Unaticipated - Alternate Version

Bob might have overstepped, but he let me watch the video at the station. Of course I had my own copy by that point that I could watch later. Being early morning hours on a Sunday, he had enough evidence to keep Stacie, Goliath and all five goons in jail until arraignment on Monday. I kept the SD card I had taken hidden.

Bob told Hal and I to 'stick around'. I told him I'd be as far away as my cell phone, then promptly ignored his orders and left town.

Sunday morning, I paid for two fairly inexpensive round-trip flights to Las Vegas. Hal and I hit several betting venues in sin city. We collected all of the failed discarded sports betting receipts that we could find on the floor and in trash cans. I was amazed how many games were held every Sunday. Even though I wouldn't need it all, we didn't stop until we had close to forty thousand dollars' worth.

Once Stacy realized that I was really divorcing her, I felt certain that she would come after the money, at least on a 50/50 shared basis. I wasn't going to give the bitch a penny if I could help it. I wanted to claim I'd lost most of it.

Hal and I had a wild time. We took a taxi to no less than four strip clubs the first night and posed for photos with the club in the background. We concocted a story of how we each took a few thousand and spread it around the hard working girls. We'd say we wanted to give it to honest whores, not a cheating slut like Stacy.

Fishing a couple liquor bottles out of the trash, we half filled them with soda and water and posed for pictures of our drunken fun time, leering at the camera waving our bottles in some photos, and what looked like mixed drinks in others. According to our photos we had a wild time in Vegas.

We even gave a little money to a group collecting for a children's cancer hospital. We arrived home wearing the sweatshirts you got for donating over a hundred dollars. Of course we claimed we gave them a thousand apiece.

Monday my cell phone erupted with what seemed like dozens of calls. None of the numbers looked familiar so I ignored them. I suspected one or two might belong to Stacy's parents if she called them for help.

One text said, "I told you to stay close, now answer your phone or call me back! I'm gonna kick both your asses. Bob." We called him back. He'd used his wife's phone so there was not an official record of his call.

We told him we were blowing off steam and he told us to get our asses home. Bob chewed us out officially upon our return Monday evening as he escorted us into the district attorney's office. We claimed nobody told us we had to stay in town, just close and we interrupted that to mean the continental US as our last foray away from home was to Asia. After all, we were not under arrest and said we could be reached by phone. Neither Bob nor the district attorney were happy with our explanation.

The DA wanted to review my version of events so once again I told the story. Of course my version fitted exactly with what the audio recording said. I'd listened to the whole recording on the way back from Vegas. I was more determined than ever that no matter what criminal charges might be levied, Stacy was history.

I visited the first attorney who could see me on short notice. My Dad had told me who to call after he chewed my ass for running to Vegas. Bob had called him a few times looking for me. I planned to divorce Stacy and wanted her served as soon as possible. Mr. Price advised that the simple divorce I wanted would cost in the neighborhood of $2,000.00 But divorce was the least of my worries at this point.

Of course, I openly discussed the whole sordid event and confessed I went 'a little nuts' and spent, gambled, or gave away virtually all the money I'd won in the arm wrestling competition. He laughed and told me due to the nature of the events, I might not have to share that money with Stacy anyway, but since I did not have it, it was not a problem.

Price shook his head. "Son, you've read too many stories. You spent way too much effort too soon. Divorce is not the issue here nor is hiding the money. When your house is on fire, you don't call the guy who does remodeling. You put the fire out first. Then you worry about insurance and way down the road, fixing the damage."

"You have your wife and six guys on charges of multiple felonies including assault, wrongful imprisonment, conspiracy plus whatever else the DA throws at them. The men are also charged with attempted human trafficking. White slavery is a major offense. Your divorce is not worth more concern than a pimple on your ass right now. Give it a couple days and we will handle it all. I'll walk you through it."

Tuesday morning, I went apartment hunting. I located a decent affordable unit near my place of employment. I did not even have to put down a deposit on the apartment. My parents would have gladly taken me in but I'm too independent to return home now and I sure could not stay in the same house as Stacy. By that point, everybody in our little town knew parts of what had happened. Rumors abounded. Normally rumors are worse than the truth but this time they were far more tame.

