and said that she had been sexually assaulted by Miller during her short stay at the home for troubled teenagers. Turns out that she had developed a drug problem together with her boyfriend. He was fired from work, then she was fired and within a short while they were living beneath a freeway bridge. He got into trouble with some drug dealers and disappeared leaving her alone. Eventually she was found begging for food at the back door of a fast food franchise and the manager called the cops. One of the cops knew of the home and took her there.

She said she had spent eight days in total in the home before she gave them her name and they contacted her parents. During that time the man she knew as Mr Miller sexually assaulted her twice by forcing her to perform fellatio on him on both occasions.

She left her lawyers details for all women who were assaulted by Miller to contact the lawyer so they could start a class action.

By the end of that week five things had happened.

Firstly Miller had been questioned by the DA in hospital and had subsequently taken a turn for the worst.

Secondly, three of the five women had come through and spoken to the police giving statements. All claimed to have been sexually assaulted. Interestingly, all the assaults had occurred during a short time period of about five years ago.

Thirdly, the media storm had intensified to the point where MRE had closed its doors until further notice.

Jean naively confided in me every-night about how hard Evelyn was trying to keep the business going while sales people were bailing and taking customers with them.

Fourth was that SEA-A had breached the twenty four dollar mark and I was slowly dribbling blocks of shares onto the market which were getting rapidly picked up without dropping the share price. We had made back our original investment and we still held two thirds of the shares. To put it bluntly: We was sitting pretty!

My dad had collected Dean and Katie for the weekend. I was coming back from a small boutique liquor store where I had purchased a Chilled bottle of 2012 vintage Veuve Clicquot.

I was ready to celebrate number FIVE with Jean.

I noticed a BMW X5 SUV with MRE branding on the doors parked in my driveway next to Jean's Lexus. I pulled up and walked in with a jaunty air. They were in the living room. Jean was crying and Evelyn was rubbing her back and generally comforting her.

"Ladies!" I gave them a small salute as I walked over the cabinet where we kept our crystal and hooked out three champagne flutes. They looked at me dumb-struck with their mouths hanging open as I tore off the foil, twisted the wire to remove the cage and popped the cork with a flourish.

Then liberally filled the three flutes and handed them one each. They were both in some sort of numb state, like their brains were on tilt that they accepted the proffered glasses.

"Salut!" I toasted, downed half of mine and burped. Then the shouting started.

Jean: "You're divorcing me? I thought we were a family!" I spotted the open envelope with the divorce papers lying on the coffee table.

Evelyn: "How could you Adam? Don't you care for your wife? Don't you love her?"

"Drink up Jean! We're celebrating the end of an era." I downed the rest of my champagne and reached for the bottle.

"Hello Evelyn. Firstly, I could and I did. Secondly, I stopped caring and stopped loving her when she became your father's whore!"

I topped my glass and saluted Evelyn. "Here's to your father's legacy Evelyn. I hope he lives long enough to go to trial so the whole world can discover what a piece of shit he really is." She went white and collapsed backwards.

"Drink up!" I laughed at her. "And let's also drink to the demise of MRE. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I downed my glass and threw it across the room to shatter against the far wall. Jean wailed but Evelyn pulled her legs back as if to jump up or launch herself at me. I crossed the space between us in an instant and put the tip of my index finger against her forehead and pushed her back.

"You come at me Evelyn and I'll slap you down without remorse like the rabid bitch you are!" Her eyes went wide with fear and she collapsed inwards on herself. "Consider yourself lucky that I've decided not to take revenge on you personally.

I turned to Jean. "Get yourself a lawyer whore!" I smirked at her. The kids stay with my father till custody is established." Her eyes were wide with fear. This was a side of me she'd never seen before. I suppose I had turned into the very Monster I'd feared that I'd become.

"But, but, I thought we were good?" She managed to splutter and I laughed out loud.

"You mean all the fucking. I sure hope you didn't mistake it for making love. I fucked you like I would a whore, Jean. I paid for your cunt and I was just getting some of what you owe me!" I grabbed a new flute and poured myself more champagne and waved the bottle at the girls -- nothing...

Evelyn had dropped her flute on the rug making a mess, Jean had snapped the delicate stem on her flute and was sucking her bleeding finger. They looked at me the way one would consider a madman with his finger on a trigger. "So, I'll take that as a no, to more champagne then!"

"You left me alone for so long, and so often... I needed some human contact." She tried to justify herself but she couldn't quite meet my eyes.

