Pride Comes Before a Fall

"I'm sorry hun, but I can't have sex with you for two weeks before the auction." She bowed her head and I heard her whisper. "It's in the contract."

*******

Perhaps I should have been surprised, but I wasn't. For the next ten days my wife would hold me, hug me and even try to kiss me. I would always turn my head so her lips landed on my cheek. At first, she looked curiously at me, but then I told her that kissing me would make me want to rip her clothes off, and since she's signed the contract, that was a no no. I still tried calling my uncle on several occasions, but it turns out he was on his boat and wouldn't be back until it was too late to do anything about all this.

The morning before leaving day, she went with Viper to have a manicure, pedicure and whatever else that finished with the word 'cure' she could fit onto her body. By now of course, I was also sleeping on the pull-out in my office and, although I could hear her cry herself to sleep at night, I just knew that nothing would change. Kathrine was going to do this and I truly believed she was doing it under her own free will.

Since it was her body and her mind, as her husband I only got to loan it from her while we were married. But ultimately it was her choice, she knew the consequences of course, she wasn't stupid. In college we had spent hours talking about our feelings and opinions on what marriage stood for, more so since my family hid its own secrets from the world.

But she seemed to think that after a year we would be one happy little family again, only richer. The fact that she would also be someone else's bed bouncing partner was such a given that it barely got a mention in the discussions that got more heated as the days ticked away. As for me, I loved her with all my heart, even though I believed this was going to destroy us. I had already set my own position out and was standing by it. Once the hammer goes down on her sale, that same hammer would fall on my/our marriage.

That year apart, I would spend hardening my heart, ready for the divorce. I didn't hide my feelings or opinion from her. Far from it, I had voiced them often enough.

The mountain on legs made another appearance when he knocked on my door and handed me the flight information. The private airfield the other side of town would have our private jet ready at noon tomorrow. Kathrine's emotions went from euphoric to panic and back again for the next few hours. I wanted to tell her that she looked absolutely stunning, but those words never made it past my lips when I reconciled that how she looked now, wasn't for me, but for someone else.

We landed at some private airstrip and the jet taxied to a small hanger that had a limo waiting. Some guy patted us both down and everything from my house keys to my cell were placed into a container and I was told that I would get everything back on my return journey. The glass was tinted and when we sat in the Limo, we got to see firsthand just how heavily tinted it was, the privacy glass was pulled up and we had nothing to go by with general direction, nothing for a full hour.

The place was huge and looked really private. Kathrine was ushered into one door and I was again patted down and lead to another door. The mountain on legs stood and actually spoke to me, well grunted would be more accurate I think.

Say nothing, sit over there and do nothing. Eat from what's on the table and even drink if you wish, as long as that's in moderation. Then he cracked his knuckles and I cringed at the noise, made worse when he once again grunted the ground rules. The glass and the room were sound proof, touch the glass and I will be removed, make a scene, and I will be removed. Basically, cause any trouble at all and he assured me that I would be waking up in time for the flight home.

Kathrine was the sixth woman on the stage, all before her had been naked and so was she. She then did a little ballet piece before the bidding started and went rampant. The five women before her sold for between ten to twelve million. Towards the end it seemed that only two people were bidding for her now and it was now at fifteen million and counting. The group from The Auction had to log in a maximum amount they could bid. It was a rule so that they couldn't just pull out a checkbook and sign what they wanted.

The last thing the gentlemen of The Auction wanted was to bid stupidly and heavily against each other. They could afford it of course, after all, they were the richest people in America. But something stupid in the heat of the moment, like dumping a fortune onto the table just to prove how rich you were, wasn't going to make for a good evening, not to mention the tension it would cause. So it was agreed, they each decided an amount for the evening and locked that number in with the banker. No one challenged the banker. Kathrine had stopped the ballet dance when the bid had hit seventeen and a half million and stood with her jaw hanging open.

