PART VI - WHAT GOES ROUND

Today I met you on the street,
And my heart fell at your feet
I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you.

         “Turn that down or off, Bobby. It was a nice dinner, but you’ve got me so on edge over what’s going to happen.”
         “Better?”
         “Yes. Well Bobby?”
         “Years ago I saw a movie called 'Roots of Heaven'. It was based on a best seller. It was about elephant hunters and a eccentric man who wants to save the elephants. I vaguely remember this scene. These white hunters, or whatever they are supposed to be, are having cocktails and a sort of reception. There is this stuffy grand dame. I can’t remember if she was a hunter or not, but she must have been. The eccentric walks into this cocktail party, somehow approaches her and pulls up a hardback chair, pulls her over his lap and gives her a good hard spanking. She keeps her dress on, but is terribly embarrassed. Thought about that for you, up there in front of the seminar.”
         “Yikes. Not sure if it is an embarrassment or a turn-on, especially with the way my life is.”
         “That’s what I thought too, that you probably would get excited, not embarrassed.”
         “So I’m not going to get a public spanking? Were you planning to pull my dress up? Might have been funny. In hot weather like it’s supposed to be tomorrow, I often don’t wear pantyhose or panties, as you may remember from our picnic.”
         “I wouldn’t have pulled up your dress. No, I even doubt that I could spank you. I thought it might be more embarrassing if I simply asked aloud from my seat if you would like a good spanking. You know, you see people with their hands up and respond and I say, ‘How ‘bout I come up there and put you over my knee, Ms. Thorpe, pull up your dress and give you a thorough bare ass spanking?’
         “No, please. Don’t do that.”
         “Why not?”
         “Was I that bad?”
         “Think about it. You recruited someone, a fool as it turned out, to be there for you in a couple of years, to commit to you in the meantime so that you were his only woman. You urged him on, even involved his business, and then you changed your mind and had him walk over a trap door. You pulled the lever and suddenly he was back in the wild again. I know you had a reason, and in your eyes a perfectly good reason. Your last emails did hint there were problems, but rather than work it out over time, you pulled the handle. I know he was a dope to be so naïve, but I am not going to blame the victim in this case, and not just because I was the victim.
         “I explained it to you. I wasn’t happy doing it then and I am not happy with my life now. These seminars and my work are my life. Hearing it from your side I can see that I have a lot to answer, but for god sake, don’t embarrass me in front of the group.”
         “Seeing you again, I lost a lot of the anger. I feel bitter, but the people who suffer are women I try to meet today. The burned child dreads the fire. Do I make them sign a contract so I can sue them? That’s what the lawyer in you would have me do.
         “Julie, in reality, you did not suffer. You were only back where you were before.”
         “I did suffer. I meant it when I said you were a wonderful person, and I gave you up. I had maybe four months of real happiness and then Brenda came home and ‘Lushwell’ hit the pole and my life started to spin apart.
         “Bobby, you can’t stay upset at me forever, and take it out on every girl who comes along, and I sure can’t give a seminar tomorrow knowing what you are thinking of doing.”
         “So, maybe that evens it up. Maybe I will never ask the spanking question, but I know I will raise my hand a few times and watch you squirm.”
         “Bobby, I’ll be in the bathroom every twenty minutes. I can’t work that way and I can never make it up to you even if you are willing to wait two years. Take me back to the motel, to my room, sit on the edge of the bed or a chair, put me over your knee and spank the horrid little girl for doing what she did. Spank her until she is red as a beet and end it there.”
         “Oh, you will love that. You won’t have to use your own hand; Bobby will be there with his magic fingers.”
         “No Bobby, nothing but a long hard spanking. I’ll keep on my panties and top. Spank me over my panties and then send me to the corner and make me pull them down to my knees or thighs so you can see my glowing red butt. Make me stand there while you tell me again how bad I was, and then leave. We’ll be even. I know in your eyes it won’t be even, but I’ll be humiliated. Worse, you will have gotten me HORNY and all I will be left with is my stinking hand to relieve myself. Do you know it’s been since last Fourth of July, with you in that wonderful house in the country? That’s over a year. Since then I’ve only had myself. I can’t think of any way to punish me worse than to make me stand there, with my panties down, every part of my womanhood begging for you, and having to listen to you tell me what I did, and then walk out leaving me unsatisfied."
         “I love having you be judge and jury. You always did brass everything out, Julie.”
         “Please Bobby. Isn’t that the hotel? Once again, please. You’ll feel better, I know it and I will no longer be the high-falutin lawyer but just a middle-aged, overweight woman with a very red ass who will lay there on her bed trying to satisfy herself. What a picture that is.”


