The Best Revenge is a Life Lived Well Coyright by Joesephus ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Synopsis: Sometimes size matters, and sometimes looks can be deceiving. Sometimes you don't know what you betting until you've lost it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As this story has gone through revisions, I've had abundant help. I'd like to thank Angle Love, Clayton, Mark and Erik Thread for all their help and their patience. This story was written with MS Word. I used things like bold and italics to make dialogue more understandable. Those were lost when I converted this to TXT format. If you wish to read the version with the formats You can find them posted on other sites. I would suggest you search for the title and Joesephus. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not stupid, just dense. Actually, I'm a certified Genius, at least by MENSA standards. I don't belong, but I passed their test once on a dare from my wife, my wonderful wife. Therein lies the story. I met her while I was at UT. I was in the honors course at the McCombs School of Business and I was also in Plan II. Everyone knows about McCombs, it's always in the top ten business schools in the country. Plan II is less well known and much harder to get into. They only accept about 100 or so each year. It's a liberal arts program started in the 1930s. Basically, you take special editions of the courses that the university requires all students to take. Those required courses are your major. They are all taught by University scholars and the classes are tiny. My Freshman English Class had 9 students and was counted toward my major. My American History had 15 and also was counted toward my major. It means, with your major satisfied in your first two years, the last two years you can take anything you want, but most of us choose to have a double major. Mine was in the business school. Plan II bills itself as Ivy League quality and it is. It is also full of pretentious intellectuals. Plan II is where I met Cathy. It was love at first sight... on her part. It took me a bit longer to notice her. Not that she wasn't good looking; she was a knockout by any standards, and by Plan II standards she was Miss Universe. Her problem was that I hated all the Plan II bullshit. I loved my courses, and I loved the professors, but I've found that most intellectuals are so smart they're stupid. It wasn't much better in McComb's. Not only was everyone trying to impress everyone else with how smart they were, but everyone constantly boasting about what wonderful jobs they were going to get or how fast they'd earn their second million. All those preening peacocks' egos left little room for my own modest ego. Of course I had to attend the little faculty teas and luncheons because that was where you got to know the professors and where they got to know you. The latter was crucial if you wanted the oh-so-important letters of recommendation. Cathy wasn't in McCombs but she started showing up at those meetings in addition to the Plan II meetings. I only know this because she told me later. It wasn't until she showed up at my rugby match that I noticed her. Rugby isn't a UT sport, but the Department of Recreation sponsors the club team and we get not only to play the other Big XII teams, but to compete for a national title with universities across the country. We have a blast, but a big crowd consists of all our girlfriends showing up. Cathy had been chasing me for almost a full year when I finally fell in love-at-first-sight with her. She had the most beautiful shade of red hair and the whitest skin to set it off. Her figure was such a knockout that I blew a scrum when I noticed her for the first time, a cardinal sin for a hooker. After the game, which we lost to Rice, I walked over to meet her. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done. Cathy is every inch of 5'11" and I'm 5'3" in thick shoes. I'm a hooker because I'm compact. And yes I've heard all the 'short' jokes and all the jokes about 'rugby hookers' and 'street hookers'--I don't think they're funny! I'm compact but also one of the fastest and strongest guys on the team, and not just pound for pound. I have been accused of having a Napoleon complex because of my height. I don't think that's true. I just decided in first grade that if anyone confused compact with inadequate, they'd pay for their ignorance. I was always a great athlete, as great as a 5'3" 120 pound guy could be. Which meant I always made the varsity, but I was never a starter. An athletic scholarship was never a even daydream. Somehow Cathy always made me feel like I was taller than she was, even when she wore 3" heels. I loved it when she wore heels. It set off her perfect legs, but more important to me, it was proof positive that my height didn't matter. Cathy was my dream girl. I was totally hers from the moment she smiled at me. She came from a poor family in deep east Texas. Her father had been injured in the oil fields and died, drunk, in a one-car accident when Cathy was in second grade. Her mother was an office worker in a small insurance agency and Cathy was on a full academic scholarship, although I'm sure she could have gotten a needs-based scholarship if