"I understand." I smiled coldly. "Your cunt needed contact with his cock." I laughed without humour. "How's that working out for you now?" But it was Evelyn that came back at me.

"And how many women did you screw while you were away from home? You men all want your women to be angels when you're away while you do whatever you want!"

"Don't mistake all men for behaving like the piece of shit that fathered you. Just because he was happy to fuck everything he could, ruining young women and marriages doesn't mean the rest of us sank to his depravity."

I glared at her hoping she would try argue or even come at me as I was itching to flat hand her like the bitch she was. But I could read her eyes and she knew that I would slap her face off her shoulders if she tried. She was a self-entitled cunt, but she understood that once she initiated combat, her gender would offer her no immunity from the pain that would follow.

I leaned into her face daring her to strike me so I could retaliate. "Your father is a molester! A sex offender. A predator of vulnerable women. A disgusting pig. He will probably die before he goes to prison but you; My whore wife and the world will know him for what he is. His legacy project will never take off and his money will be frozen by the courts against future claims by his victims. MRE will file for bankruptcy and will cease to exist and you will have to travel far away and change your name to escape the stench of your actions and your father's depravity."

She was shaking and crying at my verbal assault. I bet she wished she was a man so she could punch me. I also wished she was a man so I could let out the rage I had so carefully kept damped for these past weeks and break some bones.

"In fact, it seems to me Evelyn that you probably helped groom those girls just like Ghislaine Maxwell did for Jeffrey Epstein!" Her mouth worked without words at the horror I was unleashing. "I think I need to contact the news media to let them know about you." She was shaking her head from side to side her eyes wide in fear and dismay.

"Noooo! Please I didn't. It's all a lie! Some sort of mistake. I don't know what those women are getting out of it but it's not true. My father is a good man."

I turned to Jean. "You have two hours to grab your clothes and move out. When I come back, if you're still here I'll call the press and give a statement. In fact I'll invite them to interview you for your part in this horrendous crime."

"Fuck You!" She spat at me. "There's nothing for me to be sorry for."

Well, except for the cheating and the lies...

"I'll move out but I'll get a lawyer first thing and then we'll see who gets what!" Oh my, Jean had found a set of balls.

"Two hours!" I promised her"

I left and went to my car but only got a few blocks down the road when all the unused adrenaline in my body caught up with me and I hyper-ventilated and went into the shakes. It lasted about fifteen minutes before I got my body under control and could move on.

I drove around aimlessly for a while. Eventually I pulled myself together and phoned my dad. I told him about serving papers on Jean and re-iterated that he was to hang on to the Dean and Katie until further notice. Also although he should allow Jean to visit them at no time must she be left alone with them to poison them against me. We spoke and I drove until the car pinged that I was on reserve. I located a petrol station filled up and headed back home surprized how far from home I was and it was after ten by the time I got back.

The house felt like a mausoleum. Filled with ghosts of happier times. The silence was loud in my ears and I couldn't sleep. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Socrates said that the unexamined life was not worth living and I lay in bed doing my best not to examine myself or look too deeply into my psyche over the furore I had unleashed in order to extract revenge. The only thing I knew for sure is that it had gone too far to be stopped. My fear was that what happened on social media was one thing, but if it ended in a court-room it may all unravel or implode. Would I be implicated? It seemed to me that I needed to get Leila out of town so my direct link to the issue was at least removed.

Having resolved that, I managed to fall into a semi-sleep. I awoke the next morning feeling almost as tired as when I climbed into bed. After the morning rituals I headed downtown for breakfast. I called the kids. They were doing fine but Dean was already suspecting that things weren't right at home. I promised that I'd talk with him and Katie soon.

I contacted Leila on the burner phone while having coffee.

"So, did I come through as promised?"

I admitted that she had. We spoke and confirmed that she'd be leaving for Chicago the next day. I had already transferred money from my offshore trading account to one of George's offshore accounts. He then transferred in small amounts to a bank account she had opened and Leila was twenty five thousand richer and on her way to a job as an assistant in property management organised by one of George's investment contacts who ran a number of commercial properties.

I was having a second cup of coffee when Vickie called.

"Three of the women have lawyered up and are suing Miller for damages!" She informed me. Papers will be served on Monday.

We spoke for a while. She said that she and her news editors were surprized at the timing and the way this whole story had unfolded. But, she rationalized that it wasn't surprizing in the current climate. Once the first woman, Leila the one who claimed was a prostitute, went public the rest followed very much like the Harvey Weinstein case.