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The Prenuptial Agreement

By: cloacas



(This story is in two parts. The first has no sex. It is in Loving Wives because the story concerns an affair and a divorce and consequences - and because I love the feedback Loving Wives stories sometimes draw. I will explain why this story exists at the end. Odds are this part will bore you to death.)

I was crushed. A man came to my office, asked if I was Michael Hinton and when I said yes he handed me an envelope. I opened it. Inside were legal notices. The first said that an action seeking dissolution of my marriage had been filed. The second was a motion seeking to throw out our prenuptial agreement. The third was a restraining order. It said I couldn't approach within 100 feet of my wife and that I couldn't enter our home unless I was accompanied by a representative of the Court.

I called my lawyer. His secretary said he was in a meeting, which I assumed meant he didn't want to talk to me because he was working and I was usually calling as a friend. I lost my temper. "Tell Jack to pick up the goddamn phone. This is important. Tell him now."

Seconds ticked by. Jack picked up the phone and in an annoyed voice told me he was actually in a meeting. I said, "I just got served divorce papers."

"What?"

"I just got served divorce papers. Plus a motion to set aside the prenup and a restraining order. I can't go home without an escort."

"Holy fucking shit. You'd better get over here." I agreed and started to hang up. "Wait," I could hear Jack bark, "Do you have the actual filings or just notices?" 

"Just notices and the restraining order."

"Give me the filing info and I'll get copies." I read him the headings and the clerk's file numbers.

I washed my face in the restroom and slumped over. I slowly raised my head to look at myself in the mirror. The face I saw was suddenly older, the traces of youth displaced by concern, even shock. I could see my father's dark eyes in my own.

By the time I made it to Jack's office, he'd already been faxed the actual documents. His secretary was waiting at the front desk and she quickly led me into their main conference room and offered me a soda or water. I paced nervously. Jack came in. "You should sit down for this."

No, I motioned. "I can't sit. If I sit, I'll . . . "

He laid the papers in two stacks of three, each neatly stapled, almost sterile. He sat down heavily. "Have you been having an affair?" he asked. 

"Are you out of your mind?"

"The allegation is that you have been having an affair for at least the past year." He looked at me. "You know that under the terms of the prenuptial agreement, if the marriage terminates because of your infidelity, then the protection of your assets disappears and you will be fully liable for whatever settlement and alimony the Court might deem fair. You know that, don't you? This will cost you millions."

I bobbed my head yes.

"I'm not saying you're lying to me, but I can't do my job if you're not completely honest with me." He flicked up a page and turned it over. "It says here that you have been seen entering this woman's house in the afternoons and evenings. They have photographs of you hugging and kissing." He tapped his pen on the table for emphasis. "They don't have pictures of you actually having sex. That's the only thing missing. But what they have is pretty damned incriminating." He looked down at the table. "Now I want you to be honest with me."

I took a gulp. "Her name is Susan Turner." I told Jack everything.

A few hours later, accompanied by Jack and an off-duty sheriff, I returned to my home and packed my bags. Jenny was not there. I was gone in an hour. After locking the front door, I had to give my key to Jack in front of the sheriff. Only a few words were said. I told Jack I'd rather spend at least that night in a hotel. I wanted to be alone. "Don't do anything stupid," he said. "Call me if you even think you might be thinking about being stupid." I shrugged okay. "I mean it. Tell me you'll call."

"I'll call. I'm not going to do anything."

I considered checking into a Residence Inn, but I couldn't mentally commit to the possibility of a long-term stay. I went instead to the Ritz. 

"Is there a manager on duty?" I asked the desk clerk.

"I'm the front desk manager on duty. May I help you?"

The words came more easily than I'd imagined. I felt more in control of myself than I could have hoped for. "I want a suite. But I may be staying for some time, two weeks minimum, probably a month. What kind of deal can we make?"

"You want a suite for a month." She paused. "What level of suite?"

"The best." She blinked. Her name tag read Janice Horton.

"How long will you commit for?"

"Do you mean pay for now?"

"We would place a hold on your credit card in the estimated amount."

"I'll go a month for the right deal."

She fiddled with her computer. "Our best suite, which happens to be available, is the Presidential Suite. It was renovated only a month ago and has two bedrooms, a grand piano in the living room and a jacuzzi in one bath and a steam shower in the other." She looked at me.

"That will do fine. I'll pay with this, if we agree on a price." I pulled out a black American Express card. 

She smiled. "I can offer you a significant discount on the standard rate." 

"I'm Michael Hinton."

"Janice Horton. Pleased to meet you."

"One question. Is the piano in tune?"

"It was tuned last week for the last guest. A concert musician."

Janice escorted me to the room herself. The bellman asked if I wanted my cases unpacked, but I said no I do it myself. On her way out, Janice handed me a list of phone numbers. "These are the direct numbers for the managers and the concierge. Call anyone on this list if you need anything."

It's good to be rich. My grandfather made a pile and my dad keeps making it bigger. Of course, my dad is also a complete asshole, a real bastard. I barely speak to him, but my money is either in trusts or became mine outright when I hit 25, with the rest mine at 30 and 35. I can hear him cursing because my grandfather set up the trusts not knowing how large they'd become. "What the fuck was he thinking? How can I control this goddamned kid if he gets this much money?" Then his favorite imprecation. "Motherfucking punk." That's me to dear old dad.

I didn't sleep until early morning and was roused, my brains like cotton, when the phone range. It was the day manager, checking in as I'd asked him. Nine AM. Time to shower. Try to wash some of the murk out of my head. I sat on the bench in the steam shower, watching the mist clouds change shape. The condensation ran in cool streaks down my chest. It's odd to be so hot and yet have this cold feeling drawing lines across your body. 

I called Jack at ten and was in his office at eleven. He was on the phone in the conference room, so I plopped down and contemplated the sour feeling in my stomach. The events of yesterday seemed like another century.

When Jack hung up, he was obviously excited. "I can get us on the calendar for a hearing on the prenup for next Wednesday. That's not the usual motion day but the judge knows what's at stake." He was bouncing up and down on his toes.

"What does that mean? Is the judge on our side?"

"Don't be a dope. The judge wants this issue heard as soon a possible because there's big money in this case if the prenup is thrown out. You know what that means? Depositions. Discovery. Motion out the wazoo. Lots of court time. He wants to know what he's got." Jack looked at me. "That doesn't mean he's on your side . . . or Jenny's. You look like shit."

"I feel worse than I look."

"We have a lot of work to do. I need to talk to Susan Turner as soon as possible."

"I'll go see her." I started to cry. I hadn't cried before, but now my shoulders started to heave. "This is going to be awful for her."

"It has to be done."

"I know. I know. But I promised. I promised."

"You know there's still time." I looked at the shine on the table top. "There's still time. I could talk to her attorney. Joe Michaels isn't a bad guy." 

I waved him off. "No. No. No."

"It's your marriage."

I looked around the room, at the tall rubber plant and the original cowboy paintings on the wall. I mustered some cheap humor. "I thought the line was 'It's your funeral'." Jack snorted.

"You need better writers. And with your money, you could afford quality material." My head itched. Maybe the shampoo at the Ritz didn't agree with me. I'll have to stop at Walgreen's and pick up my usual brand. 

There was a knock at the door. One of the other lawyers. Jack asked her in. "Connie Kosinski, this is Mike Hinton. Connie's been putting together our counter filings." I stared dully. "Connie's one of our best." He motioned to her.

"Mr. Hinton. The main thing, really the only thing that requires a response right now is the motion to set aside the prenuptial agreement. Do you mind if we take a few minutes to go over the key provisions?" That was a rhetorical question. "Section Five considers the effect of infidelity on the agreement. In brief, it states that you and your wife entered into this Agreement to separate your substantial assets from the marriage estate given a promise that you will not abuse the marriage. There is a specific list of what constitutes abuse of the marriage. The only meaningful one is adultery." She looked up. "I assume you did not strike your wife repeatedly since that allegation was not included in the filings." I croaked out a yes. My throat was dry and I was getting hungry.

"I also assume you do not abuse alcohol or use illegal drugs to excess."

"Nothing that's not allowed." I smoked a little pot and, if offered, I might try something psychoactive but the agreement. "As I remember, we made clear that occasional use was not grounds for repudiation." She arched an eyebrow. 

"I'm glad you remember the document. Section Five concerns your breach of the understanding. Section Six covers your wife's breach. In essence, if she commits the same breaching acts, then the amount she receives as a settlement is reduced significantly." She looked at Jack.

"You see where Connie is heading?" 

"Probably."

"We're going to file a counter motion alleging that she has breached Section Six."

"I don't have any evidence that she's cheated on me."

"We have eight days, counting today, to find some. If we don't, we don't."

Connie then spoke. "We also want to use your wife's filing against her." She leaned forward. "We can paint a picture that she's acted in bad faith." She waved a hand airily. "Your wife could have chosen to stick around and vest in more of your estate. But she didn't. She's chosen to bail out only two years after signing this agreement which dramatically limits what she can receive in a divorce. Imagine if she'd waited for eight years and then filed for divorce one year before she'd have an absolute claim to many millions of dollars. Then she'd be the suffering wife. We can make her look like a gold digger. Put it all together and you get bad faith and she loses."

Jack was standing with his back to us, looking out the window. He turned. "Of course, even if you keep the prenup, she doesn't get much. We want to file this to show outrage and let the judge know that we're going to fight on every point." 

"Won't it look petty. She's only going to get what, maybe a hundred grand and some jewelry?"

Connie looked smug. "If we win on keeping the prenup, we can drop our motion. For dramatic effect."

"You'd look generous," Jack said. "It's the best plan."

"That's why I work with you." God I was getting over-hungry. My stomach was growling loudly. "I need to eat."

"We have your go ahead?"

"Yeah. Total."

"You understand that we're going to put maximum effort into uncovering anything dirty about Jenny. If you don't want that, tell me now."

I heaved myself out of the chair. "Go get her, chief. Take no prisoners. Nice to meet you Connie." Jack walked me to door. I asked if they needed signatures for anything.Jack said probably not, but they'd come to me if they did, but probably not. He walked me to the door. "She is good," I said. "And a little evil."

"All good lawyers are. Call me as soon as you talk to Susan Turner."

The next week went by in a bewildering mix of speed and obsession. I ate in the Ritz dining room, bingeing on the expensive Burgundies and 50 year old cognac. I had a massage. I played the piano, especially late at night, after checking with the desk to see if anyone would be bothered. They told me the room was fairly soundproof and not to worry. I stopped by my small office only to pick up my mail and messages. Jenny didn't call. Neither did my dad. Thanks for that at least. On Tuesday afternoon, the day before the hearing, I sat down with Jack and Connie. They summarized their plans. I had one specific request, that they not tell me anything about what they'd uncovered about Jenny unless it became necessary in court.

The hearing was at 9:30 in the morning. Since it was not a typical motions day, only trials would be held on this floor of the courthouse and it was nearly empty. I stood to one side with Jack and another associate they'd brought to triple check what had already been double checked. Connie stuck in her head and beckoned me into the hallway. Susan was with her.