necessary. We officially met in the fall of my junior year and were married at mid-term of my senior year. The only thing we fought over was sex. I wanted it on our first date and Cathy didn't. I was a virgin and Cathy wasn't. Until Cathy, I'd been every girl's 'pal.' I had dates, but on them I always heard about who they really wanted to date. I know I could have gotten a sympathy fuck, but I wanted a girl who wanted me. Cathy told me that she'd had one boyfriend in high school. She had been certain she would marry him, but she found him cheating on her and she made a solemn vow not to have sex again until she got married. I'm not sure we would have made it if she hadn't defined sex as vaginal intercourse, she gave wicked head. It also made me admire her. She kept her word, her vows meant something. I knew there were time before we married when she wanted me as much as I wanted her, but she never lost her head. It gave me confidence in her and inspired me to do the same. We didn't have our first non-sex fight until after we were married. Then it was a doozy. She had just assumed that I was going to go to work for my parents. I love my folks They own four franchises down in Houston. No, not McDonald's, but you've probably eaten at one, or at least seen the ads on TV. Each location nets between 75-100K per year so my folks are doing pretty well, not Texas rich, but comfortable. My dad wanted to expand, but couldn't without managerial help. The only managerial help he trusted was family. He defined family as me. I'm four years older than my sister and she had made it clear from kindergarten that she was pre-med. He offered us a great incentive plan. I wanted to stay in Austin, but not only so Cathy could finish her degree. I loved the town and I hated Houston. I already had my eye on a small Austin computer company that was just getting started. It wasn't Dell but I thought they had a better business model! When Cathy saw the package they were offering me, she dropped her arguments and right after she graduated we bought our first house. Life was good, but Dell grew and my company didn't, and soon I found myself on the street for the first time. Fortunately I had cashed in my stock options early so I decided it was a great time to pick up my MBA. I chose Wharton and finished in two years. I got a great job working for one of the big banks back in Austin and life was good again. I caught the Austin real estate boom and bust and boom. We had two kids and were living in too much house out on the lake with his and hers Beemers. Then, after ten years of marriage, I decided I didn't care about being a multi-millionaire and I was sick of working for someone else. I told Cathy I wanted to start my own business and I used most of our liquid assets to buy a franchise, the same one that my dad owned. I had never worked in one of my dad places, and running one was more work than I thought. At first we didn't clear what Dad's stores did,?but we weren't missing any meals. What I didn't tell Cathy was that my real desire was to write. The old Plan II bug had finally bitten me and once I had the franchise running smoothly, I began spending most of my time closeted in my office writing. I didn't want Cathy to know about my perversion until I got published and made my delusion pay. All she saw was that we were only making a fraction of what I'd been making, and I wasn't pushing for expansion. We were not keeping up with the Joneses, to say nothing of all the Dellionairs (even assembly workers at Dell were making millions on stock options) who lived around us. Yeah, we lived and partied with a very competitive crowd in laid back Austin. "He who has the most toys wins," was very much the philosophy and the toys cost a bundle. Even before I began writing, I'd decided that I didn't need or want the toys anymore. To be fair to Cathy, the decision wasn't discussed and it wasn't mutual That's when we had our next fight. It went on for almost a year, and life in our house was hell. Then almost overnight the fights stopped. That wasn't all that almost stopped. Sex and affection stopped, too, but I never suspected a thing. I'm not dumb, I knew that money was very important to Cathy, but I thought I could make that as a writer. If I had researched what writers make I might have reconsidered, but that was just one more case of ignorance being bliss. I finished my first book and began shopping for an agent. I finished my second book and agents began to return my emails. I got my third book finished and one morning I received that oh-so-important call from the publisher. She was going to buy all three. What's more she was willing to give me a $30,000.00 advance on each! For an unpublished writer that's a homerun. I had a little micro recorder that I used to practice dialogue aloud before I wrote it for my books. Elated, I got permission to record the publisher's offer so I could impress Cathy. I called Cathy and told her we were going to celebrate. I told her to hire a baby sitter and put on her best; I was taking her to Green Pastures, one of the best restaurants in Austin, for dinner. Her lack of enthusiasm should have set off red lights and warning bells. Hell, her not being ecstatic about going out, in the middle of the week, to