Fat Chance Ch. 03

I knew where the camera shop was in town, I had bought several cameras from them over the years. However, the last couple of cameras I had bought on the Internet to save money but neither of them turned out quite what I wanted. I learned the hard way that if you didn't quite know enough about what you were buying, it was better going to a specialist.

"I am about twenty minutes from the town centre," I told Gordon, "meet you at the shop, the one at the top of the High Street, isn't it?"

"That's the one," said Gordon, "See you in twenty."

Before I forgot, I booked the appointment for Adrienne at her hairdressers. Maisie's credit card paid for the works: hair cut, colour, nails, full scrub and make-up for the afternoon before her big date with her idiot wayward husband. I didn't do this for him, although he was going to get the benefit, I did it for his lovely wife, who was now guaranteed to be even more knock-out gorgeous than ever on the night. Once we've added the right dress and underwear, she was going to look absolutely fabulous. I wanted her to be so fantastic that she would have a real boost to her confidence, turn every male head in that restaurant and teach Gavin he could easily be losing her if he didn't shape up and take responsibility for his family. I sent Adrienne a quick text giving her the booking times. I got a heart in reply, that was a first for me.

I was five minutes late getting to the photography store and Gordon was already checking out what they had available to hire.

"How much you wanna spend?" he grinned, after looking up as I entered the musty shop and rang the bell under the welcome mat.

"I want the best, so the sky's the limited, Maisie's paying."

"Thought as much," Gordon said, spreading his arms to the kit spread out on the counter, "You are going to need all this, my friend".

"Gosh!" I said, perhaps rethinking how high the sky was, I had already maxed out one joint credit card and I had a fair idea that shopping with Adrienne would max out the second. "How much does this lot come to?"

"£220, for hire for the week, including these lenses and extra memory cards. I worked a special deal with Max here."

Behind the shop counter, Max looked like a wrestler, he had visible tattoos on his forehead, neck and arms, so I guess he was covered in them. He smiled, displaying a mouth filled with what looked like an elephants' graveyard, held out a hand and crushed mine - and I had hands that could undo wheel nuts!

"Been there myself, man, I caught the bitch red-handed. I'm still making dough from putting her sex video on-line though, so if you need any help there, fella", he growled through his yellow teeth.

"I think I've got that covered," I grinned, "But I'll let you know if I have any difficulties."

"You do that," growled Max through his ivory tombstones, "I have sommat else to show you over here."

Further down the counter he had a sign up saying 'Home Security'. Big Max menaced his way down the counter and turned under the sign.

"Here!" Max said.

Gordon and I followed his command, recognising the alpha male when we saw him. He reached under the counter and pulled out a medium-sized box. He pointed to the upside down pictures on the box as he explained.

"Three pinhole cameras which have limited pan and tilt, and auto focus lenses which work great in low light. They are motion-sensitive so they don't come on until someone comes into the room and they turn off if no activity for a few minutes. Any idiot can easily connect them to lighting circuits for power or use a battery pack connected to this transmitter box. They don't record on tape in situ but send a streaming signal to the HD of your PC," Max explained.

"What about a Mac? I don't have a PC."

Max stared me in the eye with a look that could melt glass, put the box away under the counter and rummaged around for a full minute before pulling up another very similar box.

"As I was saying, sends a signal to your ... Mac. You can pan, alter focus and zoom from distance. This should work with your Airport Extreme, range about 500-750 feet, depending on how much ferro-concrete is in the way. I sell a lot of these babies. Take it home and try it out. That'll be £299, or £249 with Gordon's discount."

Thank goodness for Maisie's excellent credit rating, I thought. Max had no problem with the name on the card when I told him it was her card. Have you ever heard a grizzly bear laugh? It's funny, yet somehow particularly disturbing at the same time.

We were both pretty laden down with photographic goodies on our way back to my van. I needed to talk to Gordon about my intentions.

"Time for a coffee before you go back to the bank?" I asked.

"Sure, I've taken the rest of the afternoon off, remember?"

