Through the Lens

"Wait," said Jessica in shock. "You hung out with Serena Vascova? Are you guys like buddies or something?"

"No," I said. "But she's not as bad as I thought. Anyway, she introduced me to Jason and..."

"You're shitting me," gushed Jessica. "Is he...?"

"No," I spat interrupting her. "He's nothing like he seems on TV or in the videos. In the first place, he's only about four foot eleven. He's a fucking troll. His accent is fake. Everything about him is fake and he has a tiny dick."

"Whoah..." she said. "You didn't...please tell me you didn't do what I think you did." I nodded and started crying.

"No wonder you're upset. You're feeling guilty aren't you?" she said. "Connie as your best friend, please listen to me. I know that you've heard like all the rest of us that honesty is the best policy. Fuck that shit. It's pure hokum. If Rob ever comes up and asks you about it, deny everything..." I grabbed her by the shoulder and walked her to the hallway.

"What the hell is all of this?" she asked. As she began looking at the pictures, her jaw dropped open. "You have to make sure that Rob never sees these pictures," she said.

She went up and down the hall looking at the pictures and taking them down. When she got into the bathroom and saw the worst ones, she looked at me. "You weren't kidding," she said. "You fucked Jason Hamsker. What was it like?"

"It was like not having sex," I said. "His dick is the size of a Vienna sausage and he called me a whore after it was over. When he found out that I was Rob's wife he was more worried about Rob not taking pictures for him than he was about how I felt about it. He is not streetwise and his accent is an act. He's a total asshole."

"Then you really need to make sure that Rob doesn't find out," she said.

"Jessie," I said quietly.

"Yes," she smiled.

"Rob took the God damned pictures," I screamed. "What the fuck do you think he meant on that last one when he wrote Goodbye! Ever since I woke up this morning I haven't been able to get in touch with him. He changed his cell phone number and the people in his office, work for him. They will not let me speak to him even if he was there."

"What about your deal?" she said.

"What are you babbling about, Jess?" I asked.

"You said that you guys had a deal. He could screw Eva Mendes and you could screw Jason Hamsker . Rob is a man of his word. You just need to remind him of that."

"How the hell do I remind him of anything when he won't talk to me?" I asked.

"So find someone that he is talking to and have them remind him," she said. It was actually not a totally stupid idea. At any rate, I didn't have any better ones. I needed to find just the right person to do it.

Jessica and I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what I should do. I was glad that she was there because I felt awful and having someone to share my pain with cut it in half.

Rob wasted no time either though. The very next morning I received a call from a lawyer who asked if I could meet with him regarding my divorce. He asked for my attorney's number since he didn't want to meet with me unless I had counsel present. He told me that while I found an attorney, he could have copies of the papers messengered to me for my perusal. Since it was a simple divorce, he thought that if I had a lawyer, we could have the whole process done and filed in a week and six months later, three months with the right judge, the whole thing could be over.

He sat there waiting for my reply. "Where is your office located?" I asked. He gave me an address and told me he'd be available all day. I dressed and went over to his office. I dressed down for the meeting. I just threw on some jeans and a blouse with a leather jacket that Rob loved over it. I was shown into his office and he stood up to shake my hand. He looked around as if he'd been expecting someone else to be with me. As he reached out for the handshake, I drew my arm back and as soon as I was in range, slapped him as hard as I could.

"That's assault," he whined.

"No it wasn't," I said. "That was therapy. If you look in any medical journal they tell you that the way to treat people who are suffering from shock or are behaving irrationally is to give them a sharp, stinging slap to the face. It helps to reorder their brains so they start to process information again."

He looked at me as if I was crazy while still holding his face where I slapped him.

"But I'm not out of my mind," he said warily.

"If you think I'm going to just walk away quietly and give Rob a divorce, you are," I spat. "Rob is mine. I love him. My marriage is not over just because I made a terrible mistake. Besides, Rob has no grounds for the divorce. We have an agreement in place."

"What agreement?" he asked.

"Have Rob call me and we'll talk about it," I said.

"Well, while you're here," he said. "Can we at least discuss the settlement?"

