Walls

"Will you please make love to me as soon as we get home?" Liz asked. "I got tested and there is nothing detectable, but..."

"Yes," I said. And then I kissed her again.

The anger was almost gone, and in its place I found relief, and even some love. We grinned at each other like young lovers and then we headed out to the restaurant. David and Larissa were fifteen minutes late, and when they came in David went straight onto the attack. They walked up to the table, and without sitting down he just growled,

"What do you want?"

"Please, sit down," I said, and after a long pause they did. He looked a bit nervous, behind the bluster.

"What do you want?" he asked again, aggressively.

"We want to know why you have been trying to break up our marriage."

"What if we don't want to tell you?" he asked smugly.

"Then we will have to come to an arrangement that makes you want to," I replied. They looked at each other, and I saw a glimmer of hope in their exchange.

"How did you find out where we live?" he asked, "did you follow her?" The 'her' was very demeaning.

"Yes," I said, and he looked at Larissa with contempt, "but I already knew because I had followed you from my home previously." Larissa sniggered. This was good, keep them fighting.

"What we have is going to cost fifteen thousand," he said. I raised an eyebrow.

"Really?" I asked, "It must be pretty good. What is it?"

"Money first," he said, and there was a hint of desperation in his voice.

"Tell me what it is. You can leave out the details, but I have to know what exactly it is or no deal." Again they exchanged a look. Larissa nodded slightly.

"I have a document trail that identifies who hired us, and the names will tell you why..."

Of course the waiter chose that moment to appear and see if we wanted drinks. I said we were still deciding, and he should come back in five minutes. That fixed I decided it was time to play hardball.

"You both tried to break up our marriage," I said in a menacing tone, "you had sex with my wife."

"It's only sex..." Larissa said and Liz and I glared at her and she shut up.

"I see no reason to pay you anything after that." David stood up, and Larissa did the same.

"Then there's no reason for us to give you the information," he said.

"Let me give you one," I said. "How well would it go down at Anderson and Phillips if a sex tape of one of their Trainee lawyers having sex with a married woman suddenly appeared all over the internet?"

"You don't have a tape," he said confidently.

"And a copy arrived at your work with an angry letter from the aggrieved husband threatening legal action."

"Like I said, you don't' have it." He turned to Larissa. "Let's go."

I held up my phone and hit play on the video, and I watched as David's face totally lost its colour.

"As you can see I have made sure Liz can't be identified, but you can," I said, "and there is sound too, but I probably shouldn't turn it up here." David glared at Liz.

"How fucking dare you..."

"I didn't know dickhead," she said, "how do you think we got caught?"

"Shut up David," I interrupted, "I'm sick of your bullshit. You give us everything now and you have my word that this," I pointed at my phone, "goes no further. You hold anything back and its out."

"But we were going to get ten grand," Larissa moaned, "We'll lose our house without that money."

"Stiff shit," I said, I was sick to death of both of them. "Give me the information and at least he keeps his job. You can get another house."

"That's it, I'm gonna..." David came at me.

"Don't David," Liz said, lifting her clutch bag onto the table with her hand in it, "or I will gladly shoot you." David stopped.

"You don't have a gun in there," he blustered.

"Try me, and this time I will fuck you," Liz said. David looked from her to me and back. You could see him sag as he accepted the inevitable.

"Give it to them," he said to Larissa, and she took a bulky envelope out of her bag and handed it to Liz, staring daggers at her.

"Fuck off," I suggested, "and don't come near either of us again."

Dejected, they left, without looking back.

When they were out of sight I looked at Liz and we grinned.

"A gun?" I asked.

"It was all I could think of," she replied, and we burst into laughter.

The dinner was pretty good, but we didn't have desert, we really wanted to go home and find out what we had.

When we got home we stood silently in the hallway for a while. I desperately wanted to see the contents of the envelope, but I had promised to make love to her as soon as we got home. Liz smiled.

"Makeup sex is better if it isn't done just to fulfill a promise," she said, "let's read first and fuck second." I'd swear she had been reading my mind.

"Thanks," I said, and she grinned.

"You can make it up to me later," she said. I would, and I was sure I was going to enjoy it. I think by then the walls had been entirely demolished.

