Chapter 3
Almost every evening before he went home from the office, Grant Wells stopped in at the compound bar and had a nice relaxing drink. It wasn't that he couldn't relax at home but just that he enjoyed the privacy he got while he was in the bar.
Grant poured the dark foaming bottle of beer into his tall glass and leaned 'back in his chair to enjoy his solitude. After a sip of beer, his thoughts returned irritably to the past three weeks. He was goddamned upsets pissed off! First, Claire had come in that night and sucked him off, and then he too had lost his head and licked her pussy. He couldn't bear to touch her after that and she had been hurt and taken to going out at night without him. He didn't mind her night-time outings so much while they were in the compound, but what was he going to do about them when they left for Dhahran tomorrow? For a woman to go out alone at night there was downright dangerous.
Why, why? he thought. Just why did she have to do this tome? Maybe, some time alone together might help her, some time away from the desert and the compound. She hasn't had a vacation in a long time, maybe that was her problem.
Grant decided to forget his wife's problems for the moment and picked up the local English newspaper. He tried to read but couldn't seem to concentrate. He laid the periodical down with relief when he heard Claire's friend, Francine's voice coming from the door. Francine was one friend of Claire's that he really liked… she was wild and somewhat of a bitch but then maybe that was why he liked her so well.
The pretty brunette smiled as she, saw Grant sitting in the booth and walked over to the table.
'Hello, there.' Francine dropped into a chair across from Grant. 'Where's your wife?' She swung her glance around the bar, and not seeing Claire turned inquiring eyes back to Grant. 'I don't see her around anywhere.'
'I haven't gone home yet,' Grant said blandly.
'You know what I'm thinking?' Francine said through a lascivious grin.
'No.' Grant chuckled.
'I'm thinking that you two have had some kind of an argument and aren't speaking to each other very much.'
'And I'm thinking that you have a big mouth that should keep itself occupied in its own business instead of other people's.'
'You're right,' Francine agreed. 'I was just joking, Grant. I didn't come into this bar to waste my time solving your troubles. Except for one little problem I think you should know about. Grant, I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you.'
'No bad news, please, Francine. I don't think I can take any right now.' Grant shook the last droplets of beer from the bottle into his glass.
'Maybe you ought to have another drink. Maybe you ought to have a whiskey.'
'I don't want anything more td drink. I have to go home in a few minutes,' Grant said almost angrily.
'What would you say if I told you that sexy blonde wife of yours has been stepping out on you?' Francine shifted in her chair.
'I'd say you were nuts!'
'Crazy? Me, I'm just trying to be a good friend.'
'Okay, I take it back,' Grant answered.
'The details are a little skimpy, but I got the rundown from the horse's mouth,' Francine said.
'I don't believe you.'
'You don't have to believe me,' Francine said. 'I'm just reporting what I heard from a friend of mine. Our Claire has been jumping in the sack with this young engineer from the site up north.'
'My God,' Grant said, feeling like the floor had just lurched beneath him.
'Evidently, the guy's been after Claire for a few weeks now,' Francine went on. 'And she was confiding in him – you know, crying on his shoulder.'
There was a pause.
'That's right, my friend,' Francine went on. 'And this engineer told me that yesterday afternoon he was fucking the daylights out of her while you were down at the office.'
'That can't be! It's impossible!' Grant Wells turned pale. It just didn't seem like Claire to be carrying on like that. Claire was his wife, she wouldn't cheat on him that way, would she? She had been acting rather strange, lately.
'I've got to get home,' Grant said.
Francine rose from the table with him and walked him to the door. 'You want my advice, you might try listening to your wife.'
'I'll do that, Francine,' Wells said as he turned into the sun-drenched street.
Grant Wells stumbled through the winding streets toward the lower part of the compound. The still intense late afternoon heat throbbed into his brain, magnifying the shock and seething anger he felt toward the anonymous engineer and his deceiving wife. Halfway home he stopped and considered finding out who the engineer was, to con front him about it, then realized he was being foolish.
He stood in a shadow, looking up at the azure blue of the Saudi Arabian sky, and tried to cool down. Instinctively, he accepted the truth of what Francine had said. It fit in too well with the usual way Claire had bees acting lately. A kind of listlessness had come over her. Jesus! Grant thought. He knew she was bored, staying out in this compound for so many months at a time, but he had no idea it would come to this!
The best thing to do, he tried to think rationally, was to continue on with the trip a; planned. They would both go into Dhahran He would attend the business meeting a, planned and then he would devote himself to his wife and her problems. If she wouldn't open up to him, then he would tell her that he knew all about her affair with this engineer fellow and settle it from there. There had to be a reason for her to behave this way and he intended to find out what it was.
For Christ's sake, Grant Wells thought, as he looked over at his wife sitting next to him in the car, she's looking as sexy as a goddamn porno star… no wonder she's always complaining about being grabbed in the streets!
'It's going to be nice to get away from the compound for a change.' She finally broke the silence.
'Even if it is a business trip, it'll be nice to spend some time together,' he sighed.
Claire looked out the window toward the low mountains rising west of the tarmac road. Now that they were actually on the way, Claire felt better, even optimistic about the possibilities of getting over the brutal fucking she had received from Lyle Rhodes and for them getting emotionally back together during this trip. Already the incident with the engineer seemed like a bad dream she wanted nothing more than to forget both the tawdry rape and her own infidelity.
They drove for several more minutes without talking. Grant concentrated on his driving as he passed through a herd of sheep and a little later the clay like dwellings that meant they were coming into town.
'Oh my God.' Claire yawned later, looking at her watch in the dim car light and then smiling at him. 'It's already nine O'clock!'
Grant went up with his wife to their hotel room and, after they'd unpacked their bags, the tall young man said, 'I'm sorry, but I've got to go down to the bar and find Meyers. I know it's late, but I do have to meet him for my itinerary tomorrow.'
'You can't mean it.' Claire turned from the small dressing-table mirror. 'I thought we'd spend a nice quiet evening by ourselves.'
Grant had changed into a white sports jacket and slacks. Now he poured himself a drink from the bottle of Scotch room service had sent up.
'There are lots of things I'm much rather do than get together with those old fogies, but business is business,' he said.
His young wife had changed into a provocative-looking sheer black nightgown. Her wavy blonde hair streamed across her shoulders, a few careless tresses falling seductively over the softly billowing mounds of her tits. Goddamn it to hell! She sure does look nice, Grant gasped to himself.
'Okay, Grant,' she said with forced cheerfulness as she turned from the dressing table. 'You do what you think
