THE NAUGHTY WIVES LEAGUE

“Don’t bother to deny it,” the man said. “I know you’ve been cheating on your husband. There are photographs of you with your Oriental lover.”

Lisa Coburn scowled at the offensive stranger. “You’re wrong,” she answered. “I was never unfaithful to Jack. You can’t prove I’m having an affair.”

It was February 1998, and the would-be blackmailer had accosted the woman on her Friday jog in a deserted area. Now he pulled out a fistful of pictures. They showed red-haired, Caucasian Lisa in the company of a black-haired, Asian male who was not her spouse. In some shots she was kissing or hugging him in front of a run-down apartment building. In others the couple was entering the building arm in arm. Variations in clothing indicated that multiple rendezvous had occurred.

“Here is the proof that you’re a member of the Naughty Wives League,” the fellow said. “You can keep the photos because the originals are locked away.”

Lisa studied her adversary. His hat covered most of his hair, his sunglasses concealed his eyes, and a beard, likely fake, hid much of his face. “What’s the price for the evidence?” she asked.

“Those pictures will upend your life if they go public,” he responded. “You became uber rich by wedding Jack Coburn. However, if he files for divorce now, the prenuptial agreement will leave you with little since you haven’t been married long. I want $150,000 in cash for my silence.”

“How do you know I signed a prenup?” the woman said, surprised.

“This is Texas, where smart millionaires ask their fiancées to sign one. Everybody knows Jack is no fool.”

“I need time to think about this. It would be hard for me to raise that much money,” Lisa replied.

“We can work out a monthly payment plan,” the blackmailer said with a smirk. “I would get the money over ten months. Of course, if you choose that route, you’ll have to pay double.”

His tone grew crueler. “I’ll contact you in a week or so. Agree then to buy me off, or Jack will be viewing these photos of his double-crossing wife.”

Lisa did not know whether to fume or to laugh when the stranger left. The man in the pictures was her adopted brother. He had been born in South Korea and was a graduate student. In fact, Jack already knew about her visits to her sibling.

She missed her husband, who was in Saudi Arabia on oil business. Lisa decided not to tell him about her weird experience until his return. He hated to be bothered while away. She would confide in her girlfriends.

Later that day she and three pals met for lunch at an exclusive country club. At age twenty-four, Lisa was the youngest person at the table. She expected the women to be amused by her tale of the deluded blackmailer. “Can you believe it?” she said. “I did nothing improper. Yet that creep claimed I joined the Naughty Wives League!”

One friend laughed. The other two looked quickly down at their food. After Lisa swore her buddies to secrecy on the topic, the conversation switched to the horse show.

That evening Lisa recalled the odd reaction of Dee and Jobeth to the mention of the Naughty Wives League. Could they have heard of it earlier? She resolved to find out.

On Saturday she cornered the two women separately. “Were you a member of the Naughty Wives League?” Lisa asked. The expression on their faces revealed the truth. Dee and Jobeth admitted they had been blackmailed. A stranger, who had sunglasses and a lot of facial hair, had accused them of belonging to the group.

Both paid him, but Jobeth could not come up with the full amount. In response, the man mailed incriminating photos to her spouse’s office. Jobeth’s mate dumped her after receiving the anonymous letter.

Lisa had planned to ignore the demand for hush money. Her marriage would not be harmed by pictures of her showing sisterly affection for a brother. Because others were at the mercy of the disgusting blackmailer, she changed her mind. She wanted to catch the culprit and punish him.

Lisa began the chase by inviting Dee and Jobeth to her mansion. She hoped that together they could unmask the criminal.

On Sunday the three chums gathered to chat and joke about the caper. They named themselves the Naughty Wives League and voted Lisa president. However, there was a problem. None of them could identify the blackmailer.

For hours the women shared what they knew about him. In all three cases, the suspect had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, dressed in a hat, sunglasses, and unremarkable clothing. The only identifying features on which the friends could agree were: the man was tall and stout, he hid behind a wig and fake beard, and his voice was raspy. The meeting finished with the women no closer to unearthing the villain.