We sat side by side at the table and opened the envelope. There was a bundle of pages stapled together that had a lot of emails, some of them over four different email trails. We read them, starting at the oldest one at the back of the list. The emails clearly identified a person, who I will call 'G'. 'G' was the general manager of the Australian branch of a pretty big American company that I will call 'JH'. Neither Liz nor I had ever had any contacts with G or with JH. G had been emailing Larissa. The emails told a good story, but there were some gaps that had presumably been filled by phone calls. They read...

Hi L I loved the cut thanks. I might have something that could help you out of your current situation, but it is a bit wild. Give me a call on (she gave her mobile number). G

Hi L. Please come in tomorrow at 11.00 to discuss further. Bring D if you can. G

Hi G Dave cant make it tomorrow L

Hi L. No problems. See you tomorrow at 11. G

Hi L. If you really think he is able to do this I think we can make an offer. G

Hi G he can do u want 2 test L

Really?

Yes can do 2morrow eve if u want

Hi L. You were right, he is amazing. I won't walk right for days. You are so lucky. Thanks for sharing. If you guys can pull this off you will be well looked after. G

Hi G we can do it

Hi L. Contract has been sent. Please start ASAP, time is critical. G

Hi G he did her last night said was ezy

Hi L. Great news. Careful what you write please. G

Hi G 2nd time push 4 result

Hi L. ASAP please. We want to go to market here soon. G

Hi G she want 2 break off dave will try 2 get back n I will go 4 him

Hi L. You can do it hun. G

Hi G made cont hes hooked set 4 nxt wk

That was the end of the emails. Liz and I sat for a while and discussed what we had learned. We knew the person and company that wanted us to break up, and from what was said I sort of guessed one of my patents was behind it. I was going to need to do some serious research on JH.

"There's another sheet," Liz said, pulling it out of the envelope. It was very brief, but also very damning.

This was the contract that been mentioned, and G, the stupid bitch, had done it on letterhead. It was marked 'strictly confidential', but we read it anyway.

We, JH, will pay Larissa and David Furness the sum of A$5,000 if, as a result of their actions they can create a situation that will bring international patent number (the number was included) to the market within three months of the date of this contract. We will pay a further A$5,000 if JH can purchase the patent at A$10,000 or less.

It was signed, witnessed and dated. As far as I was concerned we now had the smoking gun, and it just came down to how we would use it. We put the documents in our safe and went up to our bedroom.

Quite deliberately I took my time, even though we were both in a hurry. I completely stripped Liz, thoroughly kissing and fondling each newly exposed area. I spent longer on foreplay than I had ever done before. I sucked her breasts, I kissed her nipples, gently lashing them with my tongue, I went down on her, bringing her to two orgasms with just my mouth and a couple of fingers, but along with all of that I kissed the skin behind her knees, her throat, her calves. I also nibbled her earlobes, I sucked her fingers, her toes, and the sensitive skin right at the top of her bum crack. I massaged and kissed her whole body. Towards the end of the time that I was going down on her she managed to help me out of my clothes, and we sixty nined for a while, so that when she had that second orgasm I was as hard as a rock, and my cock was already very wet. I moved around and Liz spread her legs wide. I slowly pushed my cock into her wet pussy, burying it to the hilt in a single slow but steady stroke. When I was fully inside her she pulled me down to her lips, and we kissed, something that she normally didn't want after I had gone down on her.

I have had no idea what I had expected to find, but it actually surprised me when I realized that sex with Liz didn't physically feel any different than it had before. I slowly made love to her, feeling the pleasure as her pussy firmly gripped my stroking cock, creating those familiar waves of pleasure. We started with missionary, and moved through our repertoire of favorite positions. Doggy style, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, scissors and quite a few more that probably have names, but I don't know them. I was taking my time, trying not to come too quickly, and I was happy that Liz came once more as we made love. I wanted to have her come twice, but my body just wouldn't wait and I finally moaned in ecstasy as I pushed my cock deep inside her and I sprayed in long, strong pulses. It felt like I was marking my territory, and I realized that this was a territory that I wanted to defend. I couldn't allow intruders ever again. Exhausted we cuddled together and we fell asleep while my cock was still slowly shrinking inside her.

What did happen, however, was as I drifted off I compared my performance unfavorably to those damming images that had been burned into my brain. I was worried that I might not be able to keep her satisfied, now that she had compared me to someone else. Someone who was much younger, much fitter and much more virile. Our walls might have finally been demolished, but there was still some badly damaged ground where they had been.

In the morning Liz looked at me.

"You could have had her, she was gorgeous," she observed.

"I chose you," I replied, and I kissed her passionately.