"The way this will work is like this. As we discussed, they will put on their case first. Susan, you will not be allowed in the courtroom during their presentation. After they're done, Susan will testify first for us. Michael, the judge may want you out of the courtroom while she testifies but we're going to fight that. You're a party to the case and you have a right to be in there. Now Susan, I know we went over this before, but let's go over this again. My guess is they'll take at least an hour, maybe two to lay out their case. They'll want to take their time because it shows they have something." Connie stopped. She put her hand on Susan's shoulder. "You can do this. Marlene from our office will wait with you." She squeezed Susan's shoulder and went into the courtroom. 

I hugged Susan long and hard. She started to weep on my shoulder and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Jenny was standing with her lawyers no more than 15 feet away. The look in her eyes was sheer hatred. I turned away.

The Court Clerk said, "All rise" and we stood. "Court is now in session, the honorable Judge Herbert Jackson presiding. All those having business before this Court are commanded to appear. You may be seated." The Judge, a heavy man with a fringe of black hair around a bald dome, shuffled his papers. The Clerk handed him a file folder. We waited nervously, twiddling fingers, tapping pencils. 

The Judge cleared his throat. "The matter before us is a hearing to set aside a certain prenuptial agreement between Michael P. Hinton and Jennifer Hinton née Wallace. Let the record show that the parties have stipulated to the veracity of the copy of the agreement which was attached to the Motion filed with this Court. Mr. Michaels, before we begin, my understanding is that your motion is not truly to set aside the prenuptial agreement but to enforce the terms of Section Five. I note that this hearing will consider respondent's counter-motion to enforce Section Six of the same agreement and I want to be clear."

"That is correct your honor, but the effect of enforcing Section Five is to different than enforcing Section Six. Section Five will nullify the agreement while Section Six will substitute a different payment agreement."

"Mr. Cohen?"

"Your honor, if it pleases the Court, we do not object to the movant's characterization of the effect of the motion or the counter-motion."

"Very well. Mr. Michaels, please estimate how much time you will need to present your case-in-chief. Before you respond, understand that this is merely a hearing, not a full trial. If I find sufficient evidence for a full trial on the merits of either or both of these motions, that will occur at a later date. The Court's interests today are to determine whether such a trial is necessary."

"Thank you, your honor. Considering the Court's expression, we intend to limit our presentation to approximately two hours. We will also need some short amount of time, another fifteen minutes perhaps, to discuss the actual evidence we can produce."

"Mr. Cohen."

"I would estimate my client's case will take no more than an hour in total." 

"Very well. The Court will hear the movant's arguments first, then we will recess and convene again at one for respondent's case. Mr. Michaels, the floor is yours."

"Thank you, your honor." Jenny's attorney looked down at his legal pad. "We call Jennifer Hinton to the stand."

Jenny walked to the stand and was sworn in. As she held up her right hand, I looked at her in her prim and proper blue suit, skirt not showing her knees, a simple cream blouse with only a thin gold chain with a cross around her neck. I could see the diamond of her engagement ring.

After stating for the record the basic facts of her name, age and our marriage, her lawyer questioned her about the prenuptial agreement. "What was your intention when you executed this agreement?" 

"I wanted to make sure that my husband, I mean my fiancé then, knew I was marrying him because I loved him and not for his money."

"You know the extent of your husband's wealth?"

"I know what he told me, yes. He gave me certified statements from his accountants."

"You've never had any reason to doubt those statements?"

"None."

"What was your husband's net worth when you entered into this agreement?"

"Approximately $50 million. But his trusts were worth another $100 million, maybe more."

"Did he control those trusts?"

"No or not entirely. I'm not sure. I believe he takes control of them when he turns 30 and 35. He'd already received one-third of the money when he turned 25."

"What were your assets at the time you entered into the agreement?"

"I didn't really have any. I had student loan debts. And a car loan. My parents have money saved for retirement, but I'm one of four kids so I won't get much."

"Your parents are how old and are they in good health?"

"My dad is 53 and my mother is 52. They're in very good health."

He'd established that she was an ordinary American, who'd come out of college in debt, with no expectation of an inheritance for many years, and that she'd married a very wealthy young man who hadn't earned any of it.

"Mrs. Hinton, are you familiar with Section Five of the agreement?"

"Yes, I am."

"Would you tell the Court in your own words what you believe it means?"

"I think that Section, Section Five, means that if my husband, if Michael, betrays me then the agreement isn't valid."

"Before you were married, when you were discussing this prenuptial agreement, did you ask for this provision?"

"No. Mike proposed it."

"Were you represented by counsel during those negotiations?"

"Yes. I was."

Michaels held up a paper in a clear envelope. "Your honor, this is a statement from Mrs. Hinton's attorney during those negotiations. This statement confirms Mrs. Hinton's statement that Section Five was added at Mr. Hinton's request. We would like this marked as an Exhibit."

He offered the paper to Jack, who glanced at it and handed it back. He then gave it to the Clerk, who reached back and handed it to Judge, who also glanced at it, handed it back and told the Clerk to mark it Exhibit 1. During this exchange, Jenny looked at the ground. I saw she clenched a small white handkerchief in her hands.

"Mrs. Hinton, are you familiar with Section Six of the prenuptial agreeement."

"Yes. I am."

"Could you describe the terms of that section in your own words?"

"Section Six is like Section Five except it applies to me. If I were to betray my husband, then I would receive less of a settlement in a divorce."


The Prenuptial Agreement Ch. 02



(The second boring part. There is sex, though probably not enough to keep anyone's interest.)

I lay on top of her, breathing hard, spent. Her hand reached under me and lifted my cock out of her, holding carefully the base of the condom.

"Sorry," I said. "That was my job."

"Mmmmm. Don't worry about it." She arched her back and stretched her legs out. Then she wrapped them around my back and said, "Kiss me."

"Yeth," I muttered in an affected French accent, with a lisp, "Kith me, my leetle few-el." I pressed my tongue against hers. "Zou aire vairy thexay. Zou weetle minx-cat ting, you aire." She started to laugh and we fell into a deep kiss.

Later, after we'd washed the smell and taste of sex off our bodies, we lay naked under the sheets as she rubbed her calf along my leg. I didn't dream that night. Or more likely, I fell into such a deep sleep that I could not remember my dreams. 

For much of your life, waking up horny with an erection is a waste. You either have no one to put it in or your partner is busy sleeping and waking her for sex is not in the cards. This was not one of those times. I woke up with a cock like a stick and when I pushed against her in bed, she murmured and whispered, "I'll get on top." She turned away to reach a condom, deftly unrolled it on my erection - which was almost bursting with energy - and eased herself down on it, guiding it in with a little moan. She was already wet and the condoms were lubricated.

She felt warm and heavy with sleep and my cock felt enveloped by her pussy. She raised up and I pumped it in and out, holding the firm, smooth mounds of her ass. We fucked in the dark, her lips pressing at times to mine, her breath in my ear. Her tits soft and the nipples hard against my chest. I fucked that woman. I didn't last long and again she held the base of the condom as she pulled me out of her. Then she curled up against my chest and we slept.

A high quality escort is a good investment if you have the spare cash, want a good fuck and don't want to work at bedding a girl who might actually expect more. An escort will want a second and a third and a fourth date but only because you're a good customer, not because she's expecting to come over for Thanksgiving. A quality escort chooses clients carefully. She checks out references. When she fucks you, her hope is that you become a regular, a dependable source of income and a pleasant, perhaps even very enjoyable "date". Having regulars means not chasing new clients, not taking more risks with more strange men, not fucking more guys she can't stand.

Nadia was a very good escort. She seemed to like me - she said she did but salesmen always say that suit looks great even when it doesn't. She fucked with the appropriate combination of enthusiasm and practiced athleticism. She made the right noises and at least acted like she enjoyed it tremendously. 

But when you have $50 million, almost every woman will make those noises when you touch her. Pick a woman, any woman, point her at $50 million and she'll fuck with enthusiasm which crosses into the ecstatic. Is it me or is it the hope of diamonds? Is it my cockmanship or my bank balance which makes me a fantastic lover? This isn't an academic question. Money is an aphrodisiac. A real aphrodisiac. She may not be faking that orgasm. She may mean it when she says, "You've taken me places I've never been." She may not be as turned on by my body as by some other guy's. She may not be as thrilled by my kisses. But put my body and my kisses together with $50 million and the combination may honestly send her into multiple orgasmic overload. 

That is one good reason for fucking Nadia. She may fantasize about my cash. She may dream about me saying "Let me take you away from all this. Your past means nothing compared to my love for you" but she's hard-headed enough to know I'll tip her well and I appreciate that she's very clean-tasting and that she uses an enema before I fuck her ass.

Nadia has the kind of Russian beauty you never thought existed before the end of the Cold War. Where did these women come from? Where did those huge, stolid, butch women of the Soviet empire go? Nadia's breasts, which aren't large, sit perfectly on her chest. Her face is a work of art, all cheekbones and soft blue eyes and wide lips in a perfect pout. Her legs can reach all the way round me. Her ankles are slender. And of course, she's a part-time model, part-time whore. 

Having money, if you work at it, is a lot like being famous without the crowds cheering. You can get women easily and you can't trust them at all. They have that look of hunger, like they haven't eaten in two years and you're the vegetarian lasagna. 

Blondes with perfect make-up and expensive implants. Redheads with clingy dresses and implants. Raven-haired beauties with elegant bare arms and implants. All of them probably born brunettes.

The blonde who gave you the sexy look as she put on her lipstick before going down on you so she could leave her lip imprints the full seven inches down your shaft. The Asian temptress who traced circles on your chest with her lustrous black hair as she rode you. The one with the huge perfect natural tits who held them and played with them and rubbed them against your face as she moaned and begged for you to cum. I may be the greatest lover in the western hemisphere or I may be a young guy with $50 million. 

I have met other very rich men's wives. A goodly portion were probably Nadia's at one time or another. Maybe they didn't actually have a website quoting rates for a "donation" but they were in the pussy selling business before they married the money. In fact - and I'm spilling an inside secret - some of them still are, very discretely and more for their enjoyment than for the money. All whores, high end or on the street, love the excitement of looking in the envelope that was left open on the bathroom counter. They love knowing that for this, this blow job and a fuck, for getting eaten out and having an orgasm, they'll step out the door with a purse full of cash. It's an addiction. They love being wanted by strange men. They love being paid for their looks and their time. They love that strange men want to lick their clits while a big envelope of cash sits in their purse. The pussy always meets the purse.

When I married Jenny, we agreed on a prenuptial agreement that would have left her with very little if we divorced before having a child. If we stayed together for five years, she got more. If we stayed together for ten, she got even more. And so on, very much like a pension plan that would pay her back for years of companionship. I would be responsible for paying for any children if we divorced, but through generous trusts for their benefit. She would not get very rich from the marriage no matter what. 

