Scott Learns a Lesson

There is no gratuitous sex in this story.

This story is pure fiction, with certain literary liberties taken that may not sit well with the keyboard warriors of Literotica. Please ignore these shortcomings in the story and hold any negative comments of that nature. IT'S JUST A STORY!

All characters are over 18, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved. No portion of this material may be reproduced without the author's prior written permission. Everyone is over 18.

A reader accused me of plagiarism. NOT TRUE! I am the author of these stories. I abandoned my Literotica account for a few years and rejoined under this pseudonym.

I write for my edification. We aren't in an English composition class, so please excuse any grammatical errors or style misadventures. I try to improve with each submission. Enjoy, I hope.

Scott Learns a Lesson

Knowing what's wrong doesn't always solve the problem.

Chapter 1: Background

Al, he's my best friend from college. We met while attending classes at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. We weren't physically at the Carbondale campus. Instead, we met at an off-campus site in Southern California as if we were in Carbondale. Instructors from the main campus fly out from Illinois to our site every other weekend to conduct all-day Saturday and all-day Sunday classes. After three weekends, we had completed a semester of college for one class at a time. I only have three more classes before I earn my BS degree.

It was a Saturday afternoon at lunchtime. Al and I were having lunch at a steakhouse in town and were discussing my problem. I'm Scott Hedgeberg, and I found out last week that my wife of 11 years has been cheating on me. Joy, my wife, has been sneaking off during my weekend classes to be with her first husband. The way I found out was purely by accident. I called my wife's cellphone last Saturday to have her bring a file folder I needed for class that I had absentmindedly left on the kitchen table when I darted out the door that morning. Al and I were making a presentation about a fictitious potato chip factory modernization proposal we were giving for our final grade. My daughter had answered my wife's phone.

"Hi, Daddy," April said as she answered my wife's phone.

"Hi, pumpkin," I said, "may I speak with Mommy, please?"

"She's not here, Daddy," April said.

"Where is she, sweetie?" I asked.

"She's gone with Uncle David," April replied.

"Uncle, David?" I asked, "Where did they go?"

"Mommy said they were going to the beach," April said so innocently.

"Oh, that's right," I said, "I remember now. May I speak with Grandma Lolly, please?"

"No, Daddy. Mommy said I was a big girl now and that I could stay by myself," April said proudly.

"Okay, honey," I said. "Are you alright by yourself?"

"Yes, Daddy," April said confidently, "Roscoe is protecting me."

Roscoe was April's life-sized stuffed German Shepherd doll we gave to her last Christmas. I told April that Rosco was a police dog and that he would always protect her. April was not the least bit scared of being alone. She hadn't learned how dangerous the world was yet.

"Alright, little girl, I'll see you soon," I said and then ended the call.

I told my professor that I had to leave and would see him in two weeks. Walking to my car, I was furious for two reasons. First, because Joy had left a nine-year-old at home alone with no adult supervision, and second, my wife was with her ex-husband while I was at school, trying to earn an Industrial Engineering degree to make more money for my family. I am an engineering technician and work on a secret government project for an aerospace company in San Diego. My job is so secret that it has no name outside of the company and is only a number in the Congressional budget.

When I got home, I surprised April and said we were going to visit Grandma Lolly. She jumped up and quickly packed her overnight case. We were out the door in less than ten minutes and on our way across town to Joy's mother's house in Pacific Beach.

My parents were older when I was born, and both passed away before Joy and I wed. I was an only child, and neither of my grandparents on either side were alive. My father had an older sister, but she had passed away back in the early 1960s. I never met her, and my mother's sister is living in France and has not been back to the States in more than a decade.

At Grandma Lolly's house, April and I walked to the front door and knocked. Lolly opened the door with a huge grin.

"Scott, what a lovely surprise," Lolly said.

April snagged onto Lolly's leg with a hug. Lolly patted April's head, bent down to get a proper hug and kiss, and then stood up to hug me, too. I told April to visit with Grandpa Robbie in the garage. April seems to have inherited my mechanical aptitude gene as she loves to work with her grandfather as he tinkers in his garage.