According to rumors, Stacy had an affair with her boss who came to my house to threaten to kick my ass. I held a gun on him long enough to call the police. Once released from jail, Stacy refused to move back in with her parents so I moved out to avoid confrontation with her new boyfriend.

I thought it best, I not clarify what really happened...Yet. Following the advice of my lawyer, I held off releasing my audio recordings. Not even the seven charged knew all the evidence against them.

Wednesday morning, I began to receive a new set of phone calls from unknown numbers. Once again I ignored them after finding the first three were from curious friends trying to 'get the skinny' on what happened. The fourth was from a Gloria Jenkins.

A text from the same number read: "Mr Bostic. I am Gloria Jenkins, wife of Gerald Jenkins. Will you please call me and tell me what is going on."

I found it very curious Goliath's wife had no idea what had happened. She answered on the first ring. "Mr. Bostic! Thank you for returning my call. All Gerald will say is that this is all a big misunderstanding. You are making allegations but there is no proof of any wrongdoing. That alone tells me there is indeed something to it. Can we meet in person?"

I'd taken the week off from work so I drove over to Kensington to meet her. I took Hal's handy dandy recording pen along just in case.

I was amazed at the woman waiting for me who identified herself as Gloria as soon as I walked in the door of the cafe. She was beautiful and did not need the light makeup she wore to stand out in a crowd. She smiled brightly as she shook my hand.

Gloria was a slim blonde who appeared in her late twenties. Later I'd find she was indeed a few years older than me at twenty eight.

After only a few seconds of conversation her initial easy going public demeanor could not quite hide her anxiety. But I told myself to be careful. I had yet to tell if she was a victim or one of the enemy. She was after all married to Goliath and might support him no matter what.

I asked her what she wanted to know. She told me the unvarnished truth. All she'd been able to gather was her husband and five of his friends had been arrested after an altercation at my home where I held the men at gunpoint. I alleged they had done something with my wife but Gerry claimed it was totally unfounded.

"I'm being fed a line of bullshit, Mr Bostic and I don't like it. I've talked with the other wives and they are being kept in the dark as well. We'd like to know what is going on. Gerry is, well, Gerry and that is a problem I'll have to deal with on my own. Will you please enlighten me?"

I knew this woman could easily charm me into whatever she wanted. She just had that way about her. "Sure. I was going to make sure you and the five goons' wives and girl friends were fully informed, anyway." Goons? "Yeah, Goliath's five muscle bound friends who did their best to try to intimidate me until I pulled a pistol on them."

"I'll tell you what. Why don't you call me Army. It's my nickname." I offered. "Also let's just invite those three women over to join us and they can listen to what I have to say firsthand. Then they can ask questions as well and not rely on the audio recording." Gloria asked how I knew who the women were and she was recording the conversation.

Three well dressed women in their mid- to late twenties sat in a booth across the cafe. They did not seem to be actively engaged in conversation with each other and occasionally one or the other would venture a glance in our direction.

"They have been watching us since I walked in while trying very hard to not appear to be doing so. And you put your little purse on top of the table and moved it a bit. Normally, a woman would put it down by her side.' I said. She looked surprised as I waved to the three woman sitting on the other side of the cafe and beckoned them over.

"You are very observant, Mr. uhh, Army." Gloria said as the three women approached sheepishly. "He figured out who you were. He was going to tell us everything anyway."

After introductions one of the women asked tentatively if it was as bad as they imagined. "Maybe not for you. For me, it is the end of my marriage. In a nutshell, Goliath, Gerry has been trying to seduce my wife for some time now. He succeeded to do everything but actual intercourse. He and his five buddies all got oral sex from my wife Saturday and planned to complete the plan with a gangbang and then blackmailing her into being available to them from now on." I watched their facial expressions change from disbelief to anger and back to incredulity. Muttered curses abounded.

