Bayou Recompense

Cynthia's Dad had owned a lake house up on the reservoir at the head of the Pearl River that she purchased from Emily Pressler. It became her personal escape and retreat. It wasn't a place that appealed any to me being little more than a house on a big secluded lot in a lakeside neighborhood. She seemed to be spending a lot of time out at the Lake in the accompaniment of one particular paramour.

My idea of having an escape is to head down into the Atchafalaya River basin where Charles always kept a big houseboat tied up accessible only by boat and unless you were an experienced coon-ass, you needed a GPS locator to get there. That's where the key elements of the Plan came together...

'Sure you can do all of that and then some if you're a mind to." The big cauliflower eared giant of a man said to me while sipping his warm, flat beer.

Rudy Cormier sat back in the easy chair on the porch overlooking the tied-up end of the houseboat we called a camp batting away an occasional wisp of smoke that might blow his way from the fat cigar on the corner of his mouth. He was the baby of his family, the youngest son of Manford Cormier, nefarious yet halfway trustworthy if you were kin or close and an old time friend of Charles when he was alive, especially in his youth.

"You'd have to push it all off shore and move it around some so it doesn't come floating back to the surface and all, you know what I mean?" Rudy continued. "I'll tell you this, if you get it there, they'll never see it again but it will cost you some."

Rudy knew I was willing to pay for what needed to be done and he and his crew were the ones to get it done right without anybody else having a clue. We agreed on the particulars and then returned to the entertainments inside the boat.

"Motherfuck, you big coon-ass, fuck that lil' thing good." The little Cajun girl squealed with pleasure as I watched her open those pretty firm thighs wide and take Rudy's fat cock deep inside.

"You damn right, you hot little bitch, Jesus, you hot." Rudy exclaimed as he pumped his oversized dick into the comparatively tiny form underneath him.

A few moments later the little minx exploded in an orgasm and her sister who was occupied sucking my cock plopped her mouth off the head and hopped up exchanging places with the little Cajun. I felt the girl's wet mouth sink down over my prick and I lay back enjoying the pleasurable sensations as the squishy sounds of Rudy nailing the second sister filled the room.

It was over quick enough and after cleaning up we were running a skiff over towards Belle River to head back to Baton Rouge.

On my return to Jackson, Cynthia was out to the Lake house or at least that's what her GPS locator app told me. I could confirm it of course but at that point I didn't need to. I could review any number of digital video recordings throughout the place here on the Trace or I could flip on the feed from the Lake. In any event after a while, once the anger passed I just found it all boring.

She's a numb nut when it comes to technology unless she's just so carefree about her fucks that she doesn't care who knows. I must have been numb myself to have had it go on for so long and remain clueless.

Shortly after the Conversation I had both places wired and a week later I had a video feed from one of the guest rooms where I watched the two long time lovers enjoying a bottle of Bordeaux and fucking each other nearly comatose until the wee hours of the morning. I didn't watch it that long but there was three hours of suck, fuck, lick and sip between two people that obviously knew every square inch of the other's body.

In hindsight I wished I had put two- way audio in the room so I could have applauded their performance for their benefit but that would have been a bit premature. It was that first captured performance that convinced me to start enjoying the pleasures the fair sex had to offer.

In any event I needed to execute my Plan...

"Cynthia, why don't you sell your interest in the company and put it to some better investments? The dividend stream can't compete with what the markets are offering right now." I asked her over dinner one evening.

She hadn't given any thought to it because she had become lazy and complacent as the spoiled little rich girl, even at the age of 37. I worked her on this until she agreed to talk to a broker to see what her options were. I had just the broker in mind.

Rudy Cormier, for all his back water attributes did know how to put on a suit and look the part. He had been doing it for years. He might have been a big ass giant but he dressed up well and the ladies usually liked it. Cynthia ate it up and he had her convinced to go out to dinner with him.

"Yo, man, after this goes down, can I fuck that little thing?" He asked me in a whisper as we were leaving.

"I'll trade her for those two coon-ass girls down river as long as you take her down there and keep her." I was kidding but only half way.