Lolly could see a tear forming in my eyes as we hugged. Arm-in-arm, Lolly led me inside to the kitchen, where she made each of us a cup of coffee. We sat across the breakfast bar. I was silent, and Lolly watched me fall to pieces.

"Where is Joy?" Lolly said.

"I'm not sure, Lolly," I said. "I called home because I forgot an important folder that I needed for class today, and April answered Joy's phone. She told me that Joy was at the beach with Uncle David."

"Uncle David?" Lolly gasped. "You mean her first husband, David?"

"I suspect so," I said. "I don't know if I am more bothered by April being alone at home or by knowing Joy's cheating on me with her ex-husband."

"I'm not defending her, Scott, but you don't have any conclusive evidence right now," Lolly said.

"Lolly," I said, "as engineers, we are taught to gather all the evidence to identify the problem, plan a solution, incorporate the solution, and check if the solution worked. I have all the evidence I need. Uncle David has been seeing my wife often enough for her to fool April into thinking that Joy's ex-husband is a family relation. I can only imagine how long this has been going on. What have I done, Lolly? Why would Joy go off with her ex-husband and leave April alone at home? How many times has she left April alone at home?"

Lolly reached across the table and held my hands as I quietly sobbed. I got up and washed my face at the kitchen sink to shed my tears. Robbie came inside carrying April in his arms and saw my grief. He carried April into the den and turned on the cartoon channel for her.

Lolly hugged her husband of 35 years and explained why I was sad. Robbie hung his head in shame and apologized to me for raising a stupid daughter. Robbie asked me what I intended to do.

"Right now, nothing," I said. "I don't want to go off half-cocked and accuse Joy of any impropriety. But, as President Reagan once said, trust but verify. I will act as if nothing is wrong, but I will try to determine what is going on between Joy and David."

Robbie said, "What if you find out that Joy is cheating on you with David?"

"I'll cross that bridge if I come to it," I said. "Would it be alright if April stayed with you this weekend? I need some time to think things over."

"What will you tell Joy?" Lolly asked.

"I will move my audit from the week after next to this coming week," I said. "I'll be in Phoenix this evening and then Long Beach on Wednesday and drive home on Friday afternoon. I'll leave a note for Joy on the kitchen counter because she left her phone at home with April in case of an emergency."

I said goodbye to April and reminded her to be good for Grandma Lolly and Grandpa Robbie. At home, I took a week's worth of clothes, my toiletries, and my laptop to my car. I wrote a note to Joy and left it on the kitchen counter for her to find.

Dear Joy, I am very upset with you for leaving April home alone. She is far too young to do so. If anything bad had happened while you were away, you would likely be in jail for child abandonment, and April could have possibly been put into a FOSTER HOME! Child Protective Services takes a very dim view in a situation like this. I came home early and found April playing in her room, and YOU WERE NOT THERE! Where were you, Joy? I had to leave class early because my audit trip was rescheduled for this week. I will not return until late Friday. As always, when I am on my audit trips, I cannot send or receive personal calls or messages of any sort, so please do not try to contact me. My phone and laptop will be off as per government audit regulations while I am away. Again, Joy, I am extremely upset with you. April is spending the weekend with your parents to give you time to come up with a plausible excuse for your poor behavior. Scott.

I lied to Joy about her contacting me because, during past audits, Joy would hound me several times a day about what I was doing and who I was with. I made up the no-contact policy so I could get my work done and not because I was fooling around with someone other than my wife. I took my marriage vow seriously and have never propositioned another woman, nor have I stepped out on Joy. Her jealousy was a constant battle between us. Early in our marriage, I learned to ignore the jealousy because it mostly would blow over in a matter of minutes after rearing its ugly head. Joy would apologize and say that she worries about other women whisking me away. I laughed every time she said it. I'm no ogre, but neither am I a GQ hunk. Never in my life has a woman come on to me. I guess I don't fit the image of a desirable male.

