The Old Man and the Sea

So while Janet continued to expand her empire I was happy to sit-back and decide which of the stuffed moose heads and other items of junk in the attic of my mind were worth saving.

I was an elder-statesman by then. So I still had a lot of speaking engagements and requests for articles. But I was summarizing and recapping, not exploring new territory.

I was happy with my situation. Your immortality is in your words, not your deeds. And I wanted to lay down a legacy of ideas that people would read and wonder about long after I had departed this earth.

The fact of human impermanence was imprinted on my psych very early thanks to Kari,

I was pretty sure that Janet's career was her priority. But she was always very loving and deeply respectful to me in our married life. And the sex was still exceptional.

I could still remember the energetic cut-and-thrust of my middle forties, when the thrill of new worlds to conquer hung in the air. And an important aspect of being married is helping your partner be happy.

In that respect I think that I had come to represent Janet's safe-harbor. Our marriage gave her a protected space that she could retreat into and recharge. It was comforting for her and secure.

But Janet was clearly happiest when she was conquering new worlds. The problem with empire building is that it makes you look outward not inward. And you can lose track of the things that are important in life.

Getting your priorities confused will color your actions. I never doubted that our marriage wasn't important for Janet. But people can get delusions of grandeur when they are on a long winning streak.

And Janet simply lost track of her own mortality.

She came to think that she was invincible.

Believe it or not the first clue of trouble in paradise was provided by one of the students.

Students will do anything to establish a personal link with you. It isn't that they are trying to get you to like them. It is just that they think that they will get a break if you know who they are.

Richard Bowen was a nerd's-nerd and I already knew him. But he was also a world-class suck-up. So there was never a part of my life that he wasn't trying to connect with.

He worked part time as a busboy at 1789, which is a fancy restaurant tucked up next to the Georgetown campus.

One day he was sitting around my lab more-or-less interrupting what I was doing.

He said, strictly in order to make conversation, "I saw Professor Jones last night."

I said, "That's nice."

He added, "She was having dinner with Professor Willis."

He had gotten my attention, but I didn't react. Janet was supposed to be in Baltimore for a session on counter-terrorism. She got in so late that I was already asleep.

I said, "Are you sure it was her?"

He said, "Oh yeah, I'd recognize Professor Jones anywhere. She is so beautiful and she had everybody's attention in the dress she was wearing."

By that I assumed that the little weasel was referring to Janet's obvious assets in something low-cut.

It puzzled me. She had gone off to class mid-afternoon in her typical preppy attire. She had not told me anything about deviating from her original plan, which was to sit in on a seminar at Hopkins. And why would she change into a slinky dinner dress. More important WHERE would she do that?

Also, the man she was allegedly out with was a junior guy who we had hired at the beginning of the prior school year.

Norbert Willis was a forty-something expert in geospatial-intelligence, fresh out of Duke and the local campus phallic symbol. He was perhaps 6 years younger than Janet.

His classes were packed, less because of the knowledge he was imparting and more because of the way he was imparting it.

He was very good looking in an affable, east-coast, prep-school, sixth form, boyishly angelic, choir boy kind of way.

He clearly came from money. Not many freshly minted Assistant Professors have a place out on the Palisades and drive a SLK Mercedes. And he definitely had an eye for the ladies.

As the senior guy in the Department I had to give him the obligatory sexual harassment lecture, after one of the female students complained.

And he was definitely treating me like his dad during the talk, which I was old enough to be.

Everybody knew that he was a pedigreed cock-hound. And I might be 60 years old but my brain had not totally calcified. Janet stood out among every other female on that campus in both the beauty and sexuality department.

So I assumed that he had spent a lot of his spare time barking up her tree.

Normally I would have blown off Bowen's little tidbit since it made no sense whatsoever.

But, if what he said WAS true then it was something I needed to look into. Since Janet had obviously not bothered to tell me about her change in plans. And we did not have that kind of relationship.

She was sitting at our kitchen table grading student papers when I got home. She was wearing a big baggy Georgetown sweatshirt and yoga pants and her auburn hair was pinned up into a rough bun.