On Monday morning Dee and Jobeth went back to Lisa’s home to resume the hunt. Since physical descriptions had not narrowed the search, Lisa suggested a new approach. “Perhaps we’re looking at this from the wrong direction. We concentrated on the blackmailer to find clues to his identity. Let’s focus for a while on his intended victims. What did the man know about us?”

Dee, brash as usual, replied, “That all of our husbands were filthy rich!”

Laughing, Lisa asked, “What else?”

“Well, we’re pals, and we all belong to the same country club,” Jobeth said softly. “Maybe he’s a member, too.”

“We’ll get a list of members,” Lisa said. “It could help. Still, he probably wouldn’t exploit fellow members knowing they might hear his voice and recognize it. Do you believe we were the man’s only blackmail targets?”

“No,” Dee answered. “He claimed various women had bought him off.”

“I agree,” Jobeth said. “There were others. He told me some kids were ‘growing up in broken homes’ because their mothers didn’t pay his asking price.”

“Let’s talk about the cash,” Dee responded. “The man started with Jobeth, and he pressured each of us for a different amount. Did you notice that he became greedier over time? When he got to me, I’d been married exactly four years and thus had four years of gold jewelry and an emerald ring I could sell.”

“The fellow showed up the day after my fourth wedding anniversary,” Lisa said. “What about you, Jobeth? Did he confront you around the four-year point?”

“No. We met when I’d been married for three years. So the timing of the blackmail demand must be random.”

“The timing was critical for me,” Dee replied. “I was DESPERATE to find the dough. If my husband had filed for divorce within the first five years of our marriage, I would have received peanuts under my prenup. There I was, only twelve months from the five-year mark, when the blackmailer appeared. I ran around like a Texas tornado, trying to sell stuff for the ten monthly payments. After that scare, I was true to my mate till he died.”

“I was desperate, too,” Jobeth said. “Like both of you, I was a year away from being entitled to a fortune. To qualify, my prenup required me to remain a wife for four years before any divorce filing.”

With a sigh, she continued. “The money isn’t what drove me frantic. I couldn’t bear to have my guy discover my secret - that once I got drunk and cheated on him. Since I couldn’t fund the last two installments, our enemy wrecked my life. I’m on my third marriage. But I will love my first husband forever.”

Lisa was silent in sympathy. Finally she said, “We found the key. The blackmailer approached each of us about twelve months before our men would be obligated to give us a ton more money in a divorce. By then, we’d had years of wedded life to accumulate expensive possessions we could sell. Our quarry is someone who learned the main terms of our prenups.”

That night each woman had homework. It was to list the people who were aware of her premarital agreement. The names included relatives, friends, and others. Only one entry appeared on all three lists. It read, “lawyer who wrote the prenup.”

On Tuesday the women skimmed the prenups of Lisa and Dee for more information. The letterhead on the documents read, “Law Firm of Karl Ott.” Jobeth no longer had a copy of her contract. However, she recalled signing it in Ott’s office before her first wedding.

“The blackmailer has to be Ott or somebody connected with his law firm,” Lisa said. “Dee and I signed our agreements in front of a notary, so we never met him. What do you remember about Ott’s firm, Jobeth?”

“It was small and had antique European furniture. He has a secretary, but I don’t know who else works there.”

“Did Ott look like our guy?” Dee asked.

“In some ways, yes. He was tall and chubby. However, the man was clean-shaven and balding. Of course, our blackmailer had a wig and fake facial hair, meaning he could be bald and beardless. Unfortunately, I can’t recall how his voice sounded.”

“What was your impression of him?” said Lisa.

“I disliked him on sight. Ott eyed me with disdain. He considered me a fortune hunter, though I was marrying for love. I left convinced that he expected the marriage to fail. To my shame, Ott was right.”

“Well, I despise him,” Dee said. “I can’t stand his obnoxious ads.”

“What ads?” Lisa asked. “I didn’t see any.”

“Sometimes Ott appears in T.V. commercials on rifle shows,” Jobeth chimed in. “He says he specializes in premarital agreements but will only accept male clients. He always brags in the commercials. According to him, no ‘gal’ fighting for more alimony has ever won in court against an Ott prenup. The man also has a huge billboard just outside the city.”