the best place in Austin? It should have set off flares and air raid sirens We got to the restaurant, a restored southern mansion, early enough to see the peacocks strolling the grounds and were ushered to a romantic room with an impeccable table. I ordered their milk punch and Cathy ordered a margarita. I could feel her tension building all through dinner. I should have known something was wrong but I was too excited. I had decided to wait until dessert to spring my surprise but then her cell phone rang. "We're at dinner... You're kidding! Here! Now?" "No, not until this weekend..." she stopped in mid-sentence again and then giggled. "No, I told you how I wanted to do it... I can't! Please, Mike, not here. " She sighed, listened for a little bit and then said, "Are you sure?... Just like we practiced?" She listened a bit more and I watched her face harden. I had already taken out the micro recorder to play for her but some instinct made me start recording when she said "Please, Mike, not here." "Okay, but you'd better be here, this is going to be ugly... Okay, I love you, too." She hung up her phone and gave me a look that I'd never seen. It was an implacable, denigrating stare. "I'm going to leave you, shrimp dick. I can't live with a wimp, and I can't live with a loser. I've been having an affair for the last six months and you've eaten his cum out of my twat. I detest you. I only married you because I thought you were going to make it big and you're a huge failure. No, nothing about you is huge, you have the smallest dick I've ever seen on a grown man. You're so tiny, I'm surprised you were able to get me pregnant. You're so short I'm scared to let you go out alone with the kids. You're too little to protect them if a kinder?arten bully showed up. So I'm not going to allow even partial custody. "The only thing decent about you is your little tongue. If you want to come home and eat Mike's fresh cum out of my pussy for old time's sake, I'll consider giving you unofficial visitation. If not, well they got SHORTchanged by having your DNA but I won't let them be polluted by your tiny ambition." I'm not dumb. I knew Cathy had married me for where she thought I would take her, but I never saw this coming. I think the reason I didn't react as she expected was because it was such a sudden change from the way she'd been acting before the call. I wasn't going to lose my temper over temporary insanity. Then it dawned on me. She was trying to provoke me to violence. I've never hit her but she knows I've got a hair-trigger temper about certain subjects. She knew me, and she expected me to hit her! IN PUBLIC! With cold calculation, I blurted, "Cathy, I love you. Why are you doing this?" Her face twisted into a hideous snarl, her voice raised to a near shout. "I was prepared to put up with your disgusting tiny limp drooling dick, you little pipsqueak, as long as you were going places. I've told you a hundred times I won't be a LOWER-middle-class housewife. You wouldn't listen. It wouldn't have been so bad if you had the first clue about how to satisfy a woman, but all you want to do is try to stick that pathetic little pencil in me and pump for five seconds. I've always hated you in bed." One of the things I learned playing sports is to keep my cool under pressure. I wasn't sure why Cathy was saying things so loudly, but I could see the maitre 'd edging towards us. I know that my cock isn't massive. It's normal sized, just a fraction (a half inch is a fraction) under seven inches. Even so, I spent hours going down on Cathy and no one could fake the orgasms she had. I could feel them inside her, during oral and regular sex. "Cathy, lower your voice or they are going to throw us out of here. I love you. I've never been unfaithful and, even if you have, I want to work this out." "The only thing to work out, TINY tallywacker, is how much time with the kids you get and how much you're willing to pay for it." She was panting now in real anger. Showing restraint, controlling my temper was making her lose both! She did however lower her voice and hissed, "Well, are you willing to come home and suck a real man's cum out of me for the right to see your kids?" I clenched my jaw and said as coldly as I could, "Have the kids been in the house when you've entertained your 'real man.'" She was nonplussed for a second, then sneered, "Of course they were. I just told them I'd found a happy machine when they heard me cum." "Cathy, I heard you make arrangements for him to pick you up. I'm going home now. I'll help you move out tomorrow. I will not allow that sort of behavior in front my children. I think that all future conversations will be through our lawyers." Her face contorted into a mask of pure evil, "I'm going to take you for everything. It won't be enough to make up for years of pretending, but what do you expect from such a little man. I'm going to marry Mike. He's 6'1", a pediatrician and he can afford the best. If you try to fight for the kids, I'll bankrupt you." I clicked off the recording and said very softly, "I can't believe you're this stupid. I know you're going for the money but don't you realize that any man who would cheat like this with you will do the same on you? He's not going to fight very