Jenny wanted it this way. She wanted me to know that she loved me, not my money. I say that with the following caveat: we would live very well together, so if we stayed married, then she would have all the benefits of wealth without it being in her name. Maybe she didn't love me and she realized the best way to get me was to play this game. If the marriage went well, then she could be another Nadia playing at caring and I would never be the wiser. 

Would I care? I don't know. Does it matter if Nadia loves you if she acts like she does? If she is faithful and caring, do you care if she is pretending? 

When Jack first heard my story, that I had been seeing the twin sister my father had sexually abused, he knew that if we were able to present our case, we would win. So why get divorced? That was Jack's question. Jenny had a good reason to be suspicious of my conduct but she would soon learn she had very little financial incentive to continue with the divorce. What did I want?

I wanted a divorce. I had been followed by a private detective hired by my wife to learn whether I was cheating on her. She had kept her suspicions secret from me. She had received the detective's report and had not discussed what it said with me. She had consulted lawyers without talking to me. She had filed for divorce, had obtained a restraining order barring me from my house and had sought to throw out the prenuptial agreement, all without talking to me first. 

Five minutes. That's all it would have taken. If Jenny had taken my hand and made it clear enough that she knew - not crystal clear, not 100% telling me everything but enough so I would know she knew - then in five minutes I would have explained about Susan and my father and mother. 

One minute. If she had taken one minute to lay the detective's report on the table in front of me, if she had taken one minute to show me a picture of Susan and me hugging, then I would have explained. 

Even if she had consulted with her lawyers and had decided to go ahead and divorce me, if she had even then decided to give me one last chance to come clean, one last chance to explain how I could have broken her heart, then I would have explained. 

None of those things happened. I was handed papers and that night I had to enter my house in the company of a sheriff. I had to sleep in a hotel - a very nice hotel but still not my house and my bed. I had to explain to my lawyer about my sister. And then I had to watch my sister's abuse be revealed in court. 

Jack told me it was only time before reporters picked up on the divorce filing and began investigating the allegations. Technically, he told me, we were required to file a response and all those filings would be public information. His idea was to get a quick hearing, without any preliminary filings, and then have the judge order the records sealed.

The morning after the hearing, sitting again in his conference room, he told me how it went in Chambers. I slowly rotated my cup of coffee and listened. Jack was expansive. "The Judge wanted to know why he'd had to sit through that. He was pissed. Well . . . not really angry, more upset. I jumped right in. I told him we saw this hearing as the best way to preserve your sister's privacy while getting her story on record. I brought up a protective order and he bought that. There's something about getting involved in a powerful family's business that turns on some judges. Then I asked him to seal the records and I pointedly - this was good - included Jenny's original filings because they would only embarrass her. Michaels agreed. 

"I'll give the Judge credit. He noted that our motion to enforce Section Six was still waiting to be heard. I said we were prepared to argue it as soon as the Court was ready, but . . . get this . . . but we would drop the motion if Mrs. Hinton would agree to a divorce under the terms of the prenup. The Judge sat back and Michaels stuttered a bit about discussing this with his client. The Judge asked if we were prepared, in view of the circumstances, to go through with the divorce. I told him we were ready to proceed after the recess. Michaels turned white. He had no idea if we had anything or not. Can you imagine his situation? His client had led him into a complete disaster and for all he knew he could walk out and be hit again. The Judge - like I said, I give him credit - then told Michaels that from what he could see his client had very little choice. That ended it." He leaned back, pleased with himself. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to move on with my life."

Jack looked up at the ceiling. "You sure?"

"I want this over as soon as possible. If I can write her a check . . . "

And that Friday night I spent in bed with Nadia. And that Saturday night was with Keiko, with her brown nipples and incredibly firm thighs. Her abs were athletically hard and she could pull her legs over her own shoulders. She lay there, three holes in a row and leaned her head forward to nuzzle my cock with the top hole, then placed the condom on me and guided me into her pussy and then, after begging for it, gazed into my eyes as she jammed the head of my cock into hole number 3. 

As I fucked her ass, she closed her eyes and puffed oh oh oh. I watched the planes of her flat Asian face with the whiteness of her teeth beyond the red rims of lips that had been sucking me. I could plunge all the way into her and with each stroke she seemed to relax more, moving into a trance-state, eyes half shut, mouth open, the oh oh oh sound soft and regular as deep sleep. My eyes followed the length of her stockings to her high heels dangling over her head, bobbing slightly up and down with each of push of mine. I could feel her hand resting lightly on my side as though we were dancing in a court ball. I asked her if she needed me to stop and she said "Fuck me" in a silken whisper.

I stayed away from Jenny. All the necessary paperwork was completed in days. The divorce hit the papers two weeks later, but there was no interest because there was no story. 

A divorced rich man is more attractive to women than a young, unmarried rich man. The bachelor is untested. He may be sowing wild oats. He may be gay and hiding it. He may have a "fiancée" and he's only using you for sex because he can get away with it. Those are all possibilities with a divorced rich man, but at least you know he's been hogtied and dragged to the altar once before. He's chosen to wear some girl's brand. If he's been herded once, you can herd him again.

And a divorced rich man draws from a wider base of eligible females. So I'm 26. Since I'm divorced, I might go for that 35 year old who can play young. I might go for that exquisite divorcée - with the house in Aspen and the sable coat - even though she has two kids from the first mr. money. In her mind, she's a proven breeder with mommy skills. You have to turn every negative into a positive.

That's why I left town. I took Susan for a long vacation. We didn't lie on a beach in a deluxe resort. We trekked in Nepal for a month. Then we went bicycling in Vietnam. We grew as close as twins.

In Ho Chi Minh City, I fell in lust with hundreds of gorgeous women in their tight, elegant dresses. Susan understood when I fucked a few. I splurged one night on two of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. Though I've never been particularly excited by lesbian fantasies, the variations of three way sex with these women drenched the erotic receptors of my brain. One girl's perfectly formed features pressed side by side against mine as our tongues licked the clit of the girl who was sucking my cock. Fucking one from behind while the other was in 69, watching the girl I was fucking lose control as her friend ate her clit with my fingers up the pussy in front of my face and then rubbing the juices over the mouth of my fucking partner. I took a pill - probably bootleg cialis - so I could take full benefit of their beauty all night long and I've never been so pleased by any investment. 

My rampant sex romps had a side benefit; they helped Susan and I discuss the after effects on her life of sexual abuse. She had trouble trusting men with her body. She had trouble relaxing. She had recurring feelings that sex was bad. She had tremendous guilt because she had not stopped our father. She still blamed herself. She blamed herself for enjoying the physical contact. She blamed herself for mom's death. She blamed herself for my not seeing mom again. She blamed herself for being a troubled teenager who'd given her mother trouble. 

I was able to confess my own, lesser problems. The divorce had left me suspicious. I had gone through adolescence without a friendly voice in the house, only my domineering father. I hadn't experienced much warmth and giving warmth was hard for me. Then I'd had to deal with the revelations that my father was a monster, that my mother had been able to save her daughter only at a very high cost, that my mother had died not knowing that her children would get back together. 

I would like to say that talking about these problems made them go away. I had a fantasy that we had been sitting in a restaurant in Hanoi when a young American exorcising the ghosts of his father's war experiences had walked in. His eyes met Susan's and in that look they saw the end of each other's pain. It didn't happen, but I had my sister and she had me. 

The divorce became final when Susan and I were in Kyoto. Jack called, partly to remind me, partly to make sure I was feeling all right and partly to relive his glory. I didn't mind. Two days later, we were looking at the Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, when the caller ID on my cell phone showed Jack's office number. It was Connie. She told me that Jack had died a few hours earlier from a massive heart attack. Susan and I flew back the next morning for the funeral.

My father has figured little in this story, except as an off screen villain, for good reason. I avoid him. Even not knowing that he abused my sister, I had grown tired and resentful and full of anger at his verbally abusive manipulation and his efforts to control me. When I took control of the first third of my trust, I struggled with my feelings about him. Was he trying to build my character, knowing that I would be inundated with money at a young age? Or was he trying to control me, so he could retain effective control over my assets? I never figured it out, but I became convinced that no matter his motive, his methods were brutal and wrong. There's an old saying: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. He never heard it.

I thought about my father at Jack's funeral, as I listened to his brother give the eulogy, and then at the graveside as the rabbi said prayers. At Jack's house, the mirrors were covered so the bereaved would not need to see themselves. I picked at a plate of a sweet, baked noodle dish in a sea of black suited-men and black-dressed women. Jack's oldest son had come home from Penn, Jack's alma mater, and was taking his responsibilities seriously, acting as host. His daughter sat with her mother on the living room sofa, one hand protectively touching her shoulder at all times. His youngest son, the only one I really knew, spent most of his time on the deck in back, talking to the cousins of his age.

With more than a little bitterness, I thought about what I had missed in life. Jack had a family, a real family, with a wife and children who loved and respected him. My family was based in fear and money. When my mom died, I hadn't even known. I didn't doubt that I was privileged. Almost no one could afford to take months off to wander the world like I had been doing. If privilege costs this much, I'd rather be poor.

I had sold my house and was settled temporarily in a condo attached to the Ritz. Same services, more room and an actual kitchen that they kept stocked for me. Susan had gone back to her home, but we talked every day on the phone. Our mother had put her in therapy years before, but Susan hadn't invested much in it. Now she was ready to try again. Most encouraging was that she wanted to be happy.

Many people have lived through terrible times. Jack's father was a Holocaust survivor. He'd seen his sisters executed in front of their own doorway when they were caught outside after curfew and then he, almost alone of all his family, had lived through the work camp. How do you close your eyes at night with those images in your mind? I went to high school with a guy who lost control of his car and killed three people on a sidewalk. I know a man who ran over his own son backing out of his driveway. 

How do you turn out the lights with those memories? How you get around them or past them to live a happy life? Whenever I close my eyes, I hear my father's voice yelling at me, at mom, at the people who work for him. "He's a screamer," people say, as though that explains it all and makes everything all right. He's a screamer and I hear him screaming in my dreams. I can't imagine what Susan hears. Or sees. 




The Prenuptial Agreement Ch. 02



The other person who has not figured much in this story is Jenny, my now ex-wife. I don't know if it was me or if we were too young. That must sound odd, given that she filed suit against me but in my mind it was as though the divorce had just happened on its own. Why had I married her? Was I really happy? How had my emotional problems affected the marriage? When in Asia with Susan, I'd been focused on her and us, on finally closing the gaps that lay between us, on fully recovering the twin sister I'd lost. Now I had nothing to occupy my thoughts.

Susan called me to say that Jenny had come to see her, specifically to apologize for causing so much pain. They didn't talk about me or the divorce, except in passing. The whole conversation lasted only ten minutes. 

I'd been looking at a large bundle which had been sitting in the corner for weeks. It had come from Jack's office with a note saying that the entire set of files were marked strictly confidential, for my eyes only, and the firm felt it was their duty to deliver them to me unopened and unread. I had a sneaking suspicion the files held the results of our surveillance of Jenny, but I lacked either the courage or the curiosity to check. Jenny had become a blank, our time together, our marriage events so remote they felt like they had happened in another lifetime.

