The Patio With a View

She was silent for a bit and then she softly asked, "You aren't really going to send off those copies are you?"

I got up and said, "Follow me" and I led her into the downstairs bedroom that I had turned into a home office. I showed her the box full of mailers that was on the floor next to the desk and then I pulled one out and handed it to her. She read the name and then said:

"Oh my God. His wife will kill him if she finds out."

"Let us hope that it doesn't come down to that. I wasn't bluffing Audrey. If Carl doesn't come through those mailers will be sent out."

"You don't care about the misery that it will cause their families?"

"Did they give a shit about me when they gangbanged my wife? I'm going up to bed. You coming?"

She followed me to the bedroom and then both of us did.

+++++++++++++++++++

I was still driving by Carl's house a couple of times a week and down loading from the repeater. I saw Carl with Gloria and several other ladies and I saw a couple of gangbangs, but I never saw Kathy there. She still called a couple of times a week begging me to let her come home. Always promising to make it up to me, but I always said "No thanks" and hung up on her.

Several times I heard the one sided conversation when Audrey would call and ask if she could come home. Carl always said, "Not until you have the DVDs that you are responsible for him having."

I decided to cut Audrey a break and I told her where the DVDs were. She called Carl and told them they were beyond reach and he told her:

"Tough shit! You don't get them; you don't get to come home."

After that I never again caught a one sided conversation between Audrey and Carl.

The weeks went by and then the five weeks that I'd given Carl were up. I called him and asked if he had the money and he told me that he was closing on the second loan in two days. I told him I'd give him three, but then I was done waiting.

"You'll get your fucking money" he snarled and hung up. Two days later at four in the afternoon a special messenger walked into my office and handed me an envelope. Inside there was a cashiers check for forty thousand. I left work, hit the bank, deposited the check and got the DVDs out of the safe deposit box.

Audrey had dinner ready when I got home and after we ate I told her I had stopped to get dessert on the way home. I went out to the car and got the box of DVDs and took them in the house and gave them to her.

"What's this?"

"Your dessert. It's all there. The original and all the copies. You can go home now."

She stared at me and then she said, "You know. You've known all along. But how?"

"We just pretended to take the recording devices out. They are still there. I wanted to know what Carl was plotting and planning. Believe it or not I'm going to miss you Audrey. I wish you the best."

I got a beer out of the fridge and headed out to the patio. As I took the first pull on the PBR I heard Audrey's car start. Oh well, it had been fun while it lasted.

I was watching the sun slowly disappear behind the mountains when I heard:

"I kept one for myself."

I turned to see Audrey standing there holding a DVD.

"Want to watch it with me? Interesting things happen when we watch it together."

"What are you doing here?"

"On my way to the house it occurred to me that Carl never did intend to let me come home if I didn't have the goods for him. If he could be that way he obviously didn't love me and even though I loved him I couldn't stay with someone who could treat me like that. I rang the doorbell and when he came to the door I handed him the box and told him he would hear from my lawyer when I got one and then I hot-footed it back here. I know you don't love me, but we are good together. Want to watch this with me?" and she held up the DVD.

I did.