She cleared eighteen million and the word 'Sold' flashed above her head. That's when two guys came on stage, pushed her into a kneeling position and collared her. That was also when I stood up and asked to leave. To them I was one less worry if I was out of the way, so the Limo pulled up and took me back to the airstrip. They gave me Kathrine's possession's as well as my own just moments before the engines came to life.

*******

I wasn't in any rush. I knew I had a year to get my stuff out, but this place just held so many memories. I couldn't sleep in our room, to me it still was our room, I needed to get out and away. A week later, I scanned the house for the final time and those happy images of my past, and headed for the door. I already knew what was likely to happen. My hand went to the dust cover I had just placed over the couch, to correct its angle. This was where we both gravitated to for cuddles and watching comedies and films on the TV.

Shaking my head had helped to push those memories away, I closed the door and went to my car, doing my best at never looking back.

I moved into my new apartment and within six weeks I got a 'congratulation on your new apartment' card. They wanted me to know that they were still keeping tabs on me, it was also why I hadn't planned any form of revenge. Kathrine showed free will, she told me often that this was what she wanted. So be it, but she still knew that with free will comes consequences and me leaving the marriage was a dead cert.

While my mind drifted around, I also knew these people from my own past, when I worked for my uncle. Back them into a corner at your own peril, then add to that the fact that they had Kathrine, at least for the next year anyway. Perhaps by then I would have moved on enough not to care, but at the moment, I had to. She may be in their care, but making waves with these people simply meant that you got a visit and nothing in the way of polite conversations would ever came from those visits.

The process server couldn't find her and I wasn't stupid enough to think a detective could either. She would turn up after a year. It was in their interest to make sure of that, just as it was in mine to keep my own council and get on with my own life.

Business was my life raft, it kept me from dropping into a bottle of Scotch and not coming out again. I even gave up moving, they knew where I was, so what. Even the calls to Alex Philips stopped. He must have known I knew of his involvement in this. We both weren't stupid, it's also why I restricted my calls to his management team from now on. I still had advertising contracts to fulfill, his company's money was still as good as anyone else's, until those contracts finished that is.

My social life consisted of going to the odd football game and shouting the stadium down. One heck of a release valve I can assure you. Business was good and getting better, I guess it was the hours I put into it since I had no social life.

Then, at six one evening, I heard a knock at my door. I just assumed it was my neighbor's door, until the knock got a little louder. When I opened it, my only thought was that at least now I knew why the date sounded so familiar when I signed for that last UPS parcel yesterday.

"You don't live here Kathrine."

Her hand came out and held onto the door, stopping me from slamming it in her face.

"Neither do you, come home."

What surprised me the most was the fact that I was so calm. I guess the fact that I had already detached myself from her may have had a great deal to do with it. I turned and walked back inside, I heard the door click closed as I went to the kitchen to make myself a coffee. She wasn't staying so I didn't ask her.

She sat and talked, most of her sentences ended with the word 'sorry'. I just shrugged my shoulders, I didn't care one way or the other. It took a while, but I realized that it had started to get dark, so I turned the lights on and pulled the curtains.

When I turned to face her again, my legs went weak and I had to lean up against the wall to stop myself from sliding to the floor.

Her breasts still looked just as ravishing, encased in her bra. My eyes held their gaze on them, my memories supplied the details of what lay hidden behind the soft material. Then my eyes went in search of other treats of her body. As her blouse slipped from her shoulders, my heart broke into a million pieces. I'm just glad that my body and memory took control and both guided me to the bathroom in time for me to lose my lunch.

I heard her sobbing at the bathroom door. When I managed to grab something in the way of normalcy again, I stood, washed my face and turned to see Kathrine on her knees in the middle of the doorway. Her hands were over her face and she was crying her own heart out. Her arms moved when her head lowered even further, revealing the stretch-marks on her.

Although her body was once again as toned as it was when she left, they had lied. The man that had won her at the auction, had bred her. It took every ounce of my willpower just to stay in the same room as her right now. My mind screamed the question, my throat sought a way to ask it, the words left my lips as a whisper.