She was chewing on the eraser of a pencil, something she did when she was concentrating. It was altogether an endearing look.

There might be a good explanation for why she was not where she had led me to believe she was. So I wanted to give her the consideration of not charging in and yelling, "What the fuck Janet!!??"

Nonetheless, I WAS going to get the story.

She turned her mouth up for the usual tongue-heavy greeting. I got a cup of rose-hip tea and sat down opposite her. When we do that we always banter back and forth. It is a pleasant way to reconnect after a long day in the salt-mines of academia.

She was sitting across from me, no makeup or any other of the tricks that women use to seem more attractive. And she was still a stunningly beautiful woman.

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound!!

I said as lightheartedly as I could, "So how was the seminar in Baltimore? I can't think of anything I would rather NOT do than drive all of the way up there in order to listen to somebody wax-on about tradecraft."

She looked up and with nothing but eagerness and honesty in her face she said, "Oh it was very interesting. I even stayed after to talk to Dr. Ostrovski. It's a long drive back from Baltimore. It was 2 AM when I got in. You were sawing logs."

Okay - there it was. Either she had just looked me in the eye and lied to me. Or Bowen was having delusions.

I didn't react.

Frankly, my first thought was not "infidelity." It was more along the lines of puzzlement. Our relationship had never been anything but honest and forthright and there was probably a logical explanation.

Janet had never given me the slightest inkling that she was unsatisfied with your lives together. But why would she lie about something as innocuous as having dinner with a colleague, even a well-known horny one?

I am not the sort of person who sneaks around spying on their spouse. I had a range of electronic options given what I do for living. But it is the ultimate in disrespect to bug our wife. So if there was a problem I wanted to know about it.

I just looked at her and said as casually as I could, "Do you remember Richard Bowen? You might recall me mentioning him? He's the one who is the brown-nosing pain in the ass in my pen-testing class."

She laughed and said, "Of course I remember him. You complain about him every other day."

I continued with, "He said he saw you last night all dolled up at 1789. He's a busboy there."

Her face didn't change in the slightest as she laughed merrily again and said, "He must have been mistaken. I grabbed a bite before the lecture at Sterling's. They have great crab. We ought to eat there some day."

Okay, Bowen was brown nosing again. It was typical of his behavior to make something up just to try to be one of my cronies. Or maybe Bowen just had the day wrong.

But I also knew that Janet had a very strong and agile mind. Even blindsided she could talk her way out of things.

A couple of months went by. Our relationship was as outstanding as ever. We talked and laughed and made spontaneous love.

Then I ran into the Hamster in the hall. We did the usual polite colleague-to-colleague thing, which you have to do when you can't avoid somebody.

He asked me if I was going to the IACA Conference. It was in Chicago that year. I told him that Janet was going but that I had way too much to do here. I was on deadline for a chapter I was writing for an anthology on cybercrime profiling.

He looked pleased. Dean's always like to hear about faculty publication. It reflects well on their leadership.

He said, "In that case Janet and Norb will do a good job of representing us."

If it hadn't been for Bowen that little tidbit would have flown right past me. I was suddenly very interested in their travel arrangements.

I nodded and said conversationally, "Are they the only two going?"

He said, "They were the only ones to apply for travel funds. There might be somebody else going on their own dime but I doubt it."

I said something humorous about academics and prostitution and walked off down the hall thinking, "Why didn't she tell me about that?"

While were having dinner at Filomena's that night I asked her about her trip.

She looked up and her dark eyes were luminous in the candle-light. She was gorgeous. She said, "I got a request to Chair a session. Dave Whipple had to drop out so I told him I would cover."

I said, "Who else is going?"

She said, "Nobody from here." That was said matter-of-fact without a moment's hesitation and without any apparent emotion. It was a simple statement.

That was another lie. Unless she didn't know that Willis was going. That is not an odd situation. Since faulty types are rarely in the same place at the same time. Maybe she really didn't know.