Weeks went by and the weather grew colder. We had settled into a weather pattern of grey drizzle that matched my mood. My week had started with a spurt of anger forced out by the necessity of meeting my father. Business before pleasure. Business before anger. We did the business. I had read the financial statements and had asked my questions directly of the accountants before the meeting. My father insisted on this formality, perhaps to show that he was head of the family, perhaps because it was the only way I'd see him. 

He showed no sign that he'd been served with an order keeping him away from Susan. He didn't betray for a moment that he knew I must know what he had done. I marveled at his control even as I was disgusted by it. He refused to fight with me and I realized this was all he was capable of doing. This show of accountability was it, his way of saying that he knew he was being watched. No emotion. No admission. Nothing but another business transaction between father and son. Now that the bluster and the screaming and the threats were all stripped away, that was all we had left.

When I left that meeting, my blood was boiling over so I pulled into a parking lot and sat. That didn't work so I walked in tight circles, fuming. That didn't work either, so I opened the trunk of my car and started smashing things. I beat my golf clubs against the pavement. I bent the woods over my knee. I only stopped when I took a four iron and smashed out my own tail lights. 

That was how my week began. As the days ticked by, I realized that the last illusions about my father had faded. He didn't love me through the yelling. Or if he did, he was totally incapable of showing it. Ever, never, ever, never. He treated me like an investor, an outsider with audit power, an investigator from the SEC. I had no father. Just like Susan, I had no father. He wouldn't change. He wouldn't start listening to my concerns and my ideas. He wouldn't care. He would refer to me as his son and I would refer to him as my father but we had no relationship, not any more, not even a bad one.

I'd never realized the depth to which my psychology was tied up in my father's opinion of me. I'm textbook: the neglected child seeking approval from the distant authority figure as he is confused by and rebells against everything that authority figure represents. I'd known this for years but it had never sunk so deeply in. I missed my mother. 

Jenny walked up behind me in line at Starbucks. She said hello. I said hi. I took my coffee and sat down. She waited for her latte and headed for the door. She rested her hand on the push bar, then turned and came to my table. I'd been watching warily. She stood a careful distance away.

"What happened to your car?" Her voice was forced, not natural.

"I tried to kill it." She nodded, unsure what to say. "I was upset." A cloud passed over her expression. "With my father." She suddenly sat down on the opposite chair. She knew my father.

"What happened?"

"We had a very pleasant meeting so I took my anger out on my car. With my golf clubs." She was biting her lip and looking at my chin, avoiding my eyes. She nodded. "We no longer have a relationship."

"No. We don't." The words had escaped her before she realized her mouth was moving.

"I meant my father and me." She put her hand to her head. I was noticing things about her but I was still, almost frozen, my hand resting on the table wrapped around the paper cup. "You went to see Susan. That was nice of you. She appreciated it."

"I felt awful." She waved a hand in the air. "Oh God, how did we end up here?"

"I sometimes wonder if we were ever married." She looked stricken. "I mean it seems like another lifetime."

"No. I'm not sure we ever were married." She caught my eye for an instant. I could see hurt.

"I wonder the same thing. The more I know about myself, the less confidence I have in my ability to be much of anything as a person."

"Don't say that."

I raised my eyebrows and looked deep into my coffee. "I'm a little down. I just realized I don't have a father. Not really. Never did. Why did you marry me anyway?"

Jenny almost reached out her hand. "For your money. For your money." Time slowed and I became aware of my stillness. "I married you because I wanted to be rich. I'm a terrible person. I married you and thought I'd be able to live with you . . . but then I . . . and then I . . ." She broke off. "I have to go." She almost ran out the door.

That night, I tried to watch television but found myself lifting the bundle from Jack's office onto the dining room table, opening it and spreading out the contents. File folders organized by surveillance date. Transcripts of phone calls. Cell phone and credit card records.

I spread all the items out on the table, but found I didn't have the heart to tackle them without knowing what I was looking for. My wife had married me for my money. My ex-wife, the woman who had filed for divorce because she thought I was having an affair, had admitted . . . had admitted what? Did she never love me? Was she looking for a way out? That would go a long way toward explaining why she'd filed for divorce without ever speaking to me about her suspicions, about any problems she'd seen in my marriage. 

I left the pile on the table, took a hot shower and got into bed. I woke restless at 4AM. Too much sleep to feel tired again, too little to sustain me through the day. I went into the kitchen and gobbled a handful of grapes. "Don't eat now. You'll regret it later," I told myself. I poured a glass of cold water and walked into the dark dining room where I stood in front of the table looking at the shadowy lumps which might tell me things I didn't want or need to know. I flicked on a light and picked up the pile of transcripts. 

Nothing here. Nothing here, just boring chatter with her mother. My God, she's filed for divorce and she doesn't talk about it at all. Her mother asks if she's all right and she brushes her off. She doesn't wonder if she's doing the right thing. 

I put down the transcripts and picked up the surveillance records. Flipping through them yielded little more than trips to her lawyer's office, to her mother's, to her dentist, to the market. Hell, I don't want to know this stuff. Even if I were married to her, I wouldn't want to know every move she makes. 

Back to the transcripts, this time with more diligence. I forced myself to turn the pages slowly, to look at each phone call to see what it was about. She talked on the phone a lot. Did she also use her cellphone a lot? I picked up the pile of her cellphone records. She barely uses minutes. Why did I pay for her to have such an expensive plan when she barely uses the phone? 

More pages of transcripts. I'm getting tired. Maybe I'll go back to bed. I pick up the surveillance records one more time. This folder has transcripts of overheard conversations. I squint at the notes - recorded at some chain restaurant using a directional microphone, lunch with a shorter brunette woman - maybe it's her friend Robin. Lots of mindless chatter. Talk about Robin's work. 

"So am I allowed to talk about it?"

"My lawyer said I shouldn't say anything."

"What? You don't trust me?"

"No, not that. He said you never know who might be listening."

"I think you're paranoid. It's a divorce, not a TV show."

"You don't know these people."

"You mean your husband?"

The transcript doesn't indicated pauses. It isn't a script filled with stage directions. Here it indicates "unintelligible" but without saying how long that lasted.

"You're kidding. You really did that?"

"I know, I could barely believe it myself." This was interesting.

"Did you do it?"

"No. No. I couldn't. I still can't."

"But you wanted to."

"God yes."

"But if Mike was having an affair, then why shouldn't you? You know, get some of your own."

"It's complicated."

"You mean by love."

"No. No. I don't think I ever loved Mike. But I promised I'd be faithful and there's a lot of money at stake."

"Mike's loaded."

"I have a prenuptial agreement. If I got caught, I'd get nothing."

"Is that legal? Aren't you entitled to half?"

"He can keep what he brought into the marriage. That's everything. And I agreed to some other things because I thought it was the only way he'd marry me."

"I thought you were crazy about him."

"I don't know. I met him right after you know the break-up. Mike's nice but I never felt the same way for him."

"He's rich. He's good looking. Was the sex bad?"

"It was fine. It should have been better. Maybe that was my fault."

"Wow. So after the divorce, you'll be rich and you'll have your true love and everything will be perfect."

"I think we should talk about something else."

The rest showed nothing of interest. I was now wide awake. The rest of the files contained only a few short bits of conversation, none particularly interesting. Only one line stood out, "I have no intention to back off." I assume she was talking about the court case.

So there I had it. Jenny had married me for my money. She'd been in love with someone else and saw me as a meal ticket even though I was at best second choice in her heart. And in her bed. Well, that just about made my day.

"She must be with him now," I thought. I wonder who the bastard is. Maybe I could have him castrated. "It could be arranged." Hell, with my money, almost anything could be arranged. 

People think it's easy being rich. Well, they're right. I'm always amazed when rich people complain about how hard their lives are. Yes, there's so much to organize for that trip to the Loire Valley and charity functions are worthwhile but so exhausting. I never had to worry where my next meal came from, whether I could afford a house - or to be honest, if that Ferrari wasn't a little too much. The last thing I would do is complain about having more of what most people barely have.

When you're divorced, upset, emotional and lonely, the best thing that money gives you is sex appeal. I was suddenly a very sexy man. It was like my cock had grown three more inches so it was now a full foot long - as if. I realized I could probably not shower and not shave and still get laid by hot women. I could probably fuck 'em without foreplay, roll over and go to sleep and still get called 'lover' if she believed a diamond bracelet might be forthcoming.

Is it a sin to take advantage of what's offered? Or is the sin not seizing the opportunities presented? When a blonde with expensively enhanced tits, puts those attraction generators in my face as one of her hands guides one of my hands under her short, designer skirt, who am I to not fuck her? 

Meredith? Great thighs, a pussy so perfectly hairless the pedophile associations kind of frightened me, and a mouth that yes may have had some collagen injected into the lips but that didn't bother me since they felt fine when I injected my sperm between them. I'd give her an eight on the extreme beauty scale - the one where a ten has never yet been seen and would cause instant ejaculation if found. She lost a point for artificiality. A high score on the enthusiasm scale - another obvious benefit of wealth - balanced by her definite lack of real sensuality. When she rode me, she bounced rather than fucked. I'd been fucked by some experts recently and she needed to learn better pelvic control to move out of the amateur ranks. 

I was seeing a lot of highly plucked eye brows and carefully rouged cheeks. Very long lashes and mascara can look like hell when you're being sweatily plowed. 

Blow jobs are offered to a man like me as a form of hello. As in, we chat for a minute and she gives the shaft an oral greeting as a hint of wildness later to come. In a two week period, three different women whom I'd never before dated asked me to fuck their asses. I was taken aback, though I felt honor bound to comply with their wishes. I gather the ass is either considered a less intimate substitute for pussy or as the ultimate mark of nasty intimacy. 

It is amazing what some girls will do. Some pick sexy and others pretend to be shyly vulnerable. I say pretend because my experience during this time in my life was that the so-called shy ones, the ones who weren't pushovers, actually were - round heels every one. The game was obvious, to make the act special by making the surrender an event. I never could decide which approach I preferred. Sexy is definitely good but there is something inherently fun about playing a little sexual poker before the actual poking. 

Genevieve. When a woman lets you know that her enormous breasts are real and then puts your hand on one, then you know the odds that your cock will be in her mouth are good. I'll admit her hair was permed; I didn't like it at all, too tortured and artificial. I'll admit I had no interest in her from word one. But, but, but . . . she had me fuck her mouth. That's different from a blow job, which is administered by the woman. Genevieve stretched out on her belly across my kitchen table, lifted her head, opened her mouth and I pumped it like a pussy, though not as roughly. I enjoyed it. I slapped her ass and squeezed her soft plush tits and rubbed my cock all over her face. I think she liked it too, that it wasn't only an act for her. I realized when fucking her that tits can actually be so big they can get in the way. Sometimes when you fuck, you want to be able to concentrate on the fucking itself, not on the big bags whacking your head around.