         No jail time, that was good. The fine was more and the probation longer than Bill Jensen thought they would be. “Some of this is having a big shot lawyer for a spouse rubbing the judge the wrong way,” he said. Counseling was to be expected, but why did Julie have to go also? It wasn’t an order exactly, but the judge did imply that she’d better attend. If Brad were arrested on any other charge, they would throw the famous book at him and give her a good tongue-lashing if she hadn’t complied. A Stamford lawyer never knew when she might have to face this bench again.

         The matter was settled in less than three weeks. Counseling started the week of the sixteenth. Naturally Brenda wanted to attend with them. Julie called the psychologist and asked them to hold separate sessions, husband-wife on Thursdays and father-daughter on Tuesday. They were agreeable since it meant two fees. Brenda muttered under her breath, ‘why not a mother-daughter session?’

         They were all home now in the evening. Julie told Bobby they had to cool it for the time being. The last time she had seen him was the Fourth of July, when they had attended a local fireworks display near his house. Julie loved the display, but enjoyed the physical fireworks that followed even more. At breakfast on the deck the next morning, she unburdened herself of her thoughts and fears about Brenda and Brad. She dreaded driving back home that day from this little paradise she had created for herself.

         Brenda seemed to pop into her home office at least two to three times an evening. Julie devised a code to let Bobby know when they were chatting on line. A series of asterisks told him to can the dialogue, and immediately. Brenda asked several times when she was going back to the new office in Dutchess County. Julie half-truthfully told her the office was up and running and that she might not have to go back for some time.

         Bobby was full of plans for Julie’s upcoming birthday. They might go to Lake George, or take the ferry from Bridgeport to Long Island on a weekday and stay the night in a bed and breakfast, where as he put it, Julie would have to be on her best behavior. They had a picnic late one afternoon, but this time near her office. Sitting at the table after eating the wonderful Caprisi sandwich he made, she began to unload on him again. She started by putting his birthday plans on hold.

         “Brenda wants the family to do something together, take a short trip.”
         “I can understand that.”
         “Brad really wants to do nothing except maybe dinner, and that can be done anytime.”
         “So maybe we can do something for your birthday anyway?”
         “It will be tough. I think she is checking up on me sometimes, so if I say I am coming to Poughkeepsie, she asks questions. She hasn’t yet realized we have no office there. I wouldn’t know what to do if she found out.”
         “Your nineteen year-old daughter is running your life.”
         “In a way, she is, she and my supposedly reformed husband. Did I tell you that Mindy Davis called? She is the psychologist we all see. She has seen Brad four times. Her analysis: Brad is a wonderful patient, but he is faking it. He is telling everyone what they want to hear. She asked if he were drinking at home. I told her he had cut down. She is sure he is drinking more elsewhere, on the train, in the City. I notice he takes a later train, probably spends the time in the bar at Grand Central. My silly daughter picks him up every evening.”
         “What a family!”
         “You’re telling me? Between Brenda trying to make me help Brad be something he cannot or does not want to be, and Brad and his apathy, I can't think or work well. Every time you and I hook up I get a visit from Mother Superior, or get called into the living room for family time.”
         “Why can’t we take Brenda somewhere with us, I as your business associate.”
         “She’d see right through that in a minute. We can’t keep our hands off each other. Look at my hand now.”
         “Hey lady, that’s not nice in public.”
         “And she would see you as a danger to her little world and hate you, no, maybe I am wrong. I don’t see how anyone could hate you, but it would not work. A birthday celebration is out. I think you are going to have to come to Stamford if you want to see me until she goes back to school, if she goes back.”
         “That’s fine. It’s going to be dark soon, and Alabaster here is getting edgy. We’ll have to get going.”
         “Oh, Bobby, I don’t see anyone about. Let me lay over your knees, like this. Now raise my dress and you'll get a surprise. Notice I have no stockings on and, guess what, there’s nothing beneath the dress either. I think a short spanking and some of that finger play would keep me going for a few weeks.”
         “Maybe Brenda has a detective behind a tree.”
         “Hush. Don’t say that! Oh, it feels so good laying like this, now do as I said, raise my dress, Bobby.”
         “Wonder what the fine is for doing this, and what the charges would be?”