"Where is the baby now?"

Her head shook in her hands and then she hiccupped. Any other time we would have laughed.

"I don't know; they took her from me as soon as she was born."

When her hands came away from her face, her eyes blazed with more anger than I have ever seen in any woman.

"They stole her from me and won't tell me anything."

Her hands went to her breasts and pushed them up in her bra. "These ache every waking moment because she never got to suck on them, my heart aches because I shared her birth but not the bonding. He bred me and stole my baby and I have seen neither of them since."

I could almost sense where this conversation was going. It was hard not to really when you take into consideration that we had shared so many thoughts, conversations and each other's bodies over the years.

"What do you want from me."

Her anger spilled over. In all the years I had known and loved this woman, the anger she shared with me via her eyes and facial features forewarned me that what she said next was from her very core.

"I know I've done you wrong in your eyes and I will spend this lifetime and any other to gain your love back. He broke the contract, he changed my birth control pill and fucked me anytime he could get hard enough to put it in me. He knew what he was doing. He never gave me a choice saying that slaves don't have choices. He's not the one that spread her legs and birthed a baby, I need that bond, I want MY baby back and us back together."

For the first time she was able to put her thoughts into words, she also knew what she was asking of me.

"Get my baby back, and please Martin, give us both another chance. If you can't then I will leave and never darken your door again, but please Martin, use the love you used to have for me and do this for me. I need you both, but if you still want the divorce then I will take my baby and give you whatever you wish in the divorce."

I picked her up off the floor and pulled her blouse together. Kathrine took the hint and buttoned herself up again. I had to hold her up just to get her as far as the kitchen chair. She remained silent, only nodding her head when I handed her a cup of coffee. She knew me well.

My mind processed so many thoughts, both pro's and con's. When I looked at the clock on the wall behind Kathrine I realized we had been sitting there just over an hour. Even when I looked at her to finally speak, I just knew I loved the dumb bitch and there was nothing on this earth that could change that. I could divorce her but that would just mean she sits in my heart and mind.

I would never be free of her. She was part of me, a part I can't cut off and walk away from. My heart almost didn't make this year without her, could it make a lifetime without her? I knew that answer when I looked into her eyes. She'd been stupid, listened to Viper, and not talked to me before this auction thing got up a head of steam. Judging by the empty husk of a person sitting across from me, she like me, had learned some very hard life lessons over this past year.

I sighed and she tried oh so hard not to smile, my sigh had given me away, I just knew it did.

"Okay, these are my terms and none of them are negotiable. Go home, open the house and do whatever is needed. Clean the sheets, you always cleaned sheets."

Her cheeks had a slightly red tinge to them, "That's because we always dirtied them."

It was my turn to blush. I tried the stern look, it failed miserably.

"All the money from The Auction is in your bank, use it." I softened my features and the tone of my voice "You earned it so it's all yours."

She nodded, thankfully knowing I wasn't taking a dig at her.

"Make lists and get the builders in if you have too." This time I leaned on the table so I could look directly at her. "I will get your baby back, but I'm not going after the others. They do what they do, and up until you got involved, it was none of my business. He is though and I'll deal with him accordingly. When I get back, we no longer talk about him."

Kathrine quickly nodded her head, I still continued talking. She was going to need help, so I told her that while I was gone, she needed to find a therapist that she was comfortable enough with to share almost all of this mess with him or her. When I suggested that she paint the small bedroom pink she almost fell off her seat.

"Baby proof the house; I'm not having those mad dashes to the hospital because she's been drinking your hair dye."

For the first time since she had been here, she laughed. Kathrine was a natural brunet and had never even looked at changing that because I loved the color of her hair. She may change hairstyles from time to time, but never the color.