"There's not going to be a settlement," I said. "So there's no reason to discuss one."

"Then there's no need for me to ask Rob to call you," he said. "Rob gave me his legal power of attorney and told me to handle the divorce. He's focusing on his career right now; in fact, he's about to go out of town on business. One of his clients has landed a huge job and pulled Rob in on it. It might be the biggest thing he's done so far. It's going to take weeks to pull together so he may be gone for a while."

"Besides that, he has to find a new place to live depending on what you decide to do about the condo that the two of you are currently leasing. Jeff believes that alone or with you, it's time for Rob to buy a house, so getting out of the condo might be a good thing for him. He might be persuaded in exchange for getting things over with quickly, paying for the rest of the lease for you."

"No sale," I said. "As soon as Rob and I sit down and talk about this, you'll be out of the loop."

"There are some things that you might..." he said as I walked out.

On further consideration, I probably should have listened to him. I stopped by the grocery store on my way home. I wanted to pick up a few things for dinner and was surprised to find out that my credit cards were all declined. I went out to my car and called the bank on my cell phone. It turned out that Rob had paid off all of my credit cards and canceled them. Even though the cards had my name on them, they drew on his accounts and were, in fact, his credit cards.

I drove over to the bank. I decided that I would just write a check on our account and use cash for my purchases until Rob came to his fucking senses. That was when I came to MY fucking senses. All of our accounts were actually Rob's accounts and he had taken my name off of them. I had only about a hundred dollars in cash on me and that wouldn't last for very long.

When I got home, I looked through the phone book and found a lawyer. The first lawyer I called took my case on a contingency basis. If I ended up divorced, I paid his fees out of my settlement. If I stayed married, Rob would have to pay his fees.

We called Rob's lawyer back and set up a meeting. Rob's lawyer was an asshole. Over the course of a few hours, he'd gone from, "I'll be here all day," to, "The earliest meeting he could arrange was sometime next week. He'd also arranged to send my lawyer a copy of the divorce papers.

My lawyer looked at me and started to shake his head. "If this goes on for very long you'll have to get a job to pay me back," he said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You haven't been together for very long and you have no kids," he said. "Most judges are not going to give you very much in any case. Your husband is not going for a no fault divorce. He's using infidelity as the reason for the divorce and he claims to have photographic evidence. At the same time, he seems to have a signed agreement from you that bars you from gaining anything from his business. He also seems to be re-investing most of the proceeds from the business back into the business and simply paying himself a small salary. You aren't going to get very much in this at all. In fact, when he paid off your credit cards this morning, the amount that he paid off is greater than what you could expect to get from a settlement. Apparently, you like clothes a lot don't you?"

"What are you trying to say?" I asked.

"If the divorce goes along this way, you'll probably have to pay your husband," he said. "And you're broke. You need to start looking for a job immediately or at least accept this settlement. It'll get you twenty five thousand dollars in cash and you'd get to keep the condo until the end of the lease."

"What about your fees?" I asked.

"At two hundred dollars an hour, you already owe me roughly a thousand dollars," he smirked. "That would leave you twenty four thousand if you sign this now. I'm in no hurry. We can fight this to the end."

"Do I have a good case?" I asked.

"Does he have the photos?" he asked. I nodded and a tear rolled down my cheek.

"If you really did go out and screw some other guy, why are you trying to hold onto this one?" he asked. "Why not let this guy go and go after the other one?"

"Because this one is the one I love," I said. "The other guy is just an asshole and he's famous."

He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a wry smile. "If I sign the papers can I still try to talk to my husband and talk him out of this or try to get back with him?" I asked.

"Of course," he said. "You can try to get him back until your dying day. And stranger things have happened."

I signed the papers.

Over the next few weeks, my life went to hell. I found out that the judge had ruled on our divorce and it would be final in six months. Rob never came back to the condo. He sent one of his assistants over to get the rest of his things. She only took Rob's clothing and personal things. When I asked her about the rest of his stuff, thinking that I could argue over some of his things and Rob would have to come and get them personally, she simply shrugged her shoulder and said he'd buy a new one.