         Bobby drove out of his way to go through Red Hook on the way to King of Prussia. He stopped at his old house. The Farbers were both at work, so he had to be satisfied with a walk around the outside. He called Linda. She did not answer, but her house was only a half-mile off the main road, so he stopped and found her speeding around her lawn on her riding mower. She was happy to see him. She poured him some iced tea, without sugar or lemon, and they sat on her porch. He told her where he was going and who the speaker was.

         “You know, Linda, ever since you told me that story of you, your husband and the woman, and the good swift kick you gave her, I have had dreams of planting the same on Julie. Who knows, maybe I will get my chance?”
         “Oh I hope so.”
         Ten days later she received a post card of the bridge that connected Mackinaw City with the Upper Peninsula. On it was written simply, “Sighted target, sank same. Bobby!”
It made her very happy.


FROM: [e-mail]
TO: [e-mail]
RE: My daily rant
Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2001, 04:30 EDT

I’m sitting here at 4 o’clock in the morning. I don’t sleep and can’t sleep. This place gives me the creeps, but at least Brenda is asleep now and can’t read this. For god sake, don’t message me and don’t send anything to the AOL account. I am sure that girl is trying to catch us out. Maybe it is just me and all my frustrations building up, but this situation is just impossible, and there is nothing you can do. She stopped at my office the other day on her way to pick up her father. I have no idea why, except she let slip that I should not send the tuition check yet. I asked her later and she said she thought she was needed more here, and she would get a part-time job, maybe even ask to help out in my office now that we were ‘so busy’.

They plan to take me to Yankee Stadium for my birthday. Can you believe it? Why don’t you show up? No, I don’t think that works. I’d jump into your lap in a New York minute.

Mindy Davis is convinced counseling is all a waste of time, but Brenda is really impressed when she attends with Brad. I want to yell at her to wake up and smell the booze, but it would only drive her closer to her father.

Oh baby, I am so sorry to rant so.
The Superlawyer

FROM: [e-mail]
TO: [e-mail]
RE: Your daily rant
Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2001, 10:12 EDT

Hey there, rant on, write out the frustrations but get some sleep. We can’t do anything about your birthday but CLE season is coming. I know you are planning to both go to seminars and give them. It is our opportunity. Hang in there, I will be patient.
Bobby Paddles


         Why does he have to keep raising his hand? This must be the fifth time this morning. I wish I knew if I could trust him. I could trust the old Bobby, but his eyes did look dull last night at the hotel. He looks like he is in a better mood this morning, and he hasn’t even hinted at THAT question. Even if he wasn’t going to say it, I would expect him to feint at it. Bobby is a joker, always was.

         I wonder what the phone call was about. He was gone for fifteen to twenty minutes. I’ve got to pull myself together. Ow, that hurts a little. Have to remember not to back into things.


         The morning session went fine. Julie relaxed. She could feel her audience was following her closely. The more she thought about it, Bobby was being a real help, accentuating points that she felt need emphasis with his questions and comments. She hoped to talk to him at lunch, but when she looked for him, he was not in the hotel restaurant and his car was gone. She ate lightly. Tonight she would be home in Happy Valley, as she sarcastically called their house, being given the third degree by her nineteen year-old-daughter. Why had she ever even tried to make herself happy?

         She was surprised when Bobby arose from his chair a little after two o’clock and picked up his notebook and left. He gave her a little nod on the way out, and from the doorway blew her a kiss. Was he stepping out of her life forever? On her drive home she speculated on that blown kiss and what the next few years would bring. If he continued to live where he lived now, he would still be around for some future time, if she could ever find the light at the end of the tunnel that led to freedom. Right now all seemed total darkness.