Now came the hard part. "I'm calling a cab and your leaving as soon as it gets here. Go home, open the house make it livable, but don't ever come back here. I will know where you are and that's enough. In a couple of days, a cell phone will be delivered to you, only text me if you need something important. Hook up the house phone again and use that for all daily calls. If anyone other than me calls you on that cell phone, make a bonfire out of it in the backyard."

Her brow creased and concern was clearly etched on her face. "Are you expecting trouble?"

Shrugging my shoulders clearly didn't cut it for her, so I added. "I'm going up against a bunch of rich folks. I suspect they will take a collective step back when they see I'm only going after one of them. They will know that you're off limits, but that didn't stop Shithead from breaking a cardinal rule in that contract you signed and knocking you up, did it?"

I wasn't actually asking her a question, but she mulled what I said over in her thoughts before nodding. When I glanced at my watch Kathrine knew it was time to leave. Her cab arrived fifteen minutes later, I gave her a hug, and she held on for longer than I did.

*******

It was time to make a few calls from a pay phone while my own cell was at the apartment. I was rather proud of myself, I only looked at my watch every quarter of the hour. When it reached time, I went to the bar I was directed to and sat in one of the high sided little cubby holes that you bring someone else's wife to have a drink with.

The voice from the cubby hole behind me spoke first. "What's going on, sure been awhile Martin."

The voice alone pulled memories from my past; I sat with three of the most amazing people for eighteen months while I waited for Kathrine to finish her teachers' course. All three knew what they wanted to do with their lives, just as I did.

"I have questions that need answered and won't get them from her. The picture taped under this table is the woman responsible. Even though I have put her name and the school she's working at on the back, those details are now out of date by a year, find out who she really is for me."

The pause as the voice digested what I had said took a moment.

"I could do with a meeting of all three of you if that's possible. I'm sorry to lay this on you all. I've done my best and eaten into valuable time you could have had, it's all turning time critical now. There is a child involved, an innocent, she is the time critical one we are referring too.

The voice behind me took a moment, he knew I wasn't the joker in the pack, that was Petra. They always used to say that I took life way to seriously.

"Consider the first done, come back here in two days, I figure time is of the essence by the way you're talking. I will give the others the heads up. Who does the child belong to by the way?"

I rose from my seat; I think he heard me say. "Kathrine." as I left the cubby hole and the bar.

*******

I got the text of where to be and when, and within an hour of that text I was once again with the three people in my life I would gladly share anything I owned with. We sat in a lose circle and I recited everything I thought would help these people

"Martin, I know you're not going to be comfortable with what I'm going to say. But please let me get it all out first before you make a decision."

Petra just sat and stared at me, waiting for me to make a choice on what she said. Petra was the most stunning woman I had ever met; she was cheerleader material and indeed had been the captain of the squad when she was in high school. Once she hit college and, after being used as nothing more than a pin cushion and eye candy for the jocks, she fell in with Marvin and Jake, two of the geekiest of geeks in college.

Once Petra figured out that the boys didn't see her as eye candy, it was her brains and intellect that kept them talking to her, she quickly figured out that around these two, she was never going to be just another piece of ass. It was Marvin that introduced her to the Goth scene, and she just dove straight into it. When she went home for Christmas, her mom met her at the door, screamed and slammed the door shut in her face.

Marvin came in his car an hour later and picked her up from the curb she was sitting on, two hundred yards from her folk's home, sobbing her heart out. She shared a bed with him over Christmas and his life ever since. At Christmas and on Petra's birthday, Marvin sends her mom a thank you card, just to keep her pissed off.

The sadness grew in her eyes when she watched me nod my head.

"I've found Charlotte aka Donna Young. She owns and runs a modeling agency of all things, in Boston."

This is where Petra had a pained expression on her face and inwardly, I waiting for the bad news.

"I did a deep look into her financials and checked the finer details. Donna owns only fifty percent of the agency; Alexander Philips owns the other half. Well a company called Shear Rock limited does, but since Shear Rock only has one member of the board, I think it's safe to say Alexander Philips is the owner."