Rudy convinced Cynthia to sell her shares in Bishop & Dawes if she could get a high end on the appraisal for good will. She would clear almost $15 million after taxes and fees and pull in considerably more than the 2% dividends she was now earning on those shares. When all was done, Cynthia had her proceeds invested in half a dozen legitimate accounts and B&D now had a minority ownership held by an investment bank in New Orleans with at least a dozen ownership layers that led to nowhere.

I listened later as she relayed that information to Michael Bishop right after he had just finished emptying several spurts of spunk into my dear wife's raging whore cunt.

"You did WHAT?" He bellowed.

"I rolled my inheritance shares over into several investment accounts and I got a good high end appraisal value for them at that. That doubles my annual return at a minimum." She replied.

"God damn, Cynthia, this is my job at stake here. I've got the family trust but new ownership puts my job at risk." I thought he was going to cry but he didn't. "Show me what you've done so I know it's all good."

The two of them hopped out of bed and ran into the upstairs study where Cynthia then pulled up her accounts on-line and showed Michael the results of the transfer. He knew she got a damn good price, better than anything anybody else had ever approached them with. If she wasn't such a damn whore I might have felt better about getting her such a good deal.

"Michael, shut up and give me that cock." He was standing next to her at the desk and she just turned her mouth, cupped his balls with her hand and proceeded to suck him until he emptied into her slut mouth...

I had already passed the point where I gave a crap about Cynthia's fidelity. I still fucked her of course but I had become callous and a bit hardened in my outlook in life. Charles admonition came back to haunt me on a couple of occasions; I should have been taking care of business but instead I had allowed myself to become a whipping post for pussy.

Watching her fuck her lifelong lover, who should have been me by the way, fueled an intensity to make things right and that meant I needed to turn my attentions to Michael Bishop. All I needed was an alligator with a taste for chicken shit.

He had been CEO of B&D for over nine years and grown comfortable in the spot with only moderate success. However with the backing of his father-in-law's wife and Cynthia's step-mother, Emily Pressler, Michael Bishop decided the airs of arrogance and privilege suited him more than others. Add to that he was fucking my wife, one of his key benefactors, and the stench of the paramour became more than I could tolerate. Yet I had to bide my time.

I continued to give my proxy to Emily Pressler and with it Bishop continued his role in the big corner office. A certain investment firm down on Canal Street in New Orleans was in no hurry to change things for the time being. I made sure he was comfortable and gave him the whole house to fuck the rope around his neck...

Cynthia was getting sloppy. The two of them would leave an empty bottle of their precious French Bordeaux in the guest suite thinking the maid would get it. He even forgot a pair of 24 carat gold cufflinks, monogrammed, leaving them on the bedside table. As I saw it, it was getting close to feeding time.

****************

The trigger was pulled when I met with Emily Pressler and informed her that I was giving my proxy to Manicourte & Sizemore, the private equity firm in New Orleans. They would be making their move at the next quarterly board meeting. I already knew Emily would immediately inform Michael Bishop of the impending doom heading his way and the first person he would vent to would be my wife...

"Those motherfuckers! Your husband gave his proxy votes to the cocksuckers you sold your shares to. Do you know what that means? Do you?"

Cynthia just looked at him a bit bemused. "You have your family trust, Michael. What is the problem?"

He looked at her with astonishment on his face.

"Cynthia, my salary is three times what I receive from trust sources." He threw his wine stem into the fireplace in anger. "That's all fine and dandy with you; you're sitting on millions living the high life!"

She tried to comfort him by sitting on his lap and then threw fuel onto his rage. "Don't worry about it; I'll take care of you."

She might have been serious but to a piss ant who thinks he's an alpha dog, being perceived as a 'kept man' is a tad bit demeaning. He moved her off his lap and hopped up to pace the floor before grabbing his jacket and leaving out the front door.

I watched the events via remote feed of course and afterwards I retreated upstairs to my bed in Baton Rouge and fucked my little Wendy damn near comatose all the while with a big smile on my face...

"You need to go back to Jackson and play house, Maynard." Rudy Cormier said with a little grin and a hint of gold in the upper corner of his mouth. "It's time to play ball."