Then things got worse. I started seeing small news items and pictures on TV about Rob and Serena. Serena had been chosen for both the sports illustrated swimsuit edition and the Victoria's secret catalog. In both cases, Rob was taking the photos. They were also seen together too many times for it to be a coincidence. I'd known all along that she wanted my husband and she was going to end up with him.

At the same time, Rob's business was doing really well. He'd had to turn down the chance to shoot the cover of the new Jason Hamsker CD. Jason was supposed to shoot the cover very shortly and Rob's company simply didn't have room on their schedule. Jason had thrown a fit and refused to work with anyone else, but Rob had held firm. Everyone was puzzled about why Rob was turning down work when he could easily have sent one of his staffers to set everything up and then just zoomed in to take the picture. But I knew. I knew that Rob and Jason also knew but none of us was saying anything.

A couple of weeks later, I found out that I was pregnant. I demanded a meeting with Rob. I had my lawyer contact a judge and got the divorce put on hold until after the baby was born. The meeting was not what I expected. There were five of us there. I'd envisioned it being Rob and his lawyer and me and my lawyer. I thought that we'd send the lawyers out of the room and the two of us would just talk. I could tell Rob how sorry I was about what had happened but that I had never stopped loving him and that we'd talk about us getting together again for the good of our child.

It didn't go that way at all. My lawyer started out by pointing out that Rob would have to pay me child support in addition to what had already been agreed upon. And that the child support shouldn't be based on the salary that Rob paid himself, it should be based on what Rob could afford to pay.

Rob asked then how we even knew the baby was his and Serena quietly said that if the baby was Rob's they wanted it. That shocked the hell out of me because it left no doubt that the two of them were an item and in her mind my baby wouldn't change that.

My lawyer reminded them of the fact that in our state, any children were legally recognized as the fruit of the marriage whether they were the husband's biological children or not. Rob's lawyer countered saying that once the baby was born a DNA could prove that the baby wasn't Rob's and the divorce could then proceed as written.

I would then have to arrange child support from the biological father and Rob would be out of it. My lawyer came back by talking about the new DNA tests that could be performed without danger to the child before birth. If we could prove that the child was Rob's before it was born, then Rob would also have to support me during the pregnancy.

I contacted my obstetrician and arranged for the test and we all waited for the answer. She told me that we needed to wait for at least another month to do the test. I contacted Rob's attorney and we all sat back to wait. During that time, my lawyer insisted that we also contact any other possible fathers.

I had no idea how to get in touch with Jason. Serena actually helped me with that. She gave me the number of his management company. They were less than thrilled to hear from me. Serena had also given me Jason's private number. She had never used it and she wasn't sure that it still worked but I tried it.

As soon as Jason picked up the phone I knew it was him.

"Yeah, who diss is?" he asked.

"Jason, this is Connie," I said. "Do you remember me?"

He didn't have any idea of who I was. I filled him in and he got angry at me. He blamed me for his problems with Rob. He told me it was my fault that the cover of his new CD sucked. Then I told him I was pregnant. He was actually happy.

"Now if you and Rob get back together maybe he can shoot my fucking cover," he said.

"Jason, I'm calling because it might not be Rob's baby," I said. "I really hope it is but..."

"Damn gurl, you should'a used a rubber," he said.

"Jason, you don't understand," I said. "It might be your..." all I heard was a dial tone.

I tried calling the number back at least ten times that day. By the eighth call I was told that the number had been changed.

I went back to calling his management and was never put through. The next few weeks were uneventful. I did burn through a lot of the money I'd gotten from Rob while I tried to get the condo ready for the baby. Finally, the day for the test came and surprisingly Rob showed up at my doctor's office to be with me for the test.

We got a chance to talk while I waited for the doctor. I was nervous as hell. Rob came over and held my hand. "I always wanted us to have kids," he said.

"Rob, this isn't the way this was supposed to work," I said. "You and I should still be married."

"We just have to make the best of what we have," he said.

"Rob, it was a mistake. Jason Hamsker is an asshole," I said.