That was my life as a lonely, divorced man with a devastated family and deep-seated emotional issues. It wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. At least I still had my looks.

I started working with Susan in therapy, first thinking the goal was to help her but quickly realizing that I'd underestimated how much help I needed. The depth of my rage scared me. After the second session, I broke down and couldn't stop crying. 

I knew only that I felt empty, like I was living inside a shell that hid me from the world and kept me from knowing the real me, whoever that was. I realized I was unhappy, that I'd always been unhappy, that my life was a prison and my father had always been my jailer. 

Looking around me, I saw too many women with Hermés bags and diamond necklaces and surgery altered eyes under expensive coiffures. I saw people who lived in a cocoon made of money, who passed everyday through corridors of luxury, whose contact with the real world was the same as that experienced by a tourist in the third world. My interactions were with clerks in stores, with the service people who pampered me at the car dealer, with the bankers who solicitously acted like they were my friends, with the darker skinned people who cleaned up after me. Nice people, I would think, nice people and that made me feel more of a man, more of a human being for being nice to them in turn, for taking the time to know their names. I wondered if they cursed me in Spanish when my back was turned. 

I suddenly felt grateful to Jennifer, grateful in the same way that a cancer survivor looks at what has been learned from the experience. I could have walked through my life asleep inside myself, but now I was awakening. It was not, I realized, that my life had been free of pain - it was not - but that I had been so completely unfulfilled. 

I am not a religious man. I believe in God but for reasons I can't put in words. My God is not a man, not a force that watches over us. I didn't feel any urge to find salvation in belief, in handing myself over to Jesus, to be saved and perhaps then to use my wealth to spread the gospel, amen, to every corner of this glorious but awful world. I could look around me and what I saw was hypocrisy and judging and sanctimony, not love and not peace. Yes, many men of God would be glad for my money, glad for the good works they could accomplish in God's name with my money and, yes, some of them likely would do some good. But others would not. I knew of the affairs, of the closeted ministers spouting the word on Sunday when they'd been dicking it with a man on Saturday. I knew about the money spent on trips and cars and fancy houses. 

All that would not have mattered if I had within me the true belief that people can be saved. From what are they being saved? What exactly are they to believe when everyone hears the Word differently? Is this sect right and that one so wrong? Is it all facets of the same picture? And if it is, then why can't the Hindus be as right as the Baptists? 

It sounds like I'm justifying myself and maybe I am. I should shut up.

Enlightenment filled me when I realized I was the hero of my own story. It is my choice to be tragic, to walk away wounded, to die even in a burst of raw emotion. It is my choice to be forgiving, to be the one who turns the cheek and accepts. It is my choice to be vengeful. Only I am the hero of my own story.

I choose happiness. Easily said, harder to define. Does being happy mean I must stoke the fires that burn or that I should damp them? Must I overcome the most difficult hurdles or should I seek the easiest path? What kind of man fits this kind of happiness? How can I know if I don't know who I am?

Who am I? I am Sam. Sam I am. No, that's Dr. Seuss. I am Mike. Mike I am. I am a worthless, rich bastard. I am a complete, fucking blank. All I fucking am is what I have and I didn't earn a goddamn penny of it. All I fucking am is a pile of clothes and objects and things and not a bit of that shit has anything to do with me. 

The last time I remember being me was when I was a kid. I only feel good about myself when I feel like a kid. I have to get out of here.

I told Susan. I told her I'd reached the breaking point, that I was at the end of my rope and every other cliché which fit. I had to get away, not on vacation but away, not like she had done - to go into hiding - but to find myself. Even my urges are fucking retreads from old dreams told in every generation. 

Susan, bless her heart, understood, probably with more depth than I was capable of reaching. She told me to get lost. Her exact words were, "Mikey, go until you run out of road. Then every direction you go in will be your choice." Then she said I love you.

It doesn't take long to disappear. Preparations in case I ran into big trouble. A security code to retrieve money if necessary. Instructions. A Durable Power of Attorney authorizing Susan to act for me. My will brought up to date. A motorcycle. 




The Prenuptial Agreement Ch. 02



I didn't work for Mother Theresa, washing the sick and carrying the bodies of the dead. I didn't work in an AIDS clinic in Africa. I didn't volunteer into the Marines to fight the War on Terror. I'm not a saint. I'm not even that nice a person. I think the best you could say about me is that I'm polite. And I'm a good tipper. 

Here is a small list of things I learned about myself:

1. I like cooking. I never knew I could do it. I like turning ingredients into something that tastes complete. I like bringing out the flavors. I like the process. I like the care and even love that goes into food. I learned this in many places, in many ways, on street corners in Thailand, in Pakistani workers' dorms in Hong Kong, in kitchens in Italy, everywhere.

2. I like taking care of myself. I can do my own laundry. In a stream, if necessary. I like shaving, not having a beard. I like being clean, not dirty. I learned that in the poorest places where people with nothing still maintained their sense of dignified self by keeping clean in the midst of filth.

3. I like being with people. I never liked people much before, not like this. I'm not saying I like what people have to say or how they choose to live. There are cheats everywhere. Most people have stupid ideas. Spite is everywhere. Petty hatred is the most common action in the world. But I like being around people, feeling their lives unfold and unreel around me. It's the opposite of the cocoon in which I lived, the act of being in the world instead of being a tourist. This, I realized, is what drives the wealthy. They value being in the cocoon. They want to be tourists in the world, taking their day trips into life. I like life. I like hearing the arguments and seeing the kids play. 

4. I learned that love is both fleeting and lasting. I have felt the strongest bonds with those I've known for hours or days and have witnessed the devotion, sometimes fractious, that binds people together over decades. I have held hands with an elderly man who thought I was his son and I loved him back with more heart than I thought existed in me. I have sat on a sea wall teasing the kids who congregate with nothing to do, so completely lost in the moment of the day, with the sun, with the water as dirty as it was, in this place with no future a sane man could recognize as good.

5. I've learned that most people are idiots when it comes to ideas and politics and how to achieve results. The world is a mess because we are a messy species. We can't organize. We fall prey to the avaricious and unscrupulous. We are weak except when we're bullies. I've seen riots and killings that drove home this one point: we are deep inside motivated by urges which are animal, which are not logical and which can only be satisfied with cruelty and destruction.

6. I've learned that I am what I am. That is all. I am what I am. I am no more. I am no less. I am what I am. Me. Who am I? I am me.

The wonders of the modern world make staying in touch easy. An internet email account, that's all it takes. A note every once in a while to let Susan know I was alive. A communication, a word, a sharing of emotions that at first felt forced like the bonds of my old life were preventing me from opening up. With time, I learned to say what I wanted to say. I learned that to say what you mean, you have to hear what you think. 

I wrote Susan from Vietnam. "Susie, I have never forgiven myself for being born. I feel guilty for everything bad that happened to you and Mom. If I hadn't been there, Mom would still be alive. Dad was cruel to you because he had a son. It was never your fault. It was never mine because I didn't choose to be born. Mom should have known that Dad is monster. She made a mistake. We're alive."

I wrote her from Paraguay - which is, by the way, a strange place. "I don't like greasy food. I don't like gristle unless it's supposed to be there."

I wrote her from Java. "There is pleasure in doing anything with care. Cutting up vegetables is not the same as cutting them with care. The feeling matters. The thought matters."

I wrote her from Germany. "I tried to go to Auschwitz. I couldn't walk in because it felt like death." I wrote her from Staten Island, New York. "I'm bored. I like looking at the city. The ferry is cool. I had noodles in Chinatown. Only $2.25. Tasted real. One of my favorite spots in the world is the walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge, out near one of the big stone towers. You can feel the hands of the men who carved the stone and can see the water swirl against the shore and can see and feel the passage of hundreds of people on their way to work or home."

Susan wrote back from time to time. She was making progress. She'd met a guy. She'd had a real relationship and had discovered that it wasn't like what she knew. "Mike, I've learned that each guy is different - meaning they're each fucked up in their special way. Ha!" 

She wrote that we should have lunch sometime. I wrote back a month later. "Meet me in Montreal on Thursday. Schwartz's for lunch." If you know Montreal, you know what that means.

I was staying in a small flat off St Viateur so I grabbed a poppy seed bagel and ate it as I walked down The Main. What is it about these bagels that I can taste the care with which they were made? The line outside Schwartz's was a little longer than usual, which meant a group of tourists had descended. I went into Pharmaprix and bought a newspaper and a pack of gum. Susan was standing with her back to me, looking at the line, a hint of anxiety in her posture. I whacked her butt with the paper and grabbed her waist. She yelped and twisted then realized it was me and threw her arms around my neck. 

Susan pulled back, looked at me and started to talk but I interrupted, "We'd better get in line if we want to eat."

"You look so thin." I shrugged. "You look good."

"Thanks. I feel good." Then we stood in line without talking. The guy in front of me asked in French if we ate there often. Susan answered, saying that she'd never been to Montreal before. I didn't know she spoke French. "You mean you speak French and you've never been here before? What the hell is wrong with you, girl?"

"I looked this place up on the internet. I like the sign. Charcuterie Hebraique."

We sat at a table with four strangers, eating our corned beef and pickles. "Later, we can stop at Ben's. Viande fumée. It's pastrami. Open till like 4 in the morning."

"The way you talk you should be fat."

"I am fat. It's just invisible. A trick I learned in the Orient. So kid, you look good. If you weren't my sister, I'd be all over you." Susan cracked up laughing. "If you're not going to eat that, can I have it?"

"I'm more interested in that invisible fat trick."

"That requires great concentration and much practice. The basic idea though is that you store all your fat in the fifth dimension. You see we live in four dimensions, three physical ones plus time. You keep the fat outside those dimensions and it follows you around through space and time but you can't see it unless you possess the magic goggles which allow viewing of the higher realms." 

And that is the way our conversation went. For the first time, even having not spoken for so very long, none of the phrases, none of the words, none of the emotions were shaded by pain. We just talked like two people talk. Later that afternoon, I was sitting at the window in a coffee bar, among the mix that is Montreal, while Susan used the bathroom. She punched my shoulder hard. We were back to being twins again. 

"So where are you in life?" she asked. 

"I really don't know. I almost said I was in Montreal but I didn't want to make a joke. Where are you?"

"I'm making progress. That's about it. I have a way to go. I may never get there but I'm moving in the right direction. Are you?"

"No, I don't think so."

"You don't?"

"No. I stopped moving. I don't know when." We sipped coffee. "I have no idea where I'm going. I don't what I'm doing. I don't know why I do things." She touched my hand. 

"Are you happy? You look happy."

"I am."

"It's that simple."

"Uh-huh. If you're happy, then you're happy. There is no mystery. You don't wonder about what happiness means or whether it lasts."

"My brother the mystic."

"More like my brother the wastrel." I stretched. "You can live here. The winter sucks but the people are so real. I heard that Stevie Wonder has a new record."

"Boogie on, Reggae Woman."