"No damn wonder the cops kept them so long. They got out this morning and all of them have been 'meeting' with their lawyer." Gloria said. "I take it you have proof even though from the limited messages we have received the boys say you do not."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a flash drive. "I have a few hours of audio recording. It is pretty incriminating. There is a couple hours of junk in the middle. Let me give you a brief version and then you can listen to the recording."

When I was finished. "Damn, I cannot believe how stupid your wife is! A blowjob is not sex and is not cheating? Indeed! And to make a video playing with herself knowing it was going to be sent to strangers?" one of the women said. She'd given her name but it had not registered. "And to think it is okay to cheat and rub your nose in it as long as you are fed drugs and don't remember it afterwards." I nodded as did the other three women. I thought it curious they did not seem surprised by their husbands' actions.

"I'm not." said the woman. "My husband is an egotistical self-centered jerk. My Mom told me he was going to pull some shit like this. She said he'd eventually cheat. When we heard something had happened involving an irate husband with a gun we all suspected it was something like this. Well, not like this. This is beyond anything we'd imagined."

Gloria asked if we could all go to her office where we could listen to the recording. She explained she was in the investments business and her office was nearby. They listened to the recording, fast forwarding through most of the arm wrestling competition. At the end they were all almost as angry as me.

"Teach me how to give a blowjob, my ass!" one seethed. "That bastard puts his cock near my mouth again and I'll bite it off!" Then she grinned and laughed. "Hey, I could use that tape in my defense if I do. He says I don't know what I'm doing, so he knew the risk." The others laughed.

All four of the women made short phone calls. None of the calls lasted more than a minute. "Let me give you some background." Gloria said. "Gerry and the other five have been buddies from high school through college. Their lives centered around bodybuilding. In college they were like frat boys, well, attitude wise. They chased girls but they were so driven with bodybuilding, they did not party much. Well, they did not drink much nor do drugs. Yeah, they were good looking stuckup guys but they were disciplined and charming. They bedded as many girls as they could. I know, we are just as stupid but we figured the chasing ended with us."

"We girls met and socialized because of them. The guys were tight. To be honest, they are closer to each other than to us wives. That is one of the biggest reasons none of us have kids. We are all financially successful, but our marriages, not so much. We girls just lucked out we get along so well. We are satellites around our husbands' bro-mance."

"I gotta know, Army." Gloria said quietly when the others said their goodbyes and left promising to talk later. "I know you are an ex-Marine. Gerry called you a dumb jarhead, but you obviously are anything but dumb. You don't have much education, but you talk well. You have the brain power to immediately suss out their plan and then counter it. Yet you work as a laborer at a very low income job. Why work so far below your potential?"

I shrugged. I tried to explain how after I returned home from serving in the military I wanted to be close to my parents. She asked if they were invalids or had some physical or emotional reason they needed constant help. I shook my head.

Actually, both my parents chewed my ass for my decision to stay in the little town. They pointed out they did not need me living right there almost in their back yard. I could live anywhere within a hundred miles and consider it close. But I'd just got complacent. It was home and I was reluctant to leave it again.

Hal was in the same boat. His brother was a senior police officer, yet Hal worked at a low income, low stress job.

"You heard me say there was little to do when I was overseas." I said. "We did not just arm wrestle all the time. I read a lot. Everything I could get my hands on. I particularly liked mystery stories and tried to look for plot holes in the story, second guess the characters. I guess it kept my brain from vegetating." Gloria laughed.

I liked that laugh. I liked it a little too much and immediately felt guilty. My marriage was over, but I was still married. So was this charming woman with me. My face got hot and I quickly made an excuse to leave. I told Gloria she could call me any time. I was not about to admit, just how much I looked forward to it.

Stacy chased me down quickly. After the first two dozen phone calls, texts and voicemails pleading to talk to me and 'clear up our misunderstanding so we can save our marriage' I relented.

"Alright, Stacy, what makes you think there is a misunderstanding and there is a chance in Hell of saving our marriage?" I asked when I saw her. She gave me a 'deer in the headlight' look. "You made it clear several times Saturday night you did not think your actions a problem. According to you, flirting, making out, and letting another man touch you intimately while you fondled him was not a problem. Even giving the man and five of his friends blowjobs was not cheating. You were happy to go further as long as I was unaware."