hard for kids he doesn't want and if he does marry you, I'll bet you ten thousand dollars it doesn't last two years." I stood and walked to the maitre 'd. I gave him my credit card and told him to be sure and run it immediately because I would be canceling it in ten minutes. Cathy had already gathered her stuff and had sashayed out the door when the manager brought me the receipt. He was an acquaintance whom I'd met at the local restaurant association meetings. He gave me a sympathetic look, then whispered, "I'm sorry. I couldn't help but overhe?r. Do you know that the best divorce lawyer in Austin is dining here tonight. She's trying hard to be invisible but let me suggest you might want to visit with her before you leave. It's almost impossible to get her at her office." I was still in shock. I hadn't considered what I was going to do but the manager nodded at a smartly dressed couple seated at a table next to where we'd been eating. He looked old enough to be her father but she was about my age. I recognized her. She had taken one of my friends, Jim Thomas, to the cleaners more thoroughly than that old song about "she got the gold mine and I got the shaft." Feeling my stare she glanced up, gave me a sympathetic look but her body language also said, "please don't bother me at dinner." I wasn't deterred. I pulled out a business card and slid it on her table and said, "I don't want to ruin any more of your dinner, but I would like to visit with you as soon as you can work me into your schedule." She sighed deeply and said, "I'm very expensive..." I nodded and interrupted, "I know but my friend, Jim Thomas, learned it's even more expensive to have you sitting at the other table." "Do you have any cash on you?" she asked cryptically I never carry cash, I looked in my billfold and found I had a newly broken twenty. She reached in and took my ten, leaving me a couple of ones, and said, "Okay, you've hired me. Now go home, continue to hold your temper and do NOT let her push you out of the house. I'll be there as soon as I finish dinner. I hate to see ambushes set up the way this one was. Do you know who her lawyer is?" "I didn't know we were in trouble. I didn't know she was having an affair. I set this up to tell her that I just sold my books..." "Have you signed a contract yet?" "No, I just got word..." "Don't sign until I tell you too. You don't need that to become community property. Dad, will you take care of this. George here needs my help. You don't remember me, do you, George?" I looked at her again, I knew that I'd seen her but, aside from Jim's divorce, I didn't think we'd ever met. Austin doesn't have a huge social scene but it does have some divisions. Politics, lawyers and the like tend to run in a different crowd than the high tech group I used to hang with. For the last three years, I hadn't been out much. I recognized her but I was still trying to pull up her name. Seeing my effort she smiled and said, "I'm Kristin Harris. We were in Plan II and McCombs together. There weren't very many of us in both. I thought you might remember." Grabbing my arm and leading me out of the restaurant, she asked, "Where are you parked?" I pointed to my newly battered SUV, which I could now see had at least two flat tires. "They really aren't playing fair, are they? Are your kids at home?" I said they were as she guided me to her car and drove... well, like a bat out of hell to my house. When we arrived she had to give me money for the babysitter and told me to go to my computer and begin closing my accounts and transferring cash to my business accounts. "That's still community property, but to drain that account could constitute a crime and I don't think her lawyer will allow that. I'll wait for the happy couple to get here." I was just finishing when Kristin found me, "They weren't as well-coached as they should have been. I think they jumped the gun. They were planning this for later but decided tonight was just too good to pass up. They just made a big mistake when they left the house together. I want you to call a locksmith and have all the locks changed tonight. Disable the garage door opener and do you have anyone you trust completely to take care of your kids?" I thought for a second and said, "My sister lives in Georgetown, it'll take a half hour to drive up there. She's on staff at Scott and White Clinic in Temple. I'd trust her..." "Great, how old is your youngest?" "Cindy will be three in a month, Josh is almost five. He'll start kindergarten in the fall." "Scott and White is a mighty prestigious outfit. What does your sister do up t?ere?" "She's a neonatal specialist. She's just finished her residency at John Hopkins and has a son Cindy's age." "Great! Get that locksmith out here ASAP and do you think your sister would drop everything and come at this time of night?" I was chagrinned, "Let's just say Cathy wasn't one of her favorite people, she won't drive quite as fast as you did, but she'll be here with bells on--and while she'll never say it aloud, more than one 'I told you so.'" Kristin's face soften, "It's shit like this that keeps me from getting married. I guess I'm inured after all this time, but I... Look would it offend you if I prayed for you?" Taken aback, I looked at