"I was running on Mount Royal and found myself singing, "Don't you worry 'bout a thing. Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama.""

"Very meaningful."

"Very. I thought about telling Dad that he's a pathetic piece of shit but he's not worth wasting my time on."

"Maybe he knows what he is. Deep inside."

"Does it matter?"

"No. I can't let it go completely." She tilted the last drops out of her cup into the saucer. "But you're right. He doesn't matter. Those are memories . . . the things that bother me. They aren't him. He's nothing."

I could end this story here, with my life passing into obscurity as I drift from place to place, never looking for or finding direction. But that is not who I am. 

I went back to the city of my former residence. It wasn't home. It was where I used to be another person. I looked Jenny up in the phone book but didn't see a listing under my last name or her maiden name Wallace. Maiden name is a stupid phrase. She must be married, maybe to the guy she really loved. Good for her.

I drove around so I could see through my new eyes the places which had defined my former existence. That was my plan but I couldn't do it. I couldn't turn down the familiar streets to see the mansions, couldn't walk through the upscale mall. I found myself driving through the blue collar suburbs and the poor neighborhoods. 

I saw a bunch of guys playing basketball and on a whim parked to watch. They were playing full court. They weren't bad. Ten minutes later I was in the game. "Hey man, you want to play?" Hector had a bad knee and had to sit. No introductions. I became Dude or Anglo or White Dude and then WD and fit in at the off guard, taking passes from our squat point guard and feeding the big cholo Miguel in the middle or pulling the ball out around the perimeter for Chu-Chu to loft one. Slapping hands an hour later, "Catch you, man. Be cool." And I'm gone.

"Hey."

I looked up from my chicken fried steak. I was at one of the few old places left, a blue collar roadhouse that rocked with a life no chain restaurant could ever match. "Hey. You wanna sit down?"

"I'm not sure I should." She sat anyway.

"Been a long time," I said. "I looked you up but didn't find a listing." 

"When?"

"Couple of days ago."

"Oh."

"You eaten?"

"Yes. It's been a long time."

"You look good." I kept eating. "I'm not mad at you, if that's what you're thinking."

"Oh. I guess I don't . . . I used to imagine talking to you but . . . "

"It never works out that way in real life. It's never a speech. God, I'm beat. Played basketball today. I'm going to sleep well tonight."

"Why did you look me up?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Why?"

"I thought it would be a good idea. I came back to check things out and remembered that you were upset last time I saw you." She dropped her eyes.

"That was a long time ago."

"I know. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine with me. I found I'm not really interested in seeing how I used to live. No reflection on you." I stretched again. This meal would stick to my ribs. "I can't believe I used to be who I used to be, if that makes sense. So how are you?"

"I'm doing all right." 

"Did you ever get together with that guy you loved?"

"What? How did you . . .? Is that what you wanted to see me about?"

"No, I was just asking. I don't care about that. Really. I think I wanted to tell you that I don't blame you. I was a mess. Hard not to be a mess with my family. I don't hold anything against you." I paused. "That's it. People do stuff for all sorts of reasons. That's the way life works." 

"You've changed. God, that sounds stupid."

The waitress came by to check on me. I ordered a Jack and coke - a little caffeine with the alcohol never hurts - and asked Jenny if she wanted something. She made an excuse about having to leave but changed her mind and ordered a tequila sunrise. 

"People still drink those?" I said, "I thought it was all margaritas and martinis." I worked on the rest of my steak as Jenny watched me eat. 

"You don't eat the same."

"I've learned to chew my food."

"You used to wolf it down." I smiled. "What have you been up to? We don't exactly move in the same circles." At that, I shook my head. Jenny tried to retract the question.

"It's fine. Doesn't matter. Nothing much matters, really, except what you can't let go of. That I've figured out. All you are is everything that has a hold on you. Some of it's good, like my sister, like a good steak and that drink when it shows up. Some of it's bad. Like my father. Like a lot of things."

"I know which category I'm in."

"Do you? Must have been hard to be married to me. I don't blame you for wanting out."

"You talk different. You sound like a cowboy, all gruff and tough. Is this an act?"

I took a deep breath. "If it is, then it's an act that fits me." The drinks arrived and the waitress cleared my plate. I turned down dessert, nodding to the glass to indicate that was my piece of pie for tonight. Jenny took a gulp and sat, shoulders hunched, her mind obviously turning things over. "Why don't you just say what's on your mind. There can't be any harm now."

Jenny shuddered. She took a sip and made a face. "I never knew I could be so unhappy. Do you know?" She looked up. "Of course you do. You've been unhappy your whole life."

"Kind of sucks, doesn't it? I'm sorry I contributed to that." I paused. "But you have to accept that it was your choice. You married me - I don't know why - and you couldn't live with the decision. I don't blame you, like I said."

"I always thought I'd be happy. I never looked into my future and saw anything but . . . I saw bad times but never this."

"It's been a while. Haven't you let it go?"

Jenny turned from side to side, her anxiety showing. "You're only a part of it."

"Sorry." Must have made some other bad choices along the way. 

"Maybe if I can say this all at once. When we were married, I lost hope that you'd change. You were always angry and you kept your feelings from me. I started to believe the worst."

"You don't have to get into the Susan thing."

"I'm not. I started to think I'd never been in love with you. That I'd only ever married you . . . I started to think I still loved this guy from high school." She looked at me. "I never did anything about it."

"I know. My people were thorough."

"I kept imagining how it would be. How we'd have children - him and me - and how we'd be happy and I would be happy. You know some of this, right?"

"Pretty much all of it." She looked at me and then looked away. "So didn't it work out? I gather it didn't."

"You don't know?" I shook my head. The waitress came by and I ordered another round for both of us.

"It was awful. I broke up with him because he wasn't mature and he still isn't. I can't believe I ever thought I was in love with him."

"So it sounds to me like you need to put it all in the past. He was part of the wrapping up of our marriage and now that's over so you put him and me in the past and move on."

"I realized I was in love with someone who never existed."

"Him or me?"

"Both. You really. All the things I thought about him were just reflections of you." 

"So did all this happen recently?" I was fishing. I hadn't seen Jenny in forever. If she was dwelling on ancient events, then she had problems I'd never seen when we'd been together. 

"No." She saw the look on my face. "You think I'm nuts, don't you?" I cocked my head. "It took a long time to get over what happened to Susan - what I did to her - but I don't sit around wishing that you'd walk in the door."

"First, the Susan thing was my fault. I decided to go through with the hearing because I wasn't going to stay married to you. And because I was so pissed off at my father that I wanted Susan to have a day in court. If only to embarrass the fucker. Second . . . well there is no second. I thought there was but there isn't. Oh wait. You told me you're unhappy now. What's the deal?"

"My mother died two weeks ago. She had lung cancer."

"I'm sorry."

"She was sick a long time. That's why I'm here. She died at home." Tears were in her eyes. "I don't have anybody. My brother is a waste of time. He can't deal with anything, nothing. I had to do the funeral myself. I've had to clean out the house."

"I'm sorry."

"You stupid bastard. Why couldn't you love me?"

"I thought you married me for my money. That's what you said."

Jenny wiped her nose with a napkin. "What, you think I didn't want to be happy? You think I didn't love you? I made a mistake, a big fucking mistake, thinking you could change. I loved you. I loved you, goddamnit, and you couldn't ever try to make me happy. You know what it's like to live with a man who's all ripped up inside, who's so full of anger at himself and everyone else. I have to go." As she started to get up, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her down.

We didn't talk for a while. We sat. I held Jenny's wrist, not her hand. It wasn't romantic. Five minutes passed. I waved the waitress away.

"Susan's doing well," I said. "She's been dating. For the first time. Now she realizes all men are jerks - which we both think is a step forward. I saw her in Montreal. We had a good time.

"I'm sorry I was such an asshole. I doubt I would have understood if you'd talked to me. I wouldn't have been able to hear it.

"I owe you something. If it weren't for your divorcing me, I wouldn't have hit bottom and decided to change. I've learned a few things. What people say about drunks and junkies is true for a lot of things. You have to hit bottom before you know you have to change. When I was on my own, when all the shit with my sister and my mother was staring me in the face . . . I had to do something different. 

"I've been wandering. Just wandering. On my own. Do you understand me, Jenny. I wanted to get lost. I couldn't figure out who the fuck I am. All I could see was a shell surrounded by piles of expensive shit. I didn't know what I really wanted. I didn't know where I wanted to go. You want to know where I am now?"

"Where?"

"I have no idea. Honest. I have no idea. I don't belong . . . I don't belong in my old life and I don't know where I'm going or what I'm going to do." I finally let go of her wrist. "I think that's what I wanted to say to you."

In a romance novel, Jenny would have taken my hands in hers and looked steadily into my eyes and then she would have said, "Where ever you go, I want to be there with you." That didn't happen. I want to make clear that didn't happen. She left and I left and I made it back to my hotel without driving into a telephone pole. 

I had realized once upon a time that I could choose to be happy. And I was. I was happy. I was also bored and more than a little lonely. It was nice not having my father's voice screaming in my ears whenever my thoughts were not otherwise quiet. It was weird at first knowing that so much of my life had been an urge to create enough activity in my brain to drown out my troubles. 

A couple of days later I had decided to get out of town again, this time to see the USA, not a corner of the far off world. I didn't need to run that far, but I wasn't ready to sit still. My bags were in the trunk of a Toyota, not a Mercedes, not a romantic Chevy roadster. The Toyota was comfortable and reliable and I'd learned that anything more is a choice. I'm not saying it's wrong to choose luxury or style, just that it's a choice I no longer needed to make. 




The Prenuptial Agreement



"Do you remember who proposed Section Six?"

"Yes. I did."

Michaels then offered another piece of paper from Jenny's former attorney to prove her comment. It was admitted as Exhibit 2.

"Mrs. Hinton, when did you begin to suspect that your husband might be having an affair?"

Jenny sharply looked down. When she raised her head, she spoke in only a loud whisper. "It was almost a year ago."

"Can you tell the Court why you began to suspect an affair?"

"Just over a year ago, Mike hired an investment advisor out of town and started to visit them every two weeks. I didn't think much of it. I never knew much about his business . . . affairs, about his money." She hesitated. "Then he became withdrawn and quiet. I still didn't suspect anything. Then almost a year ago, about one month after he started going there - maybe he'd made two or three trips - his mood changed. I was happy . . . at first . . . and I put it out of my head."

"You didn't say anything to your husband?"

"No. I wasn't sure anything bad was going on. It was just a suspicion."

"When did this suspicion become more concrete?"

"I remember that day very well. My friend Corinne called me and asked if we could have lunch. When we met, she told me she'd seen Mike with another woman. That was six weeks ago."

"Where did she see your husband?"

"She was visiting relatives there and saw them hugging on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant she was eating at."

Her lawyer took Jenny through the hard questions. How did she feel? Why didn't she confront me? Her answers were perfectly reasonable. She felt terrible. She wanted to find out the truth before making an issue out of what might have been an innocent hug. She hired a detective. 