         “That’s the personal phone, Alababa, out of the way silly doggie. I’ve got to get it before the machine picks up.”
         “Hello, talk to me.”
         “Hi there, what were you doing?”
         “Alabaster and I were just down in the office. Helluva run up the stairs with an exuberant dog bumping me the whole way. Watcha doing?”
         “Having a miserable morning and trying to get to the office. Since her father left for work, my watchdog has gone. I don’t want to call from the office, but I hate calling with her around.”
         “Oh come on, she can’t be that bad. Why are you calling?”
         “I was up all night again. Bobby, this is insane. It’s not going to work. I’ve decided I can’t leave them and we’ll have to stop: stop seeing each other, chatting on line, sending emails, the whole lot. You have to stop thinking about me and I about you. I can’t live this way. I’m a wreck, all because that bastard piled his frigging car into a pole and got everyone worried about him. But I can’t leave him or Brenda and I'll have to do the best I can with the hand life dealt me.
         “Are you there, Bobby?”
         “I’m here, having a hard time believing what I’m hearing and what you are saying. I don’t want to argue with you, but I can’t tell you how bad this is. In some ways it’s worse than the letter from Barb. We had grown apart; you and I were coming together and now, rinnnnggggg, a phone call and it’s over.”
         “Bobby, I think you are a wonderful, gentle person, the best person I have probably met in my life and I don’t want to see you hurt, but I can’t go on this way. I can’t work, my stomach constantly hurts me, I am smoking like a chimney and am thinking of taking up the bottle. I can’t get rid of him, or I lose both of them, and I can’t leave because he can’t pay for this house. It is just a bitch and unfortunately someone has to get hurt.”
         “So I was elected. What about business and all the projects we have started? I have picked up clients for estate work for us.”
         “I will leave that up to you. Bill Jensen is a good man and Renee Vogel, one of our paralegals, is wonderful at organizing estates.”
         “Bill defended a drunk driver, does he know estates?”
         “A little, I will be his backstop.”
         “But I can’t deal with you after telling my clients I would be doing so?”
         “No I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be together. Bobby, you must think I am doing this for spite or to hurt you, but I am giving up something I want so much. I will be more hurt than you.”
         “Right, Uh Huh. Have a happy Friday Bobby, and a good weekend and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
         “Bobby, please.”
         “Don’t worry, I’m a big boy. I’ll be fine. Now let me go take the dog for a walk and you get to work. We’ll both start over with the rest of our lives.”

         “Who was that, Bobby.”
         “It was just Julie, calling off the merger.”
         “Bitch. Knew she’d crawl back to him.”
         “Probably not that way at all, Linda, but I don’t feel like analyzing it now. Later maybe.”


         “Before we begin, I have a few messages here.
         “Jillian Pomeroy, please call your office. It is marked ‘important’.
         “Bobby Steptoe should call Sharon. I’ll give you the message so you can make out the phone number. Sounds like a hot date.
         “Mr. Retzler, Jim Prince won’t be able to make lunch today.”