But it was enough of an anomaly that I decided to take action.

I am maybe too straightforward in the way I live my life. But my only response to things that I don't understand is to confront them and find out. This was a situation that needed to be resolved, not left to fester.

I said, "Professor Willis is going too. Did you know that?"

She hesitated for one killer second and said, "No, I didn't know that. Perhaps we can get together when we are there. Do you know whether he is staying at the conference hotel?"

Okay, she was doing an excellent job of lying.

I said, "I think you DID know that and it makes me wonder what else you haven't told me.

"I hope there is nothing going on between you two. You are a beautiful woman and I don't blame men for pursuing you.

"I know that Willis is the current campus rock-star. But he is also a well-known harasser of coeds and an AKC pedigreed cockhound.

"One of these days he is going to get caught by somebody who gives a shit. And that will be it for his career.

"So I hope and expect that you will respect our marriage and keep things professional when you two are together."

She looked almost hurt, or was it wary? Perhaps she was reacting to my comment about the coeds.

She said, "You are the man I love. All I ever want to be is married to you. Norbert is nothing compared to you. And we mean way too much to each other for me to risk anything with him.

"I truly didn't know he was going to be there until you told me."

That sounded convincing.

Maybe I had answered my own question. Perhaps she didn't want me to know that she would be in Chicago with the guy because I knew about his reputation. And she didn't want to deal with the complication of me drawing the wrong conclusion.

After all, a lot of men and women attend conferences. And there would have been no worries if she had been there with any other man, the Hamster for instance.

Of course, that little incident a month earlier was hovering in the background. And there was enough reasonable doubt associated with the entire sequence of events that I wanted to confirm once and for all that there was no problem.

So I did something sneaky myself.

I could see that there was no way I was going to get irrefutable truth out of Janet short of waterboarding her. So I decided to investigate directly.

And HUMINT is always the best way to go when you want to get a reliable sit-rep.

So I booked a first class ticket from DCA to ORD. I planned to get to the hotel before Janet arrived and find out who she arrived with.

I would be back in DC that night and she would never know I was there.

I left the condo at sunrise on the day of the conference. I told her that I had to go in for a very early meeting at the NCTC.

The flight from DC to Chicago is a little over an hour and a half. I was on the first plane out. So I was at the Thompson on Chicago's Gold Coast in time to indulge myself in an excellent breakfast at Nico Osteria.

Then I got myself comfortably situated in a nice wing chair in the lobby. I could surreptitiously observe the check-in desk from there.

I had timed my arrival based on Janet's travel plans. I hoped that I had cut it so that I wouldn't have to wait too long.

An hour later I was reading the sports page of the Sun-Times when she wheeled her roller bag up to the desk.

She was a study in strong energetic woman. Tall and beautiful, with that marvelous body, looking nowhere near her actual age. The sex appeal just dripped off her.

I had positioned myself so that she couldn't see me as she finished checking in.

She turned toward the elevators with happy anticipation. She was joined there by a handsome early forties guy. He was also pulling a bag.

Side-by side they wrestled their bags gleefully into the elevators. And as the doors closed I saw her just step into him for a kiss.

I put the paper down and walked determinedly over to the check-in desk.

I could have simply demanded that they give me a key. Since the credit card would be in my name. But I knew that the hotel would give me grief if I did. No hotel wants a confrontation.

So instead I walked up looking harried and said, "Did my wife check in yet? God!! I couldn't find any place to park around here!!"

The desk clerk looked unconvinced and asked for my ID which I gladly supplied. He clicked around on his terminal and saw that Janet had indeed checked in and that the card I had given him was the one she used. That seemed to satisfy him.

He turned on the fake sincerity as he burned me a keycard and said, "Have a wonderful stay."

I was pretty sure that it would actually be a short and memorably unpleasant stay.

I went up to the third floor and walked down the hall to room 317. They had preceded me on the elevator by only fifteen minutes.

I was planning to confront them straightaway. So no listening at the door or anything weasely like that.

Before I crossed my personal Rubicon, I said a little prayer that it wouldn't be what it seemed. There would be a logical explanation.

