God's Eye View

Readers, be advised that there are no happy, willing cucks in this story (I can't stand that crap!). There's also no graphic sex in this one. I am not, nor have I ever been a lawyer, so please don't go into this expecting true-to-life courtroom drama! For anyone who's interested in the idea behind this story, please read the Author's Note at the end. Now, if you haven't already hit the "back" button, enjoy! - CM

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Computers are wonderful tools. They make life both easier AND more difficult, often at the same time! That's one of life's little ironies that I've come to live with. On one hand, computers make it easier for me to keep track of invoices, payroll, billing, client contact information...a whole host of things I need to do in order to keep my business going strong. The use of computers helps me keep my costs down because I don't need as many people in the office.

On the other hand, when those computers break, or when some critical file gets corrupted, it can make things a hell of a lot more difficult! Over the 7 years that I've operated my family's landscaping business, there've been several computer failures. I've learned to minimize them, of course. I have both local backups and cloud backups for my critical data. I also have at least some redundancy built in to my critical infrastructure, so that in the event of a failure, the impact on operations will be minimal.

Oh, wait. I got so deep into the tech stuff, that I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Donald Summers, Don to my friends, and 'Donnie' to my wife, and Mother -- and ONLY to them. I'm 35 years old. I'm 6'5'' tall and I weigh 227 pounds (and I'm very proud of the fact that not much of that's fat!) A lifetime of working outdoors has left me with what my wife calls a 'weathered look.' I also have a deep, semi-permanent tan.

For the last 13 years, I've been married to the love of my life, Brittany Summers (formerly Carson). Brittany is a personal trainer at a local gym. She is also 35, and unlike me, she's pale complected. She's also blonde-haired and blue-eyed, with a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Britt is 5 feet tall, and very petite and athletic (like you'd probably expect from a trainer.) With her pale skin, the light dusting of freckles, and her adorable smile, Brittany looks a lot like a little pixie! We have two kids together, our 9-year-old daughter Danielle, and our 7-year-old son Brian.

The business, Summers Landscaping, was started by my father. When I was a child, I worked with my Dad helping out in the office. My Mother had such a terrible pregnancy with me, they decided not to have any more children. As a result, I was very close to both of them, spending as much time as I could with them. There was never any question in my mind that one day, when Dad was ready to hang it up, I'd take over!

When I was older, Dad insisted that I work in the field with the crews. He said it would do a lot better job of teaching me how the business really worked than working in the office would! To my surprise, I found that I absolutely loved it! I'd never been afraid of manual labor, and I took to it like a duck to water. By the time I was a senior in highschool, I was leading work crews in the summer. When I finally did take over the business 7 years ago, I expanded our client base and our services. We now have 12 different work crews and offer a huge list of landscaping, ornamental gardening, and (during the winter) snow removal services.

With the addition of more work crews, I'm not really needed out in the field much, except during peak times. I still head out, though, because I love it. Plus, it's good for the crews to know the boss is out and about, checking up on them. More and more, though, I find myself in the small office attached to the company warehouse, working through the mountain of paperwork generated by any growing business.

The end of March and beginning of April are when I spend the most time in the office. I'm doing tax-related stuff, reviewing personnel records, reviewing contracts, etc. For a span of about two weeks, I don't leave the office at all during business hours. It's been that way pretty much since I took over management. This particular year, my Mom had been with me (she said she was bored and just wanted something to do). She used to help Dad keep the books when he managed the business himself. But Dad hadn't used computers, and Mom was not exactly the most tech-savvy person that ever lived. She accidentally erased several pretty critical files!

Fortunately, like I said, I'm real good about backups! Still, restoring that much data from my backup storage takes time. Since I had a few unoccupied minutes while I waited for the files to be restored, I brought up Google Earth. I've been using this tool a lot, lately. It helps, when you are planning a project, to have a 'God's Eye View' of the lay of the land, BEFORE you start moving in with backhoes and trenchers! (And this way, I didn't have to shell out the money for expensive aerial photography until it was time to wow the client at the final presentation!)

