Seven Dates: A Different Kind of Hotwife (7 page)

“Did you bring the $500,000 in cash? You know I can’t accept a check.”

I laughed. “No. No cash. Twenty-eighty split. Three years hold back on my bonuses.”

“Kellen,” he said, “even you can’t be dumb enough to think you can make this work on twenty.”

“Oh, the twenty is for you. I get the eighty.”

He laughed. “And I’m supposed to sign that in return for, in all likelihood, bonuses you’ll never earn?”

“No, you’re going to sign it in return for me not telling everyone in the world that you fucked my wife.”

He hesitated, thinking through the options. “I don’t know what she told you --“

Ah, denial. “I could drag this out, but I won’t. I filmed it. Just now. Downstairs. Want to watch? It won’t take long.”

He blushed a little, but then went back on the offense. “You want to tell people your wife is a whore? That you’re a cuckold?”

I shrugged. “Marriages go through rough spots. But you…. How will that go over with your boy out there, family values Bryce? And what about your wife? I doubt somehow you two have an open relationship. Not to mention that I suspect the senior partners will take a dim view of you fucking your subordinate’s wife.”

“You’re bluffing.”

I laughed. “Dude. I watched you fuck my wife and did nothing about it. You sure you want to assume I won’t go through with this?”

He was still on the fence.

“Anyway,” I continued, “you know this is a dog, right? I mean, the assignment is worth nothing. You’re offloading the risk and still getting twenty percent of the profits.”

“Fifty,” he shot back.

“No, that ship sailed when you put your dick in my wife. Twenty. Sign and let me get the fuck out of here.”

He chuckled. “Fine,” he said with a snarl. “Even if you can unfuck this deal, you still can’t unfuck your wife.”

I shrugged and handed him the papers. He signed and thrust them back at me. “Get out of my face, Kellen.”

I saluted. “Yes, boss.”

I left his den and returned to the living room. Joanie was standing alone near the piano, looking around for me. She smirked when she saw me, but quickly composed her features into more of a frown.

Oh my God Kellen, I’m so sorry, but something happened… with Donald… and I’m just feeling so guilty.

I didn’t let her get started.

“Come on Joanie. Let’s get out of here. Do you mind driving home alone? I need to go back to the office.”

She seemed surprised. “Um, okay, but, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Later, okay?”

“I really –“

I handed her the car keys. “You can stay at this party now that I think about it, if you’d rather. Or maybe there’s still time for a date. I’m sure Cody is just sitting around drinking beer. Or maybe John...”

She shook her head. “Fuck you Kellen.”

I kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”

I called up Charlie Staunch at Blaine Capital. Charlie and I had done a bunch of deals over the years, and I knew he was hungry. Even on a Friday night, he’d be willing to talk about a short-term line of credit.

I explained the deal quickly.

“How much,” he asked.

“A million five. Will need to commit the million up front, but the rest is just insurance.”

“And this is a Marston deal?”

“Well, no. I wouldn’t need a new line to come up with that kind of money if the firm was on-board. I bought out the option on my own.”

With my wife’s pussy.

“So they think it’s a dog.”

“Donald isn’t convinced,” I admitted. “But it’s too small to really make sense with all the overhead with have anyway. Good news for you. Gives you a chance to be on the ground floor of KelCo.”

“Your LLC?”

“Yup. For now. Though who knows? Maybe we’ll be a big player next year.

He laughed. “Gotta start somewhere?”

“Yup, even J.P. Morgan was once, you know, just this guy, J.P.”

“Okay, so counter-parties and competitors?”

I liked that he was still asking questions. It meant he was interested.

“XCOSA is the counter-party. Heard of them? Manufacturers down in Mexico. No real competitors.”

“Really Kellen?”

“TKD has a piece of it. But they’re like Marston. Too big to chase after scraps like this.”

“Who?”

“Alden.”

He let out a low whistle. “Tanner is a dick. He’ll get involved just to spite you.”

“He’s letting me have it,” I lied.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We have an, um, understanding.”

“And he’ll confirm that to me if I ask?”

“You know he can’t.”
Fiduciary duty and collusion.
“You’re going to need to trust me.”

Charlie thought about it.

“I don’t know man. And you want this fast? Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling at eight on a Friday.”

“Yup. Need to have the financing locked down by Monday morning.”

He whistled again.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t trust Alden.”

Fuck. Alden was definitely the fly in the ointment. And Charlie was right. I was moving so fast precisely because I wanted to pre-empt TKD not because they were out.