I inserted my card. The light blinked green and I quietly opened the door. I didn't have to be clandestine.

I found it hard to believe that they would have had enough time to get themselves in flagrante.

But one should never underestimate the power of love, or perhaps the correct term is "lust".

She was lying on the bed, head thrown back, one forearm over her eyes, and naked legs spread wide.

Everything she had been wearing was strung between the door and the bed like a trail of bread crumbs. It was as if her clothes had fallen off her as she walked.

He was lying with his lower half naked but his shirt and tie on.

It seemed rather ungentlemanly to NOT undress fully before eating the lady. But maybe they were in a big hurry.

He was nestled between her outwardly bent legs lapping with the same intense effort that my old dog uses when he drinks out of the toilet.

She was moaning and muttering in a rapt guttural voice that sounded like she needed to be exorcised, "Ahhhh Yes, that's it baby!! You make me so crazy!!"

Then she went off on a loud series of bucking, thrashing orgasms, mauling her own pendulous tits as she came.

I had been standing there with my phone filming the last 30 seconds of that exhibition.

There was no need to be covert. Shithead was focusing on his meal. And she was so far out of it that I could have been using one of those old fashioned Hollywood cameras with a crank.

Janet would have never noticed.

Then, without missing a beat she dragged him up her body and inserted him into her hungry hole.

The smell of sex was getting pervasive as she shot her legs wide and he began to push himself up in her to the hilt.

She let out a loud groan of satisfaction and said with passion in her voice, "God I love your cock!! You fill me up so much!!"

That was when I started a slow clap.

It took a couple of seconds for that to register. Then they both startled and looked in my direction.

I said as ironically as I could, "Bravo!! What a scintillating performance!!"

That set off a frenzy of activity. Willis pulled out of her like her pussy was on fire. Then in a frantic effort to get to his pants he fell backward off the bed.

He scrambled on his hands and knees over toward where his pants were. Only to find me standing on them.

I was looking down at him from almost six feet over his head. He seemed justifiably frightened as he said in a humbly pleading voice, "Please?"

He was still sporting a monster hard-on. Which made his situation even more humiliating.

I laughed and stepped off of his pants. He snatched them, jumped up and disappeared out of the room frantically hopping into them as he went. It was true slapstick.

I turned quizzically to Janet. She was clutching the sheet to her breasts. She looked distraught, but she wasn't crying.

She is an intellectually strong and very willful woman. She knew what she had done and she knew that there was probably no walking back.

But her pride wouldn't let her snivel. She was going to face me without hysterics and try to salvage the situation.

Kudos for her!!

She said with self-hatred in every facet of her voice, "I suppose there is no way you can forgive me for this? I would spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you if you did."

I was angry beyond belief. But this was a heavyweight match. The first one who broke down wouldn't be able to look at themselves in the mirror after this.

I said with total conviction in my voice, "Not a chance!! The only discussion left is how we are going to end this. I don't even care why you did it."

She was starting to sniffle, as cracks began to appear in her façade.

She said, "You know that I love you with all my heart. This was just a momentary dalliance, a little illicit excitement.

"It was insignificant compared to our love for each other and it wouldn't have gone on for very long. He pursued me ceaselessly and he is so young and charming. I never thought you would find out."

That was the usual cheaters crock of shit.

I said with profound sadness and regret, "But I did find out my dear and there is no forgetting what I saw, or forgiving it - not now - not ever.

"I even understand that it was hubris that made you do it. You over-reached plain and simple. You thought that you were too smart to EVER get caught.

"But there is far too much unpredictability in the cheating equation. You can't control everything. Eventually the evidence adds up. And so here we are."

It was really very understandable. She had spent her first marriage pushing every sexual boundary imaginable. And the sex itself was probably extremely stimulating even if it was debauched. The whole thing was just so tantalizingly naughty.

Consequently, whatever the first step was I am sure that their affair was fueled by its forbidden nature. In fact her self-loathing was probably part of the overall turn-on.