"Mrs. Hinton, once you felt your suspicions were confirmed, what were your feelings?"

"I felt that my husband, that Michael, had broken our marriage vows. It hurt me tremendously."

"Why did you decide to file for divorce? You could have sought counseling."

"It was the length of time this had been going on. When I learned he'd been seeing her for a year . . . that's half the length of our marriage. When I heard what he said to her, telling her that he loved her . . . I can't . . . I felt I couldn't live with a man who would lie to me like that. I just couldn't."

Jenny's testimony was direct and emotional without being overly dramatic. She was convincing. When her lawyer was finished, Jack asked her if I'd ever struck her. No, she said. Had I abused alcohol? No. Had I abused illegal drugs or indeed drugs of any kind? No. When he was done, Jack turned to me, raised his eyebrows and sighed. Jenny was excused. She'd been on the stand for almost 45 minutes and she looked worn from the experience.

Michael's then stated that he could call Jenny's friend to the stand, but to expedite matters, he'd prefer to offer her sworn statement. It was admitted as Exhibit 3.

Next called to the stand was the detective, Robert Kirshmann. Michaels took his time laying out the foundation of the man's credentials and his experience investigating marital problems. Then he led him through a description of 

The detective followed me. He took pictures of me with Susan. He followed me to her house and for each visit noted the time when I went in and the time I went out. He explained the equipment used for eavesdropping, taking pictures and other surveillance.

Michaels showed that the house in question belonged to the woman in question, a certain Susan Turner whom he identified carefully in photos. Michaels then introduced as Exhibits 4 and 5, tax records that showed the house in question was owned by Susan. He then asked, "Mr. Kirshmann, were you able to overhear or eavesdrop on any of Mr. Hinton's conversations with this woman?"

"Using a directional microphone, we were able to capture some of their conversations while they stood on the steps of her house."

"Are you able to play back those conversations for the Court today?"

"Yes. I am. The audio quality is not pristine but we've enhanced the volume and reduced the background sounds so the conversation is audible."

"With the Court's permission," Michael's said, "I'd like Mr. Kirshmann to play these tapes for the Court." The Judge asked Jack if he had any objection. Jack rose briefly to say no. Michaels' assistant lifted a boom box style player out of a box under their desk. Michaels then carried it to the witness stand and placed it on a small table in the witness' reach. 

"Mr. Kirshmann, I'll ask you to play the first excerpt. Please identify for the Court the time and date of the recording."

"This recording was made at eleven PM on Thursday, September 3rd of this year. The subjects were standing at Ms. Turner's front door. I was in a car across the street with a directional microphone."

He pressed play. The courtroom filled with a loud hissing noise, then a voice "This is Robert Kirshmann. The time is 11:02 PM on Thursday, September 3rd. I am sitting in front of 1862 Forest." The next voice on the tape was a woman's but it wasn't clear. Then you could hear my voice. 

"I love you. I've always loved you."

Then her voice, "I love you too."

My voice, "I'll see in you in two weeks."

Michaels asked Kirshmann to stop the playback. "Mr. Kirshmann, you were in the car opposite the house. Who was the gentleman's voice on that recording?"

"It was Mr. Hinton. He is sitting at that table. I could see him clearly from my location."

"At any time, did Mr. Hinton attempt to conceal himself from view?"

"No. Never."

There were five excerpts in total. Michaels led with the best but finished strong with the last. It featured Susan's voice saying, "Sometimes, I need to hold you."

Michaels entered into evidence a number of photos of Susan and me. Hugging. Holding hands. A kiss on the cheek. A kiss on the lips. Me touching Susan's waist. Her head leaning on my shoulder. Susan resting her hand on my back.

"Mr. Kirshmann, in your experience, have you ever followed a husband or a wife and discovered evidence of this sort and yet find that no sexual affair was being conducted?"

"No. I have not. Of course I'm not familiar with the results of every case I've ever been involved with. Sometimes I don't know what happened or I'm never contacted again once I've delivered a final report. But I can say, with absolute certainty, that in every case where I do know what happened, there has always been an affair."

Jack's questions were quick and to the point. "Mr. Kirshmann, did you at any time see or photograph or record Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner having sexual relations."

"No."

"We all heard the words on the tape - I love you, I missed you, I need to hold you. Did you ever hear or record or in any way note any discussion between Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner of an openly sexual nature?"

"Beyond those comments, no."

"So you never heard or recorded or in any way witnessed any sexual activity between Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner or any discussion of sexual activity by them? Isn't that correct."

"Yes."

"The photographs which have been entered into evidence show a series of kisses between Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner. Every kiss but one is on the cheek. The other is a closed mouth kiss on the lips. Did you ever see or photograph Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner engaging in an open mouth kiss?"

"No."

"How long would you estimate the kiss on the lips lasted?"

"I really couldn't say."

"Would you characterize it as brief?"

"Yes."

"So Mr. Kirshmann, your investigations, which were very thorough and commendable in their professionalism, have uncovered no direct evidence of a sexual affair between Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner. Is that not correct?"

"I've already stated my professional opinion."

"I understand your opinion. I'm asking what you actually found. You actually found no direct sexual evidence. Isn't that correct?"

"Yes. But I stand by my conclusions." Michaels on redirect said, "Mr. Kirshmann, thank you for your time and patience this morning. A few more questions and we'll be done. You witnessed Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner on, I believe, twelve separate days and in almost two dozen situations, ranging from the entrance to her house to public restaurants to a miniature golf course. Having observed them for this many times over a period of weeks, how would you describe their relationship?"

"They are obviously close and are definitely involved with each other."

"You state that as a professional investigator?"

"I do. And I certainly know when a man and a woman are physically comfortable with each other. When a man and a woman have not been intimate, they may flirt but they don't relax completely. They may touch each other but they don't take the other's body for granted. You don't have to be a detective to know that. Mr. Hinton and Ms. Turner touched each other with complete familiarity."

"Thank you, Mr. Kirshmann. You may step down." As the detective left the stand, Michaels was handed a file by his assistant. "Your honor, if it pleases the Court, we would like to introduce into evidence numerous records of phone calls made by Mr. Hinton to Ms. Turner from his cell phone. We can authenticate these records, if the Court requires."

"Mr. Cohen?"

"We've had the opportunity to review these records and have no objection to entering them into evidence."

"If it pleases the Court, to summarize Mr. Hinton's call records, he phoned Ms. Turner's numbers, both home and her cellphone, every day for the past eleven months, with only four exceptions. On some days, he was connected to these numbers for two or more hours. Much of the activity was concentrated in the first two months after Mr. Hinton first journeyed to Ms. Turner's city of residence. The total number of calls is almost 1,000.

Jack stood up. "I would like to point out to the Court that no calls from Ms. Turner to Mr. Hinton, at any number, show up in the records." 

The Judge said, "You mean he called her but she never called him?" Michaels and Jack both said yes. The Judge raised his eyebrows and scratched at his cheek. "Mr. Michaels, you have used up nearly two hours. How much longer will you need?"

"I'm almost through, your honor."

"If you need more than a half hour, we can take a short recess."

"I only need five more minutes." The Judge waved him on.

"If it pleases the Court, we would also ask that the following printed out emails from Mr. Hinton to Ms. Turner be entered into evidence. These emails were recovered from the home computer shared by Mr. and Mrs. Hinton. They have been authenticated by opposing counsel."

Jack rose, "That is true, your honor. We would like to state for the record that these emails contain nothing of a directly sexual nature." 

The Judge asked, "Mr. Michaels, do you intend to read these into the record?"

"No, your honor. It is sufficient for this time to enter them into evidence."

"Mr. Cohen, if you will review these, we can we mark these all as one exhibit." Jack leafed through the email pile and then handed it to Connie and the other lawyer at the table. They checked and re-checked it against their own folder. When the nodded, Jack handed the papers back to Michaels.

"We have no objection."

"Mark these as Exhibit - what number are we at?" The Clerk answered 43. "Mark these as Exhibit 43. What else Mr. Michaels?"

"That is it for now, your honor."

"Very well. Court will stand in recess until 1PM. Mr. Cohen, be prepared to present your case then." The Judge rapped his gavel and stood up. The Clerk told everyone to rise and we all stood until the Judge had left the room. 

Jack thought it best to keep Susan and me apart so I had lunch with him, while Connie ate with Susan. I had no appetite and picked at a salad. Jack downed an entire portion of linguine with artichoke hearts and chicken in a white wine sauce. "That's why you're fat," I said, pointing at his nearly empty plate.

"Fighting the good fight makes me hungry." He patted his stomach. "Gotta feed the beast."

"You should take the beast to a treadmill."

"I've started working with a trainer. Private sessions."

"Cute."

"Guy. More your type. Ginny's been after me to get in better shape. My heart's fine. My cholesterol's only 210. Nothing to worry about."

"Except looking like a potato."

"I'm Jewish. You're thinking Irish."

"Except looking like a gefilte fish. That's what those things you served me were, right?"

"Mashed carp balls."

"Yum. I liked the horseradish though."

"Best part of the meal. That and the haroset. You know, the sweet nut thing."

"That was good."

"Okay, we've put this off as long as possible. You know what's going to happen or what's supposed to happen. I had a chance to talk to Michaels just before we started. They won't put up a fight about your being in the room while Susan is testifying." I nodded. "You ready champ?"

"No way."

"Well, the bell's ringing and someone's got to answer it."

I sat at the table with Jack and Connie. We all stood for the judge and he rapped his gavel and without any preliminaries asked Jack to begin. To my surprise, Connie stood up. "If it please the Court, I am Constance Kosinski and I also on record as representing Mr. Hinton. I would like to call Ms. Susan Turner to the stand. I put my hand on Jack's arm. He gave me a thumb's up sign behind the table where no else could see.

Susan was sworn in. She looked miserable: unhappy and nervous. Her voice broke once as she affirmed she would tell the truth. My heart went out to her.

Connie began. She first established Susan's name and address. "How long have you lived at that address?'

"It will be five years in November."

"Before that where did you live?"

"I lived in San Diego, California." 

"For how long?" Connie's style was less formal, more like a conversation.

"Over ten years."

"All at the same address?"

"No, we moved I think three times."

"Have you ever had sexual relations with Mr. Hinton?"

"No. Never."

"Have you been seeing him for the past year?"

"Yes."

"But you've never had sexual relations?"

"Never."

"To be clear, I mean no genital or oral sexual relations."

"Never."

"Has Mr. Hinton ever asked you to have sexual relations of any kind?"

"No."

"Has he ever physically attempted to have any form of sexual relations with you?"

"No."

"Has he ever hinted?"

"Never."

"You weren't in the room this morning. Would it surprise you to know that a great deal of evidence has been presented to this Court that shows you and Mr. Hinton engaged in intimate contact?"

"It depends on the contact."

"Kissing, hugging, touching."

"We've done those things."

"Open-mouthed kissing, sexual touching."

"Never. We've kissed on the lips but never romantically."