Kristin as a person for the first time. She was one of the good guys. I gave her a nervous nod, and she continued, "I suspect those two are going to call it a night, but if they contact their lawyer, your wife is going to hot foot it back here so we can't claim desertion. I pulled a pretty big bluff. I told them that you didn't want either of them in the house and told them you said you would call the police if they attempted to enter. I did manage to drag something close to that out of you on the way over, but you really have no grounds to deny access to the marital home unless she leaves it." When I'm under stress I crack bad jokes, "They way you drive, I would have offered half my kingdom to get you to slow down." She gave me one of those 'looks' women seem to learn in the womb, ignored my humor and continued, "They're being a combination of smart and stupid, so that's why I'm betting they're operating on their own. I'm pretty sure I know the slimy 'attorney' who advised them and I've never heard a lawyer joke that did him justice. If they were following his instructions, he would have been at the restaurant, along with a photographer. Bottom line is, if she leaves for the night, you might have a case for desertion." My sister arrived, marveled at my restraint, offered a few choice comments about Cathy she'd been holding for years, before she took the kids home with her. The locksmith showed up and changed the locks and the code for the garage door. Kristin connected to her office computer from mine, printed up some papers and had me sign them. She also had me sign her contract. I shuddered at what I'd already spent this evening. It was only as she was leaving that I remembered to give her the recording of what Cathy had said to me. Have you ever seen a shark smile? It isn't pretty, even if it's your shark. The divorce was ugly and expensive. Cathy got more than I thought she deserved but I got full physical custody of the kids. She didn't even get visitation privileges although I did agree, informally, to give her full access to them whenever she wanted as long as she gave notice and kept them on my property. The day we walked out of court, I had everything packed and we were off to Ireland. I rented a small, isolated cottage near a tiny village on the west coast near Doolin. The best place in the world if you're a fan of traditional Irish music. I enrolled the kids in the local school, and established myself in the local pubs. One nice thing about being a writer is that we can work anywhere and write off living in weird places as a tax expense--research on local color, don't you know? It took Cathy and a ton of her new husband's money almost six months to locate me. When she called, I agreed immediately to have the kids available for her visit but I warned her that we had just finished packing all our stuff and were moving in the morning. The household goods were already gone. I told her she might want to wait until we were settled in our new home. I told her I would notify her as soon we were settled. How long does it take to get to settled? I figured it would be about the same amount of time as it would take her to locate me. I hung up before I remembered to tell here where we were moving. In the meantime, I'd written a bestseller. No, it didn't get to be #1 but it did make it to the next to last spot on the NY Times bestseller list for one week. It wa? about an Austin pediatrician who was a secret pedophile. He was a horrible creature and one reviewer said my doctor was one of the all time classic villains. For some reason, Cathy's husband, the pediatrician, lost a significant portion of his practice right after the book became a hit. He was forced to abandon his practice and move to Lubbock where he joined the staff of the medical school. Three months later, Cathy and even more of her husband's money again located me. We had moved to the wilds of the Scottish Highlands about a hundred miles north of Inverness, not far from John 'O Groat. I apologized for not having contacted her sooner but explained that just when we were almost settled, I found that I had an allergy and we were in the process of moving again. The house was packed and we were leaving that very afternoon. I was going to tour the Algarve to find a suitable place. I promised to contact her as soon as we were settled in. After I hung up, I realized that I hadn't had an allergy problem in Ireland and besides they spoke English there. I thought I might try a small town on the southern coast this time. One nice thing about being a "best-selling author doing local research on a remote place," is that strangers stand out. Locals, leery of most strangers will accept eccentric writers and will let them know if someone starts asking questions. I'd had almost a full week's warning in Scotland, for example. My next book also hit the bestseller list (3rd from the bottom and stayed there for two weeks) it was about a nefarious pedophile pediatrics professor from Austin who had secured a job at a medical school in Lubbock. This evil man was also performing unauthorized experiments on his students that left them sterile and impotent. By a strange coincidence, it seems that Cathy's husband, the pediatrician, decided he didn't want to