Dee said, “From gossip I heard, the jerk is single, in his sixties, and a bully. His marriage ended decades ago in a vicious, big-bucks divorce.”

Early on Wednesday the three women gathered near Ott’s law office. It stood next to a private detective agency. “How convenient,” Jobeth said, “for a blackmailer who needs someone to spy on people.”

The trio watched from afar as the attorney, a middle-aged female, and a teenager separately entered the office prior to its 10 a.m. opening. Ott had arrived in the parking lot in a Hummer, the apparent secretary in a Toyota, and the youth on a motorcycle.

“We know there’s a link between that legal firm and our nemesis,” Lisa said. “Obviously, the secretary and the teen aren’t the blackmailer. However, one of them could be feeding him prenup information and benefiting. Let’s come back before closing time. To check for signs of unexplained wealth, we’ll each follow an employee home. I’ll take Ott.”

The only sign of excessive wealth turned out to be Ott’s residence. It resembled a German castle. Lisa observed the property from the road. Both barbed wire and an electric fence surrounded his land. Two guards with holstered guns protected the gate. The lawyer was the blackmailer.

* * *

On Thursday morning the three friends hatched a plan for the showdown with Ott. They needed a rendezvous site where the women could limit the danger and, with luck, could stop him from bolting. They chose the country club.

Pursuant to the plot, Jobeth, pretending to be the secretary of her first husband, phoned Ott. She invited him to dine with her “boss” on Friday, to discuss a business opportunity. The attorney, clearly flattered, accepted the invitation.

The night before the big event, Lisa drove her Ferrari outside the city limits. She stood in front of Ott’s lighted billboard and gazed up at his portrait. The lawyer had an arrogant grin and was twenty feet tall. The sign read, “Gold diggers fear him. Men praise him. Call KARL OTT, THE PRENUP KING.”

Lisa thought about the pain he had caused innocent victims, such as Jobeth’s twins. She glared at her giant opponent. “The two of us will face off tomorrow,” she told him coolly. “May the best woman win.”

When Ott arrived at the club on Friday, the headwaiter led him, as Dee had directed, to a corner table. Moments later the three women joined him.

“Good evening, Karl,” Lisa said. “Welcome to the meeting of the Naughty Wives League.”

Ott saw the trio, blanched, and started to rise.

“Sit down,” Dee hissed, “or all three of us will scream ‘blackmailer’ and call the cops to arrest you.” Ott sat.

For thirty minutes he blustered as the women made accusations. Then he said, “Let’s assume, hypothetically, that I am the evil blackmailer. So what! Two-timing wives like my ex deserve to suffer.”

“Do you ever feel sorry for the innocent victims of your scheme?” Jobeth asked in her gentle voice. “The kids whose families were ripped apart because their mothers couldn’t pay in full?”

“If I were the guilty party, I’d say no,” Ott replied. “Those women were tramps. They earned what they got. What happened to their brats was just collateral damage.”

With a smirk, he continued. “You wouldn’t dare to reveal my secret. If the story of my alleged criminal career comes out, so will the story of your actual adultery, blowing up your marriages. Ladies, what we have here, of course hypothetically, is a case of mutually assured destruction.”

“Not quite,” Lisa answered. “Society considers what your targets did immoral. In contrast, you committed a felony. The punishment would be disbarment from the practice of law and years in prison. Anyway, you can’t ruin our marriages. The handsome man with me in your blackmail photos is my adopted brother. I never cheated on my spouse, Dee is a widow, and Jobeth confessed her past to her current husband before the wedding.”

Dee added, “And forget about bumping us off via a fatal ‘accident.’ Our safe deposit boxes hold a letter exposing you. It’s addressed to the sheriff and signed by us. The letter identifies you as the murderer in the event of our untimely deaths.”

Suddenly Ott looked defeated. It was obvious that he was at the women’s mercy. Lisa set forth the trio’s non-negotiable demands. “To prevent us from alerting the police, you must satisfy three conditions,” she said. “First, stop being a blackmailer. If you don’t, we’ll run to the authorities. Second, announce your retirement from all legal work, including prenups.”