I spent a few minutes on this project, but finally decided I'd done everything with it that I could, without the client's input. My backups still weren't quite done loading, so I decided to look at my own house. I've wanted to put in a swimming pool for a long time, and now that the kids were getting a little older, I thought it might be time to look at the idea more seriously. That's when things started to go to hell.

As I clicked and zoomed in on my house, I noticed something odd. There was a car I didn't recognize, parked in our driveway. I try to be as involved in my family as I can be, and I know just about all of Britt's friends. Still, I didn't think too much of it at first. This photo looked to have been taken sometime during the winter just past. There was a light, patchy blanket of snow on the house and lawn. Looking at the garage, I saw the addition I'd made to it was completed, so that meant the photo couldn't be any more than 4 months old (expanding the garage had been my winter project).

The car I didn't recognize was red, but that was all I could tell. I don't know a lot about cars and wouldn't know what the make and model was, anyway. I looked over at the progress bar on the file transfer, and saw that it had barely moved. Oh well, at least I had something to pass the time while I waited, I thought to myself. I clicked back over to GE and stared at the satellite image of my house for a few more minutes. The sun angle didn't really give me any clues about the time of day.

"Hmmph," I said, not fully aware that I'd made a sound.

I clicked on the street view tab next. I'd known before I did it that it probably wouldn't help. It was very unlikely that the street view image would have been taken at the same day/time as the overhead image. Still, I had the time and I was curious. So I made that fateful little click with my mouse.

The street view had been taken later. It was sunny, and the dogwood tree I'd planted in our front yard was just beginning to flower. The car that had piqued my interest wasn't visible...but my wife, Brittany, was! She was quite visible indeed, standing in the front door of our house, with her arms wrapped around a man who wasn't me, and kissing him soundly! One of her hands was visible too, clutching one cheek of the guy's ass! My temper instantly fired itself up. My wife -- MY WIFE!! - was kissing and touching another man!

I forced myself to calm down. Before I did anything else, I printed a few copies of the image. I wanted a hardcopy! Next, I looked closely at the man in the photo. The camera angle didn't give me a good look at his face. Nevertheless, he looked vaguely familiar. With an almost physical effort, I forced my rage down. It would have it's day, but first I had to find out exactly what was happening. The stuff going on in this photo was definitely inappropriate, and no matter what else might happen, we'd be having a talk about it! As much as it hurt and enraged me, though, I had to know what else was going on.

But how? I've read a lot of the same stories you probably have, were the husband puts up cameras all over his house. Or sometimes he plants simple recorders. Sometimes he hires a PI. Those were all options, of course. I'm tech savvy enough to put up cameras; it's not exactly quantum physics, after all! Planting recorders is easy, too. Hiring a PI is equally simple, although the cost could be prohibitive. For that matter, in my line of work, I don't really have set office hours. If I wanted to follow her around or do random stops by the house, I could do it with minimal impact on my business.

I also needed to take a second and think about my endgame, here. Wait, I thought, shaking my head. Before there can be an endgame, I need to know what's really going on! Let's get that done first, and THEN worry about what to do about it! I growled low in my throat, looking at the photo again. Try as I might, I just couldn't quite force my anger back into it's cage!

Then I had a thought. It was a long shot, maybe, but it might be a starting point. The man in the photo looked vaguely like an old boyfriend of Britt's, from back in college. (We'd met at State in our junior year.) It took me a few minutes, but finally, I remembered the guy's name. Ben! Benjamin Klaussen! Yeah, that was it! He'd been a big football hero at State, leading the school to it's first regional championship in decades.

The backup files completely forgotten, I brought up my web browser and started searching. You know, I think the average person would be absolutely shocked -- and maybe a little frightened -- at what you can turn up with a simple Google search. In just 30 minutes' time, I had pictures, some biographical information, and employment information that was in the public domain. I was amazed at how easy it was! With something like this, I briefly wondered how Private Investigators stayed in business. But then, I got absorbed in the subject at hand.