“How about this?” I began, thinking it through. “Does Tanner ever ask about your wife and kids?”

Charlie laughed. “No. And if he did, I’d look into moving.”

“Okay, so how about this. Even though Alden can’t confirm or deny anything, if I got him to send you a personal email like that would it let you know he and I are on the same page?”

He paused. “Okay, but I can’t give you sweetheart terms. I can move the loan by Monday, but you’re going to have to accept over-the-transom rates. And, um, Kellen? I’m going to need you to put up your house as collateral.”

I laughed. “Sure. You know it won’t cover it. But happy to do it to show good faith.”

“Kellen, hungry is good. Reckless isn’t.”

“Charlie, I feel this one in my bones. I got it.”

“Okay. But you owe me. And I will need that email from Alden. From his work account, okay?”

“Will do. And thanks.”

***

I sat at my desk. Charlie had emailed me a bunch of documents, and I knew I’d be spending much of the night doing paperwork. It was mindless work, and it gave me time to think, which was good because I needed to think. There were still so many moving parts in all of this. I had gotten the options assigned to me, and had secured funding… sort of. I still needed to get an email sent from Alden’s account. I sort of figured that with all the paperwork done, Charlie might let me slide on that if push came to shove. But better safe than sorry. It would suck for a little email to be the undoing of my plans.

As I saw it, I could talk Alden into it, I could hack his account, or I could break into his office and send the email from his desktop. None of those seemed like viable options. He wouldn’t send the email on his own. I didn’t know shit about hacking his corporate email. And if his office was anything like mine, there was no way I’d be able to sneak in. I could, in theory, finagle an invitation to his office… but then, I’d need to get him out of the way. And anyway, I need to do this in the next twenty-four hours, which meant getting into his office on a weekend. Impossible.

And then it occurred to me. His phone. It was surely linked to his work email. I tried to remember what he used, and whether I had any clue about his password. Tanner was lazy and arrogant. I suspected his approach to password security was lax. I could sort of picture him, slouching at a conference table, checking his phone one-handed, using just his right thumb to enter the code to unlock it?

That was a long shot, but also my best bet. But how to get his phone? I needed him drunk, ideally, and in a situation where he wouldn’t notice me rummaging in his pocket.… Or someone rummaging in his pocket.

Sparkles. Get him to Sparkles. Pay a stripper to give him a lap dance and steal his phone. Hack it while he has a pair of titties in his face.

It was worth a try. And anyway, I needed to get a sense from him about whether he’d figured out Marseilles was a red herring.

I made a note to call Alden first thing in the morning. The idea of spending a sunny Saturday afternoon in a strip club would surely appeal to his dissolute nature.

And I needed to call Alejandro Espinosa down at XCOSA. I had a good relationship with him. When we first met, he said I could call him
Al
if I preferred. I’d had the good sense not to do so. Alejandro Espinosa always struck me as a consummate gentleman. They were something old world of him, but in some ways I knew that was an act. He was just as ruthless a businessman as anyone I’d ever met. He wouldn’t have been as successful as he was otherwise. There was a veneer about him that put you on your best behavior. And yet, that wasn’t the whole story. How could it be?

I sighed. It occurred to me that I was so frantic about this stupid deal because it gave me something to think about other than Joanie.

I pulled out my phone and watched the video of her and Donald. God, she was a sexy woman. A classically beautiful face, and that body.... Seeing her getting fucked on top of a pool table by Donald’s big cock was a reminder she was sometimes almost pornographic in appearance. And now, in behavior as well.

I didn’t know what to think of that. It was, I had to admit, what I’d been dreaming of for years. Well, except that I’d fantasized about her really letting loose sexually with
me
, not with every man
except
me.

The other men didn’t actually bother me that much. I’ve never been too hung up on the idea of my woman having another man’s dick inside her. I mean, big deal. You take a shower, and everything is good as new. I’ve never understood men who see sexually adventurous women as used up somehow. It is a sick, misogynist perspective.

What did sadden me was that she was doing it all to spite me, not in a genuine spirit of exploration. That said, I sort of wondered if she wasn’t getting into it despite herself. Her commitment to the goal of punishing me was a little awe-inspiring. I think even the most angry of women would have gotten it out of their system after the first “date.”

You are such an asshole that I blew the neighbor.

That she was continuing with her project seemed to suggest there was more going on than malice. Even if she wasn’t willing to admit it, even to herself, she must have, at least in part, started to get off on exploring her slutty side. Had to, right?