We went to a small cafe, well off the High Street. It was quiet. I hadn't had anything to eat so far, so I opted for a baked jacket potato with cheese and beans. Gordon was good, he said, he had taken sandwiches to work for lunch.

"You know earlier I said the S would hit the F?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Well, once I release any photos I take and let everyone at the bank's HQ know about the shenanigans at these quarterly bank meetings, Jo's going to know about your attendance and she's a bright as well as beautiful woman, as you well know."

"I know," Gordon grinned ruefully, "And I'm in the doghouse already I'm afraid, because she knows!"

"She knows? How?"

"I guess because I told her Sunday afternoon, just after lunch, after Kylie was down for a sleep and we were doing the washing up. She wanted to know who you were and why you were helping me with the house and I told Josie that your wife was my manager and was a power-hungry, unfaithful bitch who preyed on married men and blackmailed them into doing what she wanted. She looked at me in horror when I added that I was one of them." He paused then and drained his coffee.

"Then she smacked me, good and hard," he admitted, unconsciously rubbing his left cheek, "She kept pummelling me in the chest with her fists and crying so hard it made me cry along with her. When she tired of hitting me, she screamed obscenities and woke Kylie up from her afternoon sleep. We both went to her and I lifted her out of her bed to calm her down and we both held her while Josie kissed her and we all held on tight."

Gordon raised his head from the fascinating dregs in the bottom of his cup. I had no words to add, so he continued.

"She asked me why you and I seemed to get along, considering our relationship, and I told her that we were both victims here. Mrs Cox was cheating on you, she was blackmailing me and she had two other men that we were now aware of in her clutches. We had a common aim to bring her down. I told her I would probably offer to help you with your revenge this weekend. I think it was your attitude to the situation that saved my bacon. OK, I'm sleeping on the couch right now but at least I'm still in the house."

"You need to get back home now, instead of wasting time here with me, Gordon. Rebuild your life with your wife and children. Maisie and I? Well, we stopped talking and communicating with each other too long ago to salvage anything from our marriage now. Clearly Maisie had needs which I wasn't given a chance to fill for her. Damn! If I knew she wanted loving four times a week, I could have managed. I thought she didn't want me and I suppose I was right. She didn't and probably still doesn't."

"Josie and I have been together forever, she was literally the girl next door. She moved into my street when she was 10 and we went to the same schools. We lost our virginity together and, as far as I know, I have been her only lover. I don't love anyone else, I don't want anyone other than her. I certainly don't want to lose her or my family."

"Well you can start by going home, and telling her you love her and only her, along with Kylie, and the new baby when it arrives. And keep on telling her until she lets you hold her close again. Keep communicating, that's what let Maize and me down. Tell Jo that you think she is the most beautiful girl in the world and you know for sure you don't want anyone else. Wear her down enough and hopefully you can repair the damage."

"What are you doing tonight?" Gordon asked as he pulled his coat on. "Because we have our photography club meeting in the primary school at seven and I've got an idea how we can help you for the weekend."

"Well, I'm free," I said, "Maize has one of her late nights at the bank tonight, so I expect she'll stay late even though you aren't there, although she may get home earlier than usual. I need to prepare a meal for her, I planned on chops, gravy, mashed potatoes and peas for her and a hot chicken salad for me."

"I'll pick you up at 6.45pm, then," Gordon said.

"Mmm, if you drop me off after the meeting, Maisie might see your car and suspect something. We are not supposed to even know one another. How about I pick you up at six thirty, that way Jo will know you are with me?"

"If you come at five thirty, you can have tea with us."

"OK, you're on, I'll just do Maize's meal and leave it in the microwave for her."

We left, Gordon walked back to the bank to collect his car and I went back to the van and home to prepare the evening meal. I left Maisie a note to say I'd be back about ten. Then I went around to tea with Jo and Gordon.

Jo greeted me with a warm embrace and said how sorry she was about Gordon's involvement, staring daggers at her husband as she spoke. I tried my best to put her right about Maisie, what a shark she was and that once she got her teeth in she was relentless. I told her that with Gordon's help I was going to expose her and that Gordon was very brave as he sought to do the right thing. I put all the blame on my wife, and that she was going to pay for what she had done.