Apparently, Mr. Klaussen had made a name for himself in the world of real estate since leaving college. He'd made a try at the NFL, of course, but a knee injury had nixed that. He'd initially moved to Denver, CO, before returning to our little hometown about 2 years ago and establishing his own office. Judging from the publically available information, he must be fairly good at moving property. I'll admit, he certainly had the looks to be a good salesman.

He'd also taken the time to get married and have a child of his own. His kid was a cute little guy, too, I thought. His wife was pretty, but she couldn't hold a candle to Britt. At least, not in my opinion. Her name was Angela Klaussen (formerly Miller), and she was 37. In the photo I found online, she had soft-looking, curly honey-brown hair. Her eyes were a nice shade of green, and she had a pretty cute set of dimples when she smiled. She was heavier than Brittany was, but she wasn't fat. (Hell, Britt was so tiny that MOST women you meet are heavier than her!)

Mrs. Klaussen was an accountant, and apparently worked in her husband's real estate office. That, I thought disgustedly, is the perfect hustle! As a realtor, he would be in and out of the office all the time, but he would always know exactly where SHE was. That would make finding time for extramarital highjinks easy! And as an added bonus, there was little to no chance of her catching him in the act! And then a wicked idea ocurred to me.

I glanced at clock. 10:33am, it read. I searched my local online phone directory for the number to Benny-boy's real estate office, and made a call.

"Good Morning, you've reached Klaussen Real Estate Agency, your local partner for all your property needs! How may I direct your call?" came a pleasantly throaty female voice.

"Good morning, would you connect me to Mr. Ben Klaussen, please?" I asked.

"I'm so sorry," the voice replied, "Mr. Klaussen is out showing a property at the moment. I expect him back in about an hour, or 90 minutes at the outside. Would you like to leave your contact information and I'll have him call you back?"

"No, thank you, though," I said. "I think I'd rather just try back later. Goodbye!"

I pressed the End key and slipped my phone back in my vest pocket. I took one last chance to think. I didn't know for sure that there was anything like an affair going on between this guy and my wife. However, the fact that Britt WAS doing something very inappropriate with another man was established fact! The man in the Google Earth photo looked a very great deal like Ben Klaussen, and the fact that he was a former boyfriend was pretty damning.

I felt an overwhelming urge to act, to DO SOMETHING! Maybe it wasn't the best idea I'd ever had, but I decided to take the offensive. I picked up a copy of the printout I'd made of the GE photo, and headed out to my truck, locking the office behind me. I hopped in and started the engine, but as I turned to check behind me before pulling out of the driveway, I saw a stray toy car sitting on the bench of the crew cab. My son must have dropped it the last time he'd ridden in the truck.

In spite of my anger, I paused. No matter what was going on, no matter what happened, the choices I made were going to affect more than just me and Britt. There were also two precious, innocent little lives to consider; lives that, as a loving father, I had an unbreakable responsibility to protect, no matter what.

Anger warred with reason for a few agonizing moments, before I at last released the brakes and backed out into the street. I drove to the address Benny-boy's website had listed for his office. It turned out to be up on the 5th floor of the new office building that had just opened as part of the 'revitalize downtown' project. Not that there was all that much of the 'downtown' to 'revitalize,' I mused to myself, as I parallel parked nearby.

I waved to the foreman of one of my work crews as I strode toward the main entrance. It was ironic that my company had the contract for the grounds around this property, I reflected. I detected a little surprise on the foreman's face when I entered the building instead of walking over to speak with him. I was on a mission, though. For now, there was a totally different sort of business on my mind!

I garnered some strange looks as I made my way across the atrium to the elevators, but I was used to that. Even without my attire (worn, faded work jeans, heavy boots, heavy T-shirt stretched tight across bulging muscles, and the reflective contractor vest) to set me apart from all the business suits and skirts, there was my size to consider. It never fails to get a few double-takes from the pale-skinned cubicle-dwellers that inhabit places like this.

A few seconds' wait in the elevator brought me to the 5th floor. Soon, I was stepping through the door of Klassuen Real Estate Agency. Sitting at the office-chic receptionist desk was Mrs. Klaussen. Her photos were either out of date, or were taken by someone who didn't care about showing her at her best.