When I started with my company and received my security clearance, the company put me through counter-intelligence training. No, it wasn't a James Bond training. The reason for the training is that two idiots back in the late 1970s, Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee, who worked for Hughes Aircraft, decided to sell spy satellite secrets to the Soviets. A Hollywood movie about the duo was called The Falcon and the Snowman, starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. The training warned of the three primary ways foreign agents would try to compromise us: Alcohol/drugs, money, and sex. Boyce and Lee worked in a "Black Vault," as I do, and were eventually caught, tried, and convicted of International Espionage and Treason. Defense contractors like my company go to extreme lengths to protect their contracts.

My drive from San Diego to Phoenix was uneventful. After I checked into my hotel, I powered up my laptop and brought up the security camera system I installed in my home when I obtained my Top-Secret clearance. My job deals with classified information vital to our National Security, and I wanted to be sure my family was safe while I went away on my sub-contractor audit trips. The hidden cameras are linked to an encrypted cloud-based server.

Because my job is so secret, I cannot leave the country for any reason unless the company requires my travel. Therefore, the Defense Investigative Service watches us from afar as it's part of my employment contract. Nobody knows the cameras are in the house but me. Since I didn't need to be at the subcontractor's plant until noon on Monday, I spent most of Saturday night and all day Sunday reviewing the past three months' video feed.

My heart broke when I saw my wife of 11 years, flat on her back, imitating the double-breasted bed thrasher with her first husband, David Duncan. They met every Saturday and Sunday while I was attending classes. I could only retrieve 90 days of video from the cloud server, so I am unaware of how long Joy's affair with her ex-husband has been going on. I saw in the video feed that Joy would take April across the street to Mrs. Morgan's house and then open the RV gate in our back fence so David could park his car from the alley behind our house. Joy and David used every room in the house for their sexual escapades. When I thought things couldn't get any worse, I saw something in the video feed that turned my heart to stone toward Joy. April had come home to get a doll to take back across the street to Mrs. Morgan's house and heard her Mommy moaning. April went to see what was happening. In the video, I saw April watching her Mommy having sex in our marital bed with another man besides her Daddy. April knows that Daddy and Mommy like to wrestle when we are alone, so April thought this behavior happened with all adults. I was LIVID!

On Monday morning, I called my boss and advised him of the change in the audit schedule. I also alerted him of my wife's affair, and according to the DIS training, there was a potential attempt at a security breach. Although my laptop computer was never compromised, I still had to report my wife's activities. My call to my boss set into motion a flurry of events. Over the next week, while I was away conducting sub-contractor audits, an immediate background check for both my wife and her ex-husband was initiated. My wife's car was secretly bugged with a video recorder and GPS-locating transmitter. The same was true for David Duncan's car. What a mess!

When I called my boss on Wednesday and told him I was going to divorce my wife, he recommended the attorney who represented his wife for their divorce. Shelia Black agreed to meet with me via a video conference call that afternoon. I answered Shelia's questions about my finances, mortgage, car payments, and the like. California is a community property state, and everything would be split 50/50. The only concern the courts have is the welfare of minor children. In my case, it was who would get primary custody of April. I instructed Shelia Black to hold off on serving divorce papers until the results of the deep-dive background checks became available. I knew that I wouldn't know everything the background check learned in the investigation, but I would know enough to guide my divorce proceedings.

The week with my two sub-contractors was uneventful, and everything on their ends was according to the contracts. As I was leaving the Long Beach plant, my phone rang. My boss was calling me.

"Scott, there is trouble in River City," My boss said. "Do not go home tonight. You need to come directly here. That is an order. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. Understood," I said. "I'm leaving Long Beach now and should be there in three hours, depending on traffic. I will update you on my whereabouts along the way every 30 minutes."

I had no idea what my boss was referring to, but saying there was trouble in River City, a reference to the movie musical The Music Man, was code for dangerous things that might occur and for me to be situationally aware of my surroundings. I had been trained on how to look for suspicious vehicles following me. I kept most of my attention in my reward-looking mirrors and memorized most of the vehicles on the freeway that were around me. I changed lanes frequently, took unnecessary off-ramps, and then re-entered the freeway. By the time I reached San Diego, I was a mental wreck.