When we left to go to the meeting, Jo bade us both well with a kiss on the cheek, which Gordon took as a good sign. Perhaps I overdid it a bit calling her beautiful and squeezing her bottom, but then I didn't want to tell any lies and I was trying to set both an example and a benchmark! Gordon didn't take umbrage, he was content with his first kiss in three days and was optimistic that at least he now had something positive on which to rebuild his marriage.

Talk about lively meeting. Max had already whet the appetite of the early birds in their individual groups about my little upcoming expedition and hadn't actually expected me to be at the meeting at all. When he noticed me come in, as chairman of the group he called the meeting to order, introduced me as a guest speaker and ripped through the meeting's usual formalities as read in record time. Then Max called me to take the floor.

I am usually tongue-tied talking to more than two or three people, I was virtually catatonic at my wedding, although that may partly have been down to the booze. I was determined to be sober and enjoy every single moment of the divorce.

The crowd of about thirty photographic enthusiasts listened very carefully as I told my tale. I included no names, no pack drills, but you could hear a pin drop as I described my proposed exposé at the hotel over the coming weekend.

I got a standing ovation, followed by a number of comments from the floor, like why not expose all the pairings, some fifteen or so rather than just my own wife? The consensus was that it would appear more noble to the public, as it was clear that I wanted publicity, to expose all who took part, so that the bank couldn't sweep it under the carpet. In fact, if they tried to cover it up, the very survival of the bank would be in question. To do this, we would need all the available members to take part in the photography, the logging of times and identifying the people involved. It could be a joint project that would be a talking point of the club for years to come and could distinguish the club among its peers too. Max said they could pick on exhibitions, showing sanitised photographs of the operation.

Max offered to break out every surveillance pack he had in his store and run the control room, with the proviso that he would be permitted to put the results on his porn site. There would be a cut going to the club as an anonymous donation, of course, with a sizeable royalty going to me for setting it up and financing it.

I offered, using Maisie's trusty credit card of course, to book one of the expensive suites and three or four of the standard rooms from Thursday to Sunday for what I would describe as a photography convention. I even went on-line there and then on my laptop, using the school's wifi, and was able to book the rooms we required from Wednesday to Sunday. Because the hotel was so empty otherwise, the midweek nights were virtually being given away.

Operation Flash was under way.

It was early closing Wednesday, so Max and I agreed to go to the hotel as soon as I had finished my check-up for sexually transmitted diseases, so he could scout out the land and negotiate access to the rooms. Apparently he had aided a number of private eyes in doing this sort of photography over the years.

"How else do you think I caught my wife on film and got the material for his web site, gotchabanged2rights.com?" he asked.

Well, no question now, he could have my footage for his site if he wanted. It would save me the hassle of creating one from scratch, and he already had established referral links with hundreds of other sites.

Maisie had scoffed her dinner, mashed potato laced with lashings of mozzarella, high in saturated fats and all, plus half the fresh bottle of vodka-topped up wine left cooling in the fridge. We were down to only three mixed bars of chocolate in the fridge so I rounded it up to the even dozen from my secret store and splashed some more vodka in the half bottle of wine. I left her a note saying as she had gym tonight and late bank night on Thursday before her weekend meeting away, I would take advantage of a lack of servicing jobs at work to go to the coast Wednesday afternoon and would see her on Sunday when we both got back. As far as she was concerned I still had lots of jobs to do to get the caravan fit for occupancy, but all that work was complete.

Wednesday morning I scooted out of the house, leaving her to microwave the porridge left for her in the microwave. It was made with full Jersey cream milk, which I had poured into the old skimmed milk bottle. I got to Adrienne's in time for a coffee, before her blue-rinsed mother collected her youngest two for the day. Adrienne didn't introduce me to her mother, who was giving me some funny looks, looking down her long nose.

I couldn't resist saying "Fanks fer doin' this fer us, Darlin' - I've bin lookin' forward to takin' yer lass owt fer a treat all week, yer know wot I mean?"