With that the wheels began turning and I headed back to the Natchez Trace. Cynthia was out for the afternoon with the Pussy Parade and the house was quiet except for the little shit of a dog who sat there watching me like I was intruding in his domain. One of the amigos gave the pedigreed little Yorkie to her for her birthday and he never learned how to stop shitting on the kitchen floor. An hour later he was locked up at our local Humane Society and I was back at the house. Call me a mean, uncaring turd, I don't care.

I never heard her come in that evening and when I woke the next morning I was out of the house before she stirred so much as a toe. By the time I returned around lunchtime she was getting ready to head back out again.

"Maynard, I've going to go on up to the Lake house for a few days, you know, to get away for a while and get my head on straight." My wife of 14 years said to me as I sat there on the woven horror of a couch.

One thing I could never come to terms with was Cynthia's taste in overstuffed décor but it was her house and not all that important to me as long as I had my own safe zones to retreat to when needed. At this point it mattered not a bit.

Several minutes later she was gone out the drive and on her way to the Lake house and out of my hair as I lounged next to the pool putting a quick dent in a six pack of Land Shark Lagers. I know it's a lightweight beer but I like it anyway. I needed the beer to take her last call.

"Maynard, the house, the Lake house ... Maynard, there was a fire." She said in near hysterics.

"And ... and there is a body, a dead body in the ruins. Maynard, did you hear me, a dead body!?!"

"Probably a bum, Cynthia, probably a bum." was my half drunken reply...

When Cynthia arrived at the Lake house she found it past the state of fully consumed in flames. It was a smoking hulk of ash and burnt timbers with police and fire responders all over the place. As firefighters poured through and rummaged the wreckage they discovered a partially charred body in what would have been the bedroom. It had been naked and apparently sleeping but there was no way to tell. The only thing distinguishing about it was the remains of a dental bridge. It had been somewhat protected by lying face down and collapsed onto the floor of the ruins.

In her state of hysterics, the police tried but failed to get any cognitive replies from Cynthia and put the questioning off until later in the day. By the time they succeeded the investigators had quickly determined that arson was involved. Whoever set the fire was sloppy and amateurish and had used too much accelerant to get the blaze going.

Two investigators showed up at the house around 5PM that afternoon asking to question me as to any knowledge or understanding of what happened. Fortunately my attorney had arrived earlier to discuss an assortment of investment issues including my current ownership in Bishop & Dawes. Of course the timing was all coincidental.

"Mr. Blanchard, can you account for your whereabouts from when you left the house this morning to when you returned shortly before Noon today?"

My attorney interjected.

"Is Mr. Blanchard under any suspicion for any impropriety?"

"He is considered a material witness until we determine otherwise. I'm sure you understand counselor? "One of them replied. My attorney just nodded at me.

"I was having breakfast and a business meeting with Emily Pressler at her home along with her husband Fox Pressler until he had to depart for another engagement. I arrived at 9AM and departed just before 11:30. Of course they can both verify that and I'm sure my GPS readings for my phone will also indicate that."

"Are you familiar with a man named Michael Bishop?"

"Of course I am. He is the CEO of a company I have an ownership stake in, my late father-in-law's firm. He is an old childhood friend of my wife's. He is the son-in-law of Fox Pressler."

The two of them mumbled between themselves, asked a few more clarifying questions and after a few pleasantries, excused themselves. Cynthia arrived just after they left.

"Maynard, the police, they think the body in the fire is Michael, our Michael."

I looked at her with near disgust on my face. "Whose Michael?"

"Michael Bishop. You know who I mean."

"Indeed I do." and smiled.

She looked at me oddly and moved upstairs. I didn't follow her and I walked my attorney out to his car before walking around to the pool and grabbing a seat on the patio.

Over the next few days, circumstances and evidences shifted around to bring the investigators and others out to Natchez Trace. The forensics lab and coroner had determined that the body found in the debris at the Lake was not that of Michael Bishop but an unknown John Doe at this point who happened to be found with Michael's bridge work in his mouth, put there in a sloppy fashion, along with his wallet.