Stacy began to babble repeating she did not mean to hurt me. She just got caught up in the excitement when a hot man like Goliath showed an interest. "So when the next hot man comes along you might get caught up again, huh?" I asked sarcastically.

"And you were perfectly happy to rub my nose in it as you screwed the guy right in front of me, knowing how much it would hurt me. Ridicule me, CUCKOLD me to my face. Laugh and tell your new lover how you wanted him to show me who the better man is. Then wipe my memory and everything would be fine. No harm no foul, right?" I was surprised I did not raise my voice. I did not feel anger. What I felt was indignation.

Stacy ran through her list of arguments and finally admitted she had been wrong. "But I want YOU, Army. I want to have your babies. It was just some fun and I'll admit I took a terrible risk. I thought that if you did not know it would be fine. And I thought you'd never know. Well, yeah you'd know that night but you'd lose all memory of it so it would be like it never happened."

"Except you would know. You'd remember and always have it in the back of your mind. In the future, we'd have a disagreement and you'd think 'Ha! I got over on you that one time, asshole." I gritted. Stacy looked shocked.

"But what about counseling? I talked to a couple girl friends and they suggested that." Stacy asked. I asked her if she wanted her own copy of what she and the others said Saturday night. I suggested if she really thought what she said was acceptable after she listened to that tape I'd talk with her again.

I was not about to agree to seriously consider counseling because there was no amount of counseling that could fix us. No amount of forgiveness. I just did not have it in me. But if she really thought her actions were not that bad, I did want to hear her try to justify it to third party. I'd like to see what that counselor would have to say.

The following Saturday Gloria asked me to a dinner party at her house. She and the other three wives plus the girlfriends of the two single guys wanted to meet.

I wanted to see Gloria but I was not completely trusting. I feared Gerry might show up with one or more of his goon squad. I packed a small pistol in my belt under my shirt. "I'm thrilled to see you tonight, Army. I was hoping you'd trust me enough to come." she said warmly. "If the situation was reversed I'm not sure I'd have the courage. I'd suspect an ambush." Then she grinned. "You are smart enough to not be blindly trusting, aren't you? I'm guessing if I frisk you, I'd find you are carrying." My blush exposed me. She grinned. "Smart, but I assure you that you have nothing to worry about."

The women talked about their husbands' feeble attempts at excuses. "None of them seem that upset about divorcing. Either they really are thinking of it as breaking up with another woman or they are exceptional actors. They seem mostly worried about the financial costs and we made it clear it will cost them dearly. We are going to go for half of whatever they have now and we are not going to pay a cent towards their criminal defense."

"My husband tried to downplay the charges against him as no big deal. I began quoting parts of the conversations you recorded and he about peed his pants." one said. " He did not know you had recorded most of the evening. I didn't think it a problem as his lawyer would get all the evidence sooner or later. You aren't upset I told them you recorded them, are you?" I shook my head and told them that was perfect. My main goal was to burn them and expose them to their wives no matter what the authorities did to them.

"Gerry's reaction was a simple, 'Fucking jarhead! Why the Hell did he think to have a recording device in the first goddamned place?" Gloria reported to giggles from the others.

"Well, it saved me a bad marriage. No way could I marry Andy knowing what a scumbag he is. I need to look inside the next man, not just at his body," one very cute little woman said. The other women cheered and held their glasses high in agreement. I glanced over at Gloria who seemed to be studying me.

"Did you talk to your wife, or I assume soon to be ex-wife, Army? " asked one of the women. I admitted I had as I was curious what kind of bullshit explanation she might give me. "Well, let's hear what she said. I know you recorded it. Hell, every one of us took a page out of your book and recorded what our cheating ass husbands had to offer as an explanation. We compared notes. The boys are circling the wagons but they don't stand a chance. What the law doesn't do to them, we will. My dear asswipe husband might lose his veterinary license. He has a hearing this week for misuse of anesthetic drugs."