After Liz had gone to work I decided to do some research. JH was a fairly large company, and they were based in the bible belt area of America. According to their website they were a company that cherished honesty and family values. They were also promoting on line an invention that I had patented five years earlier, and they seemed to be doing very well out of it. As soon as I saw that I remembered that I had received an anonymous offer, via a solicitor, to buy the patent a couple of years earlier, but they had baulked at my requested price. It seemed they had gone into production anyway, and even without the information in the envelope I had a watertight case against them. But I didn't want to leave it at that. This was personal, and it was JH that had made it as personal as you could get.

That evening, again, I didn't go to the car club. Instead Liz and I discussed the situation at length, and we finally arrived at a very simple plan. I wrote a letter to J, who was the managing director of JH, and I marked it 'private and confidential'. It was short and simple.

Dear Sir,

I was surprised to find that your company is actively selling the xxxx product which I designed and have patented worldwide.

I was appalled to find that your Australian management has stooped to hiring people to seduce my wife of eighteen years and myself in an effort to obtain my patents in a firesale situation. I have evidence of this, including an original copy of the contract, on your letterhead, and they are stored in a very safe place.

I am prepared to sell the patents for this product to JH for the sum of US$10,000,000.00 (ten million). This sum is not open to negotiation, it is a fixed offer.

If I have not received acceptance of this offer within sixty days of the date of this letter, with a full settlement date less than sixty days from the date of acceptance I will assume that the offer has been rejected, and I will commence legal action against JH. There will be a lot of publicity involved.

This offer expires exactly sixty days from the date of this letter, and any counter offer under US$20,000,000.00 (twenty million) made after that date will not be considered.

I hope to hear from you soon, however I must advise that I will not participate in any discussions that have G, your Australian manager, involved or even present, due to her pivotal role in this situation.

I signed the letter, and sent it by priority mail.

I received a phone call two weeks later from J himself, who said that he was shocked, and he tried to get me to reduce my price. I flatly refused, and said my offer stood and the price was non-negotiable. I then entered into discussions with JH's Australian legal team. Four weeks later I had the contract. For their US$ ten million JH got my patents and all the documentation that we had taken from David and Larissa. They also got a very tight secrecy clause which is the reason that I am not revealing what the product they were selling was, and I am not identifying the name of the company, or the names of any of their employees. One clause that I had added to the agreement was one that prevented any payments to David and Larissa. JH would have to keep that side of the whole sordid affair secure with threats, not with rewards. When I was asked by JH's lawyers why I was so firm on that point, I just said that I didn't actually hate David and Larissa. That was actually true, because I was finally looking at the whole bad situation as a wakeup call for the two of us. But, as I explained to the Lawyers I definitely did not believe in rewarding bad behavior, and theirs had been appalling.

Liz and I both retired, there was not much point working anymore. We have now embarked on an ambitious travel plan. We will spend two to three months at least twice a year travelling to a different country and really getting to know it. We want to see how many we can get to in this way. We are also looking at moving. With a few extra dollars available I am looking at maybe getting another car or two. Nothing too extravagant of course, maybe an SLR5000 and a Bathurst Monaro. We need a smaller house and a much bigger garage. We have hired personal trainers, and are exercising regularly and watching our diets. At the moment I believe we are a fit as we were when we first met.

I finally got the nerve up to ask Liz the one question that had really haunted me.

"Was he better than me?" She looked at me seriously, and saw I wanted an honest answer.

"Not in equipment," she said, "he was about the same length but not as wide." She pondered again.

"Honestly," I said, and she nodded.

"He had the endurance, and that made it physically more gratifying," she said, "but there was not the emotional connection." I nodded.

"Do you remember that GTR Skyline that we test drove?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It had amazing performance, but we just didn't connect, it was like it had no soul." I smiled.

"I understand," I said quietly, and then I looked at her.

"Would you mind if we went to one of those places that teaches tantric sex? You know, last longer and all of that?" I asked.

"What if there was a beautiful woman teaching, would you want to practice with her?"

"No," I replied, "but what if there was a handsome man teaching, would you want to practice with him?"

"No," she said, smiling.

"OK," I said, "how about we give this a go, but in a 'teach but not touch' situation?"

"You're on," Liz said, with a glint in her eye, and we went to bed.

As far as I am concerned the best way to fix the damaged ground where a heavy wall had been is to build a beautiful garden on it. You can't erase the memories but you can make sure that something positive comes from it.