She was still easy to recognize with the same hair, the same slightly rounded face, and cute-dimpled smile. But she was definitely more slender than her photo had led me to believe. She was wearing a nice, professional-looking business suit. She stood up to come greet me, and I noticed that she wore a pleated, thigh-length skirt rather than the trousers I'd expected. She was also, I noticed, a good deal taller than Britt. As she approached me, I could see that the top of her head would reach my chin, instead of just my chest.

"Hello!" she said, extending her hand courteously. "I'm Angela. How can I help you today?"

I returned her handshake, noticing that she had a solid, professional grip, and she didn't hesitate to make eye contact. Clearly, this was a professional businesswoman, well accustomed to greeting potential clients. My first impressions were favorable. Perhaps we could help each other.

"Hello, I'm Donald Summers," I said.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Summers. How can I help you?"

"Mrs. Klaussen," I began, formally, "I have a photograph I'd like you to take a look at, and then a few questions to ask."

I held up the manilla envelope I'd put the picture in. Angela's eyes narrowed as she registered my tone and facial expression.

"I take it you're not here to talk about buying a house?" she said, dryly.

It wasn't a question, but I shook my head negatively, anyway. She considered me for a moment, then her face smoothed itself back into her professional, business-like expression.

"Please follow me," she said, simply.

She led me toward a door at the back of the room. As we passed through it, she paused to call into an adjacent door.

"Chris, will you watch the front desk for me, please?"

"Sure, Angie," came a deep voice from the room within.

Without another word, she led me to what must have been the break room, and closed the door. She seated herself comfortably at the table and gestured for me to join her. Her facial expression told me that she was waiting for me to get to the point. I opened the envelope and pulled out the photo and handed it to her.

"The woman in that photo is my wife, Brittany," I said. "I know that when we were in college, she dated Ben Klaussen for a while. I want your opinion, do you think that man is your husband?"

Angela took the photo from me like it was a dirty diaper; reluctantly, but with an air of doing something that simply had to be done. She stared at it for several minutes, and her expression morphed from curiousity, to a sort of sick sadness, then finally to anger. After about a total of five or six minutes, she handed it back to me.

"Yes," she said, "I'm pretty sure it is. When was this taken?"

"I don't know exactly when," I said. "I found it on Google Earth's streetview. They're standing in the front door of my house. But, it can't be more than three months old."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

I pointed to Britt's ear.

"I gave her those earrings for Christmas," I said, simply.

Her eyes came up to meet mine, and I noted a hint of sympathy there. Then she turned and looked out the window for a few minutes. Finally, she turned back to face me again.

"I'm as certain as I can be that that's my husband in the photo," she said, heavily. "I recognize the clothing, and his face. And, the fact that they used to date is pretty suspicious. Have you talked to your wife about this?"

"No, I just found this, this morning," I said. "Besides, with her schedule, she should be at work right now."

"But IS she at work?"

I stared at her for a minute, and then sighed. I quietly pulled out my phone and dialed Brittany's cell number. I didn't expect her to answer it during work hours, and she didn't. Next, I called the gym. I recognized the voice of the person who answered. It was Mandy Thomas. She was another trainer there, and was a friend of ours.

"Hi there, Don!" she said brightly, after recognizing my voice. "What's up?"

"Hi, Mandy. Listen, I really need to talk to Britt. Will you put her on, please?"

There was silence on the line for a minute. Mandy was so quiet that I could hear the fast-paced music from the exercise floor, as well as the clink and clank of the weight machines.

"Mandy, are you still there?"

"Uh, yeah, Don, uh..." He voice trailed off.

"What?" I asked, tired of the evasion.

"Uh, Don, she left just a little while ago. She said she was meeting YOU, for lunch!"

"Really," I said, coldly. "How long ago did she leave?"

"Uh, maybe ten minutes ago," Mandy said, nervously. She'd obviously figured out something was wrong.

"And did she say where she was meeting me, by any chance?"

"Uh...yes, she said something about going to Logan's," Mandy said, nervously.