         “Ms. Lipper please.
         “Hi Sharon, it’s Bobby, what’s up?”
         “I tried to get you last night but I didn’t have your new cell phone number. It took them all this time to get you the message? I left it just before five.”
         “I was out last night, with Julie. I doubt that you would have wanted me to return the call that late.”
         “Rekindling an old flame or settling a score?”
         “You pays your money, you takes your choice.”
         “You’re funny as usual. The reason I called is that I was wondering if you could come in this afternoon, say about 3:30. I have someone you have to meet and one of them won’t be available tomorrow. In fact maybe I’ll stay after the meeting and we can discuss our common friends, the Mathis’. That way I won’t have to come in tomorrow, as much as I would like to spend Saturday with you.”
         “Who are the people?”
         “You know one of them, it’s Robert Brown, the lawyer who drew up Mrs. Z’s will. The other person is Sidney Toler.”
         “Charley Chan coming too? And his number two son?”
         “Bobby! Sidney Toler was your old client Mrs. Toler’s husband and has been since 1979.”
         “That’s impossible. She never told me she was married. And you said ‘was’?”
         “It’s true. He’s over ninety according to Brown and is fit as the proverbial fiddle. The reason Brown wants to see you is that Mrs. Toler died ten days ago. I think he wants you to probate the estate.”
         “What about what was her name, that first class bitch that was her daughter. I want to call her ‘Goldie’ but I know that isn’t her name.”
         “Bobby, hold on to your hat! Mrs. Z died in 1995, I think. Two years later, at the time of the Jewish Holidays, Mrs. Toler’s mind apparently cleared enough and she demanded Shelley, her name was Rochelle Taubman, take her to the cemetery to visit the graves of Herb Stein, her first husband and Rochelle’s father, and Mrs. Z. (I got this gossip from Brown.) They were driving to the cemetery. Shelley was probably yelling at her mother in the car when she pulled out without yielding, and right into the path of a ten-wheel dump truck barreling down on her.
         “Shelley was killed instantly. She didn’t have her seat belt on. Mrs. Toler was strapped in. For all I know Shelley used a child seat for the old lady. She survived with minor injuries, but her mind slipped back into whatever you call it. Despite the fact that it was probably Shelley’s fault, the driver of the truck did not have a proper license and the truck was not authorized to operate in Pennsylvania. The company that owned it is listed on one of the stock exchanges.
         “Shelly had no children; she had been divorced fifteen years and there was no one left in the family but Sydney Toler. He and Mrs. Toler, Esther, had been separated since 1984, but had never divorced. Brown says there was a ‘pre-nup’. Toler came to see Brown to see if he could be appointed her guardian. Get this. The court awarded the guardianship to Brown. Brown went out and hired Charley Mattia, the biggest toughest shark in the personal injury industry. Mattia settled the case for over six million dollars, cash on the barrelhead. He walked off with a third, of course, but the rest went into Mrs. Toler’s estate, since she was the sole heir of Shelley’s estate.
         “It has only been there since the middle of last year, but Brown was no dummy and turned the money over to Jeff Welles, Mrs. Z’s and your fair-haired boy. Despite the market, he has made nineteen percent this year.
         “So Brown apparently wants you to probate the estate. He says that after he had guardianship he wanted you to do her tax returns but could not locate you. I don’t know where he got my name, but he did. He says you might want to look over the returns that were filed also. So can you be here this afternoon? Mr. Toler can’t come tomorrow. Oh yes, he says there is one more surprise in store, but he will wait.”
         “OH NO, Sharon, I bet Brown never redrew her will after the daughter died and she left everything to Mrs. Z or Mrs. Z’s heirs. Listen, Sharon, I will be there with bells on.”


FROM: [e-mail]
TO: [e-mail]
RE: Sit Down, Julie
Date: Monday, August 27, 2001 20:15 EDT

I apologize for cutting out on your wonderful informative seminar at two o’clock, and that I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at lunch. I had bigger fish to fry with Sharon Lipper.

I went into Sharon’s office and there was Robert Brown. I know he is over eighty, but he looks so great with that full head of hair of his. You don’t know him, but he is the lawyer of little old lady-land. He lives in the William Penn house surrounded by widowed women just needing their wills written. Seated next to him was a man impeccably dressed, but in what appeared to be a leisure suit from 1979 or so. His head was bald but fringed with short golden hair. His head was larger on top than at the jaw. His body was wiry and he could not have weighed more than 125 pounds. He was very lively and garrulous. This was Mr. Toler, the husband of my ex-client Esther Toler, who died very recently.

We all shook hands and sat. Sharon asked Mr. Brown to tell me what this was about. Brown was careful to note that Mr. Toler was hearing this for the first time also. He pulled Mrs. Toler’s last will out of an envelope and recalled that Shelley had brought her to have it redone after Mrs. Zilber died. I asked him what he thought of Shelley. He shook his head and said that once he determined that Mrs. Toler was of sound enough mind, he asked Shelley to wait in the other room. She didn’t like it, but Mrs. Toler began to put up a squawk so she obeyed.

