Charlie’s car was parked near a street corner. Sitting in the driver’s seat, looking up the cross street, he could see his wife's car parked next to the curb. Charlie took a sip of coffee. He looked at his watch, then up at the house where he suspected his wife to be.

The front door of the house opened. Carol, smiling, walked out of the house. Ralph had followed her to the door, but he stopped at the doorway. He appeared to be in his fifties, and he was wearing a bathrobe.

Charlie could see that Ralph was talking, but he couldn’t hear what was said.

“When will I see you again, my dear?” asked Ralph.

“Next week,” Carol replied. “I want to focus on Charlie for a while. It's going to take some work to get him to trust me again.”

“Why don't you bring him here with you?”

“You old degenerate, you'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“You know you would too.”

“I would love it.”

“You young degenerate.”

Ralph and Carol both laughed.

“I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get Charlie over here. He's too traditional.”

“Let's make a game of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your bet will be that you can bring him over here for a threesome, foursome or more in four months or less. If you win, I will pay you $5,000. If you lose, you pay me $500. That's 10-to-1 odds in your favor.”

Carol considered it for a moment. “All right. It's a bet. Challenge accepted.”

Charlie saw Carol look at her watch. She quickly kissed Ralph, then she hurriedly walked over to her car. She got into the car while Ralph closed the front door of his house, retreating inside. Carol checked her face in the visor’s mirror. She started the car and drove off.

Charlie took another sip of coffee, then he got out of his car.

Ralph was fixing himself a drink when heard a knock at the door. He finished pouring his drink, then carried the drink with him as he strolled to the door. When he opened the door, Charlie pushed his way in. Ralph’s drink was spilled in the process, which seemed to bother him more than someone barging into his house.

“Hey!” cried Ralph.

Charlie pulled out a knife and pushed the door closed without taking his eyes off of Ralph. Charlie locked the door.

“Hello, Ralph. Do you know who I am?”

“I suspect you're either a robber or you're somebody's husband.”

Charlie quickly glanced at his surroundings.

“Go sit in that chair.” Charlie gestured to a chair in the living room.

Ralph calmly walked over and sat down. He casually finished his drink.

“I'm somebody's husband. So how many married woman are you seeing?”

“A few. I find it to be much more convenient when women have someone else to go home to. It's easier financially and emotionally.

“And what happens when two of them show up at the same time?”

“That's not a problem, it's an opportunity. All of my lovers know about the others. Maybe not at first, but when they're ready. There is no need for secrets in our circle.”

Charlie pulled up a chair, but he kept the knife in plain view. He looked at the windows. The curtains were closed, which saved Charlie the trouble of closing them.

Charlie despised Ralph, but studied him, while Ralph sized Charlie up.

“I'm trying to think of a reason not to kill you,” said Charlie, “but I can't think of a single one.”

“You're Charlie, aren't you? Carol's husband. I understand you recently returned from Afghanistan.”

“That's right. I just got back to find out that my wife's been cheating on me. Based on the emails in the account she kept hidden from me, she's been seeing you for several years now.”

“About three years. Your wife is a wonderful woman.”

“Is she now? To my way of thinking, wonderful women don't cheat on their husbands.”

“That's because you look at the world with the naive, simplistic view of a boy. Sexuality is not our curse, Charlie. It's our blessing, our glory. We can take the impulses with which nature has gifted us, and we can turn them into an art form. It's the ultimate act of sharing and expression. Bodies mingle, and our individual natures are partly forgotten as we bring our lovers to ecstasy. It is the greatest celebration of life.”

“Really? And what about honor, Ralph? Where does that fit in your worldview?”

“Honor is a quaint notion shared by gullible people. I have no greater duty in this life than to enjoy myself.”

“That's where you're wrong. Honor keeps us fighting side-by-side when we're in danger, and it keeps us from robbing and stealing from each other at all times. Without honor, there is no civilization.”

“I don't need honor to keep me from stealing from people. It's not in my best interests to steal. But if I saw that it was in my best interests to steal, then I probably would.”

“Don't you own your own business?”

“I do. I have over 3,000 employees, and we do over a billion dollars worth of business every month.”

“And don't you use contracts?”

“Of course we do.”

“Of course you do. And without honor what's to stop people from cheating on those contracts, and robbing you?”

“I don't need to rely on their honor. I have the courts and an elaborate system of justice to rely on. If people were honorable we wouldn't need contracts to begin with.”

“And what if the courts and the police had no honor, and they were for sale to the highest bidder?”

“Then I would have to make sure I was the highest bidder.”

“I see. Well, my marriage was a contract. Carol and I agreed that we would remain faithful to each other, until death do us part. I honored that contract, and I expected my wife to honor it. But she violated it. And you helped her. You knew she was married, and you didn't care. There's no elaborate system of justice to right those wrongs, so I'm here to do that myself.”

“Carol was true to you at first. But I educated her. I taught her to throw away her antiquated morals and embrace a life of pleasure. Now she's much happier than she'd ever been before. Her life is no longer a struggle between desire and honor, it's a celebration of passion.

“Let me educate you, Charlie. I can have a half dozen beautiful, voluptuous women here in less than an hour. They will do anything you want, to you or to each other. Give me a chance to show you what I'm talking about before you do anything rash.”

“That's not going to happen.”

Ralph stood up, and Charlie did likewise.

“Then I'm going to have to insist that you leave my house at once. Get out of my house right now and I won't press charges. Otherwise I'll see to it that you spend the rest of your days in prison.”

“That's not going to happen either. I'll be out of the country by midnight.”

Charlie grabbed Ralph by the throat and squeezed it closed. He stabbed Ralph once in each lung. Charlie then lowered Ralph's body to the floor. As Charlie pulled a folded plastic dropcloth from his jacket pocket, he noticed that Ralph didn’t seem to be enjoying the moment. Charlie quickly unfolded the sheet of plastic and spread it on the floor. As he did this, Ralph’s bathrobe absorbed the blood that left his body. Charlie put the body on the plastic, careful not to let any blood get on the floor. He folded the excess plastic over Ralph’s body and tucked it under the corpse. He pulled a small roll of duct tape from his pocket and began taping the plastic closed.

By the time Charlie had finished sealing the plastic, Ralph was dead. Charlie quickly searched the rest of the house. No one else was there.

Charlie returned to Ralph’s body and lifted it onto his shoulder. He carried it upstairs to what appeared to be Ralph’s bedroom, and he laid the body on the bed. Charlie opened the closet door using the bottom of his t-shirt as a makeshift glove. The closet was full of clothes. Charlie slid the clothes to one side, then put Ralph’s body in the farthest part of the closet. Charlie pushed the clothes back into place, hiding the body. With any luck, it wouldn’t be found until the next day.

When he returned downstairs, Charlie used the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe any fingerprints he might have left on the front door. He used the bottom of the t-shirt as a glove when he opened the door, and when he closed it behind himself as well.

He went back to his car and he slowly pulled away. Six blocks later, Charlie made a phone call.

“Ms. Colby?...This is Mr. Hansen. I just want to confirm our 10:30 appointment at a farmhouse I'm looking to sell...Yes...I'll see you there.”

Charlie hung up the phone and put it in his pocket. He had had no qualms about killing Ralph. As far as Charlie was concerned, Ralph was just a piece of garbage. He didn’t enjoy it, but he felt no more guilt about killing Ralph than he would have felt about killing a rat that had gotten into his house. But he wasn’t really looking forward to his next meeting. The possibility that he might have to kill an unarmed woman was an eventuality he dreaded.