Somehow, I would need to reconcile with my wife in a way that supported and encouraged this new side of her. Frankly, I wanted that because, well, I wanted it for myself. But also, I was hoping that she’d want it too.

I looked at the time on my computer. 1:15am. I needed to go home. I could finish off the paperwork there, and hopefully, if Joanie was still up we could begin to work on that reconciliation. The problem was, I didn’t have a plan for that. I had no idea what words or deeds could even begin to fix things.

***

The cab pulled up to the darkened house. It occurred to me for the first time that Joanie might not be there. I had basically taunted her to go out and get herself fucked again. It would serve me right for her to call me from Cody’s.

Ugh, Kellen, ugh, Cody is fucking me right now.

I shook my head. Did I actually want that? No. Well maybe, a little. Stress was making me loopy.

I kicked off my shoes and tossed my jacket over the back of a dining room chair. A whiff of acrid sweat washed over me. Ugh. I needed a shower.

I started slowly up the stairs. The lights came on in the bedroom. I breathed a sigh of relief, immediately followed by a groan as I realized a confrontation was coming.

I stepped into the room. Joanie was sitting up on the bed. She’d wanted to talk earlier in the evening, but now she just glared at me with cold eyes.

I sat down beside her, and put my hand on her thigh. She slapped it away.

“I fucked Donald tonight.”

“I know.”

“He told you?”

“I saw it.”

Her eyes went wide with shock. “What?”

“In the pub. On the pool table. I even filmed it.”

“You’re sick,” she hissed.

“It was sort of hot,” I admitted.

She shook her head. “So that’s it, huh? Just didn’t work out between us.”

“That’s not how I feel.”

She laughed darkly. “I’m not sure you feel anything.”

“What am I supposed to do? Scream? Throw things?”

“That would be a start,” she admitted.

“It would be an act. It’s not that I’m not jealous. I am. But I can’t help but think that I sort of deserve it.”

She snorted. “That’s for sure.”

“Okay, and then the question is whether you’ve been doing all of this
just
to spite me.”

“What’s that mean? That I’m just using the fact that you’re an asshole to do things I really want?”

I nodded. “Something like that.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, Joanie. Yes, actually I would.”

“You like me fucking other men?”

“I like you embracing your sexuality. And if you need to be angry at me to justify it to yourself, I’m willing to be the bad guy. Except, at some point, spite can’t be the whole story.”

We both sat silent for a few moments.

“Look,” I continued, “what were you expecting to come out of this? That’s what I don’t quite understand.”

“It was supposed to, I don’t know, slap you across the face. Remind you I exist.”

“But Joan… I mean, you had to know it wouldn’t work out like that.
I blew our neighbor
. Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I mean, what? How does that work?”

“Maybe I didn’t care anymore. Maybe I’m just sick of you always being at work, of you sneering at my career, of all the shit.”

I paused. “No. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Because if you didn’t care, you’d have just drifted away.”

“Then I don’t know.”

“Joanie, let’s get some sleep. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow. But here’s the thing. I sort of like this new Joanie. Impulsive, a little crazy, passionate –“

“A slut.”

“Sure. Why not? What the fuck is really wrong with that?”

“You wish you’d stayed with Stacy.”

I hesitated. Did I? “No. But not because she was passionate and slutty, but because she was selfish and irresponsible. I’ve accepted the dichotomy without thinking. That it had to be either or. Passionate or sane. But I don’t think that’s true anymore. That hot/crazy matrix is horseshit. I like the new Joanie. Do you like her?”

She shook her head. “It’s an act.”

“Yeah? Well then you’re the most method bitch in the world. Fuck Stella Adler.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Sure you do. If all of this was to spite me, if you hated every moment of it, then we’re through, because it means you’re willing to do things you detest just because you hate me. But… if getting back at me was an excuse. A chance to do things you might have wanted to do anyway but couldn’t figure out how to let yourself do it…. If this was a way to explore a new side… then we can work it out. Somehow.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Kel, I really don’t.”

“And that’s okay. All I can say is, I’m sorry. And I understand your anger. And I still love you. So the rest, honey is up to you.”

“Kellen… I sucked off our neighbor. I fucked your half-brother. I let my yoga instructor fuck me in the ass. I screwed your boss…. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I laughed. “Fuck do I know? I just hope you enjoyed it. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah, Kellen. Yeah, it is fucking weird.”

I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Life is weird sometimes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I grabbed my PJs and after a quick shower, went back down to the living room sofa. Hard to explain why, given how we’d left things, but I felt that somehow, weirdly, I was getting a handle on the
Joanie Situation.