“I can live with those terms,” Ott responded.

“Finally, we want $5,000,000 in a cashier’s check for our silence. Make the check out to Mexico’s charity for homeless mothers and children.”

“It would be difficult for me to raise that much money,” Ott meekly replied.

“We can work out a monthly payment plan,” Lisa said with a smile. “The charity would get the money over ten months. Of course, if you choose that route, you’ll have to pay double.”

* * *

The next morning Lisa woke up happy. She was still excited about the success of Operation Crooked Attorney, and her husband would return soon from the Middle East. Perhaps he would be in a good mood. The woman decided not to inform him that she was blackmailing a blackmailer. It is prudent to hide a felony.

Lying in bed, she wondered how many divorces Ott had caused. “I beat that home wrecker! There’s no way he could destroy MY marriage,” she thought smugly.

That reminded Lisa of her premarital agreement. She had dropped out of college at age twenty to wed Jack, her first love. He was thirty. She assumed they would grow old together. A week before the ceremony, her fiancé brought out a prenup. He claimed it contained the standard terms and meant nothing. The bride-to-be, hurt, signed it unread. Later she forgot about the agreement until the blackmailer mentioned it.

Lisa brushed the memory aside, rose, and danced down the stairs. When she entered the sun room, she spotted the prenup. It lay where she had skimmed it days earlier with Dee and Jobeth. On an impulse, she read the entire document for the first time.

According to the contract, if either spouse filed for divorce before five years, the wife would exit the union with $750,000. If the filing occurred after five years, she would be a multimillionaire.

Lisa had grown up in modest circumstances. To her, $750,000 was a fortune.

But there was a problem. The amount, in this instance, was a slap in the face. She knew just how little sums under a million meant to her spouse - a man who sometimes bet thousands in a poker game.

The prenup enraged her. Clearly Ott and his rich patrons believed that the first five years of wedlock constituted a trial run. “It’s like test-driving a new car before deciding whether to buy it,” Lisa told herself. “And the car is the easily discarded ‘starter wife.’”

It also upset Lisa that Jack had hired Ott, a misogynist, to write the prenup. She could imagine the scene at the law office. “Both men were joking about divorce court and shielding assets from money-grubbing females. I guess my husband never expected our marriage to last.”

Was Jack pleased with their life together so far? The longer the woman mulled the question, the less certain she became. Her spouse, born wealthy, had dated many rich girls. According to him, he fell in love with her because she was different. Lisa had met some of his former romantic partners. Her world currently revolved around Jack’s properties, shopping, beauty treatments, jogging, and country clubs. Was she really so different from those people now?

Suddenly Lisa felt she had been blind about her life. She realized that her mate was hard-core selfish and that the couple shared few interests. Lately Jack was often away on business or outings with his buddies.

The prenup raised another problem. Besides the five-year mark, the contract had steps at ten-year intervals. The more steps without a divorce petition, the more cash Lisa could get. “I’ll probably survive the five-year cut,” she thought. “But before each of the following deadlines, I’ll worry for months that Jack, using his cost-benefit analysis, will ditch me.” She hated the idea of waiting around to find out.

Later that day Lisa asked herself, for the first time in ages, if SHE was happy in the relationship. Despite her pledge to graduate from college, she had never gone back. Her biggest accomplishment since the wedding was her victory over Ott.

She spoke softly. “I dreamed of doing remarkable things in life and becoming Somebody. Instead, I became Somebody’s wife.”

Just before midnight, Lisa devised a plan. “I will be, for one year, the best wife ever,” she vowed. “After that, a divorce would give me millions. I can stay till then with my starter husband. Thanks to the blackmailer, if anyone wrecks this marriage, it will be me!”

Renée Henning is an attorney and an international author. Her written work has appeared in her book Mystery and the Adopted Child and in other publications in North America (e.g., Spadina Literary Review), South America (Salto Al Día), Europe (e.g., Oslo Times), Asia (e.g., ActiveMuse), Africa (e.g., Modern Ghana), and Oceania (e.g., Freelance). One of her short stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.