John Got Hustled

John Monroe came to me about six weeks ago. He had an incredible story. Even as I'm standing up to give my opening statement to the judge and go into John's case, and the evidence and witnesses, I feel sorry for the poor bastard. That this actually happened to someone is beyond appalling.

Have you ever witnessed something from a storybook or cheesy sex novel? Maybe this is the type of thing happening in romance novels. It could be in movies. Seeing it happen for real, that was shocking.

It was the weekend of the monthly pool tournaments at River City Billiards. Everybody was there practicing their 9-ball game. As the day went on, eventually turning into night, the crowd shifted from the players to the Saturday night crowd. Many tournament players were starting to focus less on their game and more on the parade of ladies coming and going.

John and David were still practicing, talking about the week behind them. David was uninterested in the local talent, and both young men remained focused on the $10,000 prize that was up for grabs. The place was getting busier, and that was when things got insane.

Smoke filled the air, and the smell of stale beer and perfumes mixed as the temperature rose in the room. There were too many people there for the guys to focus. Eventually, they started playing friendly games for money.

It was a lawless era in time. The excessively liberal approach to life people adopted meant that fighting in the parking lots was an every night occurrence, the cops barely showing their faces. The alcohol flowed copiously, and the bartenders seemed not to care if they served high school seniors or bowlers downstairs from the senior living homes. Friendly wagers were the least of the societal issues the police would consider addressing, even though gambling was only allowed in places with a gambling license.

It didn't take long for the rest of the crew to show up, and soon it wasn't just John and David. Michael, a first-year firefighter, arrived at the same time as Booker. John and David kept control of the table, taking turns as they knocked off Michael and Booker in a round of back-and-forth matches.

The guys went through a couple of pitchers of beer, playing friendly games for five dollars. It was the end of the night when a new player entered the billiard room. Her name was Jayla, and the guys weren't sure about letting her into the game since three out of four had girlfriends.

John was single and open-minded about her trying to compete with the fellas. He told the guys he'd play against her since they were scared. He'd seen Jayla around and knew she was a flirt. A little harmless fun shouldn't be a big deal.

She was given a pass to the game, but Jayla didn’t have any cash on her. The guys all told her that it was a five-dollar-a-game bet. Jayla racked up the table and then walked around to the other end of the table where the guys were.

“O.K…I’ll gamble.”

When she turned around and walked back to the other side of the table the guys all looked at her, waiting for her to put a five down on the table with John’s five.

“Put five in the pot,” John suggested.

“What if I have something bigger in mind?” she asked them, leaning over the table and showing off her ample cleavage.

John, being who he was, imagined she was talking about upping it to ten a game, or maybe even twenty. He knew Jayla from the pool room and knew she wasn’t that good a player. She didn’t suck, but he knew she was no match for him sober, much less intoxicated.

“What did you have in mind?”

Jayla strolled over to the head of the table with a pool cue in hand. She looked John in the eye and stunned the entire room.

“How about, if you beat me to five wins, you can have me for an entire night, and we’ll see where it goes afterward,” she said, flirtatiously biting he lip as her cheeks turned a little pink.

As the rest of the guys began to hoop and holler, excited by the craziness that just presented itself, John stood there in disbelief. He didn’t know what to believe. The guys all encouraged him to go for it, to run the table and collect his prize. Even Jayla repeated their sentiment.

“Come on, John. Run the table just five times and take your prize,” she said to him, staring him in the eyes.

John did exactly that, without even trying. He broke first and dropped the nine ball. He broke again and dropped the nine-ball. It was then that he suggested 8-ball, to give her a chance. Even switching to 8-ball didn’t help her situation, as if she wanted any help. In the final game, John played one-handed, giving her a little more of a chance, until she made the cardinal mistake of dropping the 8-ball before it was time.

“Well,” she said, “A bet’s a bet. When do you want to do this?”

The most shocking thing about the story isn’t the girl's aggressive attempt to get John into bed. No, it’s the fact that John didn’t collect his prize. He got her phone number and told her that he’d call her the next day to discuss her “paying up.”

“You better,” she told him.

However, John never intended to collect. Sure, she was a firecracker. Blonde, was athletic, with a pretty smile, and blue-green eyes, and she was even funny. There was something that she didn’t know about John. John actually had a crush on Jayla.

John had watched Jayla for over a month. He wanted to get up the courage to ask her out on a date. She seemed like she’d be fun to hang around and get to know. When it came time to collect on the aforementioned bet, he called her the next day and told her he was letting her off the hook.

“Oh my god, I was so drunk. I can’t believe I came on so strong,” she told him. “I would have lived up to my word, just so you know.”

“As awesome as I’m sure that would be,” he told her, “I wouldn’t want that to be the reason it happened.”

While John had found it flattering and felt like a kid in a candy store at that moment, it just wasn’t his style.

A year and a few months later, John and Jayla were close friends. And, in a completely sober moment, albeit still aggressive, she flat tells John how badly she wants to be with him. When John finally relented, the two shared many incredible nights, and an all too brief romance until he finally learned the secret behind her relentlessly pursuing him.

As hot as she was, and as much as he fell for her, she had an insidious ulterior motive. Even John’s friends couldn’t believe how the rest of the story unfolded.

Several years later, as I stood in front of the judge, I was pleading John's case in the hopes of getting him out of the sham of a marriage.

"John," I asked him. "Would you please tell the judge why she wanted the divorce."

"That was when she admitted she'd lied to me the entire time and used me to have a place to leave to so she could get away from her parents home when she was 19."

"And, your honor, that's why John is seeking a divorce, without paying alimony, and wants the house and the car. Jayla Monroe used my client from day one, essentially honey trapping him like she was a spy. He didn't deserve that, and she doesn't deserve to continue to take from my client's life, the way she has for five years."