It was a very insufficient attempt to make it appear that Bishop had perished in the fire and to add to the mystery, he had not been seen since he left his office a week earlier. The investigators had followed up with the Pressler's and discovered that Michael was soon to be on the outs at B&D after the quarterly directors meeting. Then two days earlier it was discovered to Cynthia's great horror that her investment accounts had been emptied, transferred to several off shore accounts and then redistributed elsewhere several days ago.

One curious piece of evidence was a slip of paper in Michael's desk in his office with an account number on it. FBI forensics traced it to a Costa Rican bank account that had received $1.5 million from a Cayman's Island bank and had subsequently been emptied in cash transactions over the past three days. They also found record of an airline ticket purchased in Michael Bishop's name and a man fitting his description boarded a flight to Costa Rico a week ago.

Cynthia had no explanation for how Michael could have accessed her accounts and she certainly did not offer up her long standing affair with him, especially with me in the room. At this point all she could hope for was for them to find him and her stolen wealth.

Long after they left I found her weeping in her study.

"I have to travel to Baton Rouge in the morning, Cynthia. Are you going to be OK here with all of this going on?"

She nodded her head.

"Maybe the three amigos can stop by and help out."

That night I slept like a baby and in the morning I loaded a couple suitcases and if she noticed anything else missing, Cynthia didn't mention it. The car paused at the bottom of the driveway and I looked back up at old lady Mabel Nason's place and thought of Charlie's frequent saying. 'She was land rich with an empty wallet, literally' and laughed nearly all the way to Baton Rouge...

In hindsight I felt like a scrooge for a while so I funded an account for Cynthia. It wasn't enough to pay her way back into a life of leisure but if she took that and the insurance proceeds from the fire she could provide enough of a stipend to herself to live modestly in her prized home. I also did NOT need any untoward attention drawn to the to us.

I had planned on having her served with divorce papers but let it rest. I didn't want any publicity so I made frequent trips back to Jackson to pay my on-going marital respects. It still remained that she was damn good pussy; I just didn't have any whip marks on my back from it and I was pretty certain no other swinging dick was parking in it.

There was an evening I had with Cynthia down along the Pearl River where we had a come to Jesus meeting. This was long after the police and FBI left and went about their business.

"Cynthia, why would Michael Bishop be found dead and naked in your bed out at the Lake?"

She didn't want to answer at first and before she could I interjected.

"I'm going to be as plain speaking as this simple Louisiana boy can be. I'm guessing you have been having a long time affair with the son of a bitch for years. Now, before you answer me, you better think long and hard about it. You don't know what I know and you better believe there are enough good old boys down on the Bayou that can get a little group of silly Jackson girls to squeal the truth till their lungs burst from the energy.

"Do you know what I'm saying? If you do, you tell me the whole damn truth going back to the god damn beginning."

Her lip started quivering and I thought she was going to cry but she didn't. Instead she went to the beginning and pretty much confirmed what I already knew. It was what I didn't already know that shook me and I took her home afterwards in silence.

When I was in Jackson, I was the loving husband but the dynamic was changed. I wasn't the husband of Cynthia Dawes-Blanchard. She was the wife of Maynard Blanchard and she wasn't going to forget that as long as I allowed her to remain as such. How long that was I didn't know.

Michael was now considered the instigator of the fire, the deception and the theft of Cynthia's account balances and was being sought in an active investigation by the FBI. Somehow I doubted he would surface.

For the most part, Cynthia returned to her old self but once in a while I'd see the look; a look of fear in just a small space inside there somewhere. She was still beautiful, men still chased her and as far as I can tell her friends still fucked around on their husbands but with the surveillance still in place not once did I see that she partook in their 'festivities' at all. I was reminded of something she said when I first heard that Conversation... "If Michael wasn't fucking me, there wouldn't be anybody else. That's just how it is." Maybe that was the impetus of the Plan.

********************

The creak of wooden planks groaned laboriously as the houseboat floated in the wind while pelts of tropical rain inundated everything in its path. It wasn't a hurricane but any tropical storm is worthy of respect deep in the wilds. This storm just sat there spilling its guts and reloading itself as peripheral forces kept it situated right offshore just to the south west.