When smacked my lips and I winked at her, I thought her false teeth would fall out before her jaw hit the ground!

I apologised about it to Adrienne when she got down from getting changed but she said don't worry about it, the whole family were in uproar because Adrienne had kicked Gavin out of the house the previous night.

Apparently, once she had told her family that Gavin had been caught putting it about and having an affair, Adrienne's little sister Laura had burst into tears, saying that it was not her fault. It transpired that she'd had an affair with her brother-in-law and she guiltily brought it up without thinking it through.

So Gavin was tapping my wife two or three times a week and at least occasionally with his sister-in-law! Relationships, just how complicated did men and women have to become in the singular pursuit of sexual happiness?

Shopping? Now, it will come as no surprise to you that I hate shopping with the missus, it just seems such a waste of time. With Adrienne though, it was a pure act of joy. She tried on half a dozen outfits and looked drop-jaw gorgeous in every one of them. If she was Maisie wearing those dresses, I wouldn't have let her out of the house in any one of them, she'd have looked too contrived, definitely slutty. But Adrienne looked simply sublime, effortlessly beautiful, gracefully sweet and tasty without being tarty at all. If Maisie's credit card would have stood it, I'd have got all six.

In the end I persuaded her to take two, plus matching shoes and evening bags. Her smiles will live with me forever and worthy of every single penny that it cost Maisie.

We laughed throughout our mid-morning coffee. If I wasn't still in love with my bitch wife I would have been head over heels with this delightful girl by now. I had to keep reminding myself that getting Gavin and Adrienne back together again, but with the girl holding the moral high ground and the upper hand relationship-wise, was really what I wanted.

I told her about the weekend showdown and what we planned to do with the assistance of the local camera club.

She laughed out loud and asked me, "What do you think my job was before I became a stay-at-home mother?"

I guessed the usual, "Ooh, swimsuit model, air hostess, Las Vegas chorus girl, the face of Christian Dior..."

I was running them off finger by finger, which rewarded me with the most delicious of giggles.

"No, silly man," she relented, "I used to be a film editor at the TV studios, mostly editing news footage. I have kept my hand in with the family videotapes and have all the latest software at home. And, with the current hiatus in my marital arrangements, I can offer my services at the weekend, free of charge."

I told her tat the majority of stuff will be on PCs and my stuff on Mac. Could she handle that?

She said it would all feed into her MacBook, she would edit everything with no problem and save out to both CD and DVD.

"OK," I said, "you are on!" I gave her the details of the hotel and conference centre.

Shopping for sexy underwear with her was a giggle too, she offered to model every outfit, but I knew I couldn't possibly take that level of stimulation. By then we were so comfortable in our friendship that she happily let it pass and allowed Maisie's credit card to buy two of the best outfits in the store straight off the peg.

After my STD tests at the clinic, I contacted Max and we drove down separately to the hotel. I signed him into the quality suite and I took one of the smaller standard fare rooms that I had booked.

Thursday morning I rose early and drove back home, well, nearly all the way. From my vantage point just down the road, I noticed Maisie left more than a little late for work, the lazy fat drunken cow. I let myself back into the house and awaited the appointment with the estate agents.

The first one gave me a price of £260,000 for a quick sale, the second £270,000. Both said offers would be in the region of £250,000 for an immediate sale and, if I was prepared to hang on a few months, maybe put the price up to £290,000. I instructed them both to list it at offers in excess of £250,000 but without a board up outside the property for now. I didn't want to sell that high, as it would mean Maisie getting £120,000 plus, out of the deal. I thought I might have to be a little more creative about this sale to push her cut into five figures. I grinned as a couple of ideas came immediately to mind.

By the time I had locked up the house, ensuring everything was left as it was, with the breakfast things still congealing in the sink. I did open the other two screw-topped bottles of wine in the fridge, poured away a glassful from each and topped them up with vodka. I could see I was going to need more bottles of vodka. Then I drove back to the conference centre.

Max had been busy chatting up housekeeping and had secured skeleton keys to all the rooms. I guess in the daylight he looked less menacing, possibly even irresistible to women of a certain age.