"I know," he said. "That's why I never introduced you to him. I was also a little bit jealous."

"What did you have to be jealous of?" I asked.

"I loved you so much," he said. "And Jason was some kind of fantasy for you. Remember that stupid deal we had?" he laughed.

"Yeah, you broke it," I said with tears rolling down my cheek.

"Connie, that was never serious," he said. "When we got married we vowed never to cheat on each other. Whether it was with Jason or even Eva Mendes, it was only supposed to be the two of us."

"Did you ever do Eva Mendes?" I asked.

"Nope," he smiled. "Why would I? I had you at home."

Hearing him say he'd rather have me than his ultimate fantasy woman, made me feel like shit. The doctor came in then. When I came out about an hour later, he waited with me while the doctor wrote my prescription for the minor pain I'd have over the next few days.

"Connie, if it does turn out to be OUR baby, we'll be talking and we'll have to make some arrangements," he said. "I'll want to be a very involved dad. If it turns out that Jason is the lucky one, then I hope you have a very happy life."

My heart broke at that moment because I knew that if the baby was Jason's, I'd never see my husband again. I also knew that Jason would never be a good father and I'd have all kinds of hell even getting through his maze of sycophants to arrange for him to pay his child support. The doctor had said that it would take three days for the results to come back.

The first of those three days I was on pins and needles. I had all kinds of day dreams and nightmares. I dreamed that the baby was Rob's and the two of us got back together and we lived happily ever after. I also dreamed that the baby was Rob's and Serena paid a hit squad a million dollars to take me out. I woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming that a Russian guy was just about to put the blade of an ax between my eyes.

On the morning of the third day, I awoke to find my phone ringing. It was Jessica. "I just called to give you the news," she said.

"Jess, I'll call you right back," I said. "I need to call the doctor and get my results. "

"But Connie, you have to hear this," she gushed as I hung up. Sometimes Jessica really did get on my nerves. I wondered what she thought could be as important as getting the results of my baby's DNA test?

After an interminable wait, I finally got the doctor on the phone. "We ran the tests several times," she said. "And there is no doubt. I hope that you can be happy."

My heart leaped and I started to smile. I knew that Rob wouldn't let Serena have the mother of his child even scratched let alone killed. And I was sure that like he'd said, Rob would want to be an involved father. That alone meant I could leverage Serena out of the picture.

"The man who came into the office with you..." the doctor continued. "...Cannot possibly be the baby's father." I dropped the phone and started crying. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Finally, after crying for a half hour or so I picked myself up and realized that I'd just have to put my lawyer on the case. Jason was rich. Maybe I didn't love him but he would legally have to take care of me and his child. I hung up the phone and started trying to think about how I'd go about letting him know.

Almost immediately the phone rang again. I picked it up.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" said Jessica. "Have you seen it yet?"

"Seen what?" I asked.

"Turn on the TV," she said.

I waddled over to the TV and switched it on.

There was a huge picture of Jason Hamsker on the screen. "Oh shit," I thought. His new CD is probably being released today. The whole world would go into Hamsker-fever.

"From the world of entertainment, comes, this shocking news," said the announcer. "Pop star/rapper Jason Hamsker, a Canadian citizen with a surprisingly urban style was shot dead last night."

"Hamsker was in the projects on the east side of Detroit, shooting one of his gangster rap styled videos when he wandered off the set while on a break."

"He decided to hold a conversation with a few of the locals, who reacted badly to his manner of dress and the way he spoke. Hamsker's body guards were beaten severely as well."

I was shocked. I switched to a different channel.

"The world mourns the loss of Jason Hamsker," said the announcer. Finally, on another channel I got a different slant.

"...The suspect who faces life in prison gave an interview as the police took him in," said the announcer.

The scene showed a black guy with long dreadlocks being escorted away in handcuffs by the police. A reporter stuck a microphone in his face and started asking him questions.

"Remorse? Hell no, I don't feel any remorse. How the hell was I supposed to know who he was? He came down here with two big assed body guards walking around like he was Queen Elizabeth."