At the office, I had flirted successfully—that is, if one had to pinpoint the aggressor, it would be me—with one of the upper level accountants. We were both later placed on administrative leave, so that suspension was part of what turned out to be a pretty juicy mess. The worst detail, which really fucked everything up worse—exponentially—was the fact that most of the time during the affair (though not, I insist, always) I preferred seeing Jane masturbate over having traditional coital sex with her. This detail got out to the press—Jane had told a bunch of her friends. It made me somewhat of a laughingstock; the way I used my position at the bank to coerce her caused my manhood to be questioned in more ways than one: this guy bullies married women into going out with him, and then when the time comes to start getting busy he can't even have sex with her like a real man...
After forcing myself to read entirely through five of the eight skewering articles from mainstream media sources which continued in that vein during the first month or so, I gathered that some commentators were far from prudish, and would perhaps under normal conditions have gone so far as to extend a modicum of sympathy even for a lecherous man like me. But if they thought that adultery was bad enough, if comprehensible, they also thought that there was something particularly ungentlemanly about my having put so much at risk—careers, families, the bank's dignified reputation—only for the relatively cheap thrill of repeatedly watching a woman fondle herself. At least, arguably, the romantic destructiveness of true sexual love could have justified the public humiliation that was to result. They wondered why I hadn't simply hired an escort, or, with the type of money I was pulling in, even gone to find a girl at a strip club; for enough money, mused a radio host, most strippers would probably agree to meet an investment banker at a hotel and touch herself in front of him—probably a relatively safe client, bankers not used to dispensing violence in person. Even late-night comedians were talking about me, Jane's well known husband, and his pretty lawyer wife, and though we weren't movie stars, people interested in economics, possibly somewhat less titillated by gossip than readers of OK, were nonetheless enjoying themselves with us, if only because they couldn't help it—for years before the fiasco, financial sections of newspapers would regularly print stuff about the three of us, especially Jane's husband, and so of course these readers knew our names well. Everyone from People to The Washington Post to Howard Stern to The Drudge Report was directly or indirectly commenting ruthlessly on the bullying way in which I liked to commit my own cheap thrill of adultery. And though watching Jane touch herself was for me far from a cheap thrill, financially or otherwise, I will admit that if that argument has to be pursued, it is true that Jane preferred normal sex, and told me repeatedly that if she had simply wanted to masturbate, she could go do it at home. It always made her uncomfortable with me sitting there, clinically watching from 10 feet away.
Thanks to the freelance journalist who broke the story, writing of it in detail juicy enough to entertain romance book clubs for a full night, Jane's 13-year-old son, who either normally had access to unlisted information or had created access by suddenly looking through his mother's stuff, sent me a barrage of threatening emails only hours after the breakthrough article. The worst was the phone call I received from him where he swore on his life that he would come after me and butcher me wherever he came across me—even right out in the middle of the street, if that was the best he could do. He had sounded drunk. Alarmed, I told Jane, and begged her to manage the situation. Except for a few straggling email threats, sent with carelessly unveiled pseudonyms, I felt relatively sure after a week or so that he had cooled off. Jane and her husband were wealthy, so I assumed they had instantaneous access to many different types of psychologists that could help him work through his problems. I would have recommended Jane take this course of action with him, but since I was the one who was responsible for most of the trouble, and had been so terribly aggressive in my pursuit of her, the idea of suggesting help for the boy felt a bit hypocritical.
Jane's husband was Thomas Lowenthal, the entrepreneur who had for years experienced and ultimately triumphed over an uncanny number of ups and downs that he successfully managed to propel forward into a lucrative career. He had accumulated over 10 million dollars by the time he turned 35. His image-consulting company remained strong, taking in a reported 30 million in revenue per year, but most of the other companies he had been involved in forming had recently either dissolved or been sold without a profit, so these uninspiring, collapsed endings made him lose a bit of the pizzazz entrepreneurs are fond of continually showcasing at strategic times, if only for business reasons.
Thomas surprised me by calling my cell at 2:00 A.M. one night to tell me that he wanted me to come over to his house three days later. He said that the three of us were in the position of truly capturing the public imagination—saying it with an air of pride. I told him if he was going to be like this, I didn't want to hear about it. The sarcasm left his voice in a trembling kind of way and he continued in a more reasonable tone that as events continued to release their toxins into our systems and poison our bodies and souls, and we became bigger jokes, there was nonetheless no point in letting things get too contentious between us; we should decide on some strict limitations by which we might curb, as feasibly as possible, the unpleasantness we might feel compelled to relate about one another during the absolute shitstorm that was to continue during divorce proceedings with Jane—which he had to at least initiate, if only to keep his business reputation somewhat intact. He knew, of course, something about image, and since cuckolds are frequently sneered at, and journalists love irony, he couldn't keep his mouth shut entirely without looking overly meek; he would have to say some snide things about me to the entertainment shows—maybe I could come over and we could discuss them?
"You're right," I told him, saying I'd be at his house at the time specified, and hung up.
And I did think he was right; we didn't want to make things worse than they already were by reacting defensively to the media. We live in a country whose public forgives embarrassing mess-ups after the passage of some time, and when that time for forgiveness came, I wanted to be there to greet it boasting an interim of measured behavior.
But mainly, it was because I was at fault that I agreed to go and talk with him and Jane in person. It was going to be a good time. I admit that I felt guilty for Jane, and for exposing the bank, and for the sin of adultery in general, I guess, too, but it wasn't for hurting Thomas Lowenthal, whom I would never hesitate to shove a knife into, just because he was Jane's husband.