The will was set up to permit Mr. Toler to inherit the $675,000 that is permitted to go to the surviving spouse. This was part of the pre-nup. The balance of the estate, except for a $10,000 charitable donation to her Synagogue and a $10,000 bequest to Mr. Brown, was to pass to her daugher, Rochelle Taubman, nee Stein. In the event her daughter predeceased her, which she did, the residue was to go to, are you ready for this, and here I quote directly from the will, ‘to that sweet nice young lawyer and taxman, Bobby Steptoe’. Brown said when she tried to remember my last name, she couldn’t and wanted to put simply ‘Bobby Somebody’ but Brown prompted her on my name.

The ‘death taxes’ will take over half, needless to say, but when I heard this, I did not think of taxes at that time. I just sat there stunned. It's raining money again. Sharon and I talked after Brown and Toler left. By the way, Toler is very happy though I would not put it past some lawyer to try to work him up to challenge the will, but Brown doubts it.

Sharon will have Nisse do the grunt work. She is very pleased with her. She says Nisse is never punctual, and has taken a few ‘mental health’ days off, but she is amazed at the work she turns out. She would like her to learn to be a paralegal and will foot the bill to send her to school.

So that is why I missed the afternoon. I left for home Saturday morning. As the poet says, ‘my tires and tubes are doing fine, but the air is showing through’.

I stopped at the SPCA in Media near Philly and adopted a sheepdog-setter mix puppy, a little mop. At first I was going to call her Morgana, or fate as you will have it, but that seemed too arty. So she is now called ‘Paprikash’.

You looked as lovely as I remembered you. If you ever do a seminar in Grand Rapids, let me know and I will come by. Bobby

FROM: [e-mail]
TO: [e-mail]
RE: Rich man, poor man, beggar man, THIEF
DATE: August 28, 2001 23:38 EDT

OH SHUT UP. I’m still sore.
Julie Superlawyer


         “Happy Holidays, Bobby. How is it up there in the North Woods?”
         “Cold, snow on the ground, pretty good bit of it. What brings this call, Sharon?”
         “Nisse and I think we have located all the assets. Most of them were in the broker’s account but we found a few more. A bank account at some fraternal lodge that probably belonged to the late Mr. Stein, so you know how old that was. You probably knew, but neither Brown nor I realized she had a ton of “HH” bonds, maybe half a million. It looks like the total estate is over 5.8 million. Only reason I am calling is that there is no reason we can’t send you a check for two million. You’re doing the taxes, but it makes little sense to keep building up income in the estate. I sent you a check to sign yesterday to send Toler’s estate its $675,000. I can’t get over that healthy little man just keeling over while out on a sales call. Did you know he was still working?”
         “What’s more amazing to me Sharon is that he left his estate to Brown. Did Brown prepare his will too?”
         “No, some lawyer who died last year did it.”
         “I guess you can’t send my check direct to Jeff Welles and have him dump it directly in my account?”
         “You will have to endorse it, matter of fact you will have to sign it too. You ARE the executor, but I doubt that you will take a fee.”
         “Why not? I’ll pay income tax on it at maybe thirty-three percent but it will save the estate over sixty percent. I don’t have to do it until next year.”
         “That’s why I do divorce law and let you handle the dead. I’m the only lawyer I know good enough to do her own divorce without letting personal grudges get in the way. You’re that way too, in a way. That’s why we work well together.”
         “I guess we do, but I would think I will have a hard time probating my own estate.”
         “I do think you SHOULD add ‘professional heir’ to your resume. What are you going to do with all this money? I kill myself working and I am nowhere near you.”
         “I’ll keep living here and coming in to see my interests in Philly every so often. How’s that?”
         “Sounds like a good plan.”
         “Sharon, did you ever think about moving your practice to the Michigan north woods. I have a lot of room in my basement.”
         “BRRRRRR.”
         “Hey, we middle-aged men have to keep trying, and I think you are a bit safer than the Internet babes. Of course, we’d be setting poor Nisse off on her own again; maybe Brown would hire her and then she would inherit his money. He’s alone you know.”
         “You are a trip, Bobby. Thanks for the compliment. I’ll think about it.”

FINIS