Only Churan and Gita raised their hands. Greg looked over at his wife to see if she had the balls to lie. She didn’t. Her arm was down. She wouldn’t look at him.
Greg barked a laugh in disbelief. Other than Quiara, Churan and Gita were the prettiest women in the room. In fact, Greg thought Churan was among the prettiest woman he’d ever seen in real life. She was regularly mistaken for Lin Chi-ling, a famous model and actress.
Gita, had been adopted by a large family from Madison, Wisconsin. She was a multi-sport athlete and had gone to Duke University on a cross country scholarship. She was distance-runner with exotic looks and a midwestern-America cultural upbringing. Greg thought she was extremely attractive.
“Well, Emile, why didn’t you ask Churan or Gita? Are you racist against Asians?” Greg asked.
Emile didn’t answer, so Greg ground the bones of his wrist together. Emile grunted and said, “They are both too new to the department. It will be a little while before we can build the necessary rapport.”
Chen, Churan, Gita, and Gita’s husband Raj all opened their mouths in shock.
“Well Gentlemen,” said Greg, “it must be a shock to learn that your wives consented and submitted to romancing, wining, and dining by their department head. I’m very sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings for you.
“The restaurant name, Le Coucou, was part of Emile’s subtle messaging. Le Coucou is French for the Cuckoo Bird. For those of you with little to no background in Biology, many of the species of the Cuculidae family are infamous for practicing brood parasitism. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and force others to pay the costs for raising their young. From this, we get the word ‘cuckold’.”
Greg got some nods from the men around the table.
“Make no mistake, gentlemen, the women know that Emile’s intent was to sleep with them. I’ve seen the transcripts of several of his dates. He comes right out as bold as brass and tells the wives that his goal is to convince them to cheat on you with him. He uses every means at his disposal to do this.
“Emile denigrates us to our wives. As your boss, he knows where you stand career-wise. He makes wife is aware of how disappointing you are and how you aren’t measuring up. I’m the only husband of a wife who isn’t in the department. He cannot use my own career to denigrate me, so instead, he plays up my physical inferiority when he attempts to seduce my wife. Isn’t that a laugh? When he tried to fight me, I beat his ass in five seconds. I defeated him and he never laid a finger on me.”
Greg made it a point to smile and meet the eyes of every person at the table.
“Emile flaunts his wealth to our wives by pointing out he is taking them to the most expensive restaurant in a hundred mile radius on a regular basis. He talks about his wealthy upbringing and brags about the resources he has. Little do most of the wives know that he is really broke. The investments, the yacht in Nice he likes to mention, and the fortune allegedly left to him by his parents are all fictitious. He took out a second mortgage on his house to buy that Mercedes he drives our wives around in. Both are close to being repossessed. Tell them where your money comes from, Emile.”