work in a medical school or on their relationship. He joined the public health service. By another strange coincidence, I had just about decided that my next book might be about a scandal concerning a pedophile ex-medical school professor now working in the public health service. There's an old expression about never picking a fight with a organization that buys ink by the barrel. Or was it that the pen is mightier than the sword? I did keep in touch with Austin though. This vicious divorce lawyer had started flying in to see us when I was living in Ireland the first time. She followed me to Scotland and then back to Ireland. She was worse than Jimmy Cricket. I listened to endless arguments about keeping the kids from their mother. Except she never phrased it that way. She'd just talk about cases she was working where the mother had ducked out, isolating the kids from a good daddy. I'm not stupid, and I'd get perturbed with her. But Lordy, that woman's kisses made my toes tingle. After a year or so, the sultry way she said 'Hello' on the phone was almost enough to cause a premature ejaculation. Or maybe it was that I'd kept in my pants the whole time. At first I just had no interest in women, but Kristin got under my skin. What sort of character flaw do I have that attracts women who don't believe in pre-marital sex? I'm just glad Kristin used the same definition that Cathy had. Almost eighteen months after my divorce, I returned to Austin. Kristin had finally put her foot down. I knew she hated Cathy, but she said what I was doing with the kids was immoral... and she wouldn't get engaged to an immoral man. She said, "I make a lot of money from men trying to be a daddy to their kids when the wife and her new love move off to Timbuktu. I think that's evil! It doesn't look any better when a man does it. Your game is cute, and I don't care what you do to that bitch, but she will always be their mother. We can't change that. You are within your legal rights but is it moral?" She had me and she knew it. It's not any prettier when that shark's smile is accompanied by gloating. I'd like to think I responded solely to Kristin's moral arguments, but it might have been the comment that he? biological clock was giving her fits, and she insisted her kids were going to be born and raised as Texans! I proposed at a castle I'd rented for a weekend visit. We were married at her childhood church near El Paso. The moving company truck had just backed into the driveway of our new house, on the lake in Austin, when Cathy called on my cell phone. She was desperate and crying. She was begging me to let her see her children. I guess some of my anger had dissipated, or perhaps I was getting mellow in my old age. Then again, it might have been the look I was getting from Kristin. I agreed to let her see the kids and thirty seconds later she knocked on the door. I wasn't really surprised. It had been a long game of cat and mouse but she knew who to thank that I wasn't playing it any more. When I opened the door, I said, "Here are the ground rules. You will be monitored electronically. First, if you say one bad thing about me, I'll move to Timbuktu and you'll never see them again. Second, if I get the faintest whiff of any action on your part to challenge custody, we're gone. However, if you follow my rules, I'll let you be a part of their lives from this point forward. I'll try to help you repair your relationship with them. You can attend all their games and school activities. Do you agree? Yes or no, that's the last word I ever want to hear from you." With tears in her eyes she nodded and said, "Yes." Then turned to Kristin and mouthed "Thank you." I have to confess, I'd felt a pretty rotten about poisoning the kids' feelings for her. I wasn't proud of what they said to her when she joined them in our new back yard. Kids can be so cruel. However she kept her word and after about six months it was about as good for them as a divorce can be. It's always hard, but Cathy has changed too. She had started teaching kindergarten, she's totally devoted to all her kids and she has abided by all my rules, including never saying another word to me. She even seemed content living on her modest salary. The really funny thing is that it's clear to anyone who knows Cathy that she's in love... with me. Cathy is one of those women whose love needs a strong man. It's just too bad she didn't know she'd married one. Me? For some reason I've continued to mellow, a shark can be very persuasive, especially when they give you that special smile... husbands, you know the one. Kristin and I are now expecting our second child. I've learned how wonderful a marriage of equal partners can be. Most of all I've learned how a strong woman's love can make a man a better person. Happy is so inadequate a word to describe what we have. Who would have guessed that I'd learn to love a shark's smile? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The End If you've enjoyed this story, or hated it or anywhere in between. Please drop me a note and tell me what you thought. Don't worry about how well you write. I'm the one who is trying to learn to write, not you I don't care about spelling, grammar or anythig other that your thoutght joesephus@gmail.com