My boss directed me to the VP of Operations office, where we sat and waited. The VP's office door opened, and we were invited inside. There were two men in black suits wearing visitor badges waiting for me.

"Scott, these men are with DIS, and they have some questions for you," the VP said.

The DIS agents asked me about my involvement with David Duncan, and I told them I had none at all, that I had never met the man, and that I only learned of my wife's infidelity with her ex-husband last Saturday. I told them I telephoned my supervisor immediately upon learning of my wife's affair. The agents seemed satisfied with my answers and began to tell me why they were in the VP's office.

David Duncan was under investigation for industrial espionage with his current employer and is suspected of trying to get to me through my wife and daughter. The agents assured me that my daughter was safe with my wife's parents for the time being. David Duncan and my wife were arrested earlier that day. They were being held by the FBI in their San Diego office, awaiting arraignment in Federal Court for espionage on Monday morning. Joy tried calling me using her one phone call after being arrested, but my phone was off at the time. She had no way of contacting her parents and cried for two days straight in her cell.

The agents told me that Joy admitted to being approached by Duncan several months ago. Their chance meeting at a Starbucks near our home was the match that relighted their mutual attraction and subsequent affair. Duncan was transferred to San Diego from Atlanta and had been searching for Joy. Duncan worked for my company's competition and decided to pull a Falcon and Snowman (Boyce and Lee) with his company. David Duncan entered the world of industrial espionage when, six months ago, he sold some technical data from his employer to one of their competitors for $50K cash. Finding Joy in San Diego was a coincidence.

David Duncan seduced Joy and had been in her pants for the last six months. When Duncan learned from Joy about my work, he decided to try to pressure Joy into placing a Trojan virus on my laptop to steal company secrets. I guess Duncan didn't think it out completely because he never got the chance to plant the virus. Joy told the investigators that she refused to help Duncan. Don't think for a moment that I wasn't sweating bullets over this fiasco.

The DIS agents told me the DIS had a team of individuals reviewing the footage from my home. They assured me that I was innocent of any suspicion of espionage. Joy admitted to the affair with Duncan and said it was the excitement of doing something out of the ordinary that led her to stray from our marriage. Joy told the agents that the reason for her affair was that she was feeling morose about aging and how our marriage had become stale in her eyes. Joy rationalized her behavior was commonplace nowadays and that she felt no guilt for the attention her ex-husband was giving her.

Chapter 2: Conflict

I had to figure out what to do about my feelings about Joy's infidelity. Should I stay and try to work things out, or should I cut my losses and bolt? Shelia Black told me in our video conference last week that regardless of her affair with David Duncan, California is a community property State, and the Courts would give Joy primary custody of April and half of any acquired assets and debts. The chances of my getting primary custody of April were nil, and I would have to pay maintenance (alimony) to Joy for several years or until Joy remarried if I chose to divorce her. These were not very comforting thoughts.

Like any husband whose wife cheated, I, too, shared the disgust with the courts about the prospect of having to pay an ex-wife for her infidelity while she shares no harm for her actions. I called Shelia Black mid-morning the following Saturday and arranged to meet her at her office. I told Shelia that because my wife was associated with a known industrial spy who would be convicted and sentenced to a long prison term, my security clearance would be in jeopardy if I stayed married to Joy. I would likely lose my job for failure to maintain the clearance.

Shelia sat back in her office chair and thought about my options. Shelia said she had a plan, not a perfect plan, but one that would likely work if my future ex-wife were smart and Joy took the offer. Shelia said that knowing my job was at risk, I would be a fool if I did not divorce Joy. Shelia reminded me that losing a Top-Secret Security Clearance would be the death knell of my career as an engineer. The best I could hope for employment-wise would be some low-paying job with a fly-by-night employer who could care less about my past but would exploit my misery with terrible working conditions. That fact, coupled with the thought of living in a tiny apartment with most of my pay going to Joy, was too much for me to contemplate.