"Or sexually?"

"Not sexually."

"How about touching?"

"There has never been any romantic or sexual touching."

"Ms. Turner, the evidence presented shows that you and Mr. Hinton began seeing each other approximately twelve months ago. Is that when you first met?"

"No."

"You knew Mr. Hinton before?"

"Yes."

"How long have you known Mr. Hinton?"

"I don't know how to answer that. Do you mean how many years have we been in touch?"

"Let me rephrase the question. When did you first meet Mr. Hinton?" 

"Technically, I guess you'd say 27 years ago."

"You are aware that Mr. Hinton is only 26 years old?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"I'm 26."

"How did you meet?"

"We were inside our mother's womb." You could hear a pin drop. "Michael is my twin."

"I'm sorry. Did you say Mr. Hinton is your twin?"

"Yes. He's my brother. I'm six minutes older." If I weren't concentrating so hard on what Susan was saying, I might have noticed the effect her words were having in the courtroom.

"Mr. Hinton is your twin brother." Connie then turned to the Judge. "Your honor, if it pleases the Court, we will present into evidence certified copies of the birth certificates of Susan and Michael Hinton. I would, however, like to avoid interrupting Ms. Turner's testimony." The Judge motioned for her to proceed. "Ms. Turner, are you married?"

"No."

"Have you ever been married?"

"No."

"Then why is your last name Turner and not Hinton?"

"I use that name." Susan's voice broke.

"Before you began seeing your brother a year ago, when was the last time you saw him?"

"About sixteen years ago."

"When you were ten?"

"Yes."

"You did not see your twin brother for sixteen years?"

"Yes." 

"Do you need to take a break?" Susan shook her head.

"Why?"

"Pardon."

"The question in everyone's mind is why didn't you see your twin brother for sixteen years. Were you close growing up?"

"Yes. Very close."

"There was no argument between you?"

"We were ten. We fought like ten year old kids."

"Are your parents divorced?"

"Yes."

"And when did that happen?"

"When I was . . . when we were ten. When Mike and I were ten."

"And after the divorce, you had no contact with your brother until one year ago?"

"Yes, that's right."

"No contact at all."

"None."

"Ms. Turner, do you know why Mr. Hinton, your brother, did not tell his wife about you?"

"I asked him not to tell her."

"You asked your brother not to tell his wife that he was seeing his sister. Why?"

"I had my reasons."

"Ms. Turner, it is my unfortunate job to ask you to tell us what those reasons are."

Susan hung her head. She started to cry. Connie poured her a glass of water.

"What is your relationship with your mother?"

"She passed away five years ago."

"Is that when you left San Diego?"

"Yes."

"How would you describe your relationship with your mother?"

"It was great. She was a wonderful person. I loved her very much."

"How would you describe your brother's relationship with your mother?"

"He never saw her. Not after the divorce."

"Not once?"

"No."

"How would you describe your relationship with your father?"

"I have no relationship with my father."

"When was the last time you saw your father?"

"When I was ten."

Connie stopped. She leaned back against our table. She looked at the floor and then at her notes. She took a deep breath.

"Did your brother contact you or did you contact him?"

"He called me."

"How did you respond?"

"I told him to leave me alone."

"Did he?"

"No. He came up to me in the street and then came to my house."

"Why didn't you want to see your brother? No, strike that. Ms. Turner, you did agree at some point to meet with your brother, yes?"

"Yes."

"And those meetings became regular?"

"Yes."

"Did you impose any conditions on your brother?"

"Yes."

"You've already told this Court that you asked your brother not to tell his wife about you. Was this a request or a condition?"

"It was a condition. I wouldn't see Mike if he told anyone about me."

"That's a very unusual request. Do you dislike Mrs. Hinton?"

"No. I've never met her."

"Was this condition you imposed a personal whim or was there a specific reason for it?"

"I had a specific reason."

"Was that reason a specific person you didn't want to see?"

"Yes."

"Was that person your father?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"My father abused me." Susan was white.

"Sexually?"

"Yes."

"Is that why your parents divorced?"

"Yes."

"I've asked far too much of you, Ms. Turner. Thank you." Susan left the stand and went to the back of the courtroom. I turned and watched her. She was shaking and crying. She sat in the last row. Marlene from Jack's firm sat with her.

"I would like to call Michael Hinton to the stand."

I stood up and went to the witness box. I raised my right hand and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"Mr. Hinton, you heard the testimony of Ms. Turner. What is your relationship?"




The Prenuptial Agreement



"She's my big sister. We're twins."

"Your sister testified that you never saw your mother from age ten until her death and that she has not seen your father from age ten until now. When did you last see your mother?"

"In a hotel room. I was ten. My father brought me to the hotel and I saw her there. I never saw her again."

"Why?"

"My parents were getting divorced. It was explained to me that Susan would live with mom and I would live with dad."

"Did you try to contact your sister before you called her a year ago?" 

"No."

"Why not?"

"When I was twelve, my father told me my mother was dead and my sister had been adopted by another family."

"You believed him?"

"I don't know if I did or not. I didn't really believe it as I grew up, but you have to know my dad. He's incredibly forceful. Every time I asked him, every time I tried to bring up the subject, he'd tell me she was gone forever and not to think about it."

"How then did you find your sister and why did you contact her?"

"It was totally an accident. I was clearing out some old newspaper clippings, mostly business clippings that had been sent to my dad, when I saw an obituary. It was my mother's. It said she was survived by a daughter, Susan, and a son, Michael. She'd been dead for nearly four years. I contacted an investigations firm and they ran Susan down for me. It took them a few months because she'd moved and had changed her name to Turner."

"Did you know why your parents divorced?"

"Dad told me mom left him for another man."

"What happened when you contacted your sister?"

"She first refused to talk to me. Then it came out that she thought I knew what had happened . . . about what my father did to her. Then I realized she was scared that he'd come after her. That's why she said I couldn't tell anyone."

"You'd never told your wife about the sister you'd lost?" 

"Not exactly. She knew I had a sister but I let her think my sister had died."

"Why?"

"You don't know my family. My father is a force of nature. If he knew I was talking about Susan, he'd be screaming at me for months straight."

"You're also scared of your father?"

"Everyone is scared of dad. Me less than most. Now that I have my own money."

"Have you ever cheated on your wife?"

"Never."

"You've never had sexual relations with Ms. Turner?"

"Bite your tongue. Of course not. She's my twin sister."

"What is your current relationship with your sister?"

"Until this happened, it was great. Well, it had become great. I understand some of what she's gone through, not that I can ever really know."

"And now?"

"She's having a hard time. She's scared. I won't let my father near her."

"Thank you, Mr. Hinton."

The Judge dismissed me from the stand. I noticed that Connie's hands were trembling as she checked through her notes.

Jack stood up. "Your honor, if it pleases the Court, we have voluminous evidence to enter into the record to demonstrate that Susan Turner is in fact Susan Hinton, that she and Mr. Hinton are twins, that their parents were divorced sixteen years ago and that their mother died in the months before Ms. Turner changed her name and moved from San Diego. We can present witnesses who knew both children and we have a large number of photographs of them together up to time of their parents divorce. But your honor, we ask that in light of Ms. Turner's testimony you rule immediately against the motion to enforce Section Five of the prenuptial agreement. To be blunt, your honor, it is pointless to continue to argue this matter further. Mr. Hinton has in fact been keeping a secret from his wife but that secret was a sister who had been terribly scarred by their father's sexual abuse and who demanded, as a price for meeting her brother, that she be protected from their father and that no one would know of her. There is no adultery here."

Connie took my arm and led Susan and me into an unused Jury Room. Jack was meeting in Chambers with Michaels to discuss the motions. Connie apologized to Susan for her questioning. When Susan went to the restroom with Melinda, Connie shook her head, "I'm sorry I was so hard on her."

"I didn't think you were cruel."

Connie was obviously adrenaline stoked and needed to talk. I was exhausted and needed to listen."I had to drag it out of her. I was surprised Michaels didn't object because every question I asked was leading. I suppose he realized an objection would only make his client look more unsympathetic. You know what leading a witness is?" 

"No idea. Just what I see on TV."

"When you're examining your own witness, you can't give them a question full of facts and then ask 'Is that right?'. You're supposed to ask them more general questions and let them tell the story. That doesn't work all that well unless you can rehearse your witness a lot - and believe me, you can over-rehearse testimony so it doesn't sound convincing. So you ask a lot of small questions and build up what you're trying to get at. Susan was very reluctant so I had to push her into a corner."

"I'm glad that Jack had you question her."

"He realized when he met Susan that he couldn't do it. He's too blunt and she's too vulnerable."

"She's been through a lot. A lot that you don't know about."

"I can imagine."

"My mother lived in fear. Susan told me that after she found out about the abuse, he threatened to kill them both. He might have, too."

"This is all in strict confidence, you know. Now your father has been named on record. If he does anything, he'll go to prison. I think Susan needs to get Court protection."

"You should tell her that." Connie paused. "If you don't mind my asking, when you got close to Susan, that must have changed . . . um, affected . . ."

"It completely blew my relationship with dad out of the water. I'm still dealing with it."

A few minutes later, Connie took Susan's hands and told her they could get her a protective order, probably from this same judge, that would prevent our father from contacting or coming near her. She told her that she has friends now, people who will protect her. Susan only nodded. 

"Remember, Suze," I added, "I have a ton of money. You have mom's. We can handle anything."

Jack walked in. "Here's the deal. We'll withdraw our motion without prejudice and theirs gets denied."

"That's great," Connie said. Turning to me, "Total victory. They lose but we keep the right to claim she's breached the prenup." 

"Susan, you were fantastic," Jack said. "Has Connie brought up the idea of a protective order? She has? Great. I ran that by the Judge while Michaels was there, just so he'd get the message to stay out of Susan's life during the divorce. We can have an order in place this afternoon." 

"Does my father have to know where I am?" Susan asked.

"No," Connie answered.

"In fact," Jack said, "I want to make your brother and our law firm the only lawful contacts your father can use to reach you. If he or anyone who works for him violates the order, we'll be on him like white on rice." 

"White on rice," I said, "I haven't heard that one in years." I turned to Susan. "He's trying for that good ole boy thing." She managed a weak smile.

End of part one.

(This story is a small attempt to show a partially realistic courtroom. The court action is a hearing, not a trial, so the parties didn't exchange witness lists and didn't have an opportunity to depose witnesses. That means surprise is possible. Surprise is otherwise not only frowned upon but can result in sanctions imposed by the judge in a civil case or dismissal of charges in a criminal case. Much of the questioning could be objected to as leading. When you are questioning your own witness you aren't allowed to say "And then this and this happened, isn't that right?" You have to lead the witness bit by bit or sit back and hope that it all comes out of the witness' mouth in one complete piece. That makes for a boring time, both in court and on paper - a lot of tiny questions that pile up. I have no idea whether this kind of prenuptial agreement is legal anywhere, but it follows the generally acceptable form of "what